Italian government seeks to penalize the use of English words • Hacker News Board

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

#511

Post by thaumasiotes » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 8:30 AM UTC

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…

> English has no gender at all

The Indo-European gender difference still survives in the distinction between he, she, and it.

More interestingly, English is in the process of developing a gender distinction between people and non-people, reflected in the use of the relativizer who for people and which for non-people. (The words do not otherwise differ; this is a purely grammatical distinction!) This incipient gender distinction is absorbing the old one, leading to the feeling that it expresses that the referent is not a person.

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

#512

Post by stevekemp » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 8:30 AM UTC

thaumasiotes wrote: post #506

stevekemp wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I like English spelling. I grew up in the UK and prefer British-English to American-English, both in terms of spelling and pronunciation. That said English has terrible spelling compared to other languages, it's impossible to know how to pronounce a word just looking at the spelling. I don't need to give examples, as it is well-known already. I benefit from the fact that many people I've met around the world speak…

> I benefit from the fact that many people I've met around the world speak English, but it's almost unfortunate that one of the harder/more inconsistent languages "won". English is not one of the harder or more inconsistent languages in the world. It's one of the simpler and more consistent ones. This is a general pattern with languages that go through a phase where they are learned by large numbers of adults.

English is very inconsistent, not that this necessarily makes it harder of course, compared to languages such as Finnish which has very regular grammar and no ambiguity with pronounciation.

("I could have read the red book, because I like to read." is just one example of inconsistent pronounciation. Spelling is non-obvious to people learning the language, again as a result of unusual and inconsistent pronounciation.)

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

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Post by sharikous » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 8:32 AM UTC

ithkuil wrote: post #462

Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

Ironically that's exactly what "computer" means. The root "comput-" comes from latin "computo" while "calcolatore" comes from the latin "calculo" which is a rough latin synonym of "computo". The form "comput-" transformed in Italian into "cont-" like in "conto" (English count), "contante" (cash) etc. So perhaps "contatore" (counter) instead of "computer" would make more etymological sense.

I am always amused by those kinds of etymologies where a word "gets back" to the language it came from or its more direct heir (Italian for Latin) after living in a different language.

In Hebrew we have "tachless" that comes from yiddish "tachless", that comes from Hebrew "tachlit" but now tachless and tachlit have different meanings and different grammar roles

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

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Post by ramblerman » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 8:37 AM UTC

thaumasiotes wrote: post #502

Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #336

Earlier 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…

> Aside from that, it's an unfortunate language, since you can't use to communicate anywhere else beside Italy. I was under the impression that you could communicate roughly but effectively between Italian and Spanish.

Knowing a romance language already helps in picking up another one but I wouldn't say you can communicate easily between Italian and Spanish.

It would be like using your English to converse in Dutch.

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

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Post by thaumasiotes » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 8:42 AM UTC

tsimionescu wrote: post #461

midoridensha wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 be…

Grammar is really not that much of an impediment to picking up a 2nd language for business and trade purposes. Unlike in school, no one really cares that much about grammar if you can understand what the other is saying. And English grammar is really not that simple - for example, few other languages have the distinction between continuous and perfect forms of a tense, but foreign speakers can simply avoid it in Engl…

> few other languages have the distinction between continuous and perfect forms of a tense, but foreign speakers can simply avoid it in English ("I read the docs" instead of "I am reading the docs" for a really basic speaker)

I can't really tell what you mean. "I am reading the docs" is an example of a form that is generally called "continuous", yes. "Continuous" is an aspect, not a tense.

The same is true of "perfect", but the larger problem is that you haven't provided a perfect form. (Finite) perfect constructions in English are marked by auxiliary have, "I have read the docs". "I read the docs" uses what is generally called the "plain form" (the name describes the form, not the meaning that calls for the form), and it expresses that the verb is stative[1], describing a fact about the subject ("I am the kind of person who reads the docs") rather than describing an event that takes place at a particular time.

> Chinese would be very hard to pick up in much of the world simply because tone is a very foreign phonetical feature

This is very commonly asserted, but I don't believe it's true. Here you can see a popular American sitcom making a series of jokes about tone, even though the same people who will tell you that Chinese is difficult because of its tones will also tell you that English doesn't have them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjpnslsuA2g

So the exotic phonetic phenomenon that makes it so difficult for English speakers to learn Chinese is... something that English speakers are natively aware enough of to make and appreciate jokes about. (Not to mention objecting to people who are doing it wrong - check out "uptalk", which people spontaneously punctuated with question marks because the phenomenon was so obvious to them that they felt obligated to indicate it in writing even though the writing system has no provision for it.)

[1] https://glossary.sil.org/term/stative-verb

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

#516

Post by aspyct » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 8:45 AM UTC

thaumasiotes wrote: post #502

Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #336

Earlier 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…

> Aside from that, it's an unfortunate language, since you can't use to communicate anywhere else beside Italy. I was under the impression that you could communicate roughly but effectively between Italian and Spanish.

Nah, the sign language really is different.

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

#517

Post by unlucio » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 8:51 AM UTC

The funny thing is that most people in the current Italian gov, and their followers, don’t even speak proper Italian! They mostly speak “italianized” versions of their dialects, incidentally more detrimental than any foreign word lacking a proper translation. They constantly butcher both grammar and syntax and if you correct them they get all mad and worked up. I always found ridiculous their pointless attachment to a language they don't even speak. It's just shortaighted propaganda without any real vision behind it if not the systematic, pointless, and toxic opposition to any kind of change and moving forward.

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

#518

Post by wink » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 9:03 AM UTC

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…

Genuine fondness? I suppose if I wasn't interested in languages per se I might as well have zero positive things to say about German. Being on the internet for 25 years, working in international teams, playing online games on international servers - there were weeks and months where I barely used any German on a given day, compared to English, and that's fine.

I also don't see a reason why you would support the region you were born at all, if you like something else better. Tons of people move away and have zero regrets. Does reverse nationalism exist? :P

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

#519

Post by re-thc » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 9:07 AM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #436

re-thc wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It goes back to the same origins. Why do you trade? There has to be something to gain. Often that is a result of this act of war, expansion and domination.

Sure we can assume we just want to trade peacefully. History has said otherwise. We want to trade with the biggest trading partners and a lot of them grew by raiding others.

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

#520

Post by revelio » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 9:09 AM UTC

pastacacioepepe wrote: post #242

giantg2 wrote: post #136

Earlier 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"

There have been occasional British TV shows/movies with this premise as well. That's not American culture, that's "what would happen if aliens invaded and we make a movie about that" culture.

The reason you think it's American is that only the Americans seem to make sci-fi these days. I don't know if that's budget or culture or what. On HN we talk a lot about how impoverished the Euro tech scene is vs the USA but it's not just tech. Italians use a lot of English words because the Euro movie/TV scene is also out to lunch. What was the last mega-franchise that came out of Europe? Probably Harry Potter? So, Europe but not EU. And Harry Potter was created in the UK but actually brought to worldwide attention thanks to investment by ... Americans.

My guess is it's due to the dominance of government funded media firms. What's the best known European sci-fi franchise? Dr Who? A relic that dates to the 50s. The BBC lost interest in sci fi and fantasy a long time ago. Too expensive, only popular with unpopular demographics. Far better to make yet another 1800s period drama.