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17th and 18th century Italian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| ofdw Diglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5855 days ago 39 posts - 47 votes Speaks: English*, Italian | Message 1 of 6 05 June 2009 at 3:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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Can anyone recommend any good resources for learning about 17th and 18th century Italian?
I speak and read pretty good Italian (though not fluently yet), but I am a musician and often work with settings of poetry from the baroque era; I am gradually getting a feel for some of the more obvious differences, but I'd love to find a book or guide to grammar and vocabulary or other linguistic features of the language in this period. Any suggestions? Many thanks Oliver Webber 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| pohaku Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5651 days ago 192 posts - 367 votes  Speaks: English*, Persian Studies: Arabic (classical), French, German, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 2 of 6 06 June 2009 at 2:34am | IP Logged | ||
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I know very little Italian as yet, but I've been working through Petrarch's sonnets (14th C) for about a month, with a thorough Italian grammar <http://www.amazon.com/Reference-Grammar-Modern-Italian/d p/0071478736/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1244247899&sr=1- 9> and Hoare's 1925 Cambridge "Italian Dictionary" at hand, and doing alright. The old dictionary has a lot of information about older forms of words, lots of examples of uses, and such. I looked pretty hard and didn't find anything better. I'm also interested in 16-18th C. Italian because we love operas and other vocal music of the period.
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| ofdw Diglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5855 days ago 39 posts - 47 votes Speaks: English*, Italian | Message 3 of 6 11 June 2009 at 12:47pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for the suggestion - I'll see if I can find the Hoare. I read about a 17th century dictionary by Jean Florio, which sounds perfect - and you can buy a facsimile copy... for £693!! So I'll have to give that a miss unfortunately.
I wonder if there are courses in Italian for Opera? Singers study it in some detail but I guess mainly for pronunciation. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| pohaku Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5651 days ago 192 posts - 367 votes Speaks: English*, Persian Studies: Arabic (classical), French, German, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 4 of 6 11 June 2009 at 7:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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My impression so far, from decoding Petrarch and Dante making abundant use of cribs to help me understand what's going on (remember, I'm just learning Italian now by doing this), is that even their 13-14 c. Italian is reasonably comprehensible even if you have to use a modern grammar and dictionary. I ran across a comment that Italian--at least literary Italian--had changed little since the time of Dante, partly because he, Plutarch, and Boccaccio exerted such a normalizing influence on the language. I'll bet you will do pretty well whether or not you can find any specialized resources.
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| ofdw Diglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5855 days ago 39 posts - 47 votes Speaks: English*, Italian | Message 5 of 6 12 June 2009 at 10:36pm | IP Logged | ||
Absolutely - and so far, so good, or at least, so reasonable! But I'd love to find a specialised resource so that I can get to the bottom of some of the differences in vocab, style and grammar. For example, I notice that sometimes it *seems* the passato remoto is used in old Italian where in modern Italian the past subjunctive would be preferred - but I'd love to be sure about this! Thanks for the advice anyway. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| TheBiscuit Tetraglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 5923 days ago 532 posts - 619 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Italian Studies: German, Croatian | Message 6 of 6 15 June 2009 at 7:22pm | IP Logged | ||
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Dante is very accessible. I'm currently going through the Divine Comedy (in Italian) with bilingual (Eng/Spa) high school kids and they can make out what's going on, and even seem to like it.
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