Double Double Italian Italian Consonants Consonants

Languages are musical creations, with rhythm and tone contributing as much to fluency as grammar and vocabulary. Where music has tempo and melody, language has cadence and intonation, the two terms known to linguists as the prosody of language. Many times, the differences between the prosody of two languages is stark, other times more subtle. In English, for example, the distinction between a single consonant and a doubled consonant is an unimportant one, each getting a single "beat" in the musical bar of a sentence. In Italian, however, a doubled consonant is assigned two "beats", though this distinction often goes unnoticed by many non-natives.

Before beginning the discussion, I would like to make an important distinction between doubled consonants and syntactic doubling. During our discussion of the letter "s" in Italian, I mentioned syntactic doubling, which occurs to initial consonants when they are preceded by certain conditions (for example unstressed monosyllabic words like fa or va). In the majority of cases, no change is made to the way these words are written as in the case of Andiamo a casa. However, when a phrase is popular enough to be combined into one word, we see an alteration in spelling. When chi (who) and sa (know) are put together, to form chissà (who knows?) the s doubles in writing. I'll specifically discuss how a doubled consonant is pronounced in Italian and some misconceptions we may have due to what we believe are similarities in English.

In order to see the differences between Italian words with doubled consonants and those with single ones, we will look at a variety of minimal pairs. A minimal pair is a pair of words which differ by only one sound, such as sete (thirst) and sette (seven) or andremo (we will go) and andremmo (we would go). By using examples which only change by one sound, we are eliminating outside cues which may influence perceived meaning.

Let's begin with how double consonants are produced. Say the English words pepper, bobble, and nanny. When pronounced correctly, there should be no difference between the first and second consonant. In Italian, this is not the case. To imagine what a doubled consonant sounds like in Italian, picture what happens to phrases such as bad dog, bus stop, or even bookkeeper. In order to distinguish between the end of one word and the beginning of the next, we draw out the timing of the length, deliberately pronouncing each as a separate letter. Now try pronouncing the two Italian words pena (pain) and penna (pen). The n in the second word should sound similar to how an English speaker might say "in New York" when speaking slowly. Particular attention should be paid to which consonants lengthen in Italian speech; some are pronounced as double, even when they are only written once. The sh sound, for example, of scenza or moscia is lengthened every time.

So why is this important? Reverse the situation for a moment and think of what happens when someone with a heavy accent pronounces some English words incorrectly. In discussing the erre moscia phenomenon, I pointed out how accent affects how we perceive the person speaking to us. Here is a more personal example. While in class one day in Italy, two Italians asked me in heavily accented English, "A 'beech' is a place for swimming, no?" I said that it was. "But a 'beech' is also a female dog? How?" I repeated each word carefully with the correct pronunciation and they looked at me smugly. "See? They are exactly the same."

While they would probably never think anyone insulting was saying "you son of a sandy swimming area!" their inability to hear differences in vowel sounds leaves them vulnerable to other misunderstandings. It is easy for us to believe that the difference between i and ee is a blatant one and even go so far as to point out that a doubled consonant may change meaning in English as well. However it is important to keep in mind that this the distinction is only a written one. Say the words dinner/diner, comma/coma, and desert/dessert out loud and see if you can hear what changes. In the first two models, the vowel alters from short to long and in the third example, nothing changes except which syllable is stressed. Verbally, there has been no change whatsoever to the consonants.

The same applies to English verbs which use doubled consonants when changing tense such as swimming, deterred, and hopped. In each example, a consonant has doubled when the verb shifts from the simple present tense to the gerund (swim to swimming) or the past tense (deter to deterred and hop to hopped). However, it must be noted that the addition of a second consonant is not what changes the tense. Instead, endings –ing and –ed are used to indicate the alteration.

Mastery of a language's accent sometimes means wrapping your mouth around letters which feel strange or differences which sound nonexistent. When learning a foreign language we deliberately look for examples which sound similar to our own, ways of reducing the amount of memorization we must do or keys to comprehending what is seemingly nonsensicle.

About the Author: Britten Milliman is a native of Rockland County, New York, whose interest in foreign languages began at age three, when her cousin introduced her to Spanish. Her interest in linguistics and languages from around the globe runs deep but Italian and the people who speak it hold a special place in her heart.