VRL

VRL

Introduction

VRL (Volgar Romano Lustro, “Illustrious Roman Vernacular”) is a controlled literary language composed of various elements drawn from the vernacular historically spoken in Rome. It is not intended to be naturalistic; rather, it is deliberately artificial in its design. It does not attempt to answer the question “what if the vernacular of Rome had been adopted as the official language of Italy instead of a Florentine-based standard?”, as it significantly incorporates elements brought from both popular and literary Tuscan on Roman speech. The language itself heavily draws from major authors such as Anonimo Romano, Cristoforo Castelletti, Giuseppe Berneri, Benedetto Micheli, Giuseppe Gioachino Belli, Giggi Zanazzo, Cesare Pascarella, Trilussa and Pier Paolo Pasolini, with their major works being the Cronica, Stravaganze d’Amore, Meo Patacca, Povesie in Lengua Romanesca, Sonetti romaneschi, Usi, Costumi e Pregiudizi del Popolo di Roma, Quaranta sonetti romaneschi, Trilussa’s various works, Ragazzi di vita, and in conclusion Fernando Ravaro’s Dizionario romanesco and the Vocabolario del Romanesco Contemporaneo by Paolo d’Achille and Claudio Giovanni. The project does not establish a hierarchy among its sources: forms may be adopted from literary texts, spoken usage, or contemporary media (such as Instagram and TikTok, or street graffiti) whenever they are attested and compatible with the system, even if hapax. Some other forms may be reconstructed or speculated on the basis of irregular dialectal phenomena that become generalised in the selection or even neighbouring dialects which are historically proven to have influenced the Capital’s language (for example Perugine or Lucchese).