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LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Venetians call for recognition as a ‘minority’

The regional council in Veneto, northern Italy, has approved a controversial bill defining the Venetian population as a "minority", and which could be the first step towards independence for the region.

Published: 7 December 2016 10:16 CET
Venetians call for recognition as a 'minority'
A man wearing a tee-shirt reading ''100% Venetian''. Photo: Marco Bertorello/AFP

The bill was passed on Tuesday evening in Veneto, the region surrounding Venice, and labels those hailing from the area a “national minority”, similar to the law protecting South Tyrol's German minority.

This would mean locals would be able define their ethnicity as Venetian, and that the language would be taught in schools and used in public instiutions, place names and road signs. Public officials could even have to pass an exam in Venetian in order to take office.

The Venetian language – which is the native tongue of around four million people and cannot properly be called a 'dialect' because it developed independently from Latin – is already officially recognized by the regional council after a unanimous vote in 2007, but not by the Italian state.

Most significantly however, if approved, the law could pave the way for a referendum on autonomy for the region; Italian daily La Repubblica labelled the decision 'Venexit'.

But there are doubts over whether it is constiutional, meaning it could be thrown out. One of the reasons for this is that there is no clear agreement on what exactly constitutes the Venetian language, since the label is applied to dozens of languages spoken in different areas of the region.

The law had been proposed by a group of local councillors and was passed with 27 votes in favour, primarily from the Northern League party, 16 against, mostly from the Democratic Party and Five Star Movement, and five abstentions. It also received support from the Institute of the Venetian Language.

“This is an important step towards giving greater strength to the Veneto's request for autonomy,” said Northern League councillor Riccardo Barbisan, according to La Repubblica.

“We are aiming for Venetians to be granted the same rights and financial resources as natives of South Tyrol or Trento, who are guaranteed the means to protect their minority cultures by the Italian State.” In those regions, the German and Ladin minorities are protected under the European Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities.

However, local representatives of the Democratic Party described the bill as a “humiliation” for Venetians, whom it said could not be defined as a minority.

In 2014, an unofficial online poll showed that 89 percent of Venetians favoured independence, while two further opinion polls the same year estimated support for independence at between 51 and 54 percent.

Many proponents of Venetian independence argue that the prosperous region is weighed down by Italy's public debt, while others say the vote would protect and revive regional culture.

 

READ MORE: Why Italy might not exist in five years

Why Italy might not exist in five years
Photo: Roger Davies/Flickr

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LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Le Havre rules: How to talk about French towns beginning with Le, La or Les

If you're into car racing, French politics or visits to seaside resorts you are likely at some point to need to talk about French towns with a 'Le' in the title. But how you talk about these places involves a slightly unexpected French grammar rule. Here's how it works.

Published: 30 November 2021 13:04 CET
Updated: 4 December 2021 17:47 CET
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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