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Sounds and pronunciation of the Italian language

The phonology of Italian describes the sound system—the phonology and phonetics—of Standard Italian and its geographical variants.

The above IPA symbols and description refer to standard Italian, based on a somewhat idealized version of the Tuscan derived national language. As is common in many cultures, this single version of the language was pushed as neutral, proper, and eventually superior, leading to some stigmatization of varying accents. Television news anchors and other high profile figures had to put aside their regional Italian when in the public sphere. However, in more recent years the enforcement of this standard has fallen out of favor in Italy, and news reporters, actors, and the like are now more free to deliver their words in their native regional variety of Italian, which appeals to the Italian population's range of linguistic diversity. The variety is still not represented in its wholeness and accents from the South are maybe to be considered less popular, except in shows set in the South and in comedy, a field in which Naples, Sicily and the South in general have always been present. Though it still represents the basics for the standard variety, the loosened restrictions have led to Tuscan being seen for what it is, just one dialect among many with its own regional peculiarities and qualities, many of which are shared with Umbria, Southern Marche and Northern Lazio. In Tuscany (though not in standard Italian, which is derived from, but not equivalent to, Tuscan dialect), voiceless stops are typically pronounced as fricatives between vowels. That is, → : e. g. i capitani 'the captains' , a phenomenon known as the gorgia toscana 'Tuscan throat'. In a much more widespread area of Central Italy, postalveolar affricates are deaffricated when intervocalic so that in Cina ('in China') is pronounced but la Cina ('the China') is , and /ˈbat͡ʃo/ bacio 'kiss' is [ˈbaːʃo] rather than Standard Italian [ˈbaːt͡ʃo]. This deaffrication can result in minimal pairs distinguished only by length of the fricatives, [ʃ] issuing from /t͡ʃ/ and [ʃː] from geminate /ʃʃ/: lacerò 's/he ripped' vs. lascerò 'I will leave'. In nonstandard varieties of Central and Southern Italian, some stops at the end of a syllable completely assimilate to the following consonant. For example, a Venetian might say tecnica as or in violation of normal Italian consonant contact restrictions, while a Florentine would likely pronounce tecnica as , a Roman on a range from to (in Southern Italian, complex clusters usually are separated by a vowel: a Neapolitan would say , a Sicilian ). Similarly, although the cluster has developed historically as through assimilation, a learned word such as ictus will be pronounced by some, by others. In popular (non Tuscan) Central and Southern Italian speech, and tend to always be geminated ( and ) when between two vowels, or a vowel and a sonorant (, , , or ). Sometimes this is also used in written language, e. g. writing robba instead of roba ('property'), to suggest a regional accent, though this spelling is considered incorrect. In Tuscany and beyond in Central and Southern Italy, intervocalic non geminate is realized as (parallel to realized as described above). The two phonemes and have merged in many varieties of Italian: when between two vowels within the same word, it tends to always be pronounced in Northern Italy, and in Central and Southern Italy (except in the Arbëreshë community). A notable example is the word casa ('house'): in Northern Italy it is pronounced ; in Southern Central Italy it is pronounced In several Southern varieties, voiceless stops tend to be voiced if following a sonorant, as an influence of the still largely spoken regional languages: campo is often pronounced , and Antonio is frequently
The various Tuscan, Corsican and Central Italian dialects are, to some extent, the closest ones to Standard Italian in terms of linguistic features, since the latter is based on a somewhat polished form of Florentine.

Very little research has been done on the earliest stages of phonological development in Italian. This article primarily describes phonological development after the first year of life. See the main article on phonological development for a description of first year stages. Many of the earliest stages are thought to be universal to all infants.

Word final consonants are rarely produced during the early stages of word production. Consonants are usually found in word initial position, or in intervocalic position.

Most consonants are word initial: They are the stops , , , and and the nasal A preference for a front place of articulation is present.

More phones now appear in intervocalic contexts. The additions to the phonetic inventory are the voiced stop , the nasal , the voiceless affricate , and the liquid .

The fricatives , , and are added, primarily at the intervocalic position.

Approximately equal numbers of phones are now produced in word initial and intervocalic position. Additions to the phonetic inventory are the voiced stop and the consonant cluster While the word initial inventory now tends to have all the phones of the adult targets (adult production of the child's words), the intervocalic inventory tends to still be missing four consonants or consonant clusters of the adult targets: , , , and
Stops are the most common manner of articulation at all stages and are produced more often than they are present in the target words at around 18 months. Gradually this frequency decreases to almost target like frequency by around 27 months. The opposite process happens with fricatives, affricates, laterals and trills. Initially, the production of these phonemes is significantly less than what is found in the target words and the production continues to increases to target like frequency. Alveolars and bilabials are the two most common places of articulation, with alveolar production steadily increasing after the first stage and bilabial production gently decreasing. Labiodental and postalveolar production increases throughout development, while velar production decreases.

Babbling becomes distinct from previous, less structured vocal play. Initially, syllable structure is limited to CVCV, called reduplicated babbling. At this stage, children's vocalizations have a weak relation to adult Italian and the Italian lexicon.

The most used syllable type changes as children age, and the distribution of syllables takes on increasingly Italian characteristics. This ability significantly increases between the ages of 11 and 12 months, 12 and 13 months, and 13 and 14 months. Consonant clusters are still absent. Children's first ten words appear around month 12, and take CVCV format (e. g. mamma 'mom', papà 'dad').

Reduplicated babbling is replaced by variegated babbling, producing syllable structures such as C1VC2V (e. g. cane 'dog', topo 'mouse'). Production of trisyllabic words begins (e. g. pecora 'sheep', matita 'pencil'). Consonant clusters are now present (e. g. bimba 'female child', venti 'twenty'). Ambient language plays an increasingly significant role as children begin to solidify early syllable structure. Syllable combinations that are infrequent in the Italian lexicon, such as velar labial sequences (e. g. capra 'goat' or gamba 'leg') are infrequently produced correctly by children, and are often subject to consonant harmony.

In Italian, stress is lexical, meaning it is word specific and partly unpredictable. Penultimate stress (primary stress on the second to last syllable) is also generally preferred. This goal, acting simultaneously with the child's initial inability to produce polysyllabic words, often results in weak syllable deletion. The primary environment for weak syllable deletion in polysyllabic words is word initial, as deleting word final or word medial syllables would interfere with the penultimate stress pattern heard in ambient language.

Children develop syllabic segmentation awareness earlier than phonemic segmentation awareness. In earlier stages, syllables are perceived as a separate phonetic unit, while phonemes are perceived as assimilated units by coarticulation in spoken language. By first grade, Italian children are nearing full development of segmentation awareness on both syllables and phonemes. Compared to those children whose mother tongue exhibits closed syllable structure (CVC,CCVC, CVCC, etc. ), Italian speaking children develop this segmentation awareness earlier, possibly due to its open syllable structure (CVCV, CVCVCV, etc.). Rigidity in Italian (shallow orthography and open syllable structure) makes it easier for Italian speaking children to be aware of those segments.