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Italian government seeks to penalize the use of English words

(www.cnn.com)
231 points rntn | 4 comments | 02 Apr 23 17:19 UTC | HN request time: 0.87s | source
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antirez ◴[02 Apr 23 20:10 UTC] No.35414618[source]▶
Please, don't think Italians are like that. It's just this stupid government. For instance in Italian, unlike Spanish, French, ..., there are no italianized words for all the computer science words, we just use English. In general there is not a big sentiment of culture self-defence. But this government is trying to do things that will appeal the dumb people voting for it.
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pmontra ◴[02 Apr 23 20:59 UTC] No.35415153[source]▶
Thinking about a standard computer, accessories and concepts, there are no common Italian words for computer, mouse, touchpad, touchscreen, scanner, web, link, app, database, word processor, bit, byte and the defunct floppy disk. Everything else is commonly named in Italian. Keyboard, memory, disk (in general, but hard disk is in English), screen, pen drives, power unit, mother board (this is maybe 50-50), folders, icons, programs, processes, windows, buttons, sort, filter, search, rows, columns, cells, sheets.
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1. Fire-Dragon-DoL ◴[03 Apr 23 00:43 UTC] No.35417107[source]▶
Calcolatore (my university teacher told me that. Nobody in Italy would use that), mouse, touchpad, schermo touch, scanner, web depends on how you use it: internet or "rete", collegamento, applicazione, base di dati (university course was named like that. Most people call it database professionally), no idea about word processor (I rarely use that in English too), bit, byte, floppy, hard disk is "disco rigido", schermo, chiavetta usb, not sure about power unit, scheda madre, cartelle, icone, programmi, processi, finestre, bottoni, ordinare, filtrare, ricerca, righe, colonne, celle, fogli
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2. pmontra ◴[03 Apr 23 06:10 UTC] No.35419153[source]▶
Power unit is alimentatore. All words in my second list are translated in Italian with the words you provided.

Yes, database is base di dati but it's seldom used as such. Calcolatore is the calculator app nowadays :-)

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3. Fire-Dragon-DoL ◴[03 Apr 23 06:51 UTC] No.35419475[source]▶
I'm used to call it power supplier, hence wasn't sure about the translation (my English is at fault here).

And indeed if you say "calcolatore", I interpret that as the calculator app (or any small math-only calculators used in school)

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4. pmontra ◴[03 Apr 23 09:46 UTC] No.35420854{3}[source]▶
We are both wrong, you less than me. The correct term is power supply. A power unit is the hybrid engine of Formula 1 cars :-)