CNN recently shared an interesting story about Italy: Prime Minister Meloni’s government is supporting legislation which may fine corporations or governmental agencies for using English words in their documentations. According to CNN:

   “The bill, which has yet to go up for parliamentary debate, requires anyone who holds an office in public administration to have ‘written and oral knowledge and mastery of the Italian language.’ It also prohibits use of English in official documentation, including “acronyms and names” of job roles in companies operating in the country.”

Snobbism? Literary colonialism? Controlled speech? Not at all. Like the French and the Spanish, the Italians have finally learned that pride, like charity, begins at home. And the main source of pride for any culture is – and should be – its language. 

The CNN story continues: “While the legislation encompasses all foreign languages, it is particularly geared at “Anglomania” or use of English words, which the draft states “demeans and mortifies” the Italian language, adding that it is even worse because the UK is no longer part of the EU.” 

Americans don’t get this, and rightly so: Our language, American English, reflects our nation’s immigrant, democratic, we-take-what-we-like mentality – we accept different words the way we accept different peoples. France and Spain and Italy are homogenous nations and yet they also have a shared language (as does British English, to some extent): Latin. And who spoke that classical language? The Italians!

Ironically, although Dante’s 14th century Florentine tongue is still revered as the “official” Italian accent, two writers who preceded him were just as instrumental via the language: Francesco Petrarch and Pietro Bembo. 

In a June 22nd, 2017 on-line article for BBC News, writer Brenda Kerr relates:

“In 1304, Francesco Petrarca (or Petrarch) was born in the Tuscan town of Arezzo. Sometimes known as the founder of Humanism, he also wrote many love poems in his native, Tuscan Italian, as did his Florentine contemporary and friend Boccaccio, the author of The Decameron. Petrarch wanted more people to understand his poetry, but he also wanted to change Italian’s reputation and prove that it could be just as sophisticated as Latin, which was still the standard tongue for intellectual and artistic exchanges.”

“…Bembo wrote his most famous work, Prose della Volgar Lingua (‘Discussions on the Vernacular’). In it, he described how to write the most beautiful, elevated Italian, one that had the same meter as Latin. Bembo chose 14th-century Tuscan as his model, and Petrarch as the writer who had done it best.”

It may seem trivial to decry how Americans routinely, even purposefully, mangle simple food words like bruschetta but therein lies the garlic rub. Laziness turns into indifference, and indifference turns into disrespect. Spain and France are still considered “classy” in most Americans’ eyes. Italy is not. Though a lot of that also has to do with distorted media images, the lack of care via Italian word pronunciations is where it all starts. And this new legislation, if passed, is a good place to start in reclaiming Italy’s importance to world history.

Language, like the reputation of an entire ethnic group, can become faded and tattered over the years. Say “brewshetta” often enough and people accept it as “true.” Why not get it right the first time? The call has been sounded: Join the Bruschetta Brigade! -BDC

https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/01/europe/italian-government-penalize-english-words-intl/index.html