14 - Importance of speaking dialects

Professor Jana Vizmuller Zocco predicts end of Italian language in Canada

I was born in Bratislava in Czechoslovakia, a country that does not exist anymore. Right after the Soviet invasion of 1968, my parents decided to leave the country. We had some friends in Sondrio, where we had stayed in the past, and they accommodated us for awhile. We applied for a visa in Milan, and the Canadian Consulate suggested that we could start our new life in Toronto, as refugees. And here I am."
Jana Vizmuller Zocco teaches Italian Language and Linguistics at York University. Her Italian is perfect ("Although unfortunately I do not speak any dialect"). She learned it in Sondrio, perfected it in the Italian neighbourhoods where her family settled upon arriving in Toronto ("I fell in love with your community at once"), refined it through her studies at the University of Toronto and courses and frequent visits to Italy. She also practices every day with her family: her husband, Sicilian Orazio Zocco, and their daughter, Josie, as well as with her colleagues and numerous Italian friends.
"Without a good knowledge of the language," she says, "one cannot understand Italian culture. But any knowledge will be incomplete if it does not include knowledge of dialects. I don't say that one should speak them, but at least know where they come from and how much they influenced a lingua franca that drew strength from coexisting with them. This is the lesson first taught by 19th century scholar Graziadio Isaia Ascoli. However, the strength of his intuition was never properly recognized, especially in Canada."
What are you doing about this at York University?
"Our courses of Italian Linguistics and History of the Italian Language include studies on the historic roots of the dialects, but we cannot afford to go any deeper, since the cutbacks are endangering even the courses of Italian. Clearly there is little opportunity to delve into dialects. However, in a course taught with Prof. Gabriele Scardellato about Italians in North America we have the chance to explore the cultural roots of those immigrants, especially of the Fifties and Sixties, who often arrived here with a linguistic patrimony limited to their dialect."
And that here created Italiese, a language of survival...
"Exactly, and it too was banished from the Italian-Canadian society of 30-40 years ago. And yet it survives, even though it is confined to everyday conversation. However, I do not agree with Prof. Gianrenzo Clivio, my old teacher, when he concludes that code-switching generated the new Italiese."
Why is that?
"Because in my opinion the insertion of English words and expressions in an Italian speech is a linguistic loan, not code-switching. I would only go as far as a definition of Italiese that Prof. Clivio himself gave: it's a new Italian dialect, in addition to the language of survival."
What's the difference between code-switching and linguistic loan?
"Code-switching happens between two perfectly bilingual people, who jump from one language to the other for reasons of greater clarity or even of habit. On the other hand, one recurs to loans when one does not master any of the two languages, and uses one to supplement the other. If a native English speaker with a limited knowledge of Italian wants to take leave from an Italian he might say 'Arrivederci e take care', because he does not know how to translate 'take care'. This is a loan."
How long will spoken Italian survive in Canada?
"Not for long, unfortunately. This is due to a number of reasons, a few of which depending from the Italian-Canadian community, others independent from it."
Let's start from community-related reasons.
"With a simplification, we can say that spoken Italian will not survive because a few notable members of the community cut its roots."
Could you elaborate?
"The roots are the dialects, literally banned here as 'impure language', 'language of illiterates', 'deformed Italian'. This is an enormity that comes from afar, mostly from the period between the world wars, when Fascism imposed the use of Italian to such grotesque linguistic monsters as turning New York into Nuova York, Henry Truman and Benjamin Franklin into Enrico Truman and Beniamino Franklin, and so on. Those who came here after World War II had grown up under that linguistic tyranny, and rather than speaking their own dialect, the only language they knew, chose to learn Italian and English, or invent Italiese. They passed this phobia for dialects to their children, who lived in a linguistic paradox: that was the only language they could use to communicate with their family, but woe to those who dared speak it outside. I know some youngsters who speak poor Italian but splendid dialect, which they refuse to use with foreigners. They are ashamed of it."
How could that community save the dialects when, as you say, it came from a linguistic tyranny imposed by the Fascist regime?
"I don't criticize the community as a whole, but the so-called notables, people of distinction, those who, for their education and position, should have felt the duty to stop the disaster of the dialects. They were the first, instead, to lend credence to the enormity of a dialect as 'impure language' or 'language of illiterates'. I still remember some radio talk shows with live phone calls where the anchorman cut off anyone not speaking 'perfect Italian', as he said. Such people did not teach that respecting one's background is a duty."
What about the other reasons preventing survival in Canada of spoken Italian as a second language?
"One is incomplete multiculturalism. With the intent of ensuring the survival of the languages of all the communities living in this country, Canada in fact only ensures it to a few of them, often for reasons unrelated to the respect of human dignity."
What do you mean?
"I mean that protection is afforded only to 'numerous speakers', so that Italian is taught in Woodbridge schools but not in the downtown, since few Italians live downtown. The same goes for other communities: Chinese is taught near Spadina, in Toronto's Chinatown, but not in the area of Lawrence and Keele, for instance, where Chinese are few. This strange patchwork damages the study of languages by limiting it to specific areas, while languages should know no boundaries: they are gates opening on other cultures. This patchwork also damages communication."
Can you exemplify?
"According to recent data by Statistics Canada, in Toronto almost 84,000 Chinese speak their dialects on the workplace; so do 32,000 Italians, almost 24,000 Portuguese and so on. This implies that there are groups of Chinese, Italians and Portuguese who will never communicate with one another: if on their jobs they speak their language, and of course they do the same at home, they won't feel the need to learn the lingua franca, English; as a consequence, a Chinese, a Portuguese and an Italian will never have a coffee together. The result is isolation, i.e. the contrary of multiculturalism. Thi, of course as far as the original immigrants are concerned. For their children and grandchildren, we can only hope that they will be curious about their roots. Also, that they will explore those roots by opening up to other cultures: this is the essence of interculturalism."
In summary: our community, still under the influence of the Fascist linguistic dictates, did not manage to defend the roots of Italian, i.e. the dialects; multiculturalism, trying to ensure survival for the languages of every community in Canada, in fact only does so for a few. What else is limiting the longevity of spoken Italian in Canada?
"The cutbacks to language courses, but this series of yours already mentioned them at length, and there is little I could add to the words of my colleagues. In addition to mixed marriages and geographic dispersion, another reason holding the study of Italian is the extreme speed of our times. Nowadays everything is fast, everybody's in a hurry. On the contrary, a language needs time to seep in our hearts and then in our minds. Students suffer heavily because of this. Italian has the additional aggravating factor, so to speak, of being a difficult language with a complex grammar. North American students, who don't normally even learn about English grammar in school, have a hard time learning Italian, as they do not know how to identify concepts, not only those pertaining to grammar. If you consider all these factors you'll tell me how long Italian will survive in Canada. Twenty, maybe 30 years; no more. After that, only silence. How sad... "
What about the courses being administered, in universities, high schools, and Istituti di Cultura? Are they useless?
"They can only delay the unavoidable. But don't forget that we are talking about Italian as a second language, used in the family and in conversation among acquaintances. It is doomed to extinction because the so-called 'natural speakers' are gradually disappearing. Italian used in trade, tourism or study will survive, because an interest in Italian economy and culture will keep it alive."
That's not a rosy scenario. However, I feel perplexed by the negative effects you ascribe to the speed of modern times. Young people, accustomed to such speed since they were born, should have no problem in coping with it while learning a new language, including Italian.
"If they need to learn to say ciao, buongiorno, ti amo, che bella giornata, they don't even need to study; English itself is full of linguistic loans from Italian, good for ordering pizza or an ice cream. Studying a language, however, is something else: it means going inside the culture and history of the country where it is spoken. If we consider that Italian is the language spoken in Italy where, for instance, over 60 percent of the world's art treasures are located, one can well imagine what can be taught in a three-month, full-time, full immersion course. The kind of teaching that bows to the crazy run to mere communication trivialized what a language has to offer: cultural and human enrichment. This takes time and concentration, avoiding consumeristic distraction."
What will remain of Italian in Canada?
"Italian culture, the high kind that's a reference for the world as well as the humbler kind of everyday life. Some time ago I saw a red horn hanging from the rear mirror of the car of a Canadian. I inquired whether he knew what that meant and he told me that it is a lucky charm used by Italians. Do you see? In the early Seventies, Herbert Gans, an U.S. sociologist, wrote that ethnic cultures would survive, in the future, only from a symbolic standpoint. Reality is vindicating his opinion: displaying a plastic horn takes no effort. However, Italian culture cannot be limited to symbols, because it has so much more to offer. The Italian language, unfortunately, is facing a landslide that will wipe it out: circumstances, time and people all conspired against it. A pity, a real pity."

Publication Date: 2003-03-30
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=2553