Italy is a land rich in different cultures depending on the region, the city and the country. There are different traditions handed down over time but, above all, different languages are spoken in each region .
Some of them are real incomprehensible languages for a person who is not born in that place, while others are dialects. The dialect is an idiom, a linguistic variant, used by the inhabitants who are born and live in a particular area. When a dialect involves a wider geographical area and, consequently, a large portion of the population, it becomes more complex and rich in variations according to the areas.
Just think of languages such as Sardinian, Sicilian or Veneto to realize how different they are from normal Italian and how much an interpreter may be needed to understand the meaning of words or entire dialectal expressions .
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Unfortunately, the internet cannot be of great help with a single translation tool such as Google Translate for foreign languages. In Italy nobody thought of providing a dictionary and a complete translator to collect all the variants spoken in the cities and regions.
We must therefore go through amateur websites, sometimes ugly to look at but which, at least, act as historical memories and allow us to discover the meaning and the "how to say" of the most common dialectal words and expressions .
The Sardinian language is certainly the narrowest dialect of all with words completely different from Italian. Google should be asked to add Sardinian to its translation services. In the meantime, you have to make do with more artisanal but still very valuable resources.
The best Sardinian dictionary is on the Ditzionariu.org site written completely in the dialect spoken in Sardinia, which translates from Sardinian to Italian and vice versa and also in English and French.
If you are wrong to write, the suggestion for the correct word also appears.
If you click on the word Alliòngiu from the left menu, you access a list of links of sites to learn and understand Sardinian.
Another Sardinian dictionary, less rich in terms, is on the glosbe site.
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For the Sicilian dialect, the best site for learning to speak in Sicily is linguasiciliana.org which also contains a Sicilian course, with grammar lessons, both from Italian and from other foreign languages.
An Italian-Sicilian vocabulary is instead on the linguasiciliana.com website.
For the Neapolitan dialect spoken in Naples and in the Campania region, if, reading books such as Gomorrah, you do not understand anything, you should have a decent translator, who does not exist on the internet.
The best sites to find the meanings of Neapolitan words are:
Napoletanita and Napoletano.info have an Italian-Neapolitan dictionary.
On Paternopolionline there is a beautiful page on the Paternese dialect with idioms, proverbs and popular sayings.
Il Napoletano also translates into Italian on the glosbe site
Going to northern Italy we discover the Venetian language on the dialect-veneto.it website which also presents explanations on the origin of the words and phrases spoken by the Venetians.
Scrolling through other Italian dialects, we can look at several other sites to find vocabularies and dictionaries:
- Piedmontese with a great vocabulary with 120, 000 terms and many phrases and sayings translated into Italian on the Piemonteis.com website.
The glossary of the dialect part in Turin and Piedmont can also be found on the Nostereis.com website.
- Few resources for the Milanese : (site 1).
- Course for the Romagnolo dialect which can also be printed.
- Friulian-Italian dictionary and vice versa.
- Tuscan vocabulary
- Turbozaura is the site for the Romanesco dictionary and the dialect of Rome.
Another Roman dictionary can be found here.
In Puglia we have the Bari dialect, the tarantino.
For the Calabrian, there is a mini vocabulary that can be downloaded.
For the Calabrian I also recommend a look at the Youtube videos from the 610 broadcast with the lessons of Pasquale Dianomarina.
For the rest, also search on the Dialettando website to find all the meanings and vocabularies of Italian dialects.
