Lhe mastery of fake English has become essential, in Italy, to keep up with the news. Amy Kazmin, Rome correspondent of the Financial Times, tells the story: between the serious and the facetious, his article leads to laughter but also to a bit of shame. In short, they caught us: they suddenly realized that our Italian is a language full of “fancy” Englishisms (written in Italian!). And the result, for those who grew up in the City, like the Financial Times, rings pure gibberish. What in Italy we call Grammelot.
Italians masters of “fake English”, writes the Financial Times
The journalist mentions her first encounter with the video of Adriano Celentano singing PrisencolinensinainciusolHe sang. A nonsense but American-sounding verbal torrent. «I often think of Celentano when observing the widespread use by Italians of a vocabulary that is reminiscent of Prisencolinensinainciusol». And that is «English words employed in exuberant ways that often make little or no immediate sense to me.”
There is no shortage of examples. Starting from self-bar at the train stations, i.e. vending machines for drinks and snacks. In English “vending machines selling beverages and snacks”. “Haven’t you seen them?” the journalist taunts us. «Maybe it’s because you took the coach – “intercity bus”, in English. Or did you do thehitch-hiking, “hitchhiking”. “Maybe,” the scoffer continues, “you were busy with a lifting: not a workout (in English to lift is to lift) but a facelift (English word for our facelift)».
In love with English but without knowing much about it
The Italians’ infatuation with English, recalls the Financial Times, has begun During the Second World War, when American troops liberated the country from fascism. At the time, schools focused on classical languages such as Latin and ancient Greek, and few of those generations developed a thorough knowledge of English.
Yet English and Englishisms have a positive connotation, those who use them feel like they are “speaking modern”. Hence the adoption of English terms even by speakers who do not know how to speak English.
“English conveys modernity, freshness, technological progress and, in a certain sense, status”, explains the linguist, quoted by the FT Licia Corbolante.
Keeping up with the news therefore requires a good knowledge of fake English. The current focus is on hotspot, or reception centers for irregular migrants (“reception centers for irregular migrants”, in English). The LGBT community is revolting against the stepchild adoptionn, the complicated Italian process for gay couples to establish shared parental rights. Italian employers wait every year for Click Day to obtain permits to hire foreign workers.
Politicians against Anglomania. And yet…
Some members of Fratelli d’Italia would like, it is true, ban English in any public communication (The deputy Fabio Rampelli has asked for fines for public administration officials who use excessive anglicisms, with fines of up to 100,000 euros). But fake English doesn’t seem to be affected. After last year’s electoral victory, Giorgia Meloni herself defined herself as aunderdog”, and newspaper pages have been filled with explanations of what it means.
There’s something for all tastes and sectors, from lockdown at the spread. Any more examples? During Covid, Italians have adopted it smart working – “working from home”, or agile work, which Italians Italianize to the point of saying “today I work in smart”.
Youth jargon is traditionally full of hybrids. Clike the boomerated (something a baby boomer does). Also in vogue is cringeItalianized as cringiata, something disturbing or embarrassing.
English purists (as well as Italians who know English) will probably get hives. But Corbolante pacifies souls: it is linguistic dynamism, beauty. Because «Italian is a vital language», he tells the Financial Times. «We take foreign components and adapt them to our needs». All right. Everything is fine. As she sang, you see, Celentano.
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