E-books in Italian - where?

[doreenjoy]

Does anyone have any resources for e-books in Italian, preferably in EPUB or LRF format?

I'm particularly interested in easy-to-read books for children or young adults.

Grazie mille.

[olis]

You might find this site useful:
http://www.liberliber.it/biblioteca/index.htm
It has over 1500 e-books in Italian, most of them are the full text of public domain books and the few copyrighted texts are distributed with permission of the author.
Most of the e-books are available in three formats : txt, pdf and rtf.
The site is completely in Italian, you can browse its catalog by author, title or topic.

[doreenjoy]

Thank you, Olis! That site is amazing. They even have books in dialects!

I'll poke around and see what I can find for children.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by doreenjoy

Thank you, Olis! That site is amazing. They even have books in dialects!

The "modern" Italian language is a very recent "invention" - less than a century old. In the First World War, troops from different parts of Italy spoke mutually incomprehensible languages and were unable to understand one another. Even today, regional dialects such as Neopolitan often cannot be understood by people from other parts of Italy.

[mtravellerh]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The "modern" Italian language is a very recent "invention" - less than a century old. In the First World War, troops from different parts of Italy spoke mutually incomprehensible languages and were unable to understand one another. Even today, regional dialects such as Neopolitan often cannot be understood by people from other parts of Italy.

Isn't that the same in the UK? (still today, btw)

[HarryT]

Some may well say so . I couldn't possibly comment.

[olis]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Even today, regional dialects such as Neopolitan often cannot be understood by people from other parts of Italy.

I wouldn't say "often". Sometimes some word or expression in strict dialect cannot be understood in every part of Italy, but "often" is surely an exaggeration.
By the way, Neopolitan is one of the best known dialects in Italy.

[doreenjoy]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The "modern" Italian language is a very recent "invention" - less than a century old. In the First World War, troops from different parts of Italy spoke mutually incomprehensible languages and were unable to understand one another. Even today, regional dialects such as Neopolitan often cannot be understood by people from other parts of Italy.

My parents and grandparents all spoke dialects, so I'm well aware of this. My mother will be happy to read books in Piemontese. As Olis says, some dialects are more widely known than others. Bergamesa (the language of my maternal grandfather) is little like national Italian IMO.

Actually modern Italian is not an invention. It is the dialect of Florence, reportedly chosen as the national language because it was the language in which Dante wrote The Divine Comedy.

[olis]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The "modern" Italian language is a very recent "invention" - less than a century old.

Modern Italian language is much, much older than a century.
All scholars/historians agree that by the end of the 16th century there was a common standard for literary Italian and it was substantially the same as modern spoken Italian.
The official legislative body of the Italian language, L'Accademia della Crusca, was founded at the end of the 16th century and the first modern Italian dictionary was published in 1612.
On the other hand, the diffusion of the literary language as spoken language is a relatively recent phenomenon.
In the 19th century the Italian language was spoken only by a small percentage of the population. The unification of Italy (1861), WWI, and several other factors (e.g. mass-media diffusion) greatly contributed to the spreading of the Italian language throughout the nation.

Originally Posted by doreenjoy

It is the dialect of Florence, reportedly chosen as the national language because it was the language in which Dante wrote The Divine Comedy.

Dante played a prominent part in the standardization of the Italian language and his Tuscany dialect (fiorentino) was the basis upon which modern Italian was founded.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by olis

Dante played a prominent part in the standardization of the Italian language and his Tuscany dialect (fiorentino) was the basis upon which modern Italian was founded.

I don't speak Italian, but I do speak Latin. When I look at Dante's "Divine Comedy", it appears, to my eye, to be a lot closer to Latin than modern Italian is - I can understand much more of it than I can modern Italian.

[mtravellerh]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I don't speak Italian, but I do speak Latin. When I look at Dante's "Divine Comedy", it appears, to my eye, to be a lot closer to Latin than modern Italian is - I can understand much more of it than I can modern Italian.

Italian has taken a long evolution from Latin. As a matter of fact, Dante and Lampedusa were forging the common ground of the Italian language. Italian, as a written language, is quite old (but never was talked). Only recently, with a higher level of education, the "high" Italian is been used more and more as a talking language.

This evolution of the italian language is largely the same as with German (Luther and Gutenberg) or English (Shakespeare).

[olis]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I don't speak Italian, but I do speak Latin. When I look at Dante's "Divine Comedy", it appears, to my eye, to be a lot closer to Latin than modern Italian is - I can understand much more of it than I can modern Italian.

Modern Italian is closer to "volgare fiorentino" (the language in which Dante wrote the Divina Commedia) than to classic Latin. A modern Italian speaker can understand most of what is written in the Divina Commedia but he can understand very little of, for example, Cicero's works.

[doreenjoy]

Originally Posted by olis

Modern Italian is closer to "volgare fiorentino" (the language in which Dante wrote the Divina Commedia) than to classic Latin. A modern Italian speaker can understand most of what is written in the Divina Commedia but he can understand very little of, for example, Cicero's works.

I have found this to be true for myself. I'm embarrassed to admit that I speak very little Italian (embarrassed because I'm an Italian citizen; I should know how to speak the language). Back on topic -- I speak a little Italian but no Latin; a friend of mine speaks Latin but no Italian. They are very different languages indeed.

[mtravellerh]

Originally Posted by doreenjoy

I have found this to be true for myself. I'm embarrassed to admit that I speak very little Italian (embarrassed because I'm an Italian citizen; I should know how to speak the language). Back on topic -- I speak a little Italian but no Latin; a friend of mine speaks Latin but no Italian. They are very different languages indeed.

I had to learn Italian in school, too. Italians are adapting all too well, it seems!

[doreenjoy]

Yes, and most of my Italian friends want to practice their English, so I don't get enough opportunity to practice my Italian.