L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, AUGUST 11, 2022 www.italoamericano.org 24 L'Italo-Americano I t i s n ' t c o m m o n t o n o t i c e h o w m u c h o u r l a n g u a g e changes through time b e c a u s e , o f t e n , change is subtle and takes place through many years. When you think of it, Italians introduced English terms in t h e i r e v e r y d a y l a n g u a g e almost without noticing and the same can be said about words or expressions inherit- ed from social media and, more in general, internet lingo (hello, "LOL" or "ship- pare", which our youth use when they like two people together). However, there are some words in our beautiful and p o e t i c i d i o m , t h e u s e o f which can be pinpointed to a s p e c i f i c m o m e n t i n time, or a specific event, as t h e C o v i d - 1 9 p a n d e m i c demonstrated to all of us. We're, more often than not, speaking about words that already existed, but either found renewed popularity or are today used with a differ- ent meaning. C o r o n a v i r u s , f o r instance, has always been the name of the type of viruses causing the common cold but after the pandemic, it entered our everyday language with a vengeance and almost exclu- sively as a synonym of Covid- 1 9 . S i m i l a r l y , a s n o t e d by Michele Paolo of Italics Magazine, the verb tam- ponare has today a different meaning: while, in pre-Covid time, it only meant to crash into someone's car, today it also means - in very familiar language, mind! – to get test- ed for Covid. This is because we use the expression fare il tampone to say "to get test- e d . " W e a l l n o t i c e d t h e change in the meaning of these words because it was quick and it did take place under our eyes. An interest- ing neologism, which exists a l s o i n E n g l i s h , a l w a y s attached to the Covid-19 pan- d e m i c i s c o v i d i o t a , o r "covidiot," which I personally saw used for the first time on British tabloids circa Spring 2020: it stands, of course, for all those people who didn't believe in the existence of the disease or supported improb- able medical solutions to it. Looking back in time, the examples of how history- defining events changed the Italian language multiply: thing is, we never think about it because those words are, now, an integrant part of the way we speak and write. Let's think about the First World War, for instance: trenches are called trincee in Italian, b u t t h e n o u n d i d n ' t e x i s t before then. It derived from t h e F r e n c h verb trancher, which means to cut, an action that well- r e p r e s e n t s t h e i m a g e o f trenches: long, painful cuts into the surface of the earth. B u t s o m e t i m e s i t ' s n o t only events that change our language but also people, even if we don't realize it. Most Italians, for instance, don't know that many terms they use commonly every day were, in fact, invented by o u r V a t e , G a b r i e l e D'Annunzio. Representant of the Italian literary move- m e n t o f D e c a d e n t i s m o , D ' A n n u n z i o i s p e r h a p s known better abroad for his connections with Fascism and his role as "official poet" of the régime. While his style is often considered too con- t r i v e d t o b e p l e a s a n t , h i s knowledge of the Italian lan- guage and his undeniable creativity gave us some mem- orable – and still very com- mon - words. F o r i n s t a n c e , t h e word tramezzino, which we u s e f o r s a n d w i c h e s m a d e with American-style bread, was his creation, inspired by the soft bread, butter, and anchovies sandwiches from Caffé Mulassano, in Turin. Another word invented by D'Annunzio that we still use t o d a y c o m m o n l y is velivolo, which means "aircraft:" it was 1910 when he declared that a velivolus - D'Annunzio loved his Latin … - va e par volare con le vele, "it moves and flies as if it were sailing," a definition that wanted to express the elegance and weightlessness of flight. P e r h a p s , t h e m o s t used espressione dannun- ziana remains the one we use for our firefighters, vigili del fuoco. When the fire- fighters' national corps was created in 1935, we called them with the – still common t o d a y – F r e n c h - d e r i v e d noun pompieri (in French, " p o m p i e r s " ) . B u t i t w a s D'Annunzio who, following the Fascist trend to eliminate all terms inherited from for- eign languages, by turning t h e m i n t o I t a l i a n o n e s , coined the expression, taking i n s p i r a t i o n f r o m a n c i e n t Rome's vigiles, who had the duty to monitor the capital's safety, as well as extinguish and prevent fires. We don't need to travel far in time from D'Annunzio, to discover how Fascism and t h e S e c o n d W o r l d War affected our language. You know the way we love a cornetto with our morn- ing cappuccino? Well, if it wasn't for the practice of eliminating foreign words endorsed by the régime, we would only use "croissant." The same can be said for our beloved bomboloni, which c a m e a l l t h e w a y f r o m Austria and Germany and had, therefore, a German name: "krapfen." Of course, today we use both the foreign a n d t h e " M u s s o l i n i - approved" versions of these – and many other – words, w i t h m o s t o f u s i g n o r i n g completely how the Italian ones are, in fact, vestiges of one of the darkest times in our history. FRANCESCA BEZZONE The Italian language owes a lot to historical events, especially when it comes to its lexicon (Photo: N.Savranska/Shutterstock) HERITAGE HISTORY IDENTITY TRADITIONS PEOPLE From coronavirus to cornetto: how life- changing events shaped the Italian language

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