Fluency in ‘inglese farlocco’ has become necessary in Italy as hybrid words and off-kilter meanings proliferate.

  • LvxferreM
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    117 months ago

    This sort of borrowing happens all the time, regardless of the language. The fact that the youth still adapts it to the phonetics, phonology and grammar of Italian says that the language is alive and kicking.

    It would be a bit more concerning if it was the core vocab, but it isn’t - it’s mostly that sort of word that comes and goes depending on the trends, near the “surface” of the vocabulary.

    What concerns me most isn’t “grammatical” Italian, but rather the local varieties. Politically it’s damn easy to find some shitty excuse to get rid of them; for example, label Grico as “foreign” and Lombard as “improper usage of Italian” and you have grounds to legislate against their usage, even in the light of the current legal safeguards (law #482, 15/Dec/1999; plus the 6th article of the Constitution).

    And I may be wrong, but I think that the project of law that the article refers to (in Italian) was partially aiming at those languages, and using English as a scapegoat. Specially given who suggested it, Fratelli d’Italia is filled to the brine with fascists (including Meloni, who used to publicly praise Mussolini).