O' Napoletan'!

When I first came to Penn State my counselor told me I needed to talk a language in order to pursue the Paterno Fellow program. I thought to myself that after living in Italy for a few years it wouldn’t be that hard. My first day the professor spoke in nothing but Italian. I understood everything he said, as the students around me were starting to sweat bullets. I thought that I would never have to study. Sure enough that Friday we were to have our first grammatical review quiz. Of course I didn’t study.

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When the quiz came back I was shocked. How on earth could I have gotten a C? I was so embarrassed. Then I realized: I was implementing the dialect that I picked up without even thinking. Italy is notorious for the various forms of dialect, especially in the south. Napoletano, the dialect spoken in Naples, is more known to foreigners than the actual language. This is due to its popularity in many famous Italian songs.  In almost all mafia movies and the like Neapolitan is the preferred dialect. Unfortunately, for those who pick up on this, they are out of luck for grammatical purposes. The articles are almost always dropped for bare vowels, plurals are never correct (my errors on the quiz). However, I cannot understand all of it. It is a completely different language, and frowned upon by all other parts of Italy. In Rome, hotels will not admit people who speak with a southern dialect. When asked where I lived when I was up north, I would always say Rome. Saying I lived in Naples was an instant ticket to higher cab fees, no open hotel rooms, and downright poor service.

La Vera Pizza is a traditional pizzeria downtown in Pizza Plebiscito, in which there is always a group of men singing traditional Neapolitan music. Even though I do not understand all the words, its an opportunity that anyone visiting Naples should never miss. They come to each table and play a range of songs, which tends to draw crowds of people to listen to their music. I cannot blame them for picking up on the poor grammatical phrases; however, I am not ashamed to say I can speak their dialect. I just have learned to keep it out of the classroom.