Friulian is not a dialect of Italian. It is an autonomous language belonging to the Rhaeto-Romanic family, which developed around the year 1000 AD through the meeting of the Celtic, Latin and Germanic cultures. Here are a few examples of the phonetic differences between the two languages.

Friulian words drop the final vowel of the corresponding Italian word - except that words which in Italian end in a, end in e in Friulian.

However, the final a is altogether dropped if it is preceded by mm or st.

Following the loss of the final vowel, the last syllable often becomes longer when accented.

Ca and ga in Italian words very often correspond to cja and gja in Friulian words.

Friulian words never end with the voiced consonants b, v, g, d .Only the voiceless consonants p, f, c, t can be found in final position in Friulian.

Examples

There are no double consonants in Friulian.

Ss is used to represent the voiceless s occuring in intervocalic position.

Friulian words have preserved the Latin consonant clusters bl, cl, fl, pl, gl which have become bi, chi, fi, pi, ghi, in Italian.

Friulian and Italian words which are similar in form, may differ in grammatical gender.

They may also have different meanings.