DCBassman
Guru
- Location
- The lumpy far South West
So, how DO you say, "Ciabatta"?
Asking for a friend...
Asking for a friend...
Phrases I`m getting increasingly sick of hearing
- Thread starter iateyoubutler
- Start date
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Mugshot
Cracking a solo.
glasgowcyclist
Charming but somewhat feckless
- Location
- Scotland
It's chabatta rather than chee-abatta.
MontyVeda
a short-tempered ill-controlled small-minded troll
- Location
- Lancaster... the little city.
Why do the Italians pronounce a 'c' as 'ch' but 'ch' as 'k'... eg. ciabatta and chianti 
Info-graphic is one of those modern phrases that really twists my gonads
Info-graphic is one of those modern phrases that really twists my gonads
DCBassman
Guru
- Location
- The lumpy far South West
Aye thang-yew!
(Also very irritating, sorry...)
DCBassman
Guru
- Location
- The lumpy far South West
Erm...because?Why do the Italians pronounce a 'c' as 'ch' but 'ch' as 'k'... eg. ciabatta and chianti
glasgowcyclist
Charming but somewhat feckless
- Location
- Scotland
Why do the Italians pronounce a 'c' as 'ch' but 'ch' as 'k'... eg. ciabatta and chianti
In Italian the letter c is always a hard k sound unless it is followed by an i or an e, in which case it changes to the ch as in church sound. Same applies with the letter g. It's hard as in goal unless followed by an i or an e when it becomes like the j in journey.
Edit to add: Italian is a largely phonetic language, what you see is what you say. Spare a thought for learners of English who have to grapple with the illogical pronunciation of things like 'ough'. Why don't the words through, though, bough, cough, plough, rough, dough, trough and hiccough all sound the same?
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Gasman
Old enough to know better, too old to care!
- Location
- Third Rock From The Sun
Most Italian words put stress on the second last syllable so "cha-BAT-ah"
Mugshot
Cracking a solo.
CanucksTraveller
Macho Business Donkey Wrestler
- Location
- Hertfordshire
Drago
Legendary Member
- Location
- Suburban Poshshire
Just when I thought it was safe to turn on the tv, I find that this phenomenon has reached epidemic proportions today. Now I know why Elvis used to keep a .44 at home to shoot the tv with.
Or, as I was taught,
I's and E's soften C's and G's...
Shut Up Legs
Down Under Member
English spelling and proncunciation rules are even worse!Why do the Italians pronounce a 'c' as 'ch' but 'ch' as 'k'... eg. ciabatta and chianti
Info-graphic is one of those modern phrases that really twists my gonads
Compared to English, French and Italian seem positively Vulcan in their logicality by comparison.
Maverick Goose
A jumped up pantry boy, who never knew his place
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- A champagne supernova in the sky
'A new dawn' or 'a new era'😫🤬💩...also 'B*$%^*'.
Long read because I'm hungover, it's confusing as hell and I have nothing better to doWhy do the Italians pronounce a 'c' as 'ch' but 'ch' as 'k'... eg. ciabatta and chianti
Italian is closely related to Vulgar Latin and keeps many of its conventions although drops some of its letters. If anything it's the Germanic languages (including English) that have everything backwards.
In Classical Latin, 'c', 'k', and 'q' were all used interchangeably depending upon where they appeared in a word to describe the sounds we recognise today as 'k' and the hard 'g'.
The Romans pronounced "c" as a hard /k/. Caesar = K-eye-zar, Cicero = Kickero.
Written Latin didn't have any native way of representing the syllable /tʃ/ (the sound we recognise in English as "ch"), hell, I can't find any sources that suggest that this sound even existed in the language.
'ch' in Italian as a hard k came from directly transliterating from Classical Greek - the Greek letter 'chi', (pronounced in Classical Greek as 'ki', written with the character 'Χ' in the Greek alphabet (because linguistics isn't confusing enough already)).
As far as I can tell the Italian 'ci' came about for two reasons:
- Greek itself evolved - the pronunciation of their letter 'chi' changed to the modern one with the /tʃ/ sound, so transliteration of modernised Greek into Latin will have reflected this change, particularly with the spread of Christianity and the existence of Church Latin
- the fall of the Western Roman Empire caused Latin to fragment into separate languages.
Why both 'ch' and 'ci' in Italian survived the change to the Greek pronunciation with different outcomes, I have no idea. It's not like the letter k doesn't exist in the Latin alphabet.
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