L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2019 www.italoamericano.org 16 L'Italo-Americano HERITAGE HISTORY IDENTITY TRADITIONS FRANCESCA BEZZONE M y relationship with Piedmontese, the dialect of my region, has always been ambivalent. Growing up in a small rural community, I learned it without even noticing, because everyone around me would speak it. Even my parents, who would always speak in Italian to me, often switched to Piedmon- tese when chatting to one another. My grandparents used it exclu- sively, just like pretty much everyone from that genera- tion, that born in the first twenty years of the 20th century. While there was nothing wrong in understanding our regional dialect, speaking it, for people of my generation —me included — used to be an entire- ly different story: as a children in school, and even more so as teenagers, we wouldn't deign our peers speaking in Piedmontese of a second glance. "Yokels," "country people," "lacking education," we kids going to school in a big- ger — but still very provincial, mind — town would say, day in day out. But our adolescent scorn towards local idioms wasn't sim- ply the result of that need for rebellion against the status quo and tradition typical of all teenagers, it was the result of a much wider negative attitude, wit- nessed among people of all ages and all cultural extractions: speak- ing in dialect was a sign of pover- ty of language, of lack of educa- tion, of narrow-mindedness, even, and while its use among the elder- ly was accepted, because they belonged to an entirely different generation, there was a time in the wealthy regions of the north where using your dialect if you were under the age of 70 was a no-no. In a way, Italian Americans can understand this attitude better than most: many of you, proba- bly, grew up with parents who made a point of speaking in Eng- lish even at home, to make sure your native language wouldn't become a socio-cultural signifier, a mark singling you out from the rest of the people around you. If you didn't experience it first hand, I am quite certain you know of someone who did. That was the attitude towards dialects in Italy in the post-war years and during the decades of the economic boom, the 1960s and 1970s, which ended up influ- encing the perception of regional idioms also throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the latter being when I, as a teenager, would view dialect speaking as a sign of "uncoolness." But in the past twenty years or so, things changed quite dramati- cally, as a real cultural rehabilita- tion of dialects across the penin- sula has been taking place, from north to south. And it was high time it happened. I think Italy's newly discov- ered fondness for regional idioms has a lot to do with a necessity to rediscover, to embrace anew our cultural identity: if you think of it, we've been doing it across the board, with our delightful pride for national food and for all that is truly and originally Made in Italy. We've been doing with our ongoing attempts to bring back life into rural villages and towns, victim of decades of depopulation which today, how- ever, are a favored destination for all young entrepreneurs wishing to build a brighter future for themselves by reacquiring old, traditional skills. If you think about it, all this has a very clear, common denominator: going back to our roots. A matter of retrieving our cul- tural identity, we said. Yes, because while a multi-cultural, globalized and hyper-connected world has enriched our lives and made us appreciated and under- stand a tad better the beauty of cultural variety, it has also made us more confused about who we really are as a nation and as a people. Human beings are often more prone to embrace the new and discard the old, because they feel "new" is always synonym with "better," but the real les- son multiculturalism and global- ization should teach us is that we, too, have something beautiful to give to the world. In fact, Italians often seem to be the only ones not realizing it, when it comes to their culture and their country. I lived abroad for more than fifteen years and I admit I, too, was a xenophile when I left Italy, at 20. Then, I got to know and love dozens of different cul- tures, I learned languages and I travelled around. I met people from other parts of Italy, people I would not have become friends with if we all remained home. I became a real citizen of the world, I still am and I've been loving every second of it. Yet, this awareness of the world also made me understand there can't be appreciation for my neighbor's culture, if I don't appreciate, know and love my own, including its negative sides, which need to be recognized, but mustn't become the sole identify- ing aspect of it. Dialects are the way our peo- ple, our local communities have expressed themselves for centuries: in a young country such as Italy (we've only been unified a little more than 150 years, in the end) this cannot be forgotten nor underestimated: there is literature written in dialect, there is music sang in dialect, there's love poetry composed in dialect. A cultural wealth that cannot and must not be ignored, nor forgotten. Because in Italy, you cannot simply be "Italian," you're also Piedmon- tese, Tuscan, Sicilian or Umbrian. We're all the same yet quirkily different, we all under- stand each other because we come from the same place, yet we like to point out at our mutual differ- ences, very much the way siblings tend to do. As forms of expression so deeply rooted in tradition and culture, dialects allow us to enjoy our quirkily being different from one another, while keeping our Italianness strong. Rediscovering dialects has been a long process and a way to look back into the soul of our cul- tural heritage. It has been, and still is, a difficult path to follow, because not everyone agrees with the way people like me think, and many regional idioms are still very much at risk of disappearing because of a lack of speakers: who knows if in one hundred years, we will still use them. But for the moment, let's enjoy the renewed popularity of dialects, the delightful feeling of "returning home" for real we get when we use them to chat with an elderly in our village, or to a sibling, for the simple pleasure of reminiscing about our own elders, those who taught us to speak like that in the first place. Dialects are an important part of Italy's own cultural identity. They're precious, beautiful, they need to be protected. So, if you know your regional dialect, use it: you'll only gain from it. Tradition is also in the way we speak and that's why dialects should be protected (Ⓒ: Dreamstime) Tell me how you speak and I'll tell you who you are: Italy and the true beauty of dialects

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