The Tuscan dialects have a more conservative character than the other dialects of the peninsula. In particular, the Florentine could be said to be the most faithful and pure heir of Latin. The most salient positive trait common to all these dialects together is the development of – rj – in -j- in front of – r – of the remaining part of Italy (tosc. Bujo , aja in front of buro , ara of the other dialects: v. cart.); the most important negative trait is the lack of metaphones. Also given (which is possible, but not demonstrable) that the diphthongs of e and o ( slight , good , etc.) – which constitute another distinctive character of the Tuscan – originated from a thrust due to – u and – the endings and extended to the other forms by leveling, it always remains that no trace is left of the metaphonesis for sure documentable. On the other hand, this diphthongization could have a very different reason and be connected rather with the high-Italian diphthongizations than with the central-southern ones.
In Florence, in the Mugello, in the Valdarno, in the Val d’Elsa, we have what we call the most sincere Tuscan or of the Florentine type , with that particular aspiration and frication of the momentary deaf intervocalic k , t , p (e.g., the hasa ; amaho ; rifa “ripa”) which overflows in related dominions and which could be of Etruscan reason, and with that phenomenon of i and u for e and o in front of palatal and n -l- guttural (in cases, that is, which family , language , wins, unghia , therefore in front of the common Tuscans fameglia , lengua , vence , onghia , donque ), which alone would be enough to attest to the Florentine basis of the literary language, if other phenomena were not aided, for example, the treatment of intervocalic consonants, such as except for aspiration and frication, in literary Italian (as fior. fatigue , tosc. fadiga ), the treatment of the nasal after the tonic is reflected in proparoxitones (as camera , tosc. camera, fior . starch , semolina , etc. ., but female ).
Alongside the Florentine, a western group of Tuscan dialects ( Pisan – Lucca – Pistoia ) can be formed by keeping an eye on the following phenomena: a ) – s – e – ss – per – z – e – zz -, for example, speransa , bellessa , duressa , also for sonorous, e.g., orśo , pranśo , raśśo instead of orźo, pranźo , raźźo, etc. This trait especially of Lucca (but it is already found in Galician of Pisa and flickers even in Dante: fersa , pranse , Inf . XXV, 79 and Purg . XXVII, 76) is found, as is natural, already in ancient texts (Bon addition. Discordo II: duresse ); b ) – str – in – ss -, for example, mossare “show”, nosso , vosso “ours, yours”, etc. Today this phenomenon has disappeared; but the ancient texts have it and Corsica still maintains it in some parlance; c ) frequency of – institution – instead of – ante ( laborer , polish ); d ) reduction of – rr – in r ( tera , gruera ); e ) o and e protons do not generally pass to u -, i – as in Florentine ( cocina , focile , mesura ); f) grading of – c – intervocalic, in voices such as seguro , regare , etc. Of the cases fameglia , vence , donque , etc. we have already spoken.
A Tuscan dialectal group, which moves further away from the literary language (and at the same time from the Florentine type) is the southern or Sienese one characterized by the turning of – er – unstressed into – ar ( vendare , debarai , etc .; the future of being , serò ), from the lack of geminata in the 1st pers. plur. of the perfect and of the conditional of all conjugations ( andamo , we will go ), from the appearance of abbreviations ro , lo in place of them , from the frequency of plurals – gli per – li – lli ( anegli , faniattli ), a Tuscan phenomenon mainly oriental and typically Umbrian.
The Arezzo – Chianaiuolo group and the Garfagnini dialects can be classified here, if we keep in mind that the former are like the bridge to reach the Umbrian languages in full and the latter lead us into the midst of the Emilian dialects. Just think of the most characteristic feature of the Arezzo dialect, that is, the palatalization of a free in e ( ballêr “dancing”) to already feel that we are outside the real Tuscan domain. Also the treatment of ê and ó ??? (in Arezzo ié ??? e ó ??? , in Città di Castello íe e úo [dúolo ] in Chiana í [ you say “ten”] and ú ), the appearance of b and d after m and i ( cámbera , gombito , sembola , cendora “cenere”, flame ), the change of the prefixes re – ri – in ar – ( armanire “remain”, arnire “revive”) and the recurrence of the particle me (from medium ), which replaces the prep. a (e.g., me te “a te”), are all phenomena that give this group a physiognomy in itself and make it the least Tuscan of the four Tuscan groups.
The Corsican can also be considered of the Tuscan type. Certainly, before the influence of Tuscany on the island, Corsica gravitated, linguistically speaking, towards Sardinia, and also had to join the central-southern dialects. Important traces of this ancient condition of things remain, as in the beyond the distinction between ē and ĭ and ō and ŭ ( canvas , piru ; soli , cruci ), the – u and the – the endings for – o and – e , the cacuminal ḍḍ for ll, etc.; but above all in the northern part there can be no doubt about the advisability of grouping Corsican with the Tuscan dialects, especially if one takes into account the ancient Tuscan of Dante and pre-dating times. Even the Sardinian Gallurese and, in particular, the Sassarese can be put in a group with the Corsican; but when we come to Logudorese and Campidanese , and when we notice the presence of – s final, a phenomenon that drags with it another capital morphological phenomenon, that is, the triumph of the plural accusative as the only inflectional form of the name, instead of the nominative, we ask ourselves, as we rightly ask for the Ladin (v.), if it really is not convenient for Sardinian to make a place for itself among the other Romance languages. The concurrence of certain precious and illustrious phenomena, such as the conservation of ĭ and ŭ and that of the velars in front of a palatile vowel (eg, chelu , ie kelu “sky”) seems to be sufficient reason to justify this privilege.
