3 - From language of shame to one of pride

Italian rises from a forbidden lingua in Australia to the second-most spoken in the country

Nowadays Italian is the second language in Australia, after English and before Greek and Chinese. But up to 40 years ago it was non-existent: public use of a foreigner's language was forbidden, and yet there were neither interpreters in the offices nor English-language courses. This was just one of the many forms of hostility enacted by White Australia as a defense against the "intruders", i.e. the immigrants. Since most of these immigrants came from Italy, the Italian language was only taught and learned at home. Not much, but the "bugs", as Italians were kindly labeled, had to content themselves.
The turning point arrived in the mid-Sixties, when the most enlightened Australian politicians began to consider the immigrants as a resource. Multiculturalism was still inconceivable (it would only come in the late Seventies), and the idea was assimilation, a rough concept but still much better than the furious refusal that White Australia reserved to people who were helping it come out of its economic and cultural isolation.
In 1968, Joe Abiuso (Senior Master of Modern Languages at Brunswick High School and Senior Assistant Co-ordinator of Modern Languages at Fitzroy High School) published his first book on the teaching of Italian, Enjoy Italian.
"It was an immediate success," says linguist Nevin Pecorelli who taught Italian in a school in Wangaratta, Victoria, "reprinted in 1971 and 1974. That textbook marked the boundary between intolerance against Italians and acceptance. In the early Eighties the study of Italian was officially introduced in the school curriculum. That's when the problems began."
What do you mean?
"Many people thought that the introduction of Italian in the curriculum was an initiative taken for social integration rather than cultural purposes: a sort of bone thrown to people who were anyway going to become a part of the Anglo-Saxon mainstream. There were also objective difficulties in teaching: while TV had completed the process of linguistic unification of Italy, in Australia we were still far from it. The linguistic background of most of those who had arrived from the Fifties onwards was mostly their dialect; teaching Italian to them or their children was akin to teaching them another foreign language."
What happened then?
"The experiment began regardless. The Italian community was growing larger and more authoritative every year. It requested the teaching of its language because it was a precious cultural tool, the only tool that could end, or at least contain, any socio-cultural abuse against it. In short, the Italian approach imposed a Copernican revolution to Australia."
How did this revolution manifest itself?
"With the opening of the Federal and State governments to the study of foreign languages, Italian included. It happened in the Eighties, when the LOTE (Languages Other Than English) was launched. That was one of the aspects of Australian multiculturalism, copied from Canada. Ever since, the teaching of foreign languages has been an integral part of the curriculum, and today, in addition to Italian, also Indonesian, French, Japanese, German, Greek, Chinese and Vietnamese can all be studied in Australian schools."
Those are the languages of the largest communities.
"Exactly. But it must be remembered that the Italians acted as an icebreaker."
Who studies Italian in Australia today? Only Italian-Australians?
"No, a great many non-Italians are fascinated by our culture and a little awed by the success achieved by the Italian community, ghettoized until some 40 years ago and now playing centre stage. I recall what an Italian-Australian colleague told me when he arrived in Wangaratta: 'Once upon a time speaking Italian was a shame, nowadays it gives prestige, and boosts your job opportunities.' As a result, Italian today is Australia's second most spoken language."
Is it also the one most studied?
"No, that's Indonesian, even though in some states these two languages rank more or less as equal. The figures give us hope: there's been a constant increase in the study of Italian both in primary and secondary schools and in Catholic high schools. According to the most recent data available to me, collected in 2001, the students of Italian in Australia are about 377,000, half of whom in the state of Victoria."
That's a high number. How do you explain it?
"In many ways. First, the courses of Italian receive government funding. Second, initially they were given by community organizations, which paved the way for the government. In addition to the Istituti Italiani di Cultura, an excellent job of promoting our language and culture has been done, and is still being done, by the Comitato di Assistenza agli Italiani (COASIT). This organization is present in every State of Australia and is currently in charge of teaching Italian to over 75,000 students in 250 public and Catholic schools. The Victorian Association of Teachers of Italian (VATI) organizes excellent conferences and debates; the Department of Education, Employment and Training (DEET) supports teaching in the public system; the Catholic Education Office (CEO) does the same in the Catholic system. All these components have led to today's results."
How many Australian universities teach Italian?
"Out of 39 (37 of which publicly funded), 19 do. There are 12 autonomous Departments of Italian Studies, meaning that they do not deal with any other Romance language. Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland have very advanced teaching of Italian. At Melbourne's La Trobe University the Department was created in 1974, and in 1981 the university received a donation from Fondazione Gualtiero Vaccari and created the Vaccari Chair of Italian Studies. However, a danger looms ahead."
Which is?
"Also in Australia, the governments increasingly tend to cut university funding for the Humanities, and this could lead to reduced interest for foreign languages, and therefore for Italian as well. The Italian community is worried by this prospect. I hope it will manage to get itself heard as much as when it brought our language out of the ghetto."
The data on the study of Italian in Australia positively impressed Carlo Coen, director of Toronto's Istituto Italiano di Cultura, who knows Australia quite well after running the Istituto in Melbourne for several years.
"The situation has greatly improved over the last decade," he says.
"I remember that when the LOTE programmes were launched there was a controversy not unlike the current one in Canada about the opportunity to teach computer sciences and business-oriented subjects rather than foreign languages."
Apparently the danger Down Under is not completely avoided, even though the numbers suggest that foreign languages won the match. At least for the moment.
"Apparently not," continues Coen. "Or maybe they understood that this alternative between Humanities and Sciences is really specious: who said that the study of the languages is incompatible with information technology or economy? I am aware of the fact that this is a theoretical discussion, while the real problems are the insufficient financial resources available to the governments for education. I only wonder how successful businesspeople can be when they know everything about their field and not a word of any foreign language. But this is a different story. What I think I can say about Australia is that the economic crisis in Japan, which put the brakes to Japanese investments, and the institutional referendum lost by the Republicans elicited fresh ideas.
"At the same time, the increasing role of our community and trade with Italy led to a situation, as far as the study of Italian is concerned, that 30 years ago would have been simply unthinkable."
Do you mean that the Italian community was successful at lobbying?
"Probably they solved the old dilemma between 'being' and 'having' by turning it upside down: they 'had' in order to 'be', i.e. to play a real role," answers Coen. "I hope that the Italian-Canadian community will orient itself along similar lines, as it is coming out of its golden isolation, which in the end is a form of egotism."

Publication Date: 2002-12-15
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=2147