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I've heard before that in italiano, the real italian words ends with a vowel character. So that I can understand if a word ends with a vowel character, it can be belongs to italiano. For example:

toast = not italiano pane tostato = italiano

Is this rule really exists for italian grammar?

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    In other words... are words ending with a consonant non-Italian by definition? Correct?
    – user519
    Commented Dec 15, 2016 at 13:17
  • Yes definitely.
    – Prometheus
    Commented Dec 15, 2016 at 13:18
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    I think the real question is... why do all or the vast majority of Italian words end with vowels? Vowels denote gender and number.
    – user519
    Commented Dec 15, 2016 at 13:22
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    Not a duplicate, but related: italian.stackexchange.com/questions/7729/…
    – DaG
    Commented Dec 15, 2016 at 13:27
  • I doubt there is such a grammatical rule, since truncation is very common in Italian (e.g. Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita; Un bel tacer non fu mai scritto etc.)
    – Denis Nardin ♦
    Commented Dec 16, 2016 at 6:04

1 Answer 1

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There are a number of words in Italian that end in consonant, but they are mostly coming from Latin/Greek/Other or are contractions of other words (or articles/particles). But while their origin is foreign, they are not simply "loan words", but proper parts of the language:

Tram, pancreas, Nord Sud Ovest Est, Un, il, gratis, gas, etc...

So, according to where you draw the line, all "Italian" words end in vowel. But articles are a prime example of non-loan words/foreign origin that don't, if you count them as words

I'd like to point your attention to this quora answer, in particular, which describes the topic in details.

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    Tram is an abbreviation of tramvia
    – Bruno9779
    Commented Dec 15, 2016 at 16:54
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    All Italian words have a foreign origin under those criteria, simply because Italian was not created from thin air.
    – Denis Nardin ♦
    Commented Dec 16, 2016 at 5:55

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