Those Crazy Italians!

Ever wonder why Italian-Americans pronounce mozzarella as “muzzarell”, prosciutto as “pro-SHOOT”, calzones as “cal-ZONEs” and pasta e fagioli as “pasta fasul”?

It seems that the “official” Italian dialect comes from Florence, where people do, in fact, pronounce prosciutto as “pro-SHOOT-toe” and pasta e fagioli as “PAH-stah eh faj-YOH-lee”. However, most of the Italians that migrated to the United States came from southern Italy, where the alternate pronounciations you often hear in The Sopranos and Martin Scorsese films are common.

This article from the New York Times is really worth the read and will further clear up the mystery.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.