I feel I have the duty to express my protest with the following comment that, I'm sorry is difficult to translate, in the spirit more then in the form, not only in English but also in Italian for people don't live in Rome: "A Melo' ma vattela a pijar 'under cool' !!! ". My kind regards to al the Italians following Hacker News.
Italian government seeks to penalize the use of English words
391–400 of 605 posts
Re: Italian government seeks to penalize the use of English words
#392Good. Americans are usually not aware of the extent of american cultural imperialism which is basically everywhere, not just in Europe but you can see it very strong here I'm not saying it's bad or good. But I wish we have less Hollywood, less Netflix, less american music, less american videogames, less imported american culture topics etc when actual local music, movies, books, games exist.
American culture isn't to blame for consumer choice. Why are almost all the Eurovision songs in English?
Re: Italian government seeks to penalize the use of English words
#393Earlier 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…
>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.
This isn't true. English is easily the most-spoken 2nd language in the world, and it's not just because of Anglophone nation power, it's because English is an easily-learned language. I live in Japan, and while Japanese borrows a lot of foreign words (mostly from English), it's not ever going to become dominant because it's just too hard to learn. It's the same with Chinese. Any language that requires you to learn thousands of glyphs just to be fluent in the written version isn't going to go far worldwide compared to a language that uses 26 (and shares those with a large array of other languages).
English is a uniquely simple language to learn compared to the languages of other powerful nations (Chinese, Japanese, Russian, German); some of those have extremely baroque writing systems (or simply unique and different, for Cyrillic), and all of them have very complicated grammar rules. By contrast, any idiot can learn a little basic English quickly and speak it well enough to be understood, even if it's technically incorrect.
Re: Italian government seeks to penalize the use of English words
#394Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 abo…
Yeah but this stuff get pushed as a higher priority over communication, that's my problem with every argument about "preserving culture".
If everybody in Italy understands "computer", calling it "calcolatore" is outright against communication (that word in italian is closer to "device to do math operations", which is technically correct, but not what people imagine)
Re: Italian government seeks to penalize the use of English words
#395Earlier 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.
You don't think Ireland is part of western Europe? You don't think Poland counts as part of Europe and the EU?
Re: Italian government seeks to penalize the use of English words
#396Earlier 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…
When I go back to France I see burgers sold everywhere and massively more English words, both compared to 20 years ago. French culture has very noticeably diluted in that relatively short time.
Was American culture "diluted" when pizza became popular in the mid-20th century?
Re: Italian government seeks to penalize the use of English words
#397On 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…
Weird / awkward efforts to preserve things is a human trait.
Re: Italian government seeks to penalize the use of English words
#398Earlier quoted context omitted.
From what vantage point are you speaking? I’ve been online for 17 years and so I’ve been very aware of the trend of “wokeism” and other things like that. I also live in the country known as Europe. Yet in “real life” I have never, ever encountered a woke, virtue-signalling stereotype. The closest I came was some other guy’s experience that he relayed to me. And that goes for other American (or not) things that also a…
You forgot gun violance. The statistics for that are insane compared to any other country
No, they aren't. Gun violence in America doesn't look that bad compared to places like northern Mexico, El Salvador, Brazil, Sudan, etc.
Compared to rich nations, however, it looks downright awful.
Re: Italian government seeks to penalize the use of English words
#399On 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 remember visiting a shopping mall in Stuttgart. From the parking garage, to the building architecture, to the layout, to the businesses, to the advertising signs, you could not tell you were in a country other than the US. It was kinda sad.
If I enter a shopping mall in my country I expect it to be American the same way I expect a McDonald’s to be American. I mean, the very concept is foreign.
Re: Italian government seeks to penalize the use of English words
#400Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be fair, American culture is not homogeneous either. There are multiple cultures throughout the country. Whatever version of thinking you're talking about is likely has both supporters and detractors here.
It's not a version of USA culture (not American), it's the propagation of Capitalism, of the "american" dream, of USA exceptionalism. The idea that their army is the coolest and will save us from aliens, that their bilionaires (oligarchs) are secretly superheroes, that foreign leaders are crooks secretly plotting to conquer the world and so on.
> The idea that their army is the coolest and will save us from aliens, that their bilionaires (oligarchs) are secretly superheroes, that foreign leaders are crooks secretly plotting to conquer the world and so on.
Nothing more American than this example of how an oft-derided-in-the-rest-of-the-US bunch of coastal Hollywood elites constantly put out a bunch of movies glorifying guns, violence, capitalism, and the USA.