Today in the Toronto Star there is an interesting article on the disappearance of “Italiese,” a Toronto-specific dialect of Italian that was spoken frequently a generation ago. The article touches on the larger issue of global language extinction and ponders what the relationship of language is to culture and how, internationally, societies become increasingly homogeneous as the ways of the West take over. It’s not just the spread of English, which could merely be an indicator of the larger change toward industrialization and commercialization. Languages are disappearing as a new global culture paves over and hooks up everyone to the same values and lifestyles.
Like the Qubecois and their unique version of French, the local Italian community invented a hybrid language, losing original Italian vocabulary and grammar and replacing it with borrowings from English (Car is “macchina” in Italian and “Karro” in Italiese). After WWII, some 500,000 Italians migrated from poor rural areas of Italy and settled in Toronto; thus Toronto became the largest “Italian city” outside of Italy.
Read the article entitled “Arrivederci to the basimento” at the link below.
http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/article/725090–say-arrivederci-to-the-basimento
please. who uses “automobile” for car in italy? the more common word is “macchina”. “automobile” is VERY formal. Like saying “automobile” instead of “car” in english.
automobile = automobile
macchina = car
Thanks for replying Gino – readers should note I have replaced the vocabulary in question in the article.
I think you may miss the point of the article though – how many people in Italy says “car” or “karro” for “macchina”?
I encourage everyone to go beyond my little synopsis and reaction and actually read the TO Star article. It is an interesting phenomenon.