Blogger Luca Delgado created this chart showing the influence of Catalan on Neapolitan words. Click on the image for more information about Spanish influence on Naples

Neapolitan is a Romance language from the Italic branch and is spoken frequently as a lingua franca throughout Southern Italy. Rather than being named for the city of Naples, Napoletano or Napulitano refers to the once expansive Kingdom of Naples. Neapolitan historically also served as a lingua fran

"Oscan is an extinct Indo-European language of southern Italy and a sister language to Latin and Umbrian. Oscan was spoken by a number of tribes, including the Samnites,[3] the Aurunci (Ausones), and the Sidicini. The latter two tribes were often grouped under the name "Osci". The Oscan group is par

The influences from France, but mostly Spain are likely due to the conquering and rule of these countries over the Kingdom of Naples. It is important to remember that Italy is a fairly recently unified country and that the influence of Spain on Naples is evident in both the language and culture. For

A corpus study on Catalan and Spanish loan words in Neapolitan reveals that the double of consonants occurs first as a phonological strategy of adopting these words and overtime shows up in written Neapolitan. The following chart shows some examples (image hyperlinks to paper)

Some Italian words that begin with a "b" sound present themselves in Neapolitan with a "v" sound. This could be influenced by huge Spanish influence on Neapolitan and the lack of distinction between the two sounds in Spanish. Examples: 'o vraccio - arm (italian = braccio) 'o vocca - mouth (italian