PratoPrato (ˈprɑːtoʊ , ˈpraːto) is a city and comune in Tuscany, Italy, the capital of the Province of Prato. The city lies north east of Tuscany, at an elevation of , at the foot of Monte Retaia (the last peak in the Calvana chain). With 195,213 inhabitants , Prato is Tuscany's second largest city (after Florence) and the third largest in Central Italy (after Rome and Florence). Historically, Prato's economy has been based on the textile industry and its district is the largest in Europe.
LenitionIn linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them more sonorous. The word lenition itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin lēnis 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language at a particular point in time) and diachronically (as a language changes over time). Lenition can involve such changes as voicing a voiceless consonant, causing a consonant to relax occlusion, to lose its place of articulation (a phenomenon called debuccalization, which turns a consonant into a glottal consonant like h or ʔ), or even causing a consonant to disappear entirely.
Tuscan gorgiaThe Tuscan gorgia (gorgia toscana ˈɡɔrdʒa tosˈkaːna, ˈɡɔɾdʒa θosˈkaːna; "Tuscan throat") is a phonetic phenomenon governed by a complex of allophonic rules characteristic of the Tuscan dialects, in Tuscany, Italy, especially the central ones, with Florence traditionally viewed as the center. The gorgia affects the voiceless stops k t̪ and p, which are pronounced as fricative consonants in post-vocalic position (when not blocked by the competing phenomenon of syntactic gemination): /k/ → h /t/ → θ /p/ → ɸ An example: the word identificare ("to identify") /identifiˈkare/ is pronounced by a Tuscan speaker as ˌidentifiˈhaːɾe, not as identifiˈkaːre, as standard Italian phonology would require.
Corsican languageCorsican (corsu ˈkorsu, ˈkɔrsu; full name: lingua corsa ˈliŋɡwa ˈɡorsa, ˈliŋɡwa ˈɡɔrsa) is a Romance language constituted by the continuum of the Italo-Dalmatian dialects spoken on the Mediterranean island of Corsica (France) and on the northern end of the island of Sardinia (Italy). Corsican is related to the Tuscan varieties from the Italian peninsula, and therefore also to the Florentine-based standard Italian.
Italian languageItalian (italiano itaˈljaːno or lingua italiana ˈliŋɡwa itaˈljaːna) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. Together with Sardinian, Italian is the least divergent language from Latin. Spoken by about 85 million people (2022), Italian is an official language in Italy, San Marino, Switzerland (Ticino and the Grisons), and is the primary language of Vatican City. It has official minority status in Croatia and in some areas of Slovenian Istria.
Dante AlighieriDante Alighieri (ˈdante aliˈɡjɛːri; 1265 – 14 September 1321), most likely baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (ˈdɑːnteɪ,_ˈdænteɪ,_ˈdænti, USˈdɑːnti), was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher. His Divine Comedy, originally called Comedìa (modern Italian: Commedia) and later christened Divina by Giovanni Boccaccio, is widely considered one of the most important poems of the Middle Ages and the greatest literary work in the Italian language.
Giovanni BoccaccioGiovanni Boccaccio (UKbəˈkætʃioʊ, USboʊˈkɑːtʃ(i)oʊ,_bə-, dʒoˈvanni bokˈkattʃo; 16 June 1313 – 21 December 1375) was an Italian writer, poet, correspondent of Petrarch, and an important Renaissance humanist. Born in the town of Certaldo, he became so well known as a writer that he was sometimes simply known as "the Certaldese" and one of the most important figures in the European literary panorama of the fourteenth century.
ArezzoArezzo (UKəˈrɛtsəʊ,_æˈr- , USɑːˈr- , aˈrettso) is a city and comune in Italy and the capital of the province of the same name located in Tuscany. Arezzo is about southeast of Florence at an elevation of above sea level. As of 2022, the population was about 97,000. Known as the city of gold and of the high fashion, Arezzo was home to artists and poets such as Giorgio Vasari, Guido of Arezzo and Guittone d'Arezzo and in its province to Renaissance artist Michelangelo.
CorsicansThe Corsicans (Corsican, Italian and Ligurian: Corsi; French: Corses) are a Romance ethnic group. They are native to Corsica, a Mediterranean island and a territorial collectivity of France. Prehistory of Corsica and History of Corsica The island was populated since the Mesolithic (Dame de Bonifacio) and the Neolithic by people who came from the Italian peninsula, especially the modern regions of Tuscany and Liguria. An important megalithic tradition developed locally since the 4th millennium BC.
