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

371–380 of 605 posts

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

#371

Post by Fire-Dragon-DoL »

dfxm12 wrote: post #153
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…

This is coming from an increasingly right wing, nationalist, Italian government. This is the type of government that will disqualify a person or way of thinking just because of where it comes from, and this type of xenophobia is kinda dangerous. Plus, the emphasis on "correct use of the Italian language and its pronunciation" also seems to discriminate against people who speak southern dialects. After all, Tu vuò fà…

Every italian region has a dialect. Even Meloni herself can be clearly recognized as being from Rome based on the choice of words and pronunciation.

I find that beautiful, but this law seems to be against it

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

#372

Post by encody »

samus wrote: post #294
llimos wrote: 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

Here's an entertaining video introduction to Anglish: https://youtu.be/aMA3M6b9iEY

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

#373

Post by marc_abonce »

elnatro wrote: post #234
hunglee2 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

While the RAE recommends calling the language Spanish, it recognizes that Castilian is a synonym of Spanish. [1]

My personal experience also corroborates this. In common usage, Castilian is the same language as Spanish and in fact I hear people from Spain refer to the language as Castilian, even when talking about the language as spoken in Latin America, regardless of the Academy's prescription.

[1] https://www.rae.es/dpd/espa%2525C3%2525B1ol

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

#374

Post by Fire-Dragon-DoL »

pmontra wrote: post #241
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.

Thinking about a standard computer, accessories and concepts, there are no common Italian words for computer, mouse, touchpad, touchscreen, scanner, web, link, app, database, word processor, bit, byte and the defunct floppy disk. Everything else is commonly named in Italian. Keyboard, memory, disk (in general, but hard disk is in English), screen, pen drives, power unit, mother board (this is maybe 50-50), folders, i…

Calcolatore (my university teacher told me that. Nobody in Italy would use that), mouse, touchpad, schermo touch, scanner, web depends on how you use it: internet or "rete", collegamento, applicazione, base di dati (university course was named like that. Most people call it database professionally), no idea about word processor (I rarely use that in English too), bit, byte, floppy, hard disk is "disco rigido", schermo, chiavetta usb, not sure about power unit, scheda madre, cartelle, icone, programmi, processi, finestre, bottoni, ordinare, filtrare, ricerca, righe, colonne, celle, fogli

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

#375

Post by panick21_ »

hunglee2 wrote: post #14

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…

Its kind of ridiculous. This is like a 1970s thing. To jump on this now is kind absurd.

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

#376

Post by pasquino »

This law IMHO is a expression of manifest incompetence because the ART.11 of Italian Constitution guarantee freedom of speech of opinion, so the "Corte Costituzionale" , the Italian tribunal competent in matter of constitutional question will abrogate this law at first instance. This is a sterile expression of blind nationalism and an offence to our constitutional values.

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

#377

Post by wkat4242 »

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…

> Nobody went out on the streets because they wanted cookie prompts. We are just letting bureaucrats run the show and tell us we should like it

Umm I do advocate for privacy. And I know many people that do. Feelings about GDPR are generally very positive.

But nobody wanted cookie prompts. They are the result of a shortsighted compromise.

What the EU should have done is simply forbid user tracking or make the user take action if they want to be tracked, no not tracking should be the default. Pop-up questions should have been explicitly forbidden.

However the industry knows that nobody wants to be tracked. And feared a loss of income. So they campaigned to weaken the law. The EU officials in their stupidity agreed. Stupid yes because now the industry blames them for the abundant cookie walls.

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

#378

Post by Aerroon »

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…

>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 think music and film are actually the primary way that this American culture is exported. Think about the whole culture surrounding movies - much of it is controlled and inspired by Hollywood.

I agree that it would be nice if the rest of the world wouldn't become so Americanized, but I think that's only viable if the population doesn't learn English en masse.

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

#379

Post by totetsu »

pmontra wrote: post #241
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.

Thinking about a standard computer, accessories and concepts, there are no common Italian words for computer, mouse, touchpad, touchscreen, scanner, web, link, app, database, word processor, bit, byte and the defunct floppy disk. Everything else is commonly named in Italian. Keyboard, memory, disk (in general, but hard disk is in English), screen, pen drives, power unit, mother board (this is maybe 50-50), folders, i…

Are the english words spoken in a way that follows italian phonic patterns(vowel sounds and consonant vowel pairs)? How does grammatical gender work for loan words, or newly made up words?

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

#380

Post by Quarrelsome »

Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #336
Quarrelsome wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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 somet…

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.

Post reply on HN