Bari Dialect - The Accents

The Accents

In Barese the use of the accents is obligatory:

• acute accent, used when the vocals have a closed sound: é, í, ó, ú;
• grave accent, used when the vocals have an open sound: à, è, ò;

the monosyllables haven't to be accented, without some as à (a, preposizione semplice), é (e, congiunzione coordinativa), mè (mai, avverbio di tempo), ecc.

Examples:

• Mo me n'i à scí! - Now I've to go!;
• Quànte si sscéme - What an idiot you are;
• Ué! - Hi!/Hello!;
• Ce ssi tè-tè! - You are an idiot! / You talk too much!
• Ce ttremóne! - What a wanker - it's similar to pirla in the Milano dialect.

The accents are very important to show the differences between words that are written in the same way, but which have different pronunciations. Examples:

• mé (me: personal pronoun complement, form unstressed) e mè (ever/never: time adverb);
• nu (a/an: indefinite article, masculine, singular) e nú (we, personal pronoun, subject);
• pésce (fish) e pèsce (worse);
• ué (hi/hello) e uè (you want).