←back to thread

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: 0s | source
Show context
ghusto ◴[02 Apr 23 19:01 UTC] No.35413937[source]▶
On the one hand: If your culture needs a preservation movement, it's not a culture, but a relic. Culture is defined by people, not some sacred thing that needs to be preserved. How much of the Italian cuisine they're trying to protect would exist if they had the same attitude in the 1500s, when the tomato was introduced to Italy?

On the other hand: I think countries should resist global cultural homogenisation. No offence meant to the Americans here, but I detest the exportation of American culture to Europe. I don't mean music and films, but rather the way of thinking about the world. I suspect this is where things like these proposals are coming from; it's the pendulum swing reaching too far before it settles in the middle.

replies(32): >>35414043 #>>35414075 #>>35414127 #>>35414167 #>>35414291 #>>35414385 #>>35414431 #>>35414591 #>>35414663 #>>35415031 #>>35415085 #>>35415093 #>>35415238 #>>35415252 #>>35415290 #>>35415487 #>>35415830 #>>35416551 #>>35416584 #>>35416958 #>>35417161 #>>35417310 #>>35417602 #>>35417643 #>>35418726 #>>35418735 #>>35418854 #>>35419182 #>>35419235 #>>35419782 #>>35419908 #>>35421649 #
Quarrelsome ◴[02 Apr 23 19:48 UTC] No.35414385[source]▶
I don't think its necessarily about the culture itself here, its merely a cheap populist tactic to rabble-rouse among a nation that has a rich history and struggles to handle the fact that its present isn't at that zenith. France do a lot of this sort of thing too.

I would argue that belittling cultural preservation demonstrates deep Anglo-centric bias. While its fine for lulz, I worry that you're being sincere. Try asking _anyone_ who doesn't have English as their first language in a serious context how they feel about their language and you'll struggle to find someone without a genuine fondness for it.

On paper there is absolutely nothing wrong with cultures seeking to preserve the use of their own language, however it is fair for us to argue that restrictive and punitive measures such as this are not helpful.

Bear in mind one day English will no longer be the lingua franca as demonstrated by the word for lingua franca. ;). Would English then be a "relic" to you?

replies(11): >>35415214 #>>35415408 #>>35416246 #>>35416749 #>>35418768 #>>35419743 #>>35420208 #>>35420515 #>>35420625 #>>35421655 #>>35441939 #
Fire-Dragon-DoL ◴[02 Apr 23 23:02 UTC] No.35416246[source]▶
I'm Italian, living in Canada, the reason why I'm attached to my primary language is because I know the most vocabulary and language usage. Aside from that, it's an unfortunate language, since you can't use to communicate anywhere else beside Italy.

We tend to forget that the main purpose of a language is communication, when invoking cultural issues. If you have to penalize usage of English words, you are doing something really wrong.

And when I talk about work it's really hard for me to do in my home language. Some words have no translation or incorrect translation (I work as software developer), which incidentally is the same situation my Italian teacher faced when trying to explain some concepts that had a translation in Italian, but the original latin word had a "wider meaning" that wasn't captured by the translation.

replies(5): >>35416296 #>>35417197 #>>35418377 #>>35420187 #>>35421281 #
lwhi ◴[02 Apr 23 23:08 UTC] No.35416296[source]▶
Difficult to find a word for 'snow globe' too ..
replies(1): >>35419305 #
1. ithkuil ◴[03 Apr 23 06:27 UTC] No.35419305[source]▶
This is an artefact of how Germanic languages can often just glue words together without explicit connective words

"Sfera di neve" doesn't like a word whole "snow globe" does and indeed some write it as "snowglobe"

replies(1): >>35420254 #
2. thaumasiotes ◴[03 Apr 23 08:23 UTC] No.35420254[source]▶
That's not especially distinctive of Germanic languages. Chinese will do it exactly the same way, though the chains of nouns that are common in Germanic would be unusual to say the least in Chinese.

But gluing words together without explicit connections is common pretty much everywhere. Compare Greek, which freely forms adjectives that way, or Latin sanguisuga "bloodsuck[er]" (leech) or lucifer "light-bear[er]" (light-bearer).

replies(2): >>35422189 #>>35431546 #
3. ithkuil ◴[03 Apr 23 12:14 UTC] No.35422189[source]▶
it can be done in romance languages such as italian, but it's way more frequent that one word has to be a verb and another a noun: sanguisuga (blood sucker), magiafuoco (fire eater), porta tagliafuoco (fire resistent door), apri-pista, or noun+adjective: cassaforte (strong box, safe) or preposition+noun: oltretomba (beyond the grave, after life)

There are cases like noun+noun but they are rare and they are not productive, i.e. I cannot make one up. Pescecane (fish dog, i.e. a shark) is ok, but you cannot "sferaneve" for a snowball

Probably the reason is that the two nouns have to have a special relation for it to work, i.e. one word has to act as an adjective, it has to qualify the first word somehow. The shark is a fish, but is a fish that bites like a dog, hence it's a fishdog a pescecane. Similarly "casa madre", for headquarters, it's not a house of the mother ("case della madre") but it's a special kind of house that has the quality of "gatherhing the whole family together like if in the case of a real family"

4. naniwaduni ◴[03 Apr 23 21:29 UTC] No.35431546[source]▶
Chinese has quite nearly the opposite problem: compounds are so pervasive that they'll think any disyllable is a compound, identifiable morphemes or no, even if it's a phonetic loan.