There’s a lot more to Italy’s linguistic landscape than it initially looks like on the surface. Most people assume Italian is the only native language to the beloved southern European country, but Italian is merely the official language, used in schools, government, and the media. At home, Italians tend to speak what they term as “dialects” but what are, from a linguistic standpoint, better classified as separate languages. These are languages that developed across the Italian peninsula from the Vulgar Latin spoken in each respective area, so while they’re similar to Italian, they’re not the same.
Tuscan is a particularly prestigious Italian language—so prestigious, in fact, that Standard Italian is based on Tuscan’s Florentine dialect, thanks in large part to the area’s rich literary scene during the Renaissance period. But that doesn’t mean that Tuscan is Standard Italian—it remains a separate language with a myriad of differences from Italy’s official language. Roughly 3.5 million people are estimated to speak Tuscan natively, using it alongside Standard Italian, which is necessary for smooth communication with people from elsewhere in Italy. Despite Tuscan’s prestige, translation companies rarely offer dedicated Tuscan translation services, and that’s where we at TranslationServices.com are different.
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Tuscan: the origin of Standard of Italian
Tuscan is, naturally, native to Tuscany, a prominent region in Central Italy, nestled against the Ligurian and Tyrrhenian Seas. Speakers of Tuscan can also be found in Umbria, a region bordering Tuscany to its southeast. Additionally, varieties of Tuscan can even be found in Italy’s isolated island of Sardinia and its northern neighbor, France’s Corsica, although the local Sardinian and Corsican languages dominate the respective islands. Different dialects have arisen throughout the Tuscan-speaking area, with the most prestigious remaining as Fiorentino, or the Florentine dialect.
Tuscan demonstrates remarkable similarity to Standard Italian, but it differs in important ways in both grammar and vocabulary. For example, Tuscan can use the accusative second-person pronoun te, as opposed to the nominative standard tu, to add emphasis, even when used nominatively. Another interesting characteristic is Tuscan’s tendency to double the dative pronoun in dative constructions like in the phrase “I like it.” Whereas in Standard Italian, it would be a me piace or mi piace (lit. “it pleases me”), Tuscan speakers often say a me mi piace. This doubling can also be found in other parts of Central Italy, even outside of the Tuscan-speaking area.
We’re eager to serve your Tuscan translation needs.
At TranslationServices.com, we’re passionate about serving languages that most translation agencies overlook. Tuscan doesn’t receive the attention it deserves because it tends to be classified as a Italian dialect, even though it didn’t develop from Italian—Standard Italian developed from Tuscan!
Our Tuscan translators are homegrown Tuscan native speakers who love their language and love facilitating communication between Tuscany and the wider world. We hire translators with diverse experience and qualifications, making it easy to translate many different types of documents both to and from Tuscan.
We have business experts on staff who can help organizations translate their marketing collateral into Tuscan, allowing them to demonstrate their commitment to the region and, consequently, earn more attention and respect from locals. We have education experts who would be happy to translate teaching materials from English to Tuscan as a way to encourage Tuscan-language education for local children. We have translators with a deep knowledge of history who can translate Tuscan historical documents or literary works from a bygone era, helping spread Tuscan culture far and wide. We also have Tuscan literary translators who can translate modern literature and digital media into Tuscan, helping preserve the richness of the Italian minority language.
In short, we can translate just about anything to or from Tuscan. Get in touch today to tell us what you need!