Is there an equivalent of Received Pronunciation or a 'posh' accent in Italian (I'm not referring to a BBC accent which is slightly different)
If so could you list some names of Italian people / actors in movies who have this accent.
Also is there a particular region associated with this accent or is it not associate with a region.
many thanks in advanced
George
The Italian spoken in Tuscany is considered the best. There is an expression “risciacquare i panni in Arno” literally it means “ to rince one’s clothes in the Arno river (that flows through Florence)”. The meaning is that maybe you should go to Florence to brush up your native language, even if you are italian.
The funny thing is that people from Tuscany have the tendency to aspire the K sound. They pronounce it like a H.
So they would say Hoha Hola instead of Coca Cola. Even very cultivated people have that particular accent!
I would say "Standard Italian" (as opposed to "Regional Italian", which is not a dialect of Italian, rather Italian spoken with a different accent or some slight grammatical differences, such as using different past tenses) has the same status as Received Pronunciation in British English.
This pronounciation is traditionally associated with Tuscany and the city of Florence. Their variety is the one which was chosen as a basis for Standard Italian grammar and pronunciation rules.
Actors using this variety...nowadays, honestly, I find it hard to hear it on tv. You mostly hear people using a regional accent from Rome, which is totally different, and in my opinion it doesn't reflect the way the whole nation speaks. I'd rather look for some contemporary theatre play. There is much more easier to find people using real Standard Italian.
As the proper North American English is referred to as Newscaster English, the only way I can think of answering without dwelving into a research on diction resources in Italy is to link this list of famous Italian newscasters and suggest searching for clips online.
This is if you want to hear it. If you want to learn it, the Accademia della Crusca, authority in the Italian language, has this texbook as a resource on their site:
