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Italian government seeks to penalize the use of English words

cnn.com

291–300 of 605 posts

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

#291
post #279

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 are no italianized words for all the computer science words, we just use English You're bragging about your language being poorer.

am i on Reddit?

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

#292
post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's not only the far right that value tradition and culture. And it's not only the right that tries to force the people around them to conform to their ideas of how the world should be.

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

#293

Yes! I'm looking forward this great return of fascist idiocy, like when Mussolini forbid some foreign words and cocktail became "bevanda arlecchina", sandwich "tramezzino" and parquet "tassellato"... https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/italian-language-and-fasc...

Reminds me of the short lived meme in the early 2000’s era, “freedom fries.”

Go well with your hambu- I mean, Liberty Sandwich.

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

#294
post #228

In 1994 France passed a law banning the use of English words in official documents. There followed a highly entertaining (if you like that sort of thing) debate in the UK House of Commons as to whether to retaliate by banning French words[1][2]. The difference being, they were only joking while the French were deadly serious. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eH0wvkZmGKQ&t=70 [2] https://hansard.parliament.uk/commo…

It's maybe not even possible to expel all the loanwords from Norman and more recent French, as well as Latin, from the language. But things like Anglish[0] exist.

[0]: https://anglish.org/wiki/Anglish

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

#295
post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, many Europeans think that because they don’t talk about it and refuse to collect statistics to show it that racism doesn’t exist within their borders. Europe is just as, if not more, racist than the US. Just ask them what they think of the Roma people.

Racism is everywhere, what I think eludes americans is that in Europe identities are way more tied to nationality rather than ethnicity.

It doesn’t elude us. Anyone that looks outside of the country knows that but hate is hate. You don’t choose the color of your skin any more than you choose where you are born.

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

#297
post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

France also is the cradle of liberal economic ideas, its culture did not start in 1968. And let's face it, the protesters demand are not realistic, they are about kicking the can down the road a bit more before it explodes

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

#298
post #196
post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And none of those cultures have cultures nearly as strong as the Quebecois, which is basically a global cultural brand at this point.

"global cultural brand" is a terrible way of measuring "strength" of a culture. (I'd hope for the people of Quebec that there is more to their culture than the brand, which is approximately "the weird Canadians that try to out-french the French")

There have been many North American cultures imported from Europe. In the US and Canada, they all tend to die out after a certain amount of time. E.g. the Spanish had a colony in Florida. The Dutch had a claims to the Hudson valley in NY/NJ. Lots of Scandinavian settled the frontier. Italians in the NYC area. The list goes on.

Quebec is one of the oldest cultures in the former British NA colonies. Say whatever you want about the Quebecois, they know how ti preserve their culture.

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

#299
post #33

I think we (Americans and Europeans alike) wholly underestimate how Americanised European culture is becoming. This is an observation rather than a criticism as I don't know whether this is 'good' or 'bad' but it is noticeable phenomena manifest through language, and probably an unintended consequence of the dependency of Europe on US communication technology, leading to the import of US communication styles, politic…

Yeah, it was shocking here in Stockholm when there were BLM protests in 2020. It's like people are more involved in US politics than their national politics.

I had to get books on MLK and Rosa Parks for my kid's school.

Why?? This drives me crazy. They are not part of my country's history and we have plenty of local heroes.

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

#300
post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because they are not contested in europe, only in the US every single one of those issues gets discussed in Europe. The US does not have a monopoly on social issues, I fear you are just showing the limits of your perspective.

i dont think anyone seriously debates whether abortion should be outlawed in western europe. It's just not a political topic in almost all of europe. Some very conservative parties use the US hype to rally their own supporters but it's just not working as an issue, abortion is to a very large degree culturally acceptable.

Abortion ebbs and flows. As someone else mentioned, currently Poland has placed severe restrictions on it and Ireland only legalised it something like 20 years ago, N.Ireland only decriminalised it about 5 years ago.

I would also suggest that considering the miserable failure of the mid-terms that the US has a similar strong average relatively set against limiting access to abortion too. Although I do appreciate that some areas of the US are more traditionally religious areas and more similar to the conservatives in Poland.

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