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Modern Italian and Operatic Italian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Sinfonia Senior Member Wales Joined 6748 days ago 255 posts - 261 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 9 of 27 24 August 2006 at 11:34am | IP Logged | |||||
With Iversen's comments here in mind, there's no doubt that a knowledge of modern Italian will be a massive help in understanding the arias you mention. Puccini's last operas are less than 90 years old, and the written/sung language at least has changed relatively little in that time. (Iversen, there are different kinds of opera singing, some of which are little more than stylised talking! But in any case, classically trained voices are the only ones who can *really* sing :-p) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| kronos77 Groupie United States Joined 6743 days ago 78 posts - 81 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Russian, Dutch, Mandarin | Message 10 of 27 24 August 2006 at 12:57pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Not all languages change at the same rate, which is something to keep in
mind. I don't know much about Italian, but it is possible that the Italian spoken in the past two hundred years has changed as much as English in the past 500 years. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6707 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 11 of 27 24 August 2006 at 1:16pm | IP Logged | |||||
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The internet is an amazing invention!
This is the beginning of Monteverdi's Orfeo from 1607: La Musica Dal mio Permesso amato à voi ne vegno, incliti eroi, sangue gentil di regi, di cui narra la Fama eccelsi pregi, nè giugne al ver perch' è troppo alto il segno. Io la Musica son, ch' à i dolci accenti sò far tranquillo ogni turbato core, et hor di nobil ira, et hor d' amore posso infiammar le più gelate menti. You can download the rest from Operamanager. The language is surprisingly close to modern Italian (if indeed it is the original version, but I see no indication to the contrary on the site), - which is not the same as saying that it is without problems. Edited by Iversen on 24 August 2006 at 1:30pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Thomaskim Groupie Joined 7273 days ago 84 posts - 85 votes | Message 12 of 27 24 August 2006 at 1:28pm | IP Logged | |||||
As a native speaker of Italian, I find it extremely taxing to understand operatic Italian - hence the importance of a 'libretto' handed out at opera theaters for everyone to be able to follow and enjoy the performance. In other words, I would not use operatic Italian as a yardstick for your success at understanding spoken Italian. As for the language itself, it's lyrical in form but the lexical input is not necessarily archaic. Hope this helps. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sinfonia Senior Member Wales Joined 6748 days ago 255 posts - 261 votes Speaks: English* | Message 13 of 27 24 August 2006 at 4:14pm | IP Logged | |||||
They don't all change at the same rate, but once a language gets written down, formalised and standardised, change starts to decelerate; that's a linguistic fact. Grammars, dictionaries, newspapers, films, the internet -- all slow down considerably the rate of language change. And anyone familiar with Italian opera will know that this has also been the case for Italian (as Iversen demonstrates above). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| vilas Pentaglot Senior Member Italy Joined 6964 days ago 531 posts - 722 votes Speaks: Spanish, Italian*, English, French, Portuguese | Message 14 of 27 25 August 2006 at 10:06am | IP Logged | |||||
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After reading the post of Iversen I can say that the modern spoken Italian is quite different from Opera's Italian . I am Italian and I need to read more than two times the Monteverdi's piece to understand the meaning of it and I am still not sure that I have completely understood . When we learn the Divina Commedia of Dante Alighieri is the same thing , we have to translate in the today's language . Everything is upside down and many words are not anymore used .... La Musica Dal mio Permesso amato à voi ne vegno, incliti eroi, sangue gentil di regi, di cui narra la Fama eccelsi pregi, nè giugne al ver perch' è troppo alto il segno. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6707 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 15 of 27 25 August 2006 at 5:35pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Maybe I should stress that the piece I cited is from 1607, - of course the libretto of an opera by Verdi or Puccini is much closer to modern Italian prose, but even there operatic Italian has its peculiarities.
As for the old text it should be translated somewhat like this: Music (sings): From my beloved Permesso I come to you, offspring (?) of heroes, noble blood of kings, of whom fame tells the splendid deeds, (even though I am) not close to be true because the sign (goal?) is too high. I'm Music, who with sweet accents knows how to make quiet every troubled heart, and (who) now with noble wrath, now with love, can inflame even the coldest minds. .. or something like that. Just to compare, this is the beginning of Tosca by Puccini, again from operamanager: Ah! Finalmente! Nel terror mio stolto Vedea ceffi di birro in ogni volto. La pila... la colonna... "A piè della Madonna" mi scrisse mia sorella... Ecco la chiave!... ed ecco la Cappella! I personally had to look up "ceffi" (faces) and "(S)birro" (nightwatch), but even so I think everybody will agree that this is much more like modern spoken Italian. Edited by Iversen on 25 August 2006 at 5:39pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| vilas Pentaglot Senior Member Italy Joined 6964 days ago 531 posts - 722 votes Speaks: Spanish, Italian*, English, French, Portuguese | Message 16 of 27 26 August 2006 at 3:20am | IP Logged | |||||
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"From my beloved Permesso " ???
maybe is "From my permitted (allowed)lover" I am not sure. The rest of the translation seems perfect , but many italians cannot do it. I agree about the beginning of Tosca , it's like modern Italian , and every italian can understand even "birro" (now we say "sbirro") and "ceffi" that are still used. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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