Perche

Those are experiences living and studying in Naples for a semester, and visiting many times for visits lasting usually several weeks. You cannot believe that there is no such thing as the Napolitano dialect (sorry, with the recent President of Italy being Giovanni Napolitano, from Naples, recent Homeland Security Director in the USA being Janet Napolitano, it is an annoyance to have to keep undoing spell check for Napoletano).

There is Naples accent, which is difficult but possible for Italians to understand, and there is the Neapolitan dialect, which is a different language with such different roots from standard Italian, with different words, grammar and syntax that most Italians do not understand it. It is not much different from most Italians having trouble understanding the language Sardinia, Friulia, or in parts of Piemonte and Val D'Aosta.

Living in outer neighborhoods and eating in local restaurants and bars where Napoletano was spoken I can't understand it. And I've worked as a professor in a graduate school in sciences in Italy

I remember being in a bar in a regular, non-touristy neighborhood, having a cold drink. It was so hot. I had no idea what they were saying in Napoletano. I asked in Italian, "Where can I buy Bermudas?" Which is Italian for short pants. The head bartendress told me in Italian. I told her that I couldn't understand anything they were saying before. She then said, Do you understand this?" And gave me direction on where to buy the Bermudas in Napolitano, making everybody laugh.

I've had many an old bartender not understand me, and call a younger person to help. All young Napoletani speak Italian, but not all old people do.

Venice isn't much different. Lived there for 3 of the last six years. When I walk to a store and they speak to me in Venetian, I have no idea what they are saying. Most people who speak standard Italian struggle a bit with the language in Bari and Molise. That's because it's not a different accent. Like Napolitano it's a different language/dialect.

Studying Italian wasn't compulsory in the 1867. The literacy rate was less than 0was 2.5% when Italy become a country in 1861. Italy practically broke up 10 years later because they couldn't have effective Parliament because they spoke so many different languages.

Standard Italian, meaning the language of Florence, was growingly enforced in the military, and by a number of Mussolini decrees. It wasn't until 1990 that Italian, not dialect, was spoken by more than 50% of the people as their first and primary language at home. The language of the courts and Parliament is officially Italian (Florentine), but Italian wasn't made the official language in the constitution until 2007, and only then with a riot of protests.

http://uk.mobile.reuters.com/article...70330?irpc=932

"Italian becomes official language ... of Italy
Fri Mar 30, 2007 5:42pm BST

ROME (Reuters) - It's official. The language of Italy is Italian -- but not everyone is happy about it.

While it might seem obvious, the Italian-ness of Italian has only just been enshrined in the constitution, with parliament voting this week to state that: "The Italian language is the official language of the Republic".

The seemingly uncontroversial statement was opposed by 75 members of parliament, including leftists who said it smacked of cultural imperialism and northern separatists who are suspicious of pretty much any diktat from Rome.

One deputy, Federico Bricolo from the Northern League party, said his nationality, and therefore his language, was not Italian but Venetian. He said the dialect of Venice was spoken by "millions of men and women around the world".

"It's the language spoken in my family, in schools, at work. I am Venetian, Mr President, my language is that of Venice," Bricolo said in his dialect before his microphone was switched off because he was breaking a rule that states only Italian may be spoken in parliament.

Franco Russo, of Italy's main Communist party, said the post-war constitution deliberately left out any mention of the language in a reaction against dictator Benito Mussolini's attempts to "Italianise" the country by force.

The change to the constitution, approved by 361 votes to 75, is purely symbolic and does not alter the legal status that other languages enjoy in parts of Italy, such as German in the Alto Adige region or French in Val d'Aosta.

But supporters of the change said it was high time the language was recognised as a fundamental part of what made up modern Italy -- a country which was only created by unifying rival regions and city states in 1870.

It was Tuscan dialect -- in which Dante wrote the mediaeval epic poem the Inferno in the fourteen century -- that emerged as the national language of Italy, but many people still speak local dialects some of which are largely incomprehensible to people from other parts of the country."

Also explained nicely in this short video.

Non-NonRev

I was aware of the Nepolitan dialogue, but not initially from traveling.

In 1820 Gioachino Rossini wrote a master semiseria opera for Rome called Matilde di Shabran. It was revised for Naples the next year, and one of the big changes in the libretto was to the character of Isodoro, a traveling poet. For the Naples performances, Isodoro was given a heavy Neapolitan accent/dialect - this served to further stress Isodoro's outsider status amongst the other characters. The Naples version is the one that survives to today.

The opera has brilliant music but is long and is mostly ensenbles, so it fell out of favor until 1996 when the Rossini Opera Festival revived it to great success. The Pesaro production was done at London's Royal Opera in 2008. (play from 4:00 to the end)