Scioglilingua is the Italian term for tongue twister.
That’s a tricky word to say; let’s break it down into syllables and a phonetic spelling:
Scioglilingua (shol-yee-ling-gwuh).
The actual meaning is closer to ‘tongue loosener’ than ‘twister’.
Here it is:
“Sopra la panca la capra campa, sotto la panca la capra crepa.”
[Meaning: Over the bench the goat lives/gets by, under the bench the goat dies/croaks.]
Today’s scioglilingua is among the best-known in the Italian language. It looks easy enough, but it is quite challenging even for native speakers of Italian to say it fast and well. Make sure to stress the double “t” in ‘sotto’ becuase, unlike their English counterpart, Italian double consonants are doubly emphasized… just stretch out the sound a little longer than with single consonants.
