La Repubblica calls it a time-worn crusade, social media users have mocked it. What is creating such a furor? It is the Minister of Culture’s attempt to curb the use of foreign words–principally English–instead of the homegrown Italian.
Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano sees it merely as a form of snobbery and believes the tendency is only meant to impress people. Commenting on Il Messaggero’s call for Italian to be protected by the Italian Constitution, Sangiuliano said that the habit is merely “radical chic snobbery”,
In an ironic twist, Sangiuliano used the late journalist Tom Wolfe’s English term for the fashionable practice of certain people, apparently unaware that it was itself a foreign import.
He was widely mocked on social media.
The conservative minister said he backed Il Messaggero’s campaign to keep out the rampant anglicisms that in his view, are ruining the Italian language. The attempt to enshrine the defence of the national language in the Constitution has been turned into a bill by a rightwing MP. He noted that many other countries already have such provision.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is in full agreement with Sangiuliano, and in her recent speech at the assembly of ambassadors at the Farnesina, stated, “Everyone, starting with yours truly, a great patriot, is overwhelmed by foreign words, by Englishisms, because ours is a very complex language. Using the Italian language more means using our culture more deeply.”
These efforts to safeguard the purity of the Italian language are strongly reminiscent of the war that French President Charles de Gaulle waged in the 1960’s against the proliferation of “franglais”. That campaign to protect French, which ultimately proved to be futile, has once again resurfaced in that country as they too fear the relentless incursion of the English language.
