For it to be possible to read a text, there must be an agreement, more or less tacit, between the writer and the reader regarding the value of the signs used, otherwise it becomes impossible to “give voice” to the text itself, even just mentally. Sometimes, in the absence of an explicit agreement, the correct way to pronounce certain words is not obvious.
The purpose of this “Macerata Spelling Guide” is precisely to provide those who write dialect texts, for example for artistic-literary or documentary purposes, with a tool to “come to an agreement” with readers on how to represent the sounds of the dialect, so that the words can be read correctly, based on shared spelling conventions. However, a preliminary awareness of the nature of the sounds we use when we speak is necessary, as the sounds of Italian and the dialect do not always match, and the two systems follow different rules. To this end, the book introduces basic notions of articulatory phonetics, offering a rich array of articulatory diagrams. Then, some phonetic phenomena specific to the dialects of the areas covered and their varieties are examined, reflecting on the best ways to represent them in writing through careful and consistent use of accents, apostrophes, letter combinations, and word separation. The manual concludes with a small anthology of dialect texts, diverse in type and location, in which the principles presented here are applied (with variations), accompanied by a practical summary table of the proposed orthographic conventions. In order to make it accessible to a non-specialist audience as well, the text has aimed to use simple and clear language, minimizing the use of technical terms without giving up the necessary scientific rigor.
National Award “Save Your Local Language 2021”, ‘Tullio De Mauro’ Section, second place Agostino Regnicoli, Writing in Dialect, with the following motivation: «Excellent essay on Marche phonetic spelling, crafted by a specialist with clearly educational purposes, very well achieved».
