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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

#431

Post by flexie »

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…

English too, is a mix of foreign languages. Only dead languages don't evolve.

Italian is a descendant of the Latin language, which itself borrowed extensively from Greek. What is so special about today's Italian language that it should by all means be preserved in it's current form without continuing to borrow from foreign languages?

European languages borrow from English because the US offers so much that we voluntarily adopt in Europe. If most good movies, music, streaming services, computer hardware, computer software, Internet, electric cars, smartphones, AI, business ideas etc. were Italian, the English language would adopt more Italian words.

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

#432

Post by chadlavi »

unpopularopp wrote: post #18

Good. 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.

> Good.

> I'm not saying it's bad or good.

Yeah you are?

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

#433

Post by jacquesm »

Quarrelsome wrote: post #149
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 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…

> you'll struggle to find someone without a genuine fondness for it

I'm such a person. I realize that any kind of preference I have for the language that I grew up with is an accident of birth. It helps to be part of a country that is so small as to be irrelevant in the greater scheme of things. Life doesn't stop at the border and if you want to be active at all then you're going to have to interact with people speaking different languages. English, German and French to begin with, and maybe Spanish, Chinese and one of the Slavic languages after that.

I think English is here to stay in a way that Latin never was, the digital repository of English text is absolutely massive, unless you want to limit yourself you simply have to speak English. When there was no internet that meant books and once the printing press was invented and books were no longer in very limited circulation (and reading and writing became more common skills) written culture really took off. The Roman empire is what drove the spread of Latin and once the empire collapsed it took Latin with it, with the exception of some niche uses (science, mostly, and religious texts).

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

#434

Post by nitwit005 »

opportune wrote: post #416
raspo wrote: post #58

As an Italian now living abroad, every time I go back I am horrified by the way Italians mis-use all sorts of English words in many contexts of life... One example: "smart-working". At the beginning of the pandemic, when we all started to "work remotely" or "work from home", Italians decided to call it "Smart Working". The first time I heard this term from a relative I was very confused, I thought it was just young p…

In the US we call first course appetizers and the main course “entree”. We usually use “sushi” to refer to raw fish rather than rice dish style itself. And we invented the term “Latinx” Aside from that last one, people don’t generally seem to care

I am forever baffled by "à la mode" meaning "served with ice cream".

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

#435

Post by stametseater »

unity1001 wrote: post #141
stametseater wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've been downvoted for offending Americans by rejecting America's cultural imperialism. I challenge anybody who downvoted this post to provide any other explanation for their decision.

Yep. > I challenge anybody who downvoted this post to provide any other explanation for their decision. Let me provide one: A lot of Americans dont think that anyone could do a concerted, systematic sociopathy like the one I told in my post. Simply because they themselves wouldnt do such a thing, they think that those with whom they identify also wouldnt do that. Anything bad that happened to others or anything bad t…

I think a big part of the puzzle is the fact that American children are taught from a very young age that they are extremely fortunate to be born in America, and by implicit extension, everybody else is unfortunate to not be born in America. These narratives often start with immigrants teaching their first generation American children this way, who in turn teach the same to their children. So well-meaning Americans earnestly believe they are doing everybody else a favor when endeavor to Americanize other cultures.

This of course is caught up in the American conflation of religion and patriotism. It is taught that America is god's preferred country, evidenced by American global hegemony proving god is on America's side. One day of the week American children might pray in church, but five days a week American children swear their allegiance to the flag in a group ritual run by government schools, very often with the "one nation, under god" clause taught to them by their teachers. The few children who resist this group ritual will often be mocked by their peers and chewed out by their teachers.

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

#436

Post by jacquesm »

re-thc wrote: post #404
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.

English is the most international language because of war, expansion and domination. It could be any other language whose "countries" won. The major currency is USD... Most English speaking countries are of British origin... Non-English speaking countries trade with the largest partner(s), which are of English origins... I don't think it's the features of the language that are at play here.

> English is the most international language because of war, expansion and domination.

That's one perspective. Another is trade. Trade is what caused my parents to learn English in the 40's and the 50's because it made them more employable.

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

#437

Post by jacquesm »

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 a pity that France does this because it diminishes them and makes the French act in ways that make zero sense. Once I got called to France for an in person meeting regarding some work for a French company. They insisted on having the meeting in French. I ended up sitting in on a meeting that went absolutely nowhere until they finally switched to English after me pointing out that English isn't my first language either and that if they wanted to have the meeting in Dutch in stead it would be fine by me but I'm not going to have a meeting where I'm at a serious disadvantage in understanding and speaking.

One elderly gentleman left the meeting, it turned out that he didn't speak English and was the one that had insisted the meeting be in French and after that we got along just fine.

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

#438

Post by MisterBastahrd »

midoridensha wrote: post #422
irrational wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's because English is an easily-learned language The only way you could possibly believe that is because you are a native speaker and didn’t have to learn it as a second language. English is notorious for being difficult to learn. Especially the abomination of our written language. Try learning Spanish to see what a truly easily-learned language looks like.

Spanish has much more complexity: complicated verb conjugation, gendered nouns, etc. English has no gender at all, and very little conjugation, and what conjugation it has is simple, except for a handful of words that it inherited from German. English isn't "notorious" for being difficult to learn at all. Citation needed. It's spoken all over the world. It's known for being difficult to become extremely proficient in…

> Spanish has much more complexity

No it doesn't. It's not even close. Spanish has rules and generally follows those rules. English has rules and almost as many exceptions to those rules.

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

#439

Post by tayo42 »

_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.

I remember being really surprised that a guy from the Netherlands was talking to me about American governors. I didn't even really care about his opinion, I was more interested in why we knew something like a foreign countries states governors.

I couldn't even tell you what kind of government the Netherlands has lol could be a monarchy for all is know hah

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

#440

Post by YeBanKo »

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…

What specific aspects of the American way of thinking do you not like? Genuinely curious.
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