Tuscan
Toscano
Spoken in	Italy
Region	Tuscany except the Province of Massa-Carrara
Native speakers	3,500,000  (date missing)
Language family	Indo-European Italic Romance Italo-Dalmatian (Italian) Tuscan
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Linguist List	ita-tus
Linguasphere	51-AAA-qa
This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

The Tuscan language (lingua toscana), or the Tuscan dialect (dialetto toscano) is an Italo-Dalmatian language spoken in Tuscany, Italy.

Standard Italian is based on Tuscan, specifically on its Florentine variety. Italian became the language of culture for all the people of Italy, thanks to the prestige of the masterpieces of Dante Alighieri, Francesco Petrarca, Giovanni Boccaccio, Niccolò Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini. It would later become the official language of all the Italian states and of the Kingdom of Italy, when it was formed. At no time, however, has Standard Italian been identical to genuine Tuscan.

Subdialects[link]

Dialects and Languages of Italy by groups^[1][2][3][4] (Tuscan dialect group in dark blue).

The Tuscan language is a dialect complex composed of many local variants, with minor differences among them.

The main subdivision is between Northern Tuscan dialects and Southern Tuscan dialects.

The Northern Tuscan dialects are (from east to west):

• Fiorentino, the main dialect of Florence, Chianti and Mugello, also spoken in Prato and along the river Arno as far as the city of Fucecchio.
• Pistoiese, spoken in the city of Pistoia and nearest zones (some linguists include this dialect in Fiorentino).
• Pesciatino or Valdinievolese, spoken in the Valdinievole zone, in the cities of Pescia and Montecatini Terme (some linguists include this dialect in Lucchese).
• Lucchese, spoken in Lucca and nearby hills (Lucchesia).
• Versiliese, spoken in the historical area of Versilia.
• Viareggino, spoken in Viareggio and vicinity.
• Pisano-Livornese, spoken in Pisa and in Livorno and the vicinity, and along the southern coast as far as the city of Piombino.

The Southern Tuscan dialects are (from east to west):

• Aretino-Chianaiolo, spoken in Arezzo and the Chiana valley.
• Senese, spoken in the city and province of Siena.
• Grossetano, spoken in the city and province of Grosseto.

Speakers[link]

Excluding the inhabitants of Massa-Carrara province, who speak an Emilian-type dialect, around 3,500,000 people speak the Tuscan dialect.

Dialectal features[link]

The Tuscan dialect as a whole has certain defining features, with subdialects that are distinguished by minor details.

Phonetics[link]

Tuscan gorgia[link]

Weakening of G and C[link]

A phonetic phenomenon is the intervocalic weakening of the Italian soft g, the voiced affricate /dʒ/ (g as in George) and soft c, the voiceless affricate /tʃ/ (ch as in church), known as attenuation, or, more commonly, as deaffrication.

Between vowels, the voiced post-alveolar affricate consonant is realized as voiced post-alveolar fricative (z of azure):

This phenomenon is very evident in daily speech (common also in Umbria and elsewhere in Central Italy): the phrase la gente, 'the people', in standard Italian is pronounced [la ˈdʒɛnte], but in Tuscan it is [la ˈʒɛnte].

Similarly, the voiceless post-alveolar affricate is pronounced as a voiceless post-alveolar fricative between two vowels:

The sequence /la ˈtʃena/ la cena, 'the dinner', in standard Italian is pronounced [la ˈtʃeːna], but in Tuscan it is [la ˈʃeːna]. As a result of this weakening rule, there are a few minimal pairs distinguished only by length of the voiceless fricative (e.g. [laʃeˈrɔ] lacerò 'it/he/she ripped' vs. [laʃʃeˈrɔ] lascerò 'I will leave/let').

Affrication of S[link]

A less common phonetic phenomenon is the transformation of voiceless s or voiceless alveolar fricative /s/ into the voiceless alveolar affricate [ts] when preceded by /r/, /l/, or /n/.

For example, il sole (the sun), pronounced in standard Italian as [il ˈsoːle], would be in theory pronounced by a Tuscan speaker [il ˈtsoːle]. However, since assimilation of the final consonant of the article to the following consonant tends to occur in exactly such cases (see "Masculine definite articles" below) the actual pronunciation will be usually [i ssoːle]. Affrication of /s/ can more commonly be heard word-internally, as in falso (false) /ˈfalso/ → [ˈfaltso]. This is a common phenomenon in Central Italy, but it is not exclusive to that area; for example it also happens in Switzerland (Canton Ticino).

[edit] No dipththongization of /ɔ/

There are two Tuscan historical outcomes of Latin ŏ in stressed open syllables. Passing first through a stage [ɔ], the vowel then develops as a diphthong /wɔ/. This phenomenon never gained universal acceptance, however, so that while forms with the diphthong came to be accepted as standard Italian (e.g. fuoco, buono, nuovo), the monophthong remains in popular speech (foco, bono, novo).

Morphology[link]

Accusative "Te" for "Tu"[link]

A characteristic of Tuscan dialect is the use of the nominative pronoun te in emphatic clauses of the type "You! What are you doing here?".

• Standard Italian : tu lo farai, no? 'You'll do it, won't you?'
• Tuscan : Te lo farai, no?

• Standard Italian : tu, vieni qua! 'You', come here!'
• Tuscan : Te, vieni hua!

Double dative pronoun[link]

A morphological phenomenon, cited also by Alessandro Manzoni in his masterpiece "I promessi sposi" (The Betrothed), is the doubling of the dative pronoun.

For the use of a personal pronoun as indirect object (to someone, to something), also called dative case, the standard Italian makes use of a construction preposition + pronoun a me (to me), or it makes use of a synthetic pronoun form, mi (to me). The Tuscan dialect makes use of both in the same sentence as a kind of intensification of the dative/indirect object:

• In Standard Italian: [a me piace] or [mi piace] (I like it [lit. "it pleases me"])
• In Tuscan: [a me mi piace] (I like it)

This usage is widespread throughout the central regions of Italy, not only in Tuscany, and until recently, it was considered redundant and erroneous by Italian purists. Nowadays it has become acceptable except in the most formal of speech styles. More on this issue (in Italian) can be found at Accademia della Crusca ^[5]

In some dialects the double accusative pronoun (me mi vedi (lit: You see me me) can be heard, but it is considered an archaic form.

Masculine definite articles[link]

The singular and plural masculine definite articles can both be realized phonetically as [i] in Florentine varieties of Tuscan, but are distinguished by their phonological effect on following consonants. The singular provokes lengthening of the following consonant: [i kkaːne] 'the dog', whereas the plural permits consonant weakening: [i haːni] 'the dogs'. As in Italian, masc. sing. lo occurs before consonants long by nature or not permitting /l/ in clusters is normal (lo zio 'the uncle', lo studente 'the student'), although forms such as i zio can be heard in rustic varieties.

[edit] Noi + impersonal Si

A morphological phenomenon found throughout Tuscany is the personal use of the particle identical to impersonal si (not to be confused with passive Si or the reflexive Si), as the first person plural. It is basically the same as the use of on in French.

It's possible to use the construction Si + Third person in singular, which can be joined by the first plural person pronoun Noi, because the particle "si" is no longer perceived as an independent particle, but as a piece of verbal conjugation.

• Standard Italian: [Andiamo a mangiare] (We're going to eat), [Noi andiamo là] (We go there)
• Tuscan: [Si va a mangià] (We're going to eat), [Noi si va là] (We go there)

The phenomenon is found in all verb tenses, including compound tenses. In these tenses, the use of si requires a form of essere (to be) as auxiliary verb, even if the verb would normally have avere (to have) as auxiliary. The past participle must be marked to agree with the subject in gender and number if the verb usually would require essere as auxiliary, while it does not agree in gender and number if the verb usually requires avere.

• Italian: [Siamo andate a sciare], [Abbiamo mangiato al ristorante]
• Tuscan: [S'è andate a sciare], [S'è mangiato al ristorante]

Usually Si becomes S' before è.

Fo (faccio) and vo (vado)[link]

Another morphological phenomenon in the Tuscan dialect is what might appear to be shortening of first singular verb forms in the present tense of fare (to do, to make) and andare (to go).

• Fare: It. faccio Tusc. fo (I do, I make)
• Andare: It. vado Tusc. vo (I go)

These forms have two origins. Natural phonological change alone can account for loss of /d/ and reduction of /ao/ to /o/ in the case of /vado/ > */vao/ > /vo/. A case such as Latin: sapio > Italian so (I know), however, admits no such phonological account: the expected outcome of /sapio/ would be */sappjo/, with a normal lengthening of the consonant preceding yod.

What seems to have taken place is a realignment of the paradigm in accordance with the statistically minor but highly frequent paradigms of dare (give) and stare (be, stay). Thus so, sai, sa, sanno (all singulars and 3rd personal plural of 'know') come to fit the template of do, dai, dà, danno ('give'), sto, stai, sta, stanno ('be, stay'), and fo, fai, fa, fanno ('make, do') follows the same pattern. The form vo, while quite possibly a natural phonological development, seems to have been reinforced by analogy in this case.

[edit] Loss of infinitival "-re"

A phonological phenomenon that might appear to be a morphological one is the loss of the infinitival ending -re of verbs.

• andàre → andà
• pèrdere → pèrde
• finìre → finì

An important feature of this loss is that main stress does not shift to the new penultimate syllable, as phonological rules of Italian might suggest. Thus infinitive forms can come to coincide with various conjugated singulars: pèrde 'to lose', pèrde 's/he loses'; finì 'to finish', finì 's/he finished'. In practice this homophony seldom, if ever, causes confusion, as they usually appear in distinct syntactic contexts.

The fixed stress can be explained by supposing an intermediate form in -r (as in the Spanish verbal infinitive).

While the infinitive without -re is universal in some subtypes such as Pisano-Livornese, in the vicinity of Florence alternations are regular, so that the full infinitive (e.g. vedere 'to see') appears when followed by a pause, and the clipped form (vedé) is found when phrase internal. The consonant of enclitics is lengthened if preceded by stressed vowel (vedèllo 'to see it', portàcci 'to bring us'), but not when the preceding vowel of the infinitive is unstressed (lèggelo 'to read it', pèrdeti 'to lose you').

Lexicon[link]

The biggest differences among dialects is in the lexicon, which also distinguishes the different subdialects. The Tuscan lexicon is almost entirely shared with standard Italian, but many words may be perceived as obsolete or literary by non-Tuscans. There are a number of strictly regional words and expressions too.

Characteristically Tuscan words:

• accomodare (which means "to arrange" in standard Italian) for riparare (to repair)
• babbo (which was until now considered the only real Italian form) for papà (daddy)
• bove (literary form in standard Italian) for bue (ox)
• cacio for formaggio (cheese)
• camiciola for canottiera (undervest)
• cencio for straccio (rag, tatters)
• chetarsi (literary form in standard Italian) for fare silenzio (to be silent)
• codesto (literary form in standard Italian) is a pronoun which specifically identifies an object far from the speaker, but near the listener. Its roughly nearest equivalent in English language is the pair "yon, yonder".
• desinare (literary form in standard Italian) for pranzare/cenare (to have dinner)
• diaccio for ghiacciato, freddo (frozen, cold)
• essi for sii (imperative tense of 'to be')
• furia (which means "fury" in standard Italian) for fretta (hurry)
• golpe for volpe (fox)
• ire for andare (to go) (only some forms as ito (gone))
• garbare for piacere (to like) (but also piacere is widely used in Tuscany)
• gota (literary form in standard Italian) for guancia (cheek)
• lapis for matita (pencil)
• punto for per nulla or niente affatto (not at all) in negative sentences
• sciocco (which means "silly" or "stupid" in standard Italian) for insipido (insipid)
• sudicio for spazzatura (garbage) as a noun and for sporco (dirty) as an adjective

See also[link]

• Augusto Novelli, Italian playwright known for using the Tuscan dialect for 20th-century Florentine theater
• Florentine language
• The Adventures of Pinocchio, written by Carlo Collodi in Italian but employing frequent Florentinisms

References[link]

• Giannelli, Luciano. 2000. Toscana. Profilo dei dialetti, 9. Pisa: Pacini.

External links[link]

• Atlante lessicale toscano (ALT) - Dialectometry
• The Linguasphere Register

Diane Lane
Lane at the 61st Berlin International Film Festival (2011)
Born	(1965-01-22) January 22, 1965 (age 47) New York City, New York, United States
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1979–present
Spouse	Christopher Lambert (1988–1994; divorced; 1 child) Josh Brolin (2004–present)
Website
http://www.dianelane.com/ (offline)

Diane Lane (born January 22, 1965) is an American film actress.

Born and raised in New York City, Lane made her screen debut at the age of 13 in George Roy Hill's 1979 film A Little Romance, starring opposite Sir Laurence Olivier. Soon after, she was featured on the cover of Time magazine. She has since appeared in several notable films, including the 2002 film Unfaithful, which earned her Academy Award, Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations.

Lane has been married to actor Josh Brolin since 2004. She was previously married to actor Christopher Lambert from 1988 to 1994.

Early life[link]

Lane was born in New York City. Her mother, Colleen Farrington, was a nightclub singer and Playboy centerfold (Miss October 1957), who was also known as "Colleen Price". Her father, Burton Eugene Lane, was a Manhattan drama coach who ran an acting workshop with John Cassavetes, worked as a cab driver, and later taught humanities at City College.^[1] When Lane was 13 months old, her parents split up. Her mother went to Mexico and obtained a divorce while retaining custody of her daughter until the child was six.^[1] Her father got custody of her after Farrington moved to Georgia. Lane and her father lived in a number of residential hotels in New York City and she would ride with him in his taxi.^[2]

When Lane was fifteen years old, she declared her independence from her father and ran away to Los Angeles for a week with actor and friend Christopher Atkins. Lane later remarked, "It was reckless behavior that comes from having too much independence too young."^[2] She returned to New York and moved in with a friend's family, paying them rent. In 1981, she enrolled in high school after taking correspondence courses. However, Lane's mother kidnapped her and took the teenager back to Georgia. Lane and her father challenged her mother in court and six weeks later she was back in New York. Lane did not speak to her mother for the subsequent three years, but they have since reconciled.^[2]

Career[link]

Early work[link]

Lane's maternal grandmother, Eleanor Scott, was a thrice-married Pentecostal preacher of the Apostolic denomination, and Lane was influenced by the theatrical quality of her grandmother's sermons.^[3][4] Lane began acting professionally at the age of six at the La MaMa Experimental Theater Club in New York, where she appeared in a production of Medea. At 12 she had a role in Joseph Papp's production of The Cherry Orchard with Meryl Streep.^[1] Also at this time, Lane was enrolled in an accelerated program at Hunter College High School and was put on notice when her grades suffered from her busy schedule.^[1] At 13 years old, she turned down a role in Runaways on Broadway to make her feature film debut opposite Laurence Olivier in A Little Romance.^[2] Lane won high praise from Olivier who declared her 'The New Grace Kelly'.^[5] At the same time Lane was featured on the cover of Time, which declared her one of Hollywood's "Whiz Kids."^[6][7]

In the early 1980s, Lane made a successful transition from child actor to adult roles. Her breakout performances came with back-to-back adaptations of young adult novels by S. E. Hinton, adapted and directed by Francis Ford Coppola: The Outsiders in 1982 and Rumble Fish in 1983. Both films also featured memorable performances from a number of young male actors who would go on to become leading men in the next decade (as well as members of the so-called "Brat Pack"), including Tom Cruise, Rob Lowe, C. Thomas Howell, Emilio Estevez, the late Patrick Swayze, Mickey Rourke, Nicolas Cage, and Matt Dillon.^[1] Lane's distinction among these heavily male casts advanced her career while affiliating her with this young generation of male actors. Andy Warhol proclaimed her, "the undisputed female lead of Hollywood's new rat pack."^[8]

However, the two films that could have catapulted her to star status, Streets of Fire (she turned down Splash and Risky Business for this film)^[5][9] and The Cotton Club, were both commercial and critical failures, and her career languished as a result.^[1] After The Cotton Club, Lane dropped out of the movie business and lived with her mother in Georgia.^[10] According to the actress, "I hadn't been close to my mom for a long time, so we had a lot of homework to do. We had to repair our relationship because I wanted my mother back".^[11]

Lane at the 41st Emmy Awards on September 17, 1989.

Lane returned to acting to appear in The Big Town and Lady Beware, but it was not until 1989's popular and critically acclaimed TV miniseries Lonesome Dove that Lane made another big impression on a sizable audience,^[10] and was nominated for an Emmy Award^[12] for her role. She was given positive reviews for her performance in the independent film My New Gun, which was well received at the Cannes Film Festival. She went on to appear as actress Paulette Goddard in Sir Richard Attenborough's big-budget biopic of Charles Chaplin, 1992's Chaplin.^[8] Lane won further praise for her role in 1999's A Walk on the Moon, opposite Viggo Mortensen. One reviewer wrote, "Lane, after years in post-teenaged-career limbo, is meltingly effective."^[13] The film's director, Tony Goldwyn, described Lane as having "...this potentially volcanic sexuality that is in no way self-conscious or opportunistic."^[14] Lane earned an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Female Lead. At this time, she was interested in making a film about actress Jean Seberg in which she would play Seberg.^[15]

Recent work[link]

In 2000, Lane had a supporting role as Mark Wahlberg's love interest in The Perfect Storm. In 2002, she starred in Unfaithful, a drama film directed by Adrian Lyne and adapted from the French film The Unfaithful Wife. Lane played a housewife who indulges in an adulterous fling with a mysterious book dealer. The film featured several sex scenes. Lyne's repeated takes for these scenes were very demanding for the actors involved, especially for Lane, who had to be emotionally and physically fit for the duration.^[16] Unfaithful received mostly mixed to negative reviews, though Lane earned widespread praise for her performance. Entertainment Weekly critic Owen Gleiberman stated that "Lane, in the most urgent performance of her career, is a revelation. The play of lust, romance, degradation, and guilt on her face is the movie's real story."^[17] She followed that film up with Under the Tuscan Sun, based on the best-selling book by Frances Mayes.

In 2008, Lane reunited with Richard Gere for the romantic drama Nights in Rodanthe. It is the third film Gere and Lane filmed together. The film was based on the novel of the same title by Nicholas Sparks. Lane also co-starred in Jumper, and Untraceable in the same year. She then appeared in Killshot with Mickey Rourke, which was given a limited theatrical release before being released on DVD in 2009. While promoting Nights in Rodanthe, she expressed frustration with being typecast and stated that she was "gunning for something that's not so sympathetic. I need to be a bitch, and I need to be in a comedy. I've decided. No more Miss Nice Guy."^[18] The actress has even contemplated quitting acting and spending more time with her family if she is unable to get these kinds of roles. She said in an interview, "I can't do anything official. My agents won't let me. Between you and me, I don't have anything else coming out."^[18]

In 2010, Lane starred in Secretariat, a Disney film about the relationship between the 1973 Triple Crown-winning racehorse and his owner, Penny Chenery, whom Lane portrayed.^[19] In 2011, it was announced that Lane would play Martha Kent in Zack Snyder's Superman film, " Man of Steel," that will be released in theaters on June 14th, 2013. Snyder said of her casting, "We are thrilled to have Diane in the role because she can convey the wisdom and the wonder of a woman whose son has powers beyond her imagination."^[20]

Awards[link]

Four days before the New York Film Critics Circle's vote in 2002, Lane was given a career tribute by the Film Society of Lincoln Center. A day before that, Lyne held a dinner for the actress at the Four Seasons Hotel. Critics and award voters were invited to both.^[21] She went on to win the National Society of Film Critics, the New York Film Critics Circle awards and was nominated for a Golden Globe and an Academy Award for Best Actress. In 2003, she was named ShoWest's 2003 Female Star of the Year, ^[22] and was also a co-recipient of the Women in Film Crystal Award honoring outstanding women in entertainment.^[23]

Lane ranked at #79 on VH1's 100 Greatest Kid Stars. She was ranked #45 on AskMen.com's Top 99 Most Desirable Women in 2005,^[24] #85 in 2006^[25] and #98 in 2007.^[26]

Personal life[link]

Marriages and family[link]

Lane with husband Josh Brolin in December 2009.

Lane met actor Christopher Lambert in Paris while promoting The Cotton Club in 1984.^[2] They had a brief affair and split up. They met again two years later in Rome to make a film together, entitled After the Rain, and in two weeks they were a couple again. Lane and Lambert married in October 1988 in Santa Fe, New Mexico.^[2] They had a daughter, Eleanor Jasmine Lambert (born September 5, 1993), and were divorced following a prolonged separation in 1994.^[27]

Lane became engaged to actor Josh Brolin in July 2003^[28] and they were married on August 15, 2004.^[29] On December 20 of that year, she called police after an altercation with him, and he was arrested on a misdemeanor charge of domestic battery. Lane declined to press charges, however, and the couple's spokesperson described the incident as a "misunderstanding."^[30]

Charity work[link]

Lane is also involved in several charities, including Heifer International, which focuses on world hunger, and Artists for Peace and Justice, a Hollywood organization that supports Haiti relief. However, she tries not to draw attention to her humanitarian efforts: "Sometimes I give with my heart. Sometimes I give financially, but there's something about [helping others] that I think ought to be anonymous. I don't want it to be a boastful thing."^[31]

Filmography[link]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Ascher-Walsh, Rebecca. Confidence: The Ultimate Seducer. Men's Health. Accessed March 25, 2010.
• Radziwill, Carole. Gorgeous At Any Age: Diane Lane. Glamour magazine. September 1, 2008. Accessed March 25, 2010.
• Saroyan, Strawberry. Diane Lane: a fortysomething sex symbol. Daily Telegraph. October 5, 2008. Accessed March 25, 2010.
• Robinson, Tasha. Interview: Diane Lane. The Onion A.V. Club. October 7, 2010. Accessed October 8, 2010.
• Diane Lane: Her Best Roles - Empire magazine
• Kaplan, Michael. Diane Lane: A Career with a View . Movieline. April 1, 1996. Accessed June 30, 2011.
• Rebello, Stephen. Diane Lane: Sudden Lane Changes. Movieline. October 1, 2003. Accessed June 30, 2011.
• Hensley, Dennis. Diane Lane: Lane Changes. Movieline. June 1, 2000. Accessed June 30, 2011.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Diane Lane

• Diane Lane at the Internet Movie Database
• Diane Lane at AllRovi
• Diane Lane at Yahoo! Movies
• Diane Lane at Film Reference
• Diane Lane at Emmys.com