10 June--thoughts on the language

Waiting for the train to La Spezia:

One of the main differences about this language is the vowels. Often, within a syllable, it is not the whole syllable that is accented but only the vowel. And the vowel sounds are unlike any others either in my language or in French, or in the little Spanish that I have heard. The diphthongs are completely gone, but in their place is a difficult type of accent, or voice modulation, or something. What happens is that extreme care must be taken to say one’s e’s with that non-French “a” sounds, and one’s i’s thickly but consistently throughout, and one’s a’s drawn out into two beats.
Perhaps one of the most challenging words is one that we hear quite often: grazie. The hardest part is the rhythm of the “ie,” which, when first learned, is pronounced as two distinct syllables, “zee—ay.” On further instruction it quickens a bit, to “tsz—uh.” But now, hearing it in cafés and after money exchanges hands, it becomes clear that it is actually an “ah” sound, something off the cuff and expansive and something that opens one’s mouth wide at the beginning but at the end ends up something at the back of one’s mouth, by the molars and the edge of one’s tongue.
It interests me very much to hear Americans with other accents speaking Italian, or other language-speakers speaking it. For example, a French woman approached me in Monterosso when we came in on the train (I was carrying a copy of Le Monde) and when she pronounced “Manarola” it was with that slippery French way of making the whole word more accented than any one syllable, and the a’s were breathy and it made more sense to me than it ever has in Italian. When she said “Vernazza” the “ver” was spoken like “verre” (glass) or “vers” (toward), and the z’s had a small Italian sound but just enough to make it clear. After we spoke, she asked me de quelle region was I from; I said we were Americans (I tried to say “sono” and then “siamo” before I remembered that I ought to say “nous sommes”) and she said “Mais vous parlez tres bien!” so I smiled the rest of the day and was altogether unbearable.
Eating dinner our first night here I overheard a woman with a strong Southern accent repeating what a man (one of our waiters) had just said to her: Che bella (ké bellah). It is impossible to describe how she made it sound entirely Dixie without even a hind of the original pronunciation.
I understand now why when Italians speak English they add an “uh” sound at the end of words, and at the end of sentences—because in Italian you are never without a vowel to make your phrase a question or an indignant statement. In French it seems to be that the emotions are created by intonation that occurs somewhere at the upper end of the throat, underneath the tongue, and between the teeth . . .