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And is Tuscan regarded as a dialect or as a language by modern Italian linguists?

I am interested mostly in its lexical peculiarities, but some interesting features of syntax would be of a great value, too.

The main thing is that the features should make this dialect different from other varieties of Italian and/or other Romance dialects/languages.

Please notice that the phenomenon of Tuscan gorgia is already known to me.

Have there ever been literature written in this dialect (and not in the Italian per se, which, to the best of my knowledge, is also based on Tuscan)? Are there any documents to attest its development on time?

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    In Tuscany there are different varieties: Livorno, Pisa, Firenze, etc... But even if they differ from each other enough to be distinguishable while still presenting some traits in common, I guess you're referring to the dialect from Firenze? They're not considered languages, but especially when speaking of Tuscany, the term "vernacular" is used more.
    – Alenanno
    Commented Jun 24, 2013 at 9:20
  • Are there any variety regarded as the eldest one, with the most ancient traits?
    – Manjusri
    Commented Jun 24, 2013 at 10:22
  • @Manjusri: What do you mean by eldest? All the dialects can surely be traced back as far as Latin can be traced back.
    – hippietrail
    Commented Jun 25, 2013 at 2:04
  • Does the "Dialectal features" section of the Tuscan dialects Wikipedia article not provide what you're looking for?
    – hippietrail
    Commented Jun 25, 2013 at 2:18
  • Not quite; it gives the overall picture, while I am looking for more details.
    – Manjusri
    Commented Jun 25, 2013 at 4:21

2 Answers 2

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The Italian language is actually taken from the Tuscan. So, no particular set of differences, apart from those described in the already mentioned Wikipedia article

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuscan_language

The basic things are the "Tuscan Gorgia" (phonetic), the strong use of impersonal constructs and the transformation of some verbs ("io fo"). Moreover, you would hear things as "la mi' mamma" instead of "mia mamma" (my mother). This means that they use an article and shorten the possessive adjective when indicating people. Tuscan people also tend to put an article before the forename when indicating someone, but I think this only applies to females.

As already said, apart from those peculiarities, Tuscan has nothing particularly different form standard Italian, which was directly taken from it. As standard Italian, it shows much more interesting differences with other Italian dialects. This is due to the history of the peninsula, which was dominated by many people during time, and this has generated a great deal of dissimilarity. But, as for Tuscan, you may think of it as the one that, among all, became standard Italian.

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  • I'm assuming you mean the modern literarly standard Italian is based on the Tuscan dialect. Is that the case? Also do you mean only females use the article before forenames or that speakers of any gender use the article before only the forenames of females?
    – hippietrail
    Commented Jun 28, 2013 at 7:30
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    The Italian language (the official language of Italy) has been taken from the dialect of one of its parts, namely Tuscany. Italy did not exist as a nation and was divided into different micro-states. The writer Alessandro Manzoni, when writing his famous novel "I promessi sposi", stated that he wanted to "sciacquare i panni in Arno" (metaphorically speaking, it means using the correct Italian language as it was present in Tuscany - Arno is Florence's river). As for the second, I mean that Tuscan people may call a female with an article before the forename (e.g., "la Paola va a scuola").
    – martina.physics
    Commented Jun 28, 2013 at 12:07
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    The statement that “Tuscan has nothing particularly different form [sic] standard Italian, which was directly taken from it” is true only to a limited extent. Standard Italian is based on the written form of the Tuscan dialect used by Dante and Petrarch, and does not take into account the changes in the language since the establishment of the orthography. Thus, standard Italian writes “la casa” and pronounces it as /la ʹkasa/, but the people in Tuscany actually say [la ʹhasa].
    – fdb
    Commented Feb 19, 2014 at 14:15
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Besides the differences already pointed out, as a Tuscan I am corrected by non-Tuscans when I say "sgraffio" instead of "graffio" or something like " a me mi piace" instead of "a me piace". Or when we call our fathers "babbo" instead of padre or papa'.

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