Much to the dismay of purists, dozens of new words are regularly added to the Italian vocabulary by the Accademia della Crusca, Italy’s most authoritative linguistic academy.

Though most additions are ‘Italianisations’ of popular foreign nouns or expressions, words of more dubious linguistic value also make the cut every now and then. 

If whatsappino – a term whose online popularity seems to be growing by the minute – were to be one of the Accademia’s new entries for 2023, we’d likely have to place it under the latter category.

As you might have already guessed, a whatsappino (pronounced ‘whats-up-eeno’) is any text or voice message exchanged through the well-known Whatsapp Messenger platform. 

This noun is made up of ‘whatsapp’ and the diminutive suffix ‘-ino’, used for a particularly small item (for instance, a ‘tazzina’ is a small cup) or something exceptionally cute and adorable (a ‘gattino’ is a cat that’s very lovable).

Esci stasera?

Non lo so ancora. Dopo ti mando un whatsappino.

Are you going out tonight?

I don’t know yet. I’ll send you a short message later. 

–

Mandami un whatsappino con la lista della spesa quando puoi.

Please send me a message with the shopping list when you have a minute.

It is still unclear who exactly felt that the words messaggio (message) or messaggino (short message) were no longer good enough for the job at hand and chose to gift Italian society with whatsappino, but one of the first reported usages dates back to 2013, when TV host Carlo Conti used it in his book ‘Cosa sarà dei migliori anni?’ (‘What will it be of the best years’).

So it appears that, once again, a great change started with a great mind.

At any rate, the word whatsappino didn’t really catch on among Italian speakers until very recently.

Usage seems to have multiplied almost overnight, likely spurred by social media conversations on the topic. 

🤌

— WhatsApp (@WhatsApp) November 16, 2022

So, should you ever have any pressing urges to start using ‘whatsappino’ in your conversations with locals, when would it be best to use it?

As with most neologisms, T&Cs regarding the usage of the word are still pretty vague.

Ma che è sta cafonata, whatsappino?! pic.twitter.com/qXHOdzFc3B

— andrea 🌺 (@hungry_andrea) November 16, 2022

However, it would be wise to only use whatsappino in informal settings and with people you know – Italian aunties seem to have a natural penchant for ‘whatsappini‘, so they might be a good place to start. 

You should also be aware that using the word in formal circumstances might very well result in a bunch of hostile glares or, even worse, in the quintessentially Italian ‘Ma come parli?!’, which is roughly translatable into English as ‘What on earth are you saying?’.

So, pending further developments, use whatsappino cautiously.

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