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I'm Italian, living in Canada, the reason why I'm attached to my primary language is because I know the most vocabulary and language usage. Aside from that, it'

I'm Italian, living in Canada, the reason why I'm attached to my primary language is because I know the most vocabulary and language usage. Aside from that, it's an unfortunate language, since you can't use to communicate anywhere else beside Italy. We tend to forget that the main purpose of a language is communication, when invoking cultural issues. If you have to penalize usage of English words, you are doing something really wrong. And when I talk about work it's really hard for me to do in my home language. Some words have no translation or incorrect translation (I work as software developer), which incidentally is the same situation my Italian teacher faced when trying to explain some concepts that had a translation in Italian, but the original latin word had a "wider meaning" that wasn't captured by the translation.

lwhi 4y ago
Difficult to find a word for 'snow globe' too ..
- ithkuil 4y ago
  This is an artefact of how Germanic languages can often just glue words together without explicit connective words "Sfera di neve" doesn't like a word whole "snow globe" does and indeed some write it as "snowglobe"
  - thaumasiotes 4y ago
    That's not especially distinctive of Germanic languages. Chinese will do it exactly the same way, though the chains of nouns that are common in Germanic would be unusual to say the least in Chinese. But gluing words together without explicit connections is common pretty much everywhere. Compare Greek, which freely forms adjectives that way, or Latin sanguisuga "bloodsuck[er]" (leech) or lucifer "light-bear[er]" (light-bearer).
    - ithkuil 4y ago
      it can be done in romance languages such as italian, but it's way more frequent that one word has to be a verb and another a noun: sanguisuga (blood sucker), magiafuoco (fire eater), porta tagliafuoco (fire resistent door), apri-pista, or noun+adjective: cassaforte (strong box, safe) or preposition+noun: oltretomba (beyond the grave, after life) There are cases like noun+noun but they are rare and they are not productive, i.e. I cannot make one up. Pescecane (fish dog, i.e. a shark) is ok, but you cannot "sferaneve" for a snowball Probably the reason is that the two nouns have to have a special relation for it to work, i.e. one word has to act as an adjective, it has to qualify the first word somehow. The shark is a fish, but is a fish that bites like a dog, hence it's a fishdog a pescecane. Similarly "casa madre", for headquarters, it's not a house of the mother ("case della madre") but it's a special kind of house that has the quality of "gatherhing the whole family together like if in the case of a real family"
    - naniwaduni 4y ago
      Chinese has quite nearly the opposite problem: compounds are so pervasive that they'll think any disyllable is a compound, identifiable morphemes or no, even if it's a phonetic loan.
Quarrelsome 4y ago
from my perspective given my English background, I like English spelling. Sensibility says I should just give it all up and adhere to the dominant language form (en-US) for the sake of clarity.... and yet.... I shall not. > We tend to forget that the main purpose of a language is communication But also one might consider, or seek the word, that certain way of spitting, tells some peeps we fam. Language isn't just about communicating meaning but also cultural content, identity and social markers. This is part of what drives its frequent development and also part of why some people want to preserve their way of speaking even if its merely a creole or a "dying" language.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
  Yeah but this stuff get pushed as a higher priority over communication, that's my problem with every argument about "preserving culture". If everybody in Italy understands "computer", calling it "calcolatore" is outright against communication (that word in italian is closer to "device to do math operations", which is technically correct, but not what people imagine)
  - ithkuil 4y ago
    Ironically that's exactly what "computer" means. The root "comput-" comes from latin "computo" while "calcolatore" comes from the latin "calculo" which is a rough latin synonym of "computo". The form "comput-" transformed in Italian into "cont-" like in "conto" (English count), "contante" (cash) etc. So perhaps "contatore" (counter) instead of "computer" would make more etymological sense.
    - fathyb 4y ago
      We had this debate in France in 1955. We use the word "ordinateur" for "computer", which comes from the latin "ordinator" which means something that order things, it shares the same root as the word "order". It was picked over the word "calculateur" which is the French equivalent of "calculatore" after IBM France shared a letter wondering if "calculateur" was too restrictive and didn't properly express the machine capabilities. To which Jacques Perret answered "why not ordinateur?" https://journals.openedition.org/bibnum/534 https://journals.openedition.org/bibnum/534
vkou 4y ago
> We tend to forget that the main purpose of a language is communication, when invoking cultural issues. If you have to penalize usage of English words, you are doing something really wrong. The people pushing for this do, in fact remember that the primary purpose of language is communication. Imagine being an aging Italian, or Quebecer, who has spoken Italian, or French all your life, do not have a good grasp of English, only to become unable to understand much of the discourse in your own mother country. I, myself, am not super keen on seeing Spanish, Mandarin, or Esperanto become the lingua franca of my area.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
  The reason in the first place why there are English words in the day-to-day Italian is because a majority of the population _uses already these words_. Given that, this goes against the "preserve communication" argument. After all, this is how Italian was born (at least that's what we studied in school), there was Greek, there was Latin, somewhere the language got distorted by common people all the way until it became Italian and got shared by many, many people. The language was not defined, it evolved with how people used it. This process has been going on forever, I don't see why it should change now with artificial constraints. For what is worth, official documents should be allowed in English language for the entire country, given we are part of the EU, there is a whole money-sucking machine (and time-sucking!) to translate things in English when interacting with other EU countries.
thaumasiotes 4y ago
> Aside from that, it's an unfortunate language, since you can't use to communicate anywhere else beside Italy. I was under the impression that you could communicate roughly but effectively between Italian and Spanish.
- ramblerman 4y ago
  Knowing a romance language already helps in picking up another one but I wouldn't say you can communicate easily between Italian and Spanish. It would be like using your English to converse in Dutch.
  - Y_Y 4y ago
    I don't think that's quite fair. I have had Italian-Spanish conversations which were slow but not painful. With Dutch I can often guess what something means when I see it written down but understanding the spoken language is very hard and I can only pick out a few words here and there.
- aspyct 4y ago
  Nah, the sign language really is different.
  - TRiG_Ireland 4y ago
    Sign languages are independent languages in their own right, with their own grammar, often very different to the grammar of the spoken language(s) used in the same region.
thefz 4y ago
> If you have to penalize usage of English words, you are doing something really wrong. Just in official documents, though. You can still say "OK" in the street.
- fsckboy 4y ago
  "OK" in the streets, "d'accord" in the sheets (of paper)
- DannyBee 4y ago
  This only serves to form unnecessary barriers. If tomorrow, everyone spoke the same language (ignore which one it was), society would be better off. History and historical culture, on their own, are a bad reason to do something (ie learning from history makes sense. Doing something for no other reason than the length of time its been does not) The rest is just about which language and who chooses. The only thing this sort of bill does is make it harder to get to a better state. At least here they are not pretending it's helpful to do it
  - re-thc 4y ago
    > everyone spoke the same language (ignore which one it was), society would be better off. Would it? It would matter which language. It'd benefit those most familiar with it today. People have been laughed at for their accents when learning a language. How does this help? You can't just flip a switch. It'd create a huge inequality divide moreso than today. Some countries are surviving because they use a different language that's not English i.e. less impact from globalization.
    - DannyBee 4y ago
      I posited a world where flipping a switch was possible and the result was perfect. All your complaints are about a world where that isn't true, and so are literally inapplicable. You can argue this is unrealistic, but i'd simply point out the rest is a question of tradeoffs - how fast you do it, what language you pick, etc, there are no perfect answers. That is no reason not to make progress. As for practicallness: In a world of 8 billion people, literally anything you do (something, nothing, whatever) will cause hardship for someone. It's not even an interesting goal to try. Doing nothing causing hardship. Moving forward causes hardship. Combine this with the fact that the unfortunate reality of humans is that one of the main ways that change happens writ large is through seeing the suffering (and success!) of others. I don't think you will change that part of our psychology anytime soon. The sad truth is we don't all get a perfect, or even good, life. You can't make progress on this, either, without causing hardship to some. Does that mean you should not try? Because you will never make progress in steps that are only positive for everyone, or even often get the chance to choose who it gets to be negative for.

lwhi 4y ago

Difficult to find a word for 'snow globe' too ..

ithkuil 4y ago
This is an artefact of how Germanic languages can often just glue words together without explicit connective words "Sfera di neve" doesn't like a word whole "snow globe" does and indeed some write it as "snowglobe"
- thaumasiotes 4y ago
  That's not especially distinctive of Germanic languages. Chinese will do it exactly the same way, though the chains of nouns that are common in Germanic would be unusual to say the least in Chinese. But gluing words together without explicit connections is common pretty much everywhere. Compare Greek, which freely forms adjectives that way, or Latin sanguisuga "bloodsuck[er]" (leech) or lucifer "light-bear[er]" (light-bearer).
  - ithkuil 4y ago
    it can be done in romance languages such as italian, but it's way more frequent that one word has to be a verb and another a noun: sanguisuga (blood sucker), magiafuoco (fire eater), porta tagliafuoco (fire resistent door), apri-pista, or noun+adjective: cassaforte (strong box, safe) or preposition+noun: oltretomba (beyond the grave, after life) There are cases like noun+noun but they are rare and they are not productive, i.e. I cannot make one up. Pescecane (fish dog, i.e. a shark) is ok, but you cannot "sferaneve" for a snowball Probably the reason is that the two nouns have to have a special relation for it to work, i.e. one word has to act as an adjective, it has to qualify the first word somehow. The shark is a fish, but is a fish that bites like a dog, hence it's a fishdog a pescecane. Similarly "casa madre", for headquarters, it's not a house of the mother ("case della madre") but it's a special kind of house that has the quality of "gatherhing the whole family together like if in the case of a real family"
  - naniwaduni 4y ago
    Chinese has quite nearly the opposite problem: compounds are so pervasive that they'll think any disyllable is a compound, identifiable morphemes or no, even if it's a phonetic loan.

Quarrelsome 4y ago

from my perspective given my English background, I like English spelling. Sensibility says I should just give it all up and adhere to the dominant language form (en-US) for the sake of clarity.... and yet.... I shall not. > We tend to forget that the main purpose of a language is communication But also one might consider, or seek the word, that certain way of spitting, tells some peeps we fam. Language isn't just about communicating meaning but also cultural content, identity and social markers. This is part of what drives its frequent development and also part of why some people want to preserve their way of speaking even if its merely a creole or a "dying" language.

Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
Yeah but this stuff get pushed as a higher priority over communication, that's my problem with every argument about "preserving culture". If everybody in Italy understands "computer", calling it "calcolatore" is outright against communication (that word in italian is closer to "device to do math operations", which is technically correct, but not what people imagine)
- ithkuil 4y ago
  Ironically that's exactly what "computer" means. The root "comput-" comes from latin "computo" while "calcolatore" comes from the latin "calculo" which is a rough latin synonym of "computo". The form "comput-" transformed in Italian into "cont-" like in "conto" (English count), "contante" (cash) etc. So perhaps "contatore" (counter) instead of "computer" would make more etymological sense.
  - fathyb 4y ago
    We had this debate in France in 1955. We use the word "ordinateur" for "computer", which comes from the latin "ordinator" which means something that order things, it shares the same root as the word "order". It was picked over the word "calculateur" which is the French equivalent of "calculatore" after IBM France shared a letter wondering if "calculateur" was too restrictive and didn't properly express the machine capabilities. To which Jacques Perret answered "why not ordinateur?" https://journals.openedition.org/bibnum/534 https://journals.openedition.org/bibnum/534

vkou 4y ago

> We tend to forget that the main purpose of a language is communication, when invoking cultural issues. If you have to penalize usage of English words, you are doing something really wrong. The people pushing for this do, in fact remember that the primary purpose of language is communication. Imagine being an aging Italian, or Quebecer, who has spoken Italian, or French all your life, do not have a good grasp of English, only to become unable to understand much of the discourse in your own mother country. I, myself, am not super keen on seeing Spanish, Mandarin, or Esperanto become the lingua franca of my area.

Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
The reason in the first place why there are English words in the day-to-day Italian is because a majority of the population _uses already these words_. Given that, this goes against the "preserve communication" argument. After all, this is how Italian was born (at least that's what we studied in school), there was Greek, there was Latin, somewhere the language got distorted by common people all the way until it became Italian and got shared by many, many people. The language was not defined, it evolved with how people used it. This process has been going on forever, I don't see why it should change now with artificial constraints. For what is worth, official documents should be allowed in English language for the entire country, given we are part of the EU, there is a whole money-sucking machine (and time-sucking!) to translate things in English when interacting with other EU countries.

thaumasiotes 4y ago

> Aside from that, it's an unfortunate language, since you can't use to communicate anywhere else beside Italy. I was under the impression that you could communicate roughly but effectively between Italian and Spanish.

ramblerman 4y ago
Knowing a romance language already helps in picking up another one but I wouldn't say you can communicate easily between Italian and Spanish. It would be like using your English to converse in Dutch.
- Y_Y 4y ago
  I don't think that's quite fair. I have had Italian-Spanish conversations which were slow but not painful. With Dutch I can often guess what something means when I see it written down but understanding the spoken language is very hard and I can only pick out a few words here and there.
aspyct 4y ago
Nah, the sign language really is different.
- TRiG_Ireland 4y ago
  Sign languages are independent languages in their own right, with their own grammar, often very different to the grammar of the spoken language(s) used in the same region.

thefz 4y ago

> If you have to penalize usage of English words, you are doing something really wrong. Just in official documents, though. You can still say "OK" in the street.

fsckboy 4y ago
"OK" in the streets, "d'accord" in the sheets (of paper)
DannyBee 4y ago
This only serves to form unnecessary barriers. If tomorrow, everyone spoke the same language (ignore which one it was), society would be better off. History and historical culture, on their own, are a bad reason to do something (ie learning from history makes sense. Doing something for no other reason than the length of time its been does not) The rest is just about which language and who chooses. The only thing this sort of bill does is make it harder to get to a better state. At least here they are not pretending it's helpful to do it
- re-thc 4y ago
  > everyone spoke the same language (ignore which one it was), society would be better off. Would it? It would matter which language. It'd benefit those most familiar with it today. People have been laughed at for their accents when learning a language. How does this help? You can't just flip a switch. It'd create a huge inequality divide moreso than today. Some countries are surviving because they use a different language that's not English i.e. less impact from globalization.
  - DannyBee 4y ago
    I posited a world where flipping a switch was possible and the result was perfect. All your complaints are about a world where that isn't true, and so are literally inapplicable. You can argue this is unrealistic, but i'd simply point out the rest is a question of tradeoffs - how fast you do it, what language you pick, etc, there are no perfect answers. That is no reason not to make progress. As for practicallness: In a world of 8 billion people, literally anything you do (something, nothing, whatever) will cause hardship for someone. It's not even an interesting goal to try. Doing nothing causing hardship. Moving forward causes hardship. Combine this with the fact that the unfortunate reality of humans is that one of the main ways that change happens writ large is through seeing the suffering (and success!) of others. I don't think you will change that part of our psychology anytime soon. The sad truth is we don't all get a perfect, or even good, life. You can't make progress on this, either, without causing hardship to some. Does that mean you should not try? Because you will never make progress in steps that are only positive for everyone, or even often get the chance to choose who it gets to be negative for.