Tuesday,
September 25
English "Devouring" Italian Language ??
The
ANNOTICO Report
The
Case Against English
English is swallowing
foreign languages and some are not happy.
THE English
language has always devoured foreign words, like a whale snacking on plankton.
I suppose it all started when Old English had to accept French – the Norman conquerors insisted – and after that
reckoned that if English could swallow French, it
could swallow
anything, even if the digestive process lasted for 300 years. ......
The Italians are
now increasingly disturbed by this tendency. It is especially painful for them,
because as early as the 16th century, the Accademia della Crusca
was founded to safeguard the purity of the Italian language.
Michele Cortelazzo of the
Prime examples
that he gives include flop, instead of the Italian fiasco. This strikes me as odd,
because fiasco was
absorbed into English long ago.
The Italian tendenza is
giving way to trend. (Note the difference in
current English between trend, a neutral word, and trendy,
which means "fashionable", often with a slight implication of
distaste.) Often, the English (Anglo-American) term is shorter, and this makes
its own appeal. Go shopping is
quicker than fare un giro di acquisti.
The Corriere della
Sera, a major newspaper, says that the list of commonly used loan
words is becoming longer by the day. It includes meeting, manager, happy hour, babysitter,
personal trainer, team, fitness, cocktail, pub.
Stress, which I used to think a uniquely
British ailment, has now caught on in
The invasion of
English terms is irreversible. Hence the ironic question posed in The
Times: “What’s
Italian for ‘A
fitness team is meeting in the pub’?”
The answer is the same key words, strung together with a little Italian.
There can’t be a convincing solution to the main problem, which is the
infiltration by English into other languages. It is with Italian-English as
with English-American: a new word sounds more appealing, more smart and
knowing, if it comes from that source.
Italians are
urged to use foreign imports correctly. They point out that English often
mangles Italian terms. Latte is
Italian for "milk", but in general English has come to mean
"coffee with milk". (Starbucks, Frasier).
I fear that
language is beginning to resemble a soup in which the ingredients taste vaguely
of something else.
The
ANNOTICO Reports Can be Viewed (and are Archived) on:
Italia
Italia
Mia: http://www.ItaliaMia.com (3 years)
Annotico Email: annotico@earthlink.net