Page 24 - Italina-American Herald - January 2025

24 ITALIANAMERICANHERALD.COM | JANUARY 2025 ITALIAN-AMERICAN HERALD
ITALIAN MADE FUN & SIMPLE
Our lesson this month is more historical in nature rather than the traditional grammar/
syntax format. While learning the Italian ancestral language has become the goal of many
Italian Americans, learning about the languages of the ancestral homeland is an important
component of reattaching to one’s ancestral roots. In this lesson readers may be surprised to
learn Italy does not speak one language! To be clear, I am not referring to dialects, local accent
or slang. I am talking about real languages. Italy, unknown to most, possibly has the richest
linguistic diversity in the EU. It is also at the forefront of minority language protection.
Actual languages spoken and partly protected by law in Italy include:
• Italian (obviously).
• Greek (in three villages in Apulia)
• German (in South Tyrol)
•  Albanian (in fairly large, scattered
• French (in Valle d'Aosta)\
communities in Molise, Calabria
• Occitanic (in the Western Piedmont
and Sicily) These are the descendant
valleys)
languages of the Christian army who
• Catalan (in Alghero, Sardinia)\
fled Albania in the 16th Century, after
• Sardinian (a language, not a dialect)
being defeated by the Turks)
• Friuliano (a language, not a dialect)
•  Rhaetian, (a Slavic dialect in a specific
•  Slovenian (in selected towns and
valley of the Friulian Alps)
villages near Trieste)
•  Walser or Titsch (a Germanic dialect in
•  Ladin (a Romance language, also
Valle d'Aosta)
spoken in Swiss Grisons – a few valleys
•  Croatian or “naš jezik” literally Croatian
in South Tyrol)
meaning “our tongue” (in three villages
•  Cymbric (an old Teutonic dialect, a few
in Molise: Acquaviva Collecroce,
villages in Central Alps)
Montemitro and San Felice).
The last of these diverse languages is one linguists might classify as a “hot potato” and
it is not given the same status recognized by the Italian government as the aforementioned
languages. Neapolitans, Venetians and some linguists would steadfastly insist that Neapolitan
and Venetian are languages and not Italian dialects. However, these two “languages” are not
covered by Law 482 enacted on Dec. 15, 1999, which has provisions to protect historical
linguistic minorities. This law gave the Siculo or Calabro-Sicilian language spoken in Sicily
and southern Calabria recognition as an autonomous Italian language, leaving Neapolitan
and Venetian classified as Italian dialects.
This month’s proverb
It is from the minority language of Friuliano.
Friulano: Un len sôl non fâs fûc.
Italiano: Un legno solo non fa fuoco.
English: literal meaning. “Wood alone does not make a fire.” Which is intended to
mean “The more the better.”
This month’s falso amico
It is sentenza. In Italy the word is solely used in the legal sense as a sentence decreed
in court, never as a sentence in the grammatical sense. In Italian, the word for sentence
in a grammatical sense is “frase.” Frase in Italian can also mean phrase.
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