THE ALPHABET

THE ALPHABET    

Italian alphabet is a writing system composed by 21 letters, used to transcribe italian language’s sounds.

Five letters, a, e, i, o, u, are called vocali, vowels.

- Italian alphabet includes also foreign letters :
J, j (i lunga); K, k (kappa); W, w (vu doppia); X, x, (ics); Y, y, (ipsilon).
For example: jolly, karate, web, xilofono, yogurt.

•    Pronunciation matters

Italian alphabet isn’t a perfect system of writing, because the correspondence between sound and letter isn’t one-to-one. Indeed, only eleven letters have only one sound: a, b, d, f, l, m, n, p, r, t, v. Each of these letters correspondes to one only one sound, and vice versa.
 
- The other letters, c, e, g, i, o, s, u, z, even if they are written always in the same way, present two different pronunciations.
In particular, let’s pause over the pronunciation of c e g consonants: they can both have a soft sound, suono dolce, (in English, is the same sound of church and judge) or an hard sound, suono duro (in English, is the same sound of cat and go).

 
- In the italian alphabet exsist couples of letters, called digrammi, consonant clusters, that are pronounced together, in one sound:
gn                                       → signore, signora, cognome, cagnolino, gnomo.
gl, followed by i             → famiglia, moglie, maglietta, aglio, scoglio.
sc, followed by i, e         → sciarpa, sciame, sciopero, piscina, pesce.
       
Attention! If after gl there isn’t i, but there are other vowels or consonants, the digramma’s pronunciation sound is hard. For example: sigla, glossario, glaciale, glucosio.
Attention! If after sc there isn’t i nor e, the digramma’s pronunciation sound is hard. For example: pesca, scuola, scarpa.

- The letter h is really particular: no sound correspondes to it. Its function is purely graphic and distinctive. We already saw that h transform the pronunciation of c and g from soft to hard. H serves also to mark the present indicative verbal voice of avere, to have. Indeed:
• ho is the first person of avere’s present indicative. For example: Ho fame. (I’m hungry). Io ho molti amici. (I have many friends.) Ho un cane. (I have a dog.)
• o, without h, is a disjunctive conjunction: it’s used to set against two elements. For example: Vuoi la pasta o il riso? Abiti a Milano o Venezia? Non so se usare la macchina o la bicicletta.
• hai is the second person singular of avere’s present indicative. For example: Hai un bel sorriso. (You have a nice smile.) Hai mangiato?(Did you eat?) Hai studiato molto bene. (You studied well.)
• ai, without h, is an articulated preposition, formed by the union between the preposition a and the definite article i. For example: Andiamo ai giardinetti? (Do we go to the gardens?) Ho detto ai tuoi amici che stiamo arrivando. (I told your friends we are arriving.) Ho regalato ai miei genitori un viaggio. (I gave my parents a voyage.)
• ha is the third person singular of avere’s present indicative. For example: Mario ha i capelli biondi. ario has blonde hair.) Luca ha studiato tutto alla perfezione. (Luca studied everything carefully). La nonna ha 80 anni. (Grandma is 80.)
• a, without h, is a simple preposition. For example: Andiamo a mangiare! (Let’s go to eat!) L’ha raccontato a tutti. (He told it everybody.) Lorenzo a piedi al lavoro. (Lorenzo goes to work on foot.)
• hanno is the third person plural of avere’s present indicative. For example: Lucia e Mara hanno la patente. (Lucia and Mara have the driving licence.) Non mi hanno più telefonato. (They didn’t call me back.) Ne hanno parlato a lungo. (They talked about it for a long time.)

- In italian, sometimes words have double consonants. They must be pronounced with a strong sound mamma, for example, is /mam:a/. Consonants’ gemination can totally change the meaning of a word: just think about the word sete, thirst, and sette, the number. Unfortunately don’t exist precise rules stabilizing the use of double consonant: you have to check the dictionary.

                
•    Ortographic matters

Here some fondamental rules:

- The groups sce / scie

It must be always written -sce (scena: scene, pesce: fish, discesa: descent), with the exceptions of scienza (science), coscienza (consience) and their derivatives (scienziato: scientist, scientifico: scientific, coscienzioso: conscientious), the word usciere and scie (wakes), the plural of scia.

- The groups ce / cie and ge / gie

Usually correct forms are the ones in -ce and -ge: luce (light), cesto (basket), gelato (ice cream), agile (agile).
Anyway, the follong words must be written with  -cie and -gie endings:
• the plural forms of the nouns ending in -cia and -gia, when -cia and -gia are preceded by a vowel: camicie (from camicia: shirt), socie (from socia: partner);
• the plural forms of the nouns ending in -cìa e -gìa, that is the nouns whose mark accent is set  on that i: farmacìe (from farmacìa: pharmacy), allergìe (from allergìa: allergy);
• the words cielo (sky) and cieco (blind);
• some latin nouns: superficie (surface), specie (species), igiene (hygiene), sufficienza (sufficiency).
• nouns ending in -iera and -iere: crociera (cruise), artificiere (artificer).

- The groups li / gli

Li must be used:
- at the beginning of a word: lieve (light), liana (creeper), liuto (lute);
- when the l is germinated: allietare (to gladden), idillio (idyll), allievo (student);
- with people’s proper nouns, with the exception of Guglielmo: Emilio, Virgilio;
- some latin nouns: cavaliere (knight), olio (oil), milione (million), miliardo (billion), vigilia (eve), Sicilia, Emilia;

Gli must be used in all the other cases: aglio (garlic), figlio (son), maglietta (t-shirt), luglio (july), famiglia (family), foglio (sheet), etc.

- The groups mb / mp

Before b and p, m must always be used, not n: bambino (child), bambola (doll), gamba (leg).
Some words derived from bene made an exception, for example benpensante (priggish).

- The groups gn / gni

Gn is the correct form: ognuno (everyone), campagna (country), ignaro (unaware), gnomo (gnome), bagno (bath).
Only in rare cases gn is followed by i: when the i is stressed, such as in compagnìa (company); in some voices of verbs ending in -gnare, such as the first person singular of the present indicative tense and the first and second person of the present subjunctive tense: noi disegniamo, noi bagniamo, che voi disegniate.

- The groups cq / qq

Qu’s gemination sound is written cqu: acqua (water) and its derived (acquazzone: downpour, acquaio: sink, acquedotto: aqueduct), acquisto (purchase) and derived (acquistare: buy), nacque (to be born).
Only one word in italian is written with a double q, qqu: soqquadro.

- The groups cuo / quo

The sounds are the same, the graphic changes depending on nouns’ latin etymology.
These nouns must be written with cuo: scuola (school), cuore (heart), cuoco (cook), cuoio (leather), percuotere (to strike), etc.
These nouns must be written with quo: liquore (spirits), quotidiano (daily), quota (altitude), etc.


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