“… I call ‘vernacular language’ that which infants acquire from those around them …I declare that vernacular language is that which we learn without any formal instruction… There also exists another kind of language, which the Romans called gramatica [grammar]. Of these two kinds of language, the more noble is the vernacular.. because it is natural to us, while the other is, in contrast, artificial. And this more noble kind of language is what I intend to discuss.”

In De Vulgari Eloquentia, by these words, Dante tried to give a definition of dialect in Italy, underlining its importance for our culture. Dialect, is for Greeks a language variety ​​with the same dignity of the standard language, and the idea of a linguistic equality is nowadays an undisputed principle. Despite some several attempts to impose the use of standard language in Italian schools and to condemn every dialectal form, there are still some forms of recovery of dialect, which is an essential part of our culture.

Neapolitan is definitely the most exported, known and documented Italian dialect. It can be considered one of the greatest artistic expressions of Western culture, which has spread its beauty throughout the world for more than a century. For all of these reasons, UNESCO recognized it as a language, and not as a dialect. Some of the fundamental differences between Neapolitan and Italian are the consonant – d  of Italian words that tends to become – r  in Neapolitan; the use of the verb “to have”, where the Italian demands “to be”; and the adjective that always follows the name. A very common rule that is easy to remember is the disappearance of vowels at the end of words: many words are in fact formed in Neapolitan by eliminating the last vowel of the corresponding Italian word. Of course it is not always so easy.

Besides to this stereotype of southern Italian dialects, the northern part of the country presents another one: Milanese. Subject pronouns are one of the main features of Milanese: not “IO”, but “mi”, not “tu” but “ti” and so on. The weird belief that the north was for Italians a foreign country arises from this and many other aspects. The use of the articles before names is then another particular feature of this dialect.

Victor Hugo described the standard French from Paris as a compromise “chosen by people as a middle way between the excess of consonants in the North, and the excess of vowels in the South”. Besides this language there is a wide range of idioms and dialects in France, often known as “patois”, which refer to dialects that does not have or have lost a written literature. Langues d’oc, langues d’oil and Franco: these were the three greater language families developed in France in the wake and the heritage of the Romance languages​​. The main contrast is as always represented by the differences between dialects in the South and dialects in the North. Langues d’oil have always had more in common with the standard language while Langues d’oc have always been much closer to  dialects. Nevertheless, even in the north there are dialectal forms. Picard is a perfect example also because of its huge difference from the other langues d’oil. Words like “ch’ti” and “ch’mi” derive from the Picard “c’est ti” “c’est mi” , which are pronounced “c’est toi”, “c’est moi” in Standard French . This dialect known as Ch’timi is characterized by the French “s” that sounds “ch” and by the words “toi” and “moi” that become “ti” and “mi”. Others features of this dialect lie in the use of some totally different words and expressions. Just to provide you some examples, we can mention the word “biloute”, which is a common appellative used in this part of the movie, known as “petite-coquette” in Standard French a word used in childish language. Though it might seem offensive, the widespread and affectionate use of this word removes any possible vulgar implication. The French equivalent of this term could be a friendly “ mon gars”. Sometimes, all of these differences lead to some misunderstandings.

And finally Shakespeare’s language: instead of Italy and France, in England the word dialect is related to a local variety of the standard language. With regard to dialects, an Englishman has in his mind a variety of standard language that differs from it in some stresses or words. The fact that English has become an international language and is spoken by many people does not mean that everyone speaks it in the same way. To the question “how many dialects are there in England?”, the answer would be, therefore, very difficult, because of there is not a clear division of dialectal areas in England. The range of existing English language varieties is wide, because of from America to Australia the English language is literally found at two extremes of the world.  However, limiting ourselves to analyze the relation between north and south remaining into the England borders, we can say dialects of southern England are more innovative than the northern one’s. Other dialects equally and maybe even more innovative are those of Central and Eastern England, which are perhaps the least known among the English population because of stereotypes and prejudices. Among these we should also include the Cockney dialect, which is the dialect of the traditional working class of London. Main features of this dialect are:

–          Glottal stop

–          Frequent elision of h

–          Intonation much flatter than RP

–          Diphtongs alteration

–          Rhyming slang

With regard to the last point, it is a practice spread in 1850, when people begun to use code in order to secretly communicate. Rhyming slang uses some substitute words, often two, as a code that replaces the original word. The second one of these two words generally rhymes with the original word. Here it is some of the most common Cockney expressions:

–          adam & eve: used to say “believe”, “Would you Adam and Eve it”?

–          china plate: used to say “mate”, “Alright me ol` china?”

–          dog & bone: used to say “telephone” ; “`e` s on the dog and bone.”

–          tea-leaf: used to say “thief”; “Dont take your eyes off `im, `e`s a tea-leaf.”

So it’s time to consider dialects for what they actually are: a cultural heritage worthy of being  preserved, transmitted and valorized. An hypothetical loss of dialects would mean with no doubt a loss of values. And if you’re wondering what the fate of dialects will be, we can simply say that they were, are, and probably will be, “the key that helps us often to understand where we come from and then to give us an orientation to where we are going or want to go.