ITALY 



3075 



ITALY 



any other language, as it displays more per- 

 fectly the possibilities of the voice. 



Of poetic words Italian has a vast store, but 

 of words descriptive of the ordinary material 

 things which play so large a part in modern 

 life it has fewer than most modern languages. 

 This is due not only to the poetic and ar- 

 tistic temperament of the Italians, but to the 

 fact that their language crystallized first in the 

 writings of the poet Dante, who lived in the 

 late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. 

 Since that time the language has changed com- 

 paratively little. The significance of this fact 

 is evident, if the state of the English language 

 at that time is considered. Chaucer lived later 

 than Dante, but the modern Englishman can 

 scarcely read the works of Chaucer without 

 special study. 



Literary Language and Dialects. Any lan- 

 guage which has been used for a long time over 

 a considerable area is bound to have dialects, 

 but those of Italy are more distinct from the 

 literary language than those of most other 

 countries. The Italian literary language is the 

 same everywhere, but when most Italians, ex- 

 cept those of Tuscany, write poems or novels 

 they are writing in what is practically a foreign 

 tongue; for only in Tuscany and in part of 

 the immediately adjoining provinces is this 

 literary language commonly spoken, even in 

 the homes of educated people. A peasant of 

 Calabria, in Southern Italy, can no more under- 

 stand the everyday speech of Tuscany than 

 an American can understand Spanish. The 



cultured people everywhere at least understand 

 Tuscan, but when they speak it, it is an altered 

 Tuscan, affected by the idioms and peculiarities 

 of their dialect. Nor is it the inhabitants of 

 Tuscany themselves who pronounce the lan- 

 guage most perfectly. Tuscan on the lips of 

 a cultivated inhabitant of Rome that is the 

 ideal. Such a combination is said to be almost 

 as musical as singing. 



History of Italian. Italian is one of the 

 Latin tongues, along with Spanish, French and 

 Portuguese; but the fact that it has grown up 

 on the soil where Latin flourished does not 

 mean that it is a direct lineal descendant of 

 Latin. Some scholars maintain that it is de- 

 rived from a dialect which existed all the time 

 in the Roman state, side by side with the 

 dominant Latin; others that it has descended 

 from the classic Latin through that language 

 of the common people, Romano, rustica, or 

 rustic Latin, which grew up after the decline 

 of the literary language. However that may 

 be, by the thirteenth century Tuscany had 

 developed its language practically as it stands 

 to-day, and it was the use of this tongue by 

 poets in that century which determined its 

 dominance as the literary tongue. It must 

 be understood that Dante did not formulate 

 modern Italian, any more than Luther in his 

 translation of the Bible formulated modern 

 German; he simply gave one special dialect 

 precedence over others by writing in it some- 

 thing which people of all dialects wanted to 

 read. A.MC c. 



TALY. "Open my heart," wrote Robert 

 Browning, "and you will see, graved inside of 

 it, Italy." There is probably no other country 

 toward which the hearts of the people of other 

 lands turn so affectionately as toward this 

 peninsula of the blue Mediterranean. It has 

 given to the world so much beauty, and holds 

 in trust so much more in its galleries, museums 

 and churches; its blue sky and blue waters and 

 bright sunlight breathe so much of the joy 

 of life; its historic and religious associations 



are so compelling that even those who have 

 never visited it but who read about it can 

 feel its thrill. It is the Mecca toward which 

 many a traveler's thoughts turn, and the oft- 

 quoted "See Naples and die," might well be 

 "See Italy and die," so truly is it the land of 

 the beauty-loving tourist. 



What the Map Shows. Its position is pe- 

 culiarly favorable. Comprising the central of 

 the three great peninsulas which extend south- 

 ward from Europe, it has about it, on all sides 



