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“Gent.mo professor, following the on the Business Game Made in Research II Edition, organized by 2I3T – Business Incubator” . The mail arrives in the mailbox of Professor Gian Luigi Beccaria, noted historian of the Italian language, academic and bran of the Lincei, Professor Emeritus of the University of Turin. “Business game” ? “Made in Research” ? “Business Incubator” ? But what language is it? You will be asked.
It was not the first time that the professor came across in this mysterious idiom . Some time before, to advertise his grammar handbook, the publisher (department education , of course) had asked him to keep in Milan a webinar . “Beautiful conglomerate, which seems to hide a mysterious anything” , thinks the professor. A mythological creature, formed by web and seminar , in short, a seminar on the network. “In order to understand the always new acronyms and British conglomerates should turn with a small dictionary in your pocket!” , complains Beccaria. “Is anyone able to translate in some language I do not say more fraternal, but at least it exists?” , you question the student in the essay published in the book Mother tongue: Italian and English in the world Global (a comparison with the historian Andrea Graziosi, recently published by Il Mulino).
Yes, what language is it? It looks like English, but it is not . It is Italian? Even. It’s a new language, is the language of the new economy . Here, of course, because we speak of “new economy” and “new economy” ? What’s the difference? Apparently, no. Should be the same thing, that in two different languages. But what if “new economy” enters in effect become part of written and spoken? We use it because we want to indicate perhaps something different, something more specific. Or not? Or is it just a quirk?
In any case, if we are faced with a new language, then we really need a vocabulary. For this could come in handy another book published in recent weeks: Crazy! Italian dictionary reasoned exaggerated (Marsilio, 2015), an essay by Luca Mastrantonio , journalist of Corriere della Sera and professor of communication media to Iulm. Mastrantonio collects 69 items, there is everything “ the Italian of the new millennium” . Among the categories surveyed by the author there is also room for the “digitaliano” . What is it? “ A third language that is halfway between writing and orality” . Its main feature is “digitization Anglophone social life and of the Italian language” .
Of the family of digitaliano is an integral part of another new language: new inglesorum . The first inglesorum had arrived in Italy in the eighties. Was “the aziendalese-bureaucratic worldwide” , still spoken by those who preferred to use “conference calls and telephone conference, the partner of the law and not the members of the study, competitors and not competing, a location and not a place, meeting and not meeting or meeting, not a flop and a failure, business and non-business, public relations and public relations “, as also writes Professor Beccaria.
In recent years came a new wave: “Many crazy words come from the English of the new economy and the digital products linked to it: its users strengthen its social reputation – or your self-confidence – trying to ape the new global ruling class, which uses English as in the past used his Latin; or pretended to know how to use, with results from latinorum “, writes Mastrantonio. The journalist of the Courier is some example: “Sometimes it’s un’italianizzazione of English verbs, adapted mostly to the first conjugation in -are (format, briffare, switchare), or foreign words embedded in sentences up to create authentic Italian stripes, paratactic, of foreign words that interact badly with one another “.
Please note, no one here asks a foolish Italian free from foreign influences. “The moans above do not intend to open the usual dirge purist on Italian polluted, which makes little sense, because in general the language by borrowing elements from the other, and not s’inquinano s’imbastardiscono but enrich” , writes Beccaria. “ The reality teaches us that it is more mixed and the richer – continues the academic Bran – Why bother with foreign words and accept only the native, the domestic, the native ? “.
Beccaria remembers the lesson Leopardi , the Zibaldone the poet invites us not reject the foreign words. Away from it all means “barbaric and unlawful to treat, a new idea and a new concept of the human spirit” . He argued with his friend, Pietro Giordani, which has not approved the use of new terms for the new technology era: hygrometer, thermometer, anemometer. They were all composed of words that were even from greek. For Giordani it would have been better use of Italian roots to model the new terms. It therefore proposed “segnaumido” , “segnacaldo” , “misuravento” . Leopardi suggested instead of adopting the highest international scientific terms used and already welcomed in Europe.
So, to avoid making the figure of what it says segnacaldo instead thermometer , better adapt to times. You can start trying to use more aware of the terms of which the so-called innovators are served every day. To this end, the dictionary compiled by Mastrantonio can come in handy. For example, we can find ourselves the ‘ etymology of smart : “born biting, as the adjective and verb smeart smeortan in our old, from Latin Mordeo, ie biting, to feel pain, be painful; in German, the pain is schmerzen. Then, after 1300, smart means quick, intelligent, active, clever, clever. In the second half of the twentieth century there is a growing expression smart cookie to say that a person is good, good, a nice biscuit; at the turn of the millennium becomes a suffix that makes it more elegant, efficient, brilliant as the confetti chocolate covered with colored sugar coming out of a tube, Smarties “.
Or understand where is geek : “had derogatory origins, influenced by German geck, indicating a street artist attitudes wild; an extravagance then become hallmark of redemption for those who have made a fortune in Silicon Valley “. Do some reflection on ubiquitous startup : “Although we are in the lower valley seems to Silicon Valley: just some term Anglophone or digital, the prefix 2.0 and on. As in Italian germanizzante cartoon Sturmtruppen, where an ending in -en gave a sense nominal efficiency, although ironic, it is given that troops were in disarray. The startupper, or startruppen, have the Platonic myth of Apple was born in a garage “.
And update us on the last arrived, the storyteller : “ As the storyteller is also a bale, the contafrottole; the lies? They were poems in verse, folksy, which consisted of a cluster of thoughts and curious facts, even without logical connections, of various kinds and extent “.
Well, this is better segnarsela: the lies in lines are long gone, the storyteller much smart instead abound.
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