Establishing the boundaries that separate the Roman dialect from Italian is difficult since Roman dialect compared to the Italian language “is found in a continuum position, that is, there is no gap between language and dialect”. Speaking to Adnkronos is the president of the Accademia della Crusca, Paolo D’Achille, professor of Italian Linguistics at the University of Roma Tre, regarding the controversy opened by the Roman rapper Piotta after his album ‘Na notte infame’ was excluded from the top five for the Tenco prize because “the lyrics of the opera are not written and sung for more than 50% in any dialect or minority language”. In this case – claims D’Achille, who in his research activity has dealt with dialects and in particular with the Roman dialect, publishing among other things the ‘Vocabolario del romanesco contemporaneo’ together with Claudio Giovanardi – “I would agree with Piotta. The Roman dialect, in fact, has structures closer to Italian and took on a Tuscanization in the sixteenth century”, underlines D’Achille who observes: “The Tenco Club used a criterion that, probably, in the case of the Roman dialect should have been tempered”.
“In Belli – argues the president of the Crusca – the dialectal aspect was due to the spelling that he dialectized a lot. In many situations, for example, the double ‘zeta’ as a pronunciation was also typical of Italian. We need to see how the lyrics of the songs are written but – he reiterates – I would agree with Piotta, because establishing the percentage of Roman and Italian is very difficult”. Even more so “because many Roman elements have been acquired by Italian. It is difficult to say if a word is Roman because Italian has also appropriated it. We find the word ‘ammazza’ even in Italian dictionaries, but there is no doubt that it is an originally local word. The boundaries between Italian and Roman are very narrow because there is a continuous passage from one to the other. It is only in the context of the actual pronunciation that we perceive the Romanness”, concludes the linguist. (By Carlo Roma)
Club Tenco: “The Roman culture in Piotta’s songs was not doubted”
The Club Tenco, in response to what was publicly written by Tommaso Zanello, aka Piotta, regarding the voting for the Tenco Plaques, is keen to specify that “the representativeness of Roman culture in the artist’s songs is not questioned, which does not imply that it is a dialect or minority language. Aware of the authoritative opinion of Paolo D’Achille, president of the Accademia della Crusca (interviewed by Adnkronos ed.), we would like to underline that – we read in a note. – even if it is difficult to establish a boundary between Roman dialect and Italian, for practical purposes a boundary must be drawn in order to assign the awards, even more so because the category ‘Best album in dialect or minority language spoken in Italy’ was created with the aim. precise aim of enhancing a cultural heritage (linguistic, specifically) that would otherwise not be considered”.
And again – explains Club Tenco – in the album ‘Na notte infame’, only one song out of 11 is in Roman dialect (‘Lella…e poi’), 7 songs are in standard Italian (‘Ognuno con un se’ , ‘Praise God’, ‘Roman Ode’, ‘I’m not afraid’, ‘Se se se se’, ‘Children of a storm’, ‘What love is’) and 3 lyrics (”Na notte infame’, ‘Professore’, ‘Serpico’) contain sporadic traits classifiable as dialect inserted within an Italian text. The 2024 regulation of the Targhe Tenco for ‘The best records of the year’ states: ‘Sections 1, 2 and 4 must contain at least half of the songs that belong to the category in which they compete, except in cases to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis’. therefore – the note continues – it is believed that the album in question does not have the linguistic requirements to compete in section 2 (Best album in dialect or minority language spoken in Italy), as the dialect component is clearly less than 50% of the total.
It is specified that in the registration form filled out online by the artist’s staff, the self-nomination was inserted only in category 2 (Best album in dialect or minority language spoken in Italy) and that in the form it is mandatory to accept that whoever sends the application is ‘responsible for choosing the category’. Finally, all jurors are specified in writing that ‘the choice of category must comply with the regulations. By getting the category wrong, there is a risk that the votes will be canceled in the control phase, at the end of the voting.’ For Club Tenco the issue ends here, the note concludes.
The questions
A transchant note that intends to impose the conclusion of a cultural comparison and that says a lot about the approach of the Club Tenco board. However, those who have the intelligence to ask themselves questions ask themselves: why not carry out the check on the congruity of the records with respect to the category before the vote and not after, thus avoiding that votes are lost? If Piotta’s record was not “compliant” would it not have been more respectful towards the judges to allow them to use the vote for other artists? And would these votes have changed the final ranking and therefore the top five? Finally, one last question: but if some (it is not known how many) music journalists voted for that record for the “dialect” section, does this not in fact mean, being a non-objective evaluation as the Accademia della Crusca explains well, that that record was considered adequate for that category?
