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LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Italians ‘don’t love’ their language

Italian may be a language of romance, but Italians themselves are not so affectionate about it, according to Claudio Marazzini, the president of the Florence-based Crusca Academy.

Published: 24 February 2015 09:26 CET

Italians 'don't love' their language

Italians don’t love their language, according to the president of the Florence-based Crusca Academy. Italian language photo: Shutterstock

Speaking at a conference on safeguarding Italian, Marazzini was cited by Ansa as saying that "Italian is not a language really loved by the Italians".

And this lack of affection towards their own language is paving the way for the increasing use of Anglicisms, he added.

"The reasons why Italy is so disposed to foreign influence is the frequent lack of a good knowledge of its own history and language to the extent that would restore belonging to the national culture," he said.

He added that this lack of knowledge often leads Italians living abroad to become "stateless".

"Apart from for food, and even for that less than before, the Italian citizen is very often a kind of stateless person, even if disadvantaged and not easily integrating abroad," he said.

"With this basis and roots, young people are easily prone to break off from the national reality and cut their bridges, the few that remain."

It is true that Italians have borrowed many words and phrases from English and woven into their language.

We put together a list of some of the most common Anglicisms.

Top 10: English words adopted by Italians

And here are some English words that have crept in, but have been completely reinvented.

Top 15 English words reinvented by Italians

The Crusca Academy was founded in 1582 for the purpose of purifying Tuscan, the literary language of the Italian Renaissance.

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An old WW2 photo taken in the French port town of Le Havre.

An old WW2 photo taken in the French port town of Le Havre. It can be difficult to know what prepositions to use for places like this - so we have explained it for you. (Photo by AFP)

If you’re listening to French chat about any of those topics, at some point you’re likely to hear the names of Mans, Havre and Touquet bandied about.

And this is because French towns that have a ‘Le’ ‘La’ or ‘Les’ in the title lose them when you begin constructing sentences.

As a general rule, French town, commune and city names do not carry a gender.

So if you wanted to describe Paris as beautiful, you could write: Paris est belle or Paris est beau. It doesn’t matter what adjectival agreement you use.

For most towns and cities, you would use à to evoke movement to the place or explain that you are already there, and de to explain that you come from/are coming from that location:

Je vais à Marseille – I am going to Marseille

Je suis à Marseille – I am in Marseille

Je viens de Marseille – I come from Marseille

But a select few settlements in France do carry a ‘Le’, a ‘La’ or a ‘Les’ as part of their name.

In this case the preposition disappears when you begin formulating most sentences, and you structure the sentence as you would any other phrase with a ‘le’, ‘la’ or ‘les’ in it.

Masculine

Le is the most common preposition for two names (probably something to do with the patriarchy) with Le Havre, La Mans, Le Touquet and the town of Le Tampon on the French overseas territory of La Réunion (more on that later)

A good example of this is Le Havre, a city in northern France where former Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe, who is tipped to one day run for the French presidency, serves as mayor.

Edouard Philippe’s twitter profile describes him as the ‘Maire du Havre’, using a masculine preposition

Here we can see that his location is Le Havre, and his Twitter handle is Philippe_LH (for Le Havre) but when he comes to describe his job the Le disappears.

Because Le Havre is masculine, he describes himself as the Maire du Havre rather than the Maire de Havre (Anne Hidalgo, for example would describe herself as the Maire de Paris).

For place names with ‘Le’ in front of them, you should use prepositions like this:

Ja vais au Touquet – I am going to Le Touquet

Je suis au Touquet – I am in Le Touquet

Je viens du Touquet – I am from Le Touquet

Je parle du Touquet – I am talking about Le Touquet

Le Traité du Touquet – the Le Touquet Treaty

Feminine

Some towns carry ‘La’ as part of their name. La Rochelle, the scenic town on the west coast of France known for its great seafood and rugby team, is one such example.

In French ‘à la‘ or ‘de la‘ is allowed, while ‘à le‘ becomes au and ‘de le’ becomes du. So for ‘feminine’ towns such as this, you should use the following prepositions:

Je vais à La Rochelle – I am going to La Rochelle

Je viens de La Rochelle – I am coming from La Rochelle

Plural

And some places have ‘Les’ in front of their name, like Les Lilas, a commune in the suburbs of Paris. The name of this commune literally translates as ‘The Lilacs’ and was made famous by Serge Gainsbourg’s song Le Poinçonneur des Lilas, about a ticket puncher at the Metro station there.

When talking about a place with ‘Les’ as part of the name, you must use a plural preposition like so:

Je suis le poinçonneur des Lilas – I am the ticket puncher of Lilas

Je vais aux Lilas – I am going to Les Lilas

Il est né aux Lilas – He was born in Les Lilas

Islands

Islands follow more complicated rules.

If you are talking about going to one island in particular, you would use à or en. This has nothing to do with gender and is entirely randomised. For example:

Je vais à La Réunion – I am going to La Réunion

Je vais en Corse – I am going to Corsica

Generally speaking, when talking about one of the en islands, you would use the following structure to suggest movement from the place:

Je viens de Corse – I am coming from Corsica

For the à Islands, you would say:

Je viens de La Réunion – I am coming from La Réunion

When talking about territories composed of multiple islands, you should use aux.

Je vais aux Maldives – I am going to the Maldives.

No preposition needed

There are some phrases in French which don’t require any a preposition at all. This doesn’t change when dealing with ‘Le’ places, such as Le Mans – which is famous for its car-racing track and Motorcycle Grand Prix. Phrases that don’t need a preposition include:

Je visite Le Mans – I am visiting Le Mans

J’aime Le Mans – I like Le Mans

But for a preposition phrase, the town becomes simply Mans, as in Je vais au Mans.

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