Page 23 of Marcello

In Italian, the singular masculine is il.

But in Neapolitan, it’s ’o.

So, ‘the book’ in Italian is il libro.

In Neapolitan, it’s ’o libro.

I used libro as an example because it’s the same word in both languages.

In Italian, ‘the boy’ is il ragazzo.

But in Neapolitan, it’s ’o guaglione.

Multiply that by hundreds, if not thousands of common words…

Plus different verb endings…

Totally different idiomatic phrases…

It was a fuckin’ headache.

Overall, Neapolitan was roughly half the same as Italian…

But it was difficult as hell to keep track of the differences. The only way to do it was through constant repetition, and Federica was the most patient teacher I’d ever had.

We’d speak Neapolitan at home every night. She would gently correct me every time I messed up, and I eventually started to get the hang of it.

After a couple of weeks, everyone’s babbling at work started to sound like coherent conversations. I even started responding in Neapolitan when my co-workers talked to me in Italian.

I was probably about as fluent as a three-year-old – which made them laugh, but they went along with it.

And over time, my grasp of the language vastly improved.

Federica was incredibly smart – both street smart and book smart.

Best of all, she knew a ton about Naples. I could ask her almost anything and get an on-the-spot education.

One time I asked, “Why’s it called Neapolitan?”

“Because one of the original names for the city was Neapolis, from the Greek for ‘new city.’ Naples was originally a Greek colony 2800 years ago.”

“‘One of the original names’?” I asked.

“The mythical founder of Naples was actually a siren called Parthenope.” She pronounced it par-THIN-oh-pee. “You know the story when Odysseus was trying to get home after the Trojan War, and his boat had to sail past the sirens?”

“…sort of…?”

“Sirens were mermaids who sang so beautifully that they drove sailors mad with desire, and they would jump into the sea and drown. Odysseus was warned about them, so he had his crew fill their ears with beeswax so they couldn’t hear the sirens’ song. But Odysseus wanted to, so he had his men lash him to the mast. When they sailed past the sirens, it drove him nearly insane, but he stayed tied in place until the boat passed.

“Supposedly, the sirens were so distraught they’d failed to lure Odysseus to his death that they tried to drown themselves.” Federica made a face. “Typical male writer bullshit. Anyway, one of them, Parthenope, washed ashore on what eventually became Neapolis, and she died on the beach. So you can call the city Naples, Napoli, Neapolis, or Parthenope – it’s all the same thing.”

“Wait – is that why you have a mermaid tattoo?” I asked, putting two and two together.

“Yup! And that’s why you see so many mermaids in street art and even architecture, because mermaids are the symbol for Naples.”

The mermaid stuff was just the tip of the iceberg.

On our days off, we would go out and walk around Naples, and she would explain things we came across.