Tarantino (; Tarantino: or u tarandÃÂne; , ), also known as the Cataldian vernacular (so called, from the twentieth century onward, in honor of the city's patron saint), is a transitional language or dialect, most of whose speakers live in the southeastern Italian region of Apulia, especially in the Apulian city of Taranto (with specific varieties in some neighboring municipalities). The dialect is also spoken by a few Italian immigrants in the United States, especially in California.
In Taranto, differences are found between the Old Town variant of Tarantino and that of the Borgo Nuovo. Today it is also spoken in the nearby municipalities of Statte and Leporano by the majority of the population, while in Monteiasi it displays more distinctly Salentine features.
From a linguistic point of view, Tarantino occupies a transitional position between the Salentino dialects (belonging to the group of Extreme Southern Italian dialects) and the Apulo-Barese dialects (belonging to the Intermediate Southern Italian group).
The distinctiveness of Tarantino has often been attributed to its Greek substratum, dating back to antiquity and maintained until the sixteenth century, when Greek was still spoken alongside Romance vernaculars in the area. This feature links Tarantino to the Extreme Southern Italian dialects (Salentino, Southern Calabrian, and Sicilian), with which it shares numerous lexical and structural elements of Greek origin.
Recent studies have highlighted that these characteristics are not merely borrowings, but genuine structural elements deriving from the ancient Magna Graecia koine.
The Tarantino dialect traces its origins into ancient times, when the territory was dominated by the Messapii.
The colonisation by the Greeks founded Taranto not only as the capital of Magna Graecia, but also as a centre of poetry and theatre. Greek maintained extraordinary vitality and left considerable influence on Tarantino, both in vocabulary (with hundreds of Greek terms still attested today across all semantic fields) and morpho-syntax (grammar), as attested, for example, by De Vincentiis (1872) and by more recent studies by Ledgeway (2020), with features such as the loss of the infinitive and the particular system of hypothetical marking that bring Tarantino closer to the other Extreme Southern Italian dialects, and a very peculiar accent that scholars linked to Doric. Some examples are:
These influences are still found in many Tarantino words of Greek origin.
Subsequently, the city of Taranto became a Roman city, thus introducing much Vulgar Latin vocabulary.
The process of Latinization in the Taranto area displayed particular characteristics. The Vulgar Latin that developed here preserved numerous archaisms. At the same time, as highlighted for example by Rohlfs and by Gigante (2002), certain phonetic features, such as the particular treatment of vowels, reveal the influence of the Oscan substratum. Some examples are:
During the Byzantine and Lombard periods, Tarantino acquired diphthongization: the short o changed to ue and the short e changed to ie; moreover, its vocabulary was further enriched with new words.
Contrary to what is often maintained in traditional literature, Lombard influences were marginal and limited to a few lexical loans common to the entire Romance area. The characteristic Tarantino diphthongizations, often erroneously attributed to Germanic influence, instead find their explanation in the Oscan substratum, as demonstrated by the recent studies of Loporcaro (2009). Some examples are:
With the arrival of the Normans in 1071, a slow process of realignment of the Tarantino dialect with the other Southern Italian vernaculars began, and with the Angevins all the way through to 1400, the dialect lost much of its Eastern influences and was influenced by the French and Gallo-Italic elements. In 1502, the city went under Catalan-Aragonese rule.
In 1801 the city was once again under the dominion of French troops, who left their mark with their Franco-Provençal language.
The 20th century represented a period of profound transformations for the Tarantino dialect. Industrialization and massive internal migratory flows accelerated a process of regional standardization, with a progressive attenuation of the most distinctly Salentino features that had characterized the dialect up to the first decades of the 20th century.
Taranto has long been linked to the Kingdom of Naples, which would explain some words in common with the Neapolitan dialect.
The complex classification of the Tarantino dialect
Over the last two centuries, the debate over the classification of the Tarantino dialect has divided southern Italian dialectology. The fundamental question is whether it should be considered:
Upper-southern hypotheses
Michele De Noto, in the pioneering "Appunti di fonetica del dialetto di Taranto", was the first to note phonetic divergences from Salento. Rosa Anna Greco ("Ricerca sul verbo nel dialetto tarentino") and G.B. Mancarella ("Nuovi contributi per la storia della lingua a Taranto") highlighted features shared with the central-southern area, for example:
Extreme-southern hypotheses
Heinrich Lausberg, Gerhard Rohlfs instead argued for membership in the Sicilian-Salentino group, noting, for example:
The decisive evidence: deep extreme-southern elements
Recent studies show that Tarantino shares with Extreme Southern Italian dialects structural traits which, according to Thomason & Kaufman, and other authors already mentioned, belong to levels 4-5 of the borrowability scale (loans possible only in cases of prolonged bilingualism or substrate):
As shown by Ledgeway and Fanciullo, these elements - especially syntax and prosody - represent the fingerprint of Greek-Latin bilingualism, marginal instead in the Apulian-Barese dialect. The presence of:
would make it impossible to classify Tarantino as a simple Upper Southern variant, a dialect diasystem in which these elements are virtually absent. Rather, as Katsoyannou suggests, it should be considered a linguistic bridge between the two groups, with an Extreme Southern base enriched by subsequent inputs.
In addition to the typical five Italian vowels a e i o u, the Tarantino dialect also has another five: e and o are close vowels, a has a particularly close, almost semi-mute sound, and i and u are called "hard vowels", since they are pronounced with a notable vibration of the vocal cords; vowels with an acute accent are all long and have double value compared to Italian ones. There are also the open vowels e and o (always short) and those with a circumflex accent a e i o u often used (especially in the case of o) to indicate the contraction of a vowel with a consonant or another vowel:
There is also another vowel, the mute e (phonetically equivalent to the schwa e), which is always mute at the end of a word and almost always semi-mute in pretonic position: a word like perebisse, therefore, should be pronounced as [pÃÂrÃÂbisse]. In the case where a word ending in mute e forms a syntactic cluster with the following word, the vowel becomes voiced: marange -> marangia ponde (pointed, spoiled orange).
The consonants are the same as in Italian, with only five additions: c when in postonic position tends to be pronounced like sc in sciocco (e.g. doce [do:se], face [fa:se], etc.), suffixal -j pronounced like the y in the English word yellow, the cluster sck where sc is pronounced as in the Italian word scena, k as the c in casa, the cluster ije pronounced more or less like ille in the French word bouteille, and v in intervocalic position which has no sound (e.g. avuandare, tuve, etc.). Double consonants are very frequent at the beginning of a word and in pretonic position.
Because of the large number of homophones present in the Tarantino dialect, sometimes it is necessary to distinguish them by means of an accent or a diaeresis; the latter is used especially to indicate hiatus between two consonants, for example:
The demonstrative pronouns are:
More commonly used in speech are the abbreviated forms: 'stu for quiste, 'sta for questa, 'ste for chiste.
The personal pronouns are:
The relative pronouns are:
For example:
The possessive adjectives are:
In the Tarantino dialect, the possessive adjective must always be placed after the noun it refers to:
ca and cu
ca (Lat. quia) can have the value of:
Cu (Lat. quod) can have the value of:
The partitive does not exist in Tarantino, and to translate it two forms are used:
For example:
Of the old grammatical cases, the Tarantino dialect has preserved in its modern form only the accusative and the vocative. As in other languages of the Mediterranean area, the accusative in Tarantino is marked by the insertion of the preposition a only if it refers to people:
A typical feature is the frequent use of prothesis of the vowel -a-, which results in a double verbal form:
There is also the presence of the inchoative suffix -esce derived from the old -ire:
Vowel alternation is very widespread among first-conjugation verbs, due to metaphony. They are subject to diphthongization of the last thematic vowel (-o- to -ue-). For example:
Second-conjugation verbs yield o as u:
Tarantino has two conjugations: one in -are, the richest, and one in -ere (derived from Latin -ire).
The infinitive is formed, especially in informal speech, by apocope of the standard dictionary forms:
In Tarantino the infinitive is largely absent from verbal constructions, except in constructions with "can" and "must", being replaced by cu followed by the present indicative, as in Greek
The endings used to form the present indicative are as follows:
Unlike other Apulian dialects, Tarantino does not show the ending -che for first persons. This ending is used, however, for monosyllabic verbs:
The present progressive in Tarantino is formed with the present indicative of stare + the preposition a + the present indicative of the verb:
Exceptions to this rule are the second and third person singular, which do not require use of the preposition a:
In the imperfect we find the following endings:
For the preterite the endings are:
In the Tarantino dialect there is no single-word form of the future, which is therefore often replaced by the present indicative, or expressed by means of the future periphrasis derived from Latin habeo ab/de + infinitive, a feature common to other languages, including the Sardinian language:
This construction is also used to express necessity:
The present subjunctive has a particular form, typical of Salentino dialects; it is rendered with the conjunction cu followed by the present indicative:
By contrast, the imperfect subjunctive has its own endings:
Another non-existent verbal tense is the conditional, replaced by the imperfect indicative or the imperfect subjunctive:
The imperative is generally the same as the corresponding person of the present indicative:
The formation of the negative imperative is more complicated: it is obtained through the verbal periphrasis with scere + gerund (from Latin ire iendo):
The past participle is formed by adding the suffix -ate for verbs belonging to the first group, and the suffix -ute for verbs belonging to the second. However, there are also past participles ending in -ste, of Latin derivation:
The Tarantino versions are compared to the Italian ones. <div style="width:100%;"> <div style="float:left; width:40%; padding:1px; border: 1px solid blue; margin-left:15px; margin-right:15px;margin-bottom:15px; text-align:center; font-size: small"> <nowiki>'</nowiki>U <nowiki>'</nowiki>Mbierne de Dande (Claudio De Cuia)
<nowiki>'</nowiki>Mmienze ô camÃÂne nuèstre de <nowiki>'</nowiki>sta vÃÂte <br /> ij<nowiki>'</nowiki> me scè <nowiki>'</nowiki>cchiève jndr<nowiki>'</nowiki>a <nowiki>'</nowiki>nu vòsch<nowiki>'</nowiki>uscúre<br /> ca <nowiki>'</nowiki>a drètta vije addáne havè<nowiki>'</nowiki> sparÃÂte.
Ma ci l<nowiki>'</nowiki>àddàcundáre le delúre <br /> de <nowiki>'</nowiki>stu vosche sarvagge e <nowiki>'</nowiki>a strada stòrte<br /> ca jndr<nowiki>'</nowiki>o penzière me crèsce <nowiki>'</nowiki>a pavúre.
Ma è tand<nowiki>'</nowiki>amáre ch<nowiki>'</nowiki>è pêsce d<nowiki>'</nowiki>a morte;<br /> ma pe<nowiki>'</nowiki> ccundáre <nowiki>'</nowiki>u bbéne ca truvéve, <br /> hagghia parlà<nowiki>'</nowiki> de quèdda mala sòrte.
Ije mo<nowiki>'</nowiki> nò ssacce accum<nowiki>'</nowiki>è ca m<nowiki>'</nowiki>acchiève,<br /> tand<nowiki>'</nowiki>assunnáte stáve a qquèdda vanne<br /> ca <nowiki>'</nowiki>a vije veràce te scè<nowiki>'</nowiki> <nowiki>'</nowiki>bbandunéve.
Doppe ch<nowiki>'</nowiki>havè<nowiki>'</nowiki> <nowiki>'</nowiki>rreváte tremelànne<br /> già<nowiki>'</nowiki>ngocchie a lle fenéte de <nowiki>'</nowiki>sta chiàne,<br /> ch<nowiki>'</nowiki>angòre ô côre dè<nowiki>'</nowiki> mattáne e affanne,
vedÃÂve <nowiki>'</nowiki>u cièle tutte a mmane-a-mmane<br /> ca s<nowiki>'</nowiki>ammandáve d<nowiki>'</nowiki>a luce d<nowiki>'</nowiki>u sole<br /> ca <nowiki>'</nowiki>nzignalèsce <nowiki>'</nowiki>a strate a ogne crestiáne... </div> <div style="float:right; width:40%; padding:1px; border: 1px solid blue; margin-left:15px; margin-right:15px;margin-bottom:15px; text-align:center; font-size: small"> Inferno â Canto I (Dante Alighieri)
Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita<br /> mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,<br /> ché la diritta via era smarrita.
Ahi quanto a dir qual era è cosa dura<br /> esta selva selvaggia e aspra e forte<br /> che nel pensier rinova la paura!
Tant<nowiki>'</nowiki> è amara che poco è più morte;<br /> ma per trattar del ben ch<nowiki>'</nowiki>i<nowiki>'</nowiki> vi trovai,<br /> dirò de l<nowiki>'</nowiki>altre cose ch<nowiki>'</nowiki>i<nowiki>'</nowiki> v<nowiki>'</nowiki>ho scorte.
Io non so ben ridir com<nowiki>'</nowiki> i<nowiki>'</nowiki> v<nowiki>'</nowiki>intrai,<br /> tant<nowiki>'</nowiki> era pien di sonno a quel punto<br /> che la verace via abbandonai.
Ma poi ch<nowiki>'</nowiki>i<nowiki>'</nowiki> fui al piè d<nowiki>'</nowiki>un colle giunto,<br /> làdove terminava quella valle<br /> che m<nowiki>'</nowiki>avea di paura il cor compunto,
guardai in alto e vidi le sue spalle<br /> vestite giÃÂ de<nowiki>'</nowiki> raggi del pianeta<br /> che mena dritto altrui per ogne calle... </div> </div>
<div style="width:100%;"> <div style="float:left; width:40%; padding:1px; border: 1px solid blue; margin-left:15px; margin-right:15px;margin-bottom:15px; text-align:center; font-size: small"> <nowiki>'</nowiki>U <nowiki>'</nowiki>càndeche de le crijatúre de San FrangÃÂsche (Enrico Vetrò)
AltÃÂsseme, 'Neputènde, Signóre bbuéne,<br /> Túje so' le làude, 'a glorie e llâÂÂanóre e ogne bbenedizzióne.
A Tté súle, AltÃÂsseme, Te tòcchene,<br /> e nnisciúnâÂÂóme éte dègne de Te menduváre.
Lavudáte sije, Signóre mije, apprÃÂssâÂÂa ttutte le crijatúre Tóve,<br /> spéÃÂe frátema mije mèstre sóle,<br /> ca jé llúÃÂe dâÂÂu ggiúrne, e nnâÂÂallumenìsce a nnúje cu jidde.
E jìddâÂÂé' bbèlle e allucèsce cu sblennóre granne,<br /> de Téje, AltÃÂsseme, annùÃÂe 'u valóre.
Lavudáte sije, Signóre mije, pe' ssòremâÂÂa lúne e lle stèdde:<br /> ngÃÂele lâÂÂhé crijáte lucénde, sobraffÃÂne e vvalènde, e bbèdde.<br /><br /> Lavudáte sije, Signóre mije, pe' ffráteme 'u vÃÂende,<br /> e ppe' llâÂÂàrie, le nùvele, 'u chiarÃÂme e ogne ttìjembe,<br /> ca cu chìdde a lle crijatúre Tóve le fáÃÂe refiatà.<br /><br /> Lavudáte sije, Signóre mije, pe' ssòreme lâÂÂacque,<br /> ca jé ùtele asséje, terragnóle, prizziósa e cchiáre.
Lavudáte sije, Signóre mije, pe' ffráteme 'u fuéche,<br /> ca cu jìdde allumenìsce 'a nòtte:<br /> e jiddâÂÂè' bbèlle, allègre, pastecchÃÂne e ffòrte.
Lavudáte sije, Signóre mije, pâÂÂa sóra nòstra màtra tèrre,<br /> ca ne mandéne e nnâÂÂènghie 'a vèndre,<br /> e ccàcce numúnne de frùtte e ppúre fiúre dâÂÂogne cculóre e llâÂÂèrve.<br /><br /> Lavudáte sije, Signóre mije, pe' cchidde ca perdònene pâÂÂamóre Túve<br /> E ssuppòrtene malatÃÂje e ttrìbbule.
Vijáte a cchìdde ca lâÂÂhonna ssuppurtàcu rrassignazzióne,<br /> ca da Téje, AltÃÂsseme, honnâÂÂessere 'ngurunáte.<br /><br /> Lavudáte sije, Signóre mije, pâÂÂa sóra nostra morta dâÂÂu cuèrpe<br /> ca da jèdde nisciúnâÂÂome ca refiáte po' scambáre:<br /> uàje a cchìdde câÂÂhonna murè jindâÂÂa' le puccáte murtále;<br /> vijáte a cchìdde ca jedde àdda truvàjindâÂÂa' Vulundà' Ttója SandÃÂsseme,<br /> ca a llóre 'a secònna mòrte no 'nge lâÂÂàddàffa' mále.
Lavudáte e bbenedecÃÂte 'u Signóre mij' e deÃÂÃÂteLe gràzzie<br /> E sservÃÂteLe cu grànna devuzzióne. </div> <div style="float:right; width:40%; padding:1px; border: 1px solid blue; margin-left:15px; margin-right:15px;margin-bottom:15px; text-align:center; font-size: small"> Canticle of the Sun (Francis of Assisi)
Altissimu, onnipotente bon Signore,<br /> Tue so' le laude, la gloria e l'honore et onne benedictione.
Ad Te solo, Altissimo, se konfano,<br /> et nullu homo ène dignu te mentovare.
Laudato sie, mi' Signore cum tucte le Tue creature,<br /> spetialmente messor lo frate Sole,<br /> lo qual è iorno, et allumeni noi per lui.
Et ellu è bellu e radiante cum grande splendore:<br /> de Te, Altissimo, porta significatione.
Laudato si', mi Signore, per sora Luna e le stelle:<br /> in celu l'ÃÂ i formate clarite et pretiose et belle.
Laudato si', mi' Signore, per frate Vento<br /> et per aere et nubilo et sereno et onne tempo,<br /> per lo quale, a le Tue creature dÃÂ i sustentamento.
Laudato si', mi' Signore, per sor Aqua,<br /> la quale è multo utile et humile et pretiosa et casta.
Laudato si', mi Signore, per frate Focu,<br /> per lo quale ennallumini la nocte:<br /> ed ello è bello et iocundo et robustoso et forte.
Laudato si', mi' Signore, per sora nostra matre Terra,<br /> la quale ne sustenta et governa,<br /> et produce diversi fructi con coloriti flori et herba.
Laudato si', mi Signore, per quelli che perdonano per lo Tuo amore<br /> et sostengono infirmitate et tribulatione.
Beati quelli ke 'l sosterranno in pace,<br /> ka da Te, Altissimo, sirano incoronati.
Laudato si' mi Signore, per sora nostra Morte corporale,<br /> da la quale nullu homo vivente po' skappare:<br /> guai a quelli ke morrano ne le peccata mortali;<br /> beati quelli ke trovarÃÂ ne le Tue sanctissime voluntati,<br /> ka la morte secunda no 'l farrÃÂ male.
Laudate et benedicete mi Signore et rengratiate<br /> e serviateli cum grande humilitate..<br /> </div> </div>