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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

#491

Post by peoplefromibiza »

rhaway84773 wrote: post #361
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…

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.

you mean it's a great example of how something real can become a concept?

Like we say "it was a bloody Sunday" to generically mean a massacre.

"Lingua franca" was a language, did you know that?

> That phrase is as English as the word tomato today.

It has been at least since the XI century. Long before tomatoes were a thing in England.

> English is the most international language in the world

Which English?

Because British and American English aren't.

And probably right now Mandarin Chinese is even more business oriented than English.

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

#492

Post by marginalia_nu »

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.

Are these two mutually exclusive?

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

#493

Post by NalNezumi »

_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.

Oh I remember that. I found it hilarious when so many of my Swedish (female) friends posted angrily about the racism in USA and that we are better than this.

The same people went to the same engineering uni as me, which had a lot of middle eastern and east Asian classmates that they couldn't give a single fuck about how they subtly mistreated them.

US focus also serves as a convenient denial of our own daily misdeeds here. I'm still to this day shocked to meet a lot of (continental) Europeans that think (systematic) racism is a US thing, and can't possibly be happening here.

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

#494

Post by sli »

bhawks wrote: post #482
irrational wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Spanish has much more complexity All this tells me is that you haven’t learned either Spanish or English as a second language learner. Spanish is incredibly consistent. Unlike English, once you learn the alphabet, you can read everything in Spanish correctly. > It's spoken all over the world. That has zero to do with how hard or easy it is to learn. There is absolutely no correlation. It is spoken all over the worl…

> English is full of homophones that are pronounced identically but have different spellings and meanings, such as the words way and weigh. English the same word can be pronounced differently based on tense: "Did you read the same book I read?" Besides confusing I don't know what to even call a thing like that.

Homographs.

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

#496

Post by kuboble »

angrais wrote: post #322
samus wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The official written language is German, albeit a different standard than non-Swiss German. The difference is not that big, it's like between written American and British English. But I can assure you that most non-Swiss German speakers can't casually understand Swiss German dialects. Edit: these dialect are commonly used in court, public offices, and often on TV. They have a vastly stronger role in public life than…

That's dialects though. The same could be said for most regions in the UK from people living in the UK or abroad, e.g., a Scouse understanding a Glaswegian. This is similar in Italia across regions.

They are dialects. Swiss German isn't a language but a group of dialects, but they aren't closer to high German than Czech is to Polish.

I think my point stands that it's a distinct language from the official one. It definitely feels like that in practice where a lot swiss people feel like they have to wear their official hat when speaking regular German and they prefer to have casual beer conversation in English rather than high German.

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

#497

Post by kuboble »

Foobar8568 wrote: post #454
908B64B197 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> think the example of Switzerland shows that there is no problem if spoken language is different from official language. Most Swiss speak at least two of their four official languages. It's actually an example of how having multiple official languages isn't expensive nor hard to achieve (and the country is on top of most human index charts). But the EU should make Latin it's official language.

Most Swiss people don't speak two of their official language

Most swiss I met do.

It feels like a random non-educated person in the city speaks at least German and French. Any person working is services like a supermarket cashier normally speaks 3+ languages (which you know as they usually are indicated on their badges).

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

#498

Post by NalNezumi »

nivenkos wrote: post #75
adventured wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Racism is at least as prevalent - and far more out-in-the-open - in Europe than in the US. There should be BLM or equivalent protests all over Europe, frankly. It's shocking how openly racist Europeans are (whether eg Italians about Africans, Germans about anyone, or Europeans routinely about gypsies). Ever gone on Reddit and looked at what Swedes say about refugees and immigrants (post ~2014 or so; in 2015 they were…

I live in Sweden, but I think Europe is much less race-oriented (although classism is still a massive issue). Like in the UK the Prime Minister, Home Secretary, and Scottish First Minister are all from immigrant family backgrounds. As for the refugees, it's not so much racism as just a very difficult situation - a nation can't accept literally millions of young men with no language skills or qualifications and expect…

I'm born and raised in Sweden, and have a lot of non white friends and I can firmly say Europeans are about as(or more) race oriented than Americans. We simply banned asking the question. Statistiskmyndigheten explicitly banned taking any stats about ethnicities, while we all know well how middle eastern people are treated (middle eastern telephone salesman need to fake their name for the sake of sales).

Europeans are less race oriented in the same way Russia is a peaceful country and Russian invasion of Ukraine is not an invasion but "special military operation" to majority of Russians living there; we simply don't hear, or want to hear it, and shun people who talk about it.

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

#499

Post by pastacacioepepe »

majormajor wrote: post #400
pastacacioepepe wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It doesn't matter how USAers see it, it's how it's propagated in the rest of the world that makes how we see them. Together with the news of course, but Hollywood is probably the most efficient propaganda machine ever created.

Also it's not just about this over-the-top movies that are completely out of touch with reality. Often the propaganda is subtle and even unintentional, made by victims of propaganda themselves.

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

#500

Post by pastacacioepepe »

edgyquant wrote: post #326
pastacacioepepe wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 are secretly superheroes, that foreign leaders are crooks secretly plotting to conquer the world and so on. These are Projections

butthurt USAer
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