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231 points rntn | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0.428s | source
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ghusto ◴[] 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.

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flexie ◴[] No.35418735[source]
English too, is a mix of foreign languages. Only dead languages don't evolve.

Italian is a descendant of the Latin language, which itself borrowed extensively from Greek. What is so special about today's Italian language that it should by all means be preserved in it's current form without continuing to borrow from foreign languages?

European languages borrow from English because the US offers so much that we voluntarily adopt in Europe. If most good movies, music, streaming services, computer hardware, computer software, Internet, electric cars, smartphones, AI, business ideas etc. were Italian, the English language would adopt more Italian words.

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1. makingstuffs ◴[] No.35420152[source]
The weirdest thing about this sensationalist proposal is that English was born out of Latin and there are a number of English words which are a letter removed from their Italian counterpart.

The example in the article (bru-shetta/bru-sketta) highlights the absurd pedantic nature of this proposal.

I truly weep for the world which we seem to have created.

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2. TRiG_Ireland ◴[] No.35421837[source]
English has some heavy Romance influences, but was certainly not "born out of Latin". English is a Germanic language at its core.