The Neapolitan language in song

A language, not an accent

Neapolitan, in its own words napulitano, is a Romance language of the Italo-Dalmatian branch spoken in most of continental southern Italy. It is named after the Kingdom of Naples, which once covered most of the area and had the city as its capital. On 14 October 2008 a law of the Campania region stated that Neapolitan was to be protected. Within Italy it holds no formal national status.

Why songs use it

All Neapolitan songs are written and performed in the Neapolitan language. The music is sung by many non-Neapolitan singers, but it is difficult to sing correctly without knowing the dialect, which is crucial for the right inflection. A few outsiders have written dialect songs of their own, the most famous examples being 'A vucchella by Gabriele D'Annunzio and Tu sì 'na cosa grande by Domenico Modugno.

How it sounds

The most striking difference from Italian is in pronunciation. Unstressed vowels weaken into a schwa, the sound of the a in about, which is why a title such as 'O sole mio is pronounced with soft final vowels. Neapolitan also treats some consonant clusters differently: where Italian has mondo and quando, Neapolitan has munno and quanno. Many Neapolitans also speak Italian with a Neapolitan accent, using the same vowel weakening.

What sets it apart from Italian

Pronunciation is the strongest barrier to comprehension, but the grammar is what sets the language apart. Neapolitan has neuter nouns and a unique plural formation, and gender and number are marked by a change in the accented vowel, not in the final vowel as in Italian. Italian and Neapolitan are mutually understandable to a variable degree, depending on the speakers.

Literature and the stage

Neapolitan has a rich literary, musical and theatrical history. Wikipedia names Giambattista Basile, Eduardo Scarpetta, his son Eduardo De Filippo, Salvatore Di Giacomo and Totò. Thanks to that heritage and to the work of Renato Carosone in the 1950s, it is still used in popular music, and Pino Daniele and the Nuova Compagnia di Canto Popolare brought it national attention.

A language that travelled

Largely because of mass emigration from southern Italy in the late 19th and 20th centuries, there are Neapolitan speakers in Italian communities in the United States, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Mexico and Venezuela. In the United States, contact with English and with Sicilian has made traditional Neapolitan significantly different from the speech of Naples today. Neapolitan has also influenced the intonation of the Spanish spoken in Buenos Aires and in Uruguay, which is one more way its sound has travelled.

Listening without the words

You do not need to understand Neapolitan to enjoy a concert of its songs. The themes are familiar: love, longing, the sea, the sun, Naples itself. A glance at a translation of one or two titles in advance is enough to know what a song is about. When the sing-along arrives, the tune carries you, and guests who knew none of the words describe it as universal.

Read next: 'O sole mio: the story

Who this isn't for

If you want to learn to speak Neapolitan, a one-hour concert will not teach it. The University of Naples Federico II has offered courses in Campanian dialectology since 2003, but their aim is to study the language's history and social role, not to teach students to speak it. For this concert, listening is enough. And if you want a shortcut to fluency, an hour of songs will give you a handful of sounds and a tune, not a grammar.