dire / parlare

dire / parlare

say, tell / speak, talk

“Mi dica,” an Italian shopkeeper says when you enter a shop. “Tell me.”   A friend eager to know the latest gossip says the same thing but uses the informal form: “Dimmi. Dimmi tutto.” (“Tell me. Tell me everything.”)

 If you can parlucchiare (speak a little) Italian, you might want to parlare di politica (talk about politics) or just parlare del più e del meno (talk of more or less, of nothing in particular).  Sometimes this too is a way a dire molto (of saying a lot).

To tell the truth (dire la verita), I’m not always sure whether I’m about to dire or parlare when I open my mouth.  I know how to dire di si o di no (say yes or no) but I can either dire or parlare bene o male (speak well or badly) of someone.  When stumped, I ask,  “Come si dice.. (“How do you say…") or   “Cosa vuole dire questa frase?” (“What does this phrase mean?”)  “Che si dice?” (“What do you say/think? What’s up?"). I’ll ask a friend.

Sia detta fra noi (speaking just between us), I often can’t resist the chance to dire la mia (say mine, or say my piece). However, I’m wary of parlare a torto e traverso (speaking wrongly and crookedly, or badly). But that doesn’t mean I sto zitta (stay quiet). A friend once said that I have such a parlantina (chatter box) that I even parlo da sola (speak to myself). My response: “Senti chi parla!  ("Look who’s talking!") “Non parliamone più!”)  she said. ("Let’s not talk about it anymore,  let’s forget about it.")

There are things every speaker -- parlatore (m) or  parlatrice (f) – should avoid. Don’t dirla grossa (talk big to impress others) or dirne due a qualcuno (tell someone two -- a thing or two --  when angry).  Try not to parlottare (mutter) or parlare in punta di forchetta (speak on the point of a fork, or with affected elegance). Never parlare sporco (talk dirty). Above all, never sound like the pompous bores who parlare per dare fiato alla bocca (speak in order to give breath to the mouth, or just to hear themselves speak).

So what should you talk about? “Parlami d’amore!” (“Talk to me about love") is always good advice --  and the title of a popular Italian movie and song. Here are the lyrics to the chorus in Italian and English:

Parlami d’ amore

Parlami di te

Soffiami sul cuore che bruciava

Ma già vuole te

 

Talk to me about love

Talk to me about you

Blow in my heart that was burning

But already wants you

You can hear the entire song by clicking below:  

Words and Expressions

non c’e che dire -- There’s no disputing that.

far parlare qualcuno -- make someone talk

parlare a vanvera – talk at random, talk nonsense

Chi parla?  --  “Who is speaking?” (a question often asked on the telephone) 

Non se ne parla nemmeno!  --  “Don’t mention it!”

Senza dire ne ai ne bai -- without saying ai or bai,  without so much as a how-do-you-do

Ci vuole più a dirlo che a farlo -- it needs more to say than to do it,  it’s more trouble to talk about than actually do it

 

Comments

[praveen]

What does this mean in Italian?

Parlare,Amico, e Immettere!

[dianne]

Bravo, Danilo! And thank you for the wonderful linguistic lesson. I learned a lot. Grazie!

[Danilo]

I think a linguist is needed to give a satisfactory answer to your questions. As we are waiting for an authoritive response, I'll try and share my two cents, based on my recollections of the linguistics lectures I took at university. As far the K issue is concerned, Italian spelling has changed considerably during the century, as the English one has. While Latin slowly turned into primordial Italian, many sounds changed. Classical latin had only "occlusive" sounds, so the "c" was pronounced as in Cat, in all position. In late Latin, "c" followed by "i" or "e" started to be palatalized, i.e. pronounced as in "cheese" -even though in all positions. It became necessary to distinguish the two sounds in written, for instance making a difference between "ce" -as in "ce lo dai" (you give it TO US)- and "che" -as in "so che quelle terre" (I know that those lands...). The easiest way to do that was to borrow a symbol for the hard-sounding "c" from the Greek alphabet -the lingua franca of the time-, i.e. the letter kappa, which was written K in capitals. According to this article (http://www.treccani.it/Portale/sito/lingua_italiana/domande_e_risposte/grammatica/grammatica_142.html) from the Treccani encyclopaedia -the Italian counterpart to the Britannica- the fashion to write the hard c as the diphtong "ch" was started in Tuscany, which has always been a trend-setting region in Italy in many fields, especially literature and art.
As far for the relation between Italian and Polish, I guess that the fact that both Slavonic and Romance languages are Indo-European plays a role: it is probable indeed that even Italian and Polish have many roots in common, even though the internal evolution of each language may have produced outcomes which look and sound very different.
Hope this may give some explanation, even though partial and not particularly "authoritative".
To Dianne "i miei complimenti", as usual, for the interesting and very well written entry.

[dianne]

Ciao Barbara,

I am Polish (second generation American) but I don't speak the language. Through a mutual friend I met a wonderful woman who is a professor at the University of Warsaw in Rome--and we conversed in Italian!

Your comment is interesting because I grew up listening to my parents speak to each other in Polish, and maybe that primed my brain for Italian.

A presto, Dianna

[Barbara Zaragoza]

I love this blog! I am a huge lover of languages.

I also speak Polish and I'm wondering if there are any linguistic similarities/common histories in the languages in spite of the fact that one is Romance and the other is Slavic. For example, the word "to give" is the same in both languages (dac/dare -- he gave, on/liu da).

Saluti!
Barbara

[Dianne Hales]

What great questions! I don't have the answers but I know who will: the linguists Valeria della Valle and Geppi Patota of Rome. Since it's August, they are out of town on vacation, but I will contact them in September. Now I'm curious too.

I'm so glad you enjoyed the book. It was a true labor of love.

Dianne

[Larry Krakauer]

I just finished "La Bella Lingua". I brought it to my Italian conversation group to recommend it, and found one member of the group already reading it. Thank you for a great book.

One burning question stays with me: In the chapter "The unlikely rise of a vulgar tongue", an early Italian sentence starts, "Sao ko kelle terre, per kelle fini qui ki contene, ...". Where on earth did all those k's come from? Except for a few Greek words, Latin barely has a k at all, and apart from foreign words, modern Italian has none either.

There's another question I've never been able to get answered, although this was not addressed in the book: historically, how did Italian wind up marking a stressed syllable only if it is the last?

You'd think that once someone had the idea to use an accent mark to mark stress, they'd apply this everywhere a non-standard syllable is stressed (just like Spanish). Or don't mark anything, like English. But marking some stressed syllables, but not others? Rather insane.

Perhaps some of your sources could cast some light on the history of this.