When you first move to Italy, you find yourself gaining acquaintance with all sorts of towns and cities that you’ve never actually visited. Take Empoli, for instance. It’s a perfectly pleasant but unprepossessing town in Tuscany, for most people no more than a railway junction when heading from Siena to Pisa.
I’d lived in Italy for close on twenty years before I ever alighted in Empoli. Yet the place felt strangely familiar, a bit like someone or something known in childhood. And the reason is this. Italians use place names to spell out words.
My surname is SINGLETON, which presents plenty of orthographic pitfalls to the Italian ear. So I soon learnt to rattle out: Savona, Imola, Napoli, Genova, Livorno, Empoli, Torino, Otranto, Napoli. Not only was everything clear, but I was acquiring the rudiments of Italian topography. Thirty-five years later, I still haven’t been to Otranto, but it beckons like an old friend.
Of course, the system works with the Italian alphabet, which doesn’t traditionally include K, W, X or Y. For these, some inventive aids have been found. Kennedy for K; a prosaic “vu doppio†(double V) for W; a sound like “eeks†for X; and a classically orientated “ipsilon†for Y.
As for J, it was only introduced into the Italian alphabet in the late 1500s. There are a number of family names around Naples and Salerno that begin with this letter, to say nothing of the handsome town of Jesi in the Marche region. Yet Italian spellers prefer to use “I lungo†or “Jolly†(which in Italian means the joker in a pack of cards) when forced to differentiate between a J and a Y.
So here’s the geographical alphabet of Italy.
A – Ancona - undisputed
B – Bologna; the German speaking residents of the north eastern Alto Adige region might insist on Bolzano
C – Como – universally accepted
D – Domodossola; another of those places you never visit, but possibly go through by train on your way to Switzerland
E – Empoli
F – Firenze, as you might imagine; but on occasions Ferrara, which is also worth a visit
G – Genova, whence came Chrisopher Columbus, whatever the Spanish may have to say about it
H – Hotel, pronounced “otelâ€, for in Italian the initial H is always missing, even when it’s present
I – Imola; you’d probably only go there to see Ferraris racing round a track, or perhaps if ceramic tiles are your business
J – I lungo, pronounced “ee lungoâ€, see above
K – Kennedy – universally accepted and almost universally mourned
L – Livorno – uncontested
M – Milano, for that’s where the financial power lies; but also Modena, for a lighter touch
N – Napoli
O – Otranto, with the accent on the first syllable
P – Palermo; these last three letters are bastions of the south
Q – er, no one seems to know this one, so most resort to its pronunciation, which is “kuâ€
R – Rimini, which has a holiday ring to it
S – Savona
T – Torino, currently making a great comeback; check out the Cinema Museum
U – Udine, in the northern Friuli region; excellent wines, especially whites
V – Verona usually
W – vu doppio, or indeed doppia vu, where the adjective adapts to the noun
X – eeks, see above
Y – ipsilon, ditto
Z – Zara, which is actually in Croatia. Italy has a certain proprietorial feelings for it though, since it was occupied by the Venetians for 550 years until 1797 (when it came under Austrian rule), and was assigned briefly to Italy between 1920 and 1947, before it became part of Yugoslavia
British-born Kate Singleton has lived in Italy for over 35 years, mostly working as an editor, writer and translator.
