Central Italian (Italian: dialetti mediani “central dialects”) refers to the indigenous varieties of Italo-Romance spoken in much of Central Italy.

Background

In the early Middle Ages, the Central Italian area extended north into Romagna and covered all of modern-day Lazio. Some peripheral varieties have since been assimilated into Gallo-Italic and Southern Italo-Romance respectively. In addition, the dialect of Rome has undergone considerable Tuscanization from the fifteenth century onwards, such that it has lost many of its Central Italian features. (The speech of the local Jewish community was less affected.)

Subdivisions

The Central Italian dialect area is bisected by isoglosses that roughly follow a line running from Rome to Ancona (see map). The zones to the south and north of this line are sometimes called the Area Mediana and Area Perimediana respectively. (Area Mediana may also be used in a broader sense to refer to both zones.) Pellegrini's Carta dei dialetti d’Italia features the following divisions:

Phonological features

Except for its southern fringe, the Area Mediana is characterized by a contrast between the final vowels and, which distinguishes it from both the Area Perimediana (to the north) and from Southern Italo-Romance (to the south). Compare the words and in the dialect of Spoleto (from Latin crēdō, tēctum ‘I believe’, ‘roof’). Most of the Area Mediana shows voicing of plosives after nasal consonants, as in ‘cloak’, a feature shared with neighbouring Southern Italo-Romance. In the Area Mediana are found the following vocalic phenomena: Sound-changes (or lack thereof) that distinguish most or all of Central Italian from Tuscan include the following. Many of them shared with Southern Italo-Romance. Sound-changes with a limited distribution within the Area Mediana include: In the north of the Area Perimediana, a number of Gallo-Italic features are found: The following changes to final vowels are found in the Area Perimediana:

Morphological features

Syntactic features