Is Italian Overrated?

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dml130
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Re: Is Italian Overrated?

Postby dml130 » Thu Nov 04, 2021 12:38 am

golyplot wrote:
dml130 wrote:I agree. Sometimes it seems as if all of these languages are being compared to English, which is not a fair standard to set.


In the case of Italian, the obvious comparisons are Spanish and French, which are both much more useful.



Yes, but the particular conversation I was replying to was also describing French as a "mediocre" language, which is why I wondered what French is being compared to.
Last edited by dml130 on Thu Nov 04, 2021 12:53 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Is Italian Overrated?

Postby dml130 » Thu Nov 04, 2021 12:53 am

Le Baron wrote:There's actually no real reason for French to have the perceived value it enjoys; apart from in France it's a minority language in two other small European countries. The Africa thing is a façade. So the 'bigness' of French is also a façade. If the French government wasn't shovelling money into the AF and other promotional bodies it would have atrophied decades ago.


I half agree, but I'd also say French seems sufficiently well established as an international language at this point, even if the French government stopped actively promoting to the extent it currently is. Even if it's not spoken as a first language by a large population of "French speaking" countries, it's still a lingua franca in large African countries like DRC, and it's one of only 6 official languages of the UN and obviously has a prominent role in the EU, in additional to other international organizations. So, outside of the perception and prestige, there's also a lot of economic clout associated with the language, and it's geographically widespread. In terms of "useful languages" (I know this topic is a bit subjective), I'd still think that French is easily justified as being in the top 10 if not top 5.
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Re: Is Italian Overrated?

Postby Cavesa » Wed Nov 17, 2021 10:53 am

Just wanted to chime in with a recent experience. I have a new temporary job (several weeks new), as a general practitioner. In Belgium. And I get to speak Italian every day. I am not as good as I'd like to be (more use and efforts to French and German recently), but the patients are excited and for some of them, it is really a much more comfortable option and the best way to communicate efficiently. At work, I usually see between 25-30 patients a day. 1 or 2 have Italian as their native and preferred language.

Sure, Arabic would be even more useful, fortunately the boss and one of the secretaries speak it. And Italian is not much more important in this neighbourhood than languages like Armenian. But still, I get to speak it every day at work and it is an asset.

So, while I'd agree with the points of Italian being not that practical for the US etc, it has already been discussed enough, I must insist that it is very underrated in Europe.
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Re: Is Italian Overrated?

Postby verdastelo » Thu Nov 18, 2021 10:10 am

A similar discussion on a Francophone languages' forum, L'études littéraires, can be found in the thread L'italien : une langue utile dans le monde du travail ?. Those who read French can take a glance to obtain a novel perspective.
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Re: Is Italian Overrated?

Postby Leurre » Thu Nov 18, 2021 10:54 am

Le Baron wrote:There's actually no real reason for French to have the perceived value it enjoys; apart from in France it's a minority language in two other small European countries. The Africa thing is a façade. So the 'bigness' of French is also a façade. If the French government wasn't shovelling money into the AF and other promotional bodies it would have atrophied decades ago.


I mean, no.
This is rather an aside to the conversation and to your overall point, but I'm not sure on what basis or following what analysis you've drawn this conclusion about whether French would or would not have atrophied, what that would take, or what would count as atrophied. Im not sure what you consider to be a façade, I'm also not sure what kind of travel /living you've done in francophone Africa, but at its best it likely won't exceed mine. French is a...big thing in francophone Africa, at least in the breadth of its use as a lingua franca. A peulh and a malinké from countries very far away meet, and they're going to speak in French more often than not. This goes well beyond the kind of superficial 'well its spoken among the educated and in cities but not in the countryside' as this is not fully accurate either.

Anyway this wasn't your point but it's maybe a good reminder (also given the topic at hand here) that it is dangerous to make sweeping generalizations or qualifications about this language or that, all the more when what is being generalized is hardly an accurate representation of the whole.
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Re: Is Italian Overrated?

Postby Iversen » Thu Nov 18, 2021 11:28 am

The only places outside Italy where I have been able to use Italian was in Ticino, Albania (!) and in Slovenia near the border - and then once in Romania to a receptionist in a hotel.

French is definitely the most useful second language in Western Africa, except in Gambia, Ghana and Nigeria and a few other places, and during my travels in Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal, Maroc and Tunisia I only used French - actually I went to the first two with a group where I was the only Francophone person, and I saw that the others had serious trouble finding anyone who could speak English. Besides there are some 'Outremer' islands around the world and of course Quebec (plus the Northern strip of Nouvel-Brunswick) where French is THE language par excellence. In Montréal I think the ration is around 2/3 French and 1/3 English. And of course Wallonia and the Westernmost part of Switzerland.

In Europe I think Italian, French, Spanish and (to a lesser extent) Portuguese are more or less on the same level for tourists, and it is only inside the dark halls of the EU machine that French is more relevant than the others. And they have all enough culture to keep you occupied for the rest of your life.

As for Spanish and Portuguese there is all of Latinamerica to wallow in (apart from the Guyanas and Belize). Even Dutch is as relevant as French (Suriname vs. Guyane), but France has a couple of Caribbean Islands. Italian .. OK, there are some pockets of heritage speakers in Argentina and Chile, but there is not a single Italian speaking country there. English ... well well, maybe, but don't count on it.

Africa: I have not visited Etiopia or Libya, but I doubt that you would get far with Italian there - and maybe not even with French. Egypt - pure Anglophone (if you can't speak Arabian). However in Marocco and Tunisia plus Algeria (which I haven't visited yet) French is the most useful foreign language by far, followed by English (and allegedly Spanish in the Northernmost part of Marocco, but I haven't been North of Fez and Casablanca, and there they definitely don't speak Spanish). Portuguese is also the main foreign language in Angola and Moçambique. Namibia - try German (or English) - but apart from that it's English all over the place.

Asia ... haha, forget it. I asked many people in Vietnam and Cambodia whether they could speak French, and French is dead as le fabuleux dodo there.

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Re: Is Italian Overrated?

Postby verdastelo » Thu Nov 18, 2021 11:57 am

Iversen wrote:Asia ... haha, forget it. I asked many people in Vietnam and Cambodia whether they could speak French, and French is dead as le fabuleux dodo there.


That reminds me of my own country! In the second most populous country of Asia the leader of the main opposition party is an Italian-Indian. Sonia Gandhi was born in Italy but she has been leading the oldest political party of India, Congress, for as long as I remember. She was the de facto prime minister from 2004 until 2014. It was only our irrational fear of foreigners which prevented her from taking up the position officially in 2004. In the extreme right circles in India, learning Italian is conflated with supporting Congress. I believe it's because of her prominent position, that there is some interest in learning Italian. I once spotted a book a teach-yourself book on Italian in Hindi.

Conclusion: Don't underestimate Italian. It can crop up where you never expected it to be. :D
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Re: Is Italian Overrated?

Postby Iversen » Thu Nov 18, 2021 1:11 pm

I could probably say the same thing about Portuguese in Goa - and definitely about Danish in Tarangambadi ('Tranquebar').
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Re: Is Italian Overrated?

Postby Le Baron » Thu Nov 18, 2021 2:48 pm

Leurre wrote: mean, no.
This is rather an aside to the conversation and to your overall point, but I'm not sure on what basis or following what analysis you've drawn this conclusion about whether French would or would not have atrophied, what that would take, or what would count as atrophied. Im not sure what you consider to be a façade, I'm also not sure what kind of travel /living you've done in francophone Africa, but at its best it likely won't exceed mine. French is a...big thing in francophone Africa, at least in the breadth of its use as a lingua franca. A peulh and a malinké from countries very far away meet, and they're going to speak in French more often than not. This goes well beyond the kind of superficial 'well its spoken among the educated and in cities but not in the countryside' as this is not fully accurate either.

Anyway this wasn't your point but it's maybe a good reminder (also given the topic at hand here) that it is dangerous to make sweeping generalizations or qualifications about this language or that, all the more when what is being generalized is hardly an accurate representation of the whole.

No, I'm happy to address this. Which I will begin with: I mean, yes. And also that I am not someone coming from the position of disliking French, I like it very much. My mother was a native French-speaker.

My point is that French has nothing like the reach or usage of English and has had to be bolstered against this by a very, very strenuous propaganda effort by the French government; including legal obligations to speak/use the language. Without this it would be much smaller than it is. That its position has atrophied over time is undeniable.

On the question of Francaphone Africa, I do know it. I've been to some countries there as a longer-term 'traveller', when my mother lived in the Maghreb (later she lived in Lebanon, I'll get to it). The 'superficial' thing you deny is actually a truth; not that people in former French colonies (actually still meddled in by France) don't speak the language to some level, but that it is only maintained by legal requirement. One only needs to watch Senegalese TV to see that there is a speaking divide between the people they interview, with farmers and people outside the city and many even in the capital city speaking Wolof or something else. French in 'Afrique Noire' is not a natural language it is a colonial language and is maintained by legality above all. It is also promoted at the top level as a prestige language, which like English in the Indian subcontinent belies a class and often economic division.

How many 'ordinary' people from different countries meet and speak French? Yes, it does happen, I've seen it. But also that pidgins and creoles are used rather than pure French (very common in Cameroon). In time, as has happened with Swahili in the west, other languages may start to operate as African-based lingua-franca. To me it makes no difference, but any position claiming French isn't maintained with effort as a language in Africa, is not being honest.
Above all it should be understood that the French language in Africa is also a long-term soft-power tool covering economic foreign policy. Also the reason that Paris persistently says 'the future of French is in Africa'. I'll leave this for now.

Originally my mother lived in Tunisia at the start of the 90s (some kind of life-crisis), then moved to Lebanon with her north African partner. I stayed with her there. Again the idea one can not know Arabic and just get about with French is delusional. The language for getting about there is Arabic: end of. Yet Paris would love for it to be true. The entire approach (from the mainly conservative) French linguistic culture institutions regarding the status of French is bizarre. English people are just glad (or relieved) if someone speaks English, we don't want to own or direct it because that's a lost cause by now. Conversely Paris thinks it's the world's duty to learn and speak French and to learn it well! On the basis that it's obviously the world's greatest language and culture. I don't think this is an exaggeration.

The intense jealousy of English's spread and adoption has just made this worse. It's no accident that Macron has again pushed the idea of French replacing English in the EU. Unfortunately the world's penchant for learning English stands in the way; and this is now evident in places like Belgium and Switzerland where the Francophone minorities baulk at the thought of learning Dutch or German and choose the option of a more widely-spoken alternative. This is the factual state of affairs in schools there. I don't say it's good, but it is factual.
Last edited by Le Baron on Thu Nov 18, 2021 4:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Is Italian Overrated?

Postby verdastelo » Thu Nov 18, 2021 3:55 pm

Le Baron wrote:How many 'ordinary' people from different countries meet and speak French? Yes, it does happen, I've seen it. But also that pidgins and creoles are used rather than pure French (very common in Cameroon).


Have you ever seen French gibberish? Here's a sample of Indian legal English, which is equally incomprehensible to the reader and the writer:

“(The)...tenant in the demised premises stands aggrieved by the pronouncement made by the learned Executing Court upon his objections constituted therebefore...wherewithin the apposite unfoldments qua his resistance to the execution of the decree stood discountenanced by the learned Executing Court. However, the learned counsel...cannot derive the fullest succour from the aforesaid acquiesence... given its sinew suffering partial dissipation from an imminent display occurring in the impunged pronouncement hereat wherewithin unravelments are held qua the rendition recorded by the learned Rent Controller...”

I have heard that Portuguese in Angola, unlike French in West Africa and English in South Asia, has become the mother tongue of a significant section of the population. I have no clue as to how true that statement is.

Because this thread is about Italian, I'll end with two Italian books: Breve introduzione alla lingua cinese classica and Corso introduttivo di lingua cinese classica. Maurizio Scarpari is the author of both. Outside of East Asia, how many languages can you find Classical Chinese learning manuals in? I have found such manuals in English (most recent being Kai Vogelsang's Introduction to Classical Chinese), French (most recent is the two-volume Manuel de chinois classique of Léon Vandermeersch), German, Russian, and Italian! I have found nothing of that sort in much larger languages, such as Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Hindi, and Persian.

Conclusion: Italian isn't overrated. :D
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