Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Italian government seeks to penalize the use of English words

cnn.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 605 posts

Re: Italian government seeks to penalize the use of English words

#231

Post by pcrh »

seydor wrote: post #146
Quarrelsome wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd vehemently disagree. There's a clear cultural divide between the average of the US and the average of Europe on many topics, albeit much of that is a cause of the large quantity of remaining traditionalists in the US skewing the American average. For example there's clear differences on secularism, gun-rights, access to abortion, universal healthcare, labour laws, privacy and regulation. > The silent death of eur…

There's no 'average european culture' as inter-european differences are bigger than US-europe divide. The US is basically our common cultural base now. > secularism, gun-rights, access to abortion, universal healthcare, labour laws, privacy and regulation At least 4 of those issues are american , not european. this just goes to show how much attention europeans pay to the US issues instead of our own issues (aging of…

>There's no 'average european culture

Where do you live? Are you not aware that there is a very active and ongoing war in Europe which was triggered by the desire of a certain country to be more "European", and opposition to that desire.

Re: Italian government seeks to penalize the use of English words

#232

Post by peoplefromibiza »

ghusto wrote: post #95

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 of…

I wish these relic of the RSI (Italian Social Republic) of fascist memory where really thinking of the culture, even though it's a culture many Italians, including my family, fought and gave their lives to defeat.

It is all smoke and mirrors to distract the public opinion from the government's failures.

OTOH the use of English words that have an equivalent in Italian has reached such high levels of stupidity that it has become a popular meme here, under the name "Milanese imbruttito" which roughly translates to "this is too much even for someone from Milan"

Re: Italian government seeks to penalize the use of English words

#233

Post by wizofaus »

ghusto wrote: post #95

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 of…

The music and films are a big part of what conveys the American way of thinking about the world surely? I'll only genuinely start worrying about the Americanisation of world if the US somehow starts successfully exporting its insane attitudes towards guns, women's bodies and universal healthcare. Oh, and imperial units...

Re: Italian government seeks to penalize the use of English words

#234

Post by elnatro »

hunglee2 wrote: post #90
pyuser583 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The “making of Italians” has usually meant imposing northern Italian norms and language upon Southerners. It’s always been touch and go. Garbaldi and Mussolini placed a strong emphasis on “nationalism,” but other leaders were more focused on a building coalitions. Can you give me the names of some Italian nationalist parties? I was told by my Sicilian family the only reason Sicily is a part of Italy is Garibaldis shi…

yes absolutely, 'Italian' is Florentine right? Same with modern French, which is basically Parisian, modern Spanish essentially Castillian. There is never an neutral language, it is linguistic supremacism one over the other. I absolutely respect Sicilians (and other regional groups) for resisting 'Florentine cultural imperialism'

Modern Spanish is not Castillian. The Spanish Royal Academy recognizes and acknowledges all varieties and dialects of Spanish. Castillian is only one of them.

Re: Italian government seeks to penalize the use of English words

#236

Post by samus »

908B64B197 wrote: post #182
kuboble wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My personal hope is that the EU would make a plan to adopt English as the only official language. Now that UK is gone it can't be seen as unfairly promoting one country. I think the example of Switzerland shows that there is no problem if spoken language is different from official language.

> think the example of Switzerland shows that there is no problem if spoken language is different from official language. Most Swiss speak at least two of their four official languages. It's actually an example of how having multiple official languages isn't expensive nor hard to achieve (and the country is on top of most human index charts). But the EU should make Latin it's official language.

I can understands some of the merits of adopting Latin, but maybe forking English would be enough. The EU is already publishing guidelines about correct English usage[0]. Dropping these and formalizing something else, as the Americans have done thanks to Noah Webster's efforts[1], would be enough to complete the split.

Edit: since most English speakers in the EU speak it as a second language, it would be an opportunity to adopt a radical, pronunciation-based spelling system. It would massively simplify efforts to learn it, and if it works well enough, it could spread outside the EU as well. It would be ironic if the deliverance of English from its broken ortography would come from the EU.

[0] https://eca.europa.eu/other%20publications/en_terminology_pu...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noah_Webster#Blue-backed_spell...

Re: Italian government seeks to penalize the use of English words

#237

Post by hackerlight »

Veen wrote: post #212
antirez wrote: post #180

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.

There's a bit of a contradiction in your comment. You say Italians aren't like that, but Italians voted the "stupid government" into power and the government is doing these things to appeal to those Italians.

It's the same story everywhere. Every population has a sizeable minority that's far-right, and these people value culture/nation/race, and do not value individuals/freedom. Sometimes they win an election, and then these kind of policies get passed that try to force the people around them to conform to their aesthetic preferences.

Re: Italian government seeks to penalize the use of English words

#238

Post by mihaic »

wizofaus wrote: post #233
ghusto wrote: post #95

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 of…

The music and films are a big part of what conveys the American way of thinking about the world surely? I'll only genuinely start worrying about the Americanisation of world if the US somehow starts successfully exporting its insane attitudes towards guns, women's bodies and universal healthcare. Oh, and imperial units...

The US has managed to export significant parts of its political discourse in places where it makes no sense to have those discussions, simply by controlling global news. I think you underestimate how much this is.

Re: Italian government seeks to penalize the use of English words

#239

Post by borroka »

dehrmann wrote: post #97
borroka wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a very poor argument and ignores the fact that the lives of people, institutions and countries are not just about (the very important) jobs and economics. I, who have lived in the United States for decades, cringe when English words are used instead of those of my native language to give a sense of respectability to those words. A global culture and a world homogenized in ways of living is a much less interesti…

In college, I took an English/linguistics class called "History of the English Language." One big takeaway from it was that prescriptive languages never work, and pragmatism always wins over purity. You say you "cringe" when hearing English words in the context of your native language. English, too, is packed with loanwords. Espresso (I see you, Italian), taco, kimchi, sauna, schadenfreude, not to mention phrases lif…

I don't see any inevitability in the development of human culture (and technology), which is instead often perceived as such when looking backwards and not forward.

History could have been taken a million different trajectories and we, looking back at its course, would always be tempted to say that what's going on today was, overall, inevitable. If not for a very harsh winter decades ago, maybe German would be the lingua franca of today's Europe: "it was inevitable", many would say, "it all started with Bismarck".

And I don't see why the fact that we use the word "espresso" (or expresso :)) in the US should mean that, in the US, Italian, Greek, or French words should be used in official documents as liberally as English words are in other non-English speaking countries' official documents. Why should it be acceptable to use "governance" instead of the Italian words "governo" or "amministrazione"? Why "fiscal compact" instead of "patto di bilancio" where both combinations of words express the same concept but one in a foreign language and the other in the official language of the country?

Using "espresso" and not another (equivalent) English word makes sense, because the Italian word also denotes the origin of the product. Using "hip hop" makes sense in non-English speaking countries, like "rock" for the music (but not the stone). "Schadenfreude", on the other hand, still sounds quite ridiculous when said by non-German speaking people, a bit like using "I went to the Ville Lumière" instead of "I went to Paris, oh those croissants, mon dieu!". That language should not be regulated by any government, the ridiculousness of its use should just be common sense, which is unfortunately as scarce today as it was in the past. But a woman can dream.

Which brings me to the another component: concepts expressed in English tend to appear, in non-English speaking countries, as more respectable, more serious. "That's how they do in the US, the wealthiest countries in the world!".

But this is just smoke thrown into people's eyes.

Post reply on HN