Italian government seeks to penalize the use of English words

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.

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?

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.

from my perspective given my English background, I like English spelling. Sensibility says I should just give it all up and adhere to the dominant language form (en-US) for the sake of clarity.... and yet.... I shall not.

> We tend to forget that the main purpose of a language is communication

But also one might consider, or seek the word, that certain way of spitting, tells some peeps we fam.

Language isn't just about communicating meaning but also cultural content, identity and social markers. This is part of what drives its frequent development and also part of why some people want to preserve their way of speaking even if its merely a creole or a "dying" language.

Yeah but this stuff get pushed as a higher priority over communication, that's my problem with every argument about "preserving culture".

If everybody in Italy understands "computer", calling it "calcolatore" is outright against communication (that word in italian is closer to "device to do math operations", which is technically correct, but not what people imagine)

Ironically that's exactly what "computer" means.

The root "comput-" comes from latin "computo" while "calcolatore" comes from the latin "calculo" which is a rough latin synonym of "computo". The form "comput-" transformed in Italian into "cont-" like in "conto" (English count), "contante" (cash) etc.

So perhaps "contatore" (counter) instead of "computer" would make more etymological sense.

I'm well aware and I find it somewhat amusing.

The problem is the interpretation people give to the word. If I say computer, people think of something with keyboard + mouse and a screen, or maybe a laptop (funny enough, they will not think of their phone).

If I say "calcolatore", we envision one of those devices to do math operations, used in school (are those still a thing?)

that's a calcolatrice, calcolatore is a computer :)