←back to thread

Italian government seeks to penalize the use of English words

(www.cnn.com)
231 points rntn | 1 comments | 02 Apr 23 17:19 UTC | HN request time: 0.274s | source
Show context
juancn ◴[02 Apr 23 20:51 UTC] No.35415065[source]▶
Languages evolve, they're living things. Isolation creates new languages, that why Europe has a gazillion of them, people of different valleys developed different languages, on the other hand communication mixes them and blends them, for example after wars and invasions, immigration waves, tourism, or even introduction of technology such as TV or the internet.

It's a pointless exercise to try to preserve the status-quo, and it could be counter productive and isolationist. The language will change anyway.

Also, when do you freeze the language? Which words are you nostalgic about? The ones that were in common use when the legislators were young? Their grandparents? Current usage?

replies(2): >>35415242 #>>35416323 #
1. Tade0 ◴[02 Apr 23 23:11 UTC] No.35416323[source]▶
Italy already went through this when it took its current form as a state over 150 years ago, producing Standard Italian in the process also known as "most widely spoken second language in Italy" - due to the plethora of dialects and accents spoken to this day.