also point out that it is a written standard without affecting pronunciation, which can follow local variants. Opponents of the standardisation, on the other hand, insist that the standard language, being artificially created, is totally inadequate to represent the local variations, particularly from differences in the phonetic pronunciation of the words in each variant that may, in some cases, even require special and different diacritics for writing a single variant. Variants of Friulian Four dialects of Friulian can be at least distinguished, all mutually intelligible. They are usually distinguished by the last vowel of many parts of speech (including nouns, adjectives, adverbs), following this scheme: Central Friulian, spoken around Udine has words ending with -e. It is used in official documents and generally considered standard. Some people see it as the least original but one of the most recent variants since it does not show interesting features found in other variants, as it has Venetian influence. Northern Friulian, spoken in Carnia, has several variants. The language can vary with the valleys and words can end in -o, -e or -a. It is the most archaic variant. Southeastern Friulian, spoken in Bassa Friulana and Eastern Friuli, in the area along the Isonzo River (the area of the old Contea di Gorizia e Gradisca), has words that end with -a. This variant has been known since the origins of the language and was used as official literary language by the Friulians of the Austrian Empire. It was influenced by German and Slavic. Western Friulian, including Pordenonese, is spoken in the Province of Pordenone and is also called , from Concordia Sagittaria. Words end with -a or -e, but the strong Venetian influence, makes it be considered one of the most corrupted variants. The word for home is in Central Friulian and or in other areas. Pier Paolo Pasolini wrote his works in Western Friulian since he learned the language from his mother who was from Casarsa/Cjasarsa, near Pordenone. In the 13th century, early literary works in Friulian were based on the language spoken in Cividale del Friuli, which was the most important town in Friuli. The endings in -o, which now is restricted to some villages in Carnia. Later, the main city of Friuli became Udine and the most common ending was -a; only from the 16th century on, -e endings were used in standard Friulian. Writing systems In the official writing