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Concept
Salentino dialect
Summary
Salentino (salentinu) is a dialect of the Extreme Southern Italian (Italiano meridionale estremo in Italian) spoken in the Salento peninsula, which is the southern part of the region of Apulia at the southern "heel" of the Italian peninsula.
Salentino is a dialect of the Extreme Southern Italian language group (in Italian Italiano meridionale estremo). It is thus closer to the Southern Calabrian dialect and the dialects of Sicily than to the geographically less distant dialects of central and northern Apulia.
The traditional areas where Salentino is spoken are the aforementioned Province of Lecce, much of the southern part of the province of Brindisi, and the southern part of Taranto province.
The Salentino dialect is a product of the different powers and/or populations that have had a presence in the peninsula over the centuries: indigenous Messapian, Ancient Greek, Roman, Byzantine Greek, Lombard, French and Spanish influences are all, to differing levels, present in the modern dialect, but the Greek substratum has had a particular impact on the phonology and the lexicon of this language. Salentino is thus a derivative of local dialects of Vulgar Latin, with a strong Greek substratum.
During the Middle Ages, the area was home to both Romance-based dialects–the precursors to the modern Salentino–and Greek-based dialects in roughly equal measure. The areas of Greek speech have retreated over time, but Salento remains one of two areas of southern Italy, the other being southern Calabria, where Griko can still be heard in some villages (today known collectively as the Grecìa Salentina).
The term Salentino should be considered a general word to describe the various Romance vernaculars of the Salento peninsula, rather than one to describe a unified standard language spoken throughout the area. Indeed, in common with most other Italian languages, there are no agreed standards for spelling, grammar or pronunciation, with each locality and even generation having its own peculiarities.
Official source
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