European nations attack "intrusion" of English on a "euro" basis rather than "nationalistic" basis. Battle of "purists" vs "accommodators".

Italian 5th most studied language in world. Travel and 'amore' cited as reasons.
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ITALY STRUGGLES TO KEEP THE MOTHER TONGUE PURE

International Herald Tribune
Elisabetta Povoledo
Monday, November 10, 2003

'ITALESE' JOINS OTHER EUROPEAN HYBRIDS

Milan- It is no surprise that English is the most-studied foreign language. And most people could probably guess that French, Spanish and German are second, third and fourth. But No. 5?.

It is the language of love. But why is it doing so surprisingly well?.
A coming visit to the Bel Paese is mostly why people hit the Italian books.
That, and "amore.".

"Prospective Italian students are typically planning a visit to Italy, but the second-most given reason is because the student is in love with an Italian man or woman," said Caterina Cicogna, who retired this year after two decades as director of school programs for the Italian Consulate in Toronto, citing an American study. "These are powerful motivations."

But like their counterparts in France, the guardians of the language of Dante and Pirandello worry that English is encroaching on Italian and making it increasingly incomprehensible to their countrymen. The mangled language is called Italiese..

"You have words like 'slip' or 'smoking' that we use thinking we're speaking English but in fact we aren't," said Claudio Giovanardi, a professor at the University of Rome 3. In Italian, as in French, those words refer to underwear and tuxedo, even though they do not in English. Only the young and savvy, he said, can decode the meanings of English thrown in with Italian..

In "Inglese-Italiano 1 a 1," co-authored with the linguist Riccardo Gualdo and published in October, Giovanardi argues that the contamination of Italian by English is more widespread than experts admit to, with worrisome consequences..

The Ministry of Labor and Social Politics is often referred to by its English equivalent, the Ministry of Welfare, and Italian companies refer their unhappy clients to "customer service." "We all want English to be better known than it already is, but the use of these English terms, removed from their context, have devastating effects," he said. "It's not English and it's not Italian.".

To Francesco Sabatini, the head of the Accademia della Crusca, founded in 1570 to promote the primacy of Florentine Italian, the random mixing of English with Italian is "counterproductive because it's not informative.".

But Italians persist in it, he said, because of their proclivity to "exhibitionism and servility.".

"Why say 'coffee break' instead of 'pausa caffe,'" he asked with a laugh, "when Italian coffee is so much better than English coffee?" In Europe, defense of linguistic purity has been identified more with France than Italy, but with greater European integration, the battleground has shifted to a common defense against the supremacy of any one language - and especially English - over any others..

The Accademia della Crusca and its German counterpart, the Institut für Deutsche Sprache in Mannheim, were the driving force behind the recently instituted European Federation of National Linguistic Institutions, whose aim is to preserve and promote linguistic diversity among the EU states. It met in Stockholm in mid-October to work on its plan to ensure that it becomes the main interlocutor with EU institutions on matters of language..

"We want to be the organ that they consult because we represent all countries," Sabatini said. "Even the French joined the federation when they understood that a common European defense of the language was more opportune than a nationalist approach.".

The battle over English aside, the desire to learn Italian sometimes outstrips the Italian government's ability to teach it. Italy's 89 Italian Cultural Institutes throughout the world are prime disseminators of Italian..

But on Cyprus recently, a surge of interest by Greek Cypriots left Italian cultural agencies there searching for teachers, said Monica Barni, a professor at the University for Foreigners in Perugia who co-authored the report that found Italian to the fifth most-taught second language in the world..

Over the past few years, isolated pockets of interest in Italian have flared up in Russia, Romania, and especially Japan, which has about 100,000 students of Italian, according to an official at the Foreign Ministry in Rome..

But some linguists say that, compared with other European countries, Italian governments do not do enough to support the study of Italian, both at home and abroad. That may soon change. Last month, the cabinet passed a reform of the Italian Culture Institutes that would increase staffing and funding but which still must be passed by Parliament..

"There's been an increase in interest in linguistic education," said Luca Serianni, a professor at Rome's La Sapienza University. "But it is nothing compared to France or Spain. They care about their language in a way that we don't."

IHT: Italy struggles to keep the mother tongue pure
http://iht.com/articles/117009.html