Richie’s Italian Dialect
In many Italian neighborhoods throughout the U.S., a unique and colorful Italian dialect can still be heard. It originated with the early twentieth century immigration of people from Sicily, Calabria, and Naples, and is a mixture of the dialects of those areas—words and phrases used more than a century ago—that have continued to survive. The dialects are unwritten, so the spelling is completely arbitrary. Also, the pronunciation differs slightly in different parts of the country; that heard in the East Coast will differ a bit from what is spoken in Chicago or San Francisco. These differences pale, however, compared to differences with the Italian used today in Italy.
Many people in the U.S. are attempting to create a glossary of this dialect so it is not lost for
