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Italian government seeks to penalize the use of English words

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

#381

Post by panick21_ »

seydor wrote: post #109
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…

[flagged]

This is just complete nonsense.

Europe has tons of intellectuals. It doesn't need the US to defend it. There is tons of culture that is incredibly different in Europe compared to the US, just look at Urbanism and Public Transit for example. And the political issues are imported because they are issues here to and young people in the West generally point in the same direction, but even then many of the issues are quite individual as well.

Emigration to the US is not that common, and immigration to places like Germany is very common. Its mostly Eastern Europe that are emigrating both to Western Europe and the US.

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

#382

Post by wkat4242 »

barrkel wrote: post #327
seydor wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 was only legalized in Ireland in 2018. Abortion is one of the few cultural topics which doesn't tend towards borad consensus. E.g. acceptance of gay rights has a tipping point and then drifts towards the 90s+%, but abortion does not.

It's still very limited in Ireland and it took the death of a pregnant woman to make this happen.

Her husband begged the doctors to terminate her pregnancy in order to save her life but he was told "this is a Catholic country".

I marched myself on this dark day in Galway but Ireland still has a long way to go to become truly independent from its Catholic stranglehold. That caused so much pain especially to the youth.

But they are on their way yes, I was especially happy when the gay marriage made it through.

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

#383

Post by pasquino »

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.

In a country where the ignorant bureaucrats call computers "il cervellone" (big brain) this law has, as secondary goal, the task of hiding their stupidity!

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

#384

Post by Aeolun »

_vbnz wrote: post #33
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…

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.

But their national politics are fine. I personally wouldn’t particularly mind any of the parties in the Netherlands getting elected, they’re all variations of the same (aside from some ultra right/left wing wankers, but they have no serious chance).

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

#385

Post by Aeolun »

beaned wrote: post #174
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They awarded Obama a Nobel before he ever had a chance to do anything. There is a whole magic negro thing going on with Europeans intent on demonstrating that they aren't bigots. Right until the point they have brown immigrants entering their own country.

I dunno, have you been to any of the major western European cities in the last 15 years? They're pretty brown now. At least these cities seem to greatly favor immigration.

I wouldn’t say they favor immigration, but they’re dealing with it as gracefully as possible, under the circumstances.

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

#386

Post by panick21_ »

Blackstone4 wrote: post #121
seydor wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Who do you socialise with in Europe?! I’m a dual national and regularly spend time in 3 European cities and 8+ US cities. To be honest, it’s the US that’s devoid of culture and European culture is very much there and deep rooted.

The way the US generally does housing and land use planning leads to a lot of vanishing of culture, specially in urban areas.

The same 8 lane stroads with the same super box stores and fast food chains. All connected with the same type of highway to a bunch of single family homes with little low level commercial or cultural activity.

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

#387

Post by paganel »

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 a pure Anglo view, there is such a thing as L'Académie française which has done its thing related to the preservation of the French language and it has done a pretty good job at it.

Also, language is different compared to cuisine. Not saying that cuisine isn't important in defining a nation's "character", because it is, but language is quintessential when it comes to nation-building.

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

#388

Post by kartoolOz »

somethingsaid wrote: post #366
rhaway84773 wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The phrase lingua Franca is a great example of why English is the most international language in the world. It’s because of its ability to absorb from different languages. That phrase is as English as the word tomato today.

The phrase lingua Franca shows why languages become dominant, because they’re the one spoken by the most powerful group of people. It’s not because English is uniquely good at absorbing from different languages. Japanese uses a ton of foreign loanwords for things. So does Hindu. Lingua Franca is a phrase in the most dominant language 2000 years ago, about the most dominante language 1000 years ago, used in the domina…

Hindu - is someone who practices Hinduism and identifies as such, its not a language, that's Hindi.

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

#389

Post by ur-whale »

vic-traill wrote: post #354
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…

> Culture is defined by people, not some sacred thing that needs to be preserved A counter to this is the Académie Française [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acad%C3%A9mie_Fran%C3%A7aise

> A counter to this is the Académie Française

Which happens to be the laughing stock of the rest of the world, good call.

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

#390

Post by paganel »

Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #371
dfxm12 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I would say many Southern dialects are (or were, more exactly) proper languages, it's only with the advent of the Unification of Italy that the "florentine language" got the upper hand.

For example just this evening I was listening to this Neapolitan (I think it's Neapolitan, definitely Southern) song Brigante se more [1] and I needed to see the written down lyrics to get a hold of it [2], as I couldn't understand almost anything at a first hearing. I know Italian pretty well, but I just couldn't parse the song when hearing it directly.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haF2sPzb63s

[2] https://theitaliansong.com/songs/brigante-se-more/

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