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> Although to be fair using regional slang makes some sense as the Countach dates to around the time that Italy was transitioning to Standard Italian. ? Tuscan

> Although to be fair using regional slang makes some sense as the Countach dates to around the time that Italy was transitioning to Standard Italian. ? Tuscan was the written standard for Italian since Petrarch and the Piedmontese conquest of Southern Italy was done by 1871. Admittedly colonization took a long time but it’s a very long time since anything but Tuscan has been used in official or prestige circumstances in Italian.

inferiorhuman 4y ago
Sure but even sixty odd years later Mussolini was struggling to force people to drop their regional identities and adopt an Italian one. From what I can tell (as I'm neither that old nor Italian) even by the 50s or 60s it was still common to find folks who were only fluent in a regional language. > official or prestige circumstances in Italian Lamborghini differentiated itself from Ferrari in large part by being brash and in your face. Given what countach means I think it's pretty safe to say that they were not trying to come up with a prestigious name.
- aphroz 4y ago
  It's still the case in some regions where even young people don't have a good level of Italian as they speak dialect 90% of the time (or more). And I am not sure this will evolve as now people don't watch TV anymore (which is in Italian). There might local youtubers speaking dialect only.
  - darkwater 4y ago
    I would not use the word "evolving" in this context, due to its "positive change" connotation.
    - aphroz 4y ago
      This is why I didn't use "improving"
  - jaclaz 4y ago
    As an Italian (and probably old enough) I can confirm, what made the "transition" to Italian was school but much more than that radio and television where an "official" italian is usually spoken. In some regions (both in the north and in the south) many people are - still today - functionally bilingual, i.e. they still use largely dialect (and that is their "native" language) and switch automatically to Italian when dealing with (say) authority/government officers/foreigners or when they travel outside their region. But I believe that at the moment the majority of people from these regions are in the "reverse" mode, i.e. they normally speak Italian but switch to the dialect in case of need or with older relatives/known friends.

inferiorhuman 4y ago

Sure but even sixty odd years later Mussolini was struggling to force people to drop their regional identities and adopt an Italian one. From what I can tell (as I'm neither that old nor Italian) even by the 50s or 60s it was still common to find folks who were only fluent in a regional language. > official or prestige circumstances in Italian Lamborghini differentiated itself from Ferrari in large part by being brash and in your face. Given what countach means I think it's pretty safe to say that they were not trying to come up with a prestigious name.

aphroz 4y ago
It's still the case in some regions where even young people don't have a good level of Italian as they speak dialect 90% of the time (or more). And I am not sure this will evolve as now people don't watch TV anymore (which is in Italian). There might local youtubers speaking dialect only.
- darkwater 4y ago
  I would not use the word "evolving" in this context, due to its "positive change" connotation.
  - aphroz 4y ago
    This is why I didn't use "improving"
- jaclaz 4y ago
  As an Italian (and probably old enough) I can confirm, what made the "transition" to Italian was school but much more than that radio and television where an "official" italian is usually spoken. In some regions (both in the north and in the south) many people are - still today - functionally bilingual, i.e. they still use largely dialect (and that is their "native" language) and switch automatically to Italian when dealing with (say) authority/government officers/foreigners or when they travel outside their region. But I believe that at the moment the majority of people from these regions are in the "reverse" mode, i.e. they normally speak Italian but switch to the dialect in case of need or with older relatives/known friends.