Becoming Italian Word by Word

Looking for an April fool--or fish--in the Italian language

il pesce d'aprile

April fool 

    “Do you know that they’re closing the prison at San Quentin and turning it into a luxury resort?” I asked my neighbor after reading an article about the startling transformation in a local newspaper in Marin County, where I live. 

    “Guess they got you!” she replied. The ostensible news story was a hoax played to turn a gullible reader like myself into an “April fool” or, in Italy, un pesce d’aprile (April fish).

    According to legend, a raven on Noah’s arc set off on this day to search for a sign that the flood waters had receded, but it never returned. Others trace the madcap holiday back to the year 1564, when Pope Gregory introduced a new calendar that changed the beginning of the new year from April 1 to January 1. Some people who didn’t believe or wouldn’t accept the change kept celebrating New Year’s Day on the first of April. Others tried to show how silly these original April fools were  by sending them on pointless errands or tricking them into thinking something false was true.

    Somehow the fool came to take the form of a fish in Italy.  Children try to tape a paper cutout of a little fish  (pesciolino) to the back of a schoolmate. “Have you seen it?” they chant. “Who?” the unwitting child asks.  “Il pesce d'aprile!”

    In a country of pescatori (fishermen), and marinai  (sailors ), il pesce swims through daily life—and language.  In Italian you’re sano come un pesce  (healthy as a fish rather than an ox).  A big shot is un pesce grosso (big fish).  But be wary: I pesci grossi mangiano i piccini. The big fish eat the small fry. 

    You don’t need a pole and bait to go fishing in Italian. Buttarsi a pesce (literally throw yourself like a fish) means to dive into an activity headfirst or with enthusiasm. Non sapere che pesci pigliare (not know which fish to pick) refers to being at a loss and not knowing which way to turn. Rather than the early bird catching the worm, in Italian chi dorme non piglia pesci (he who sleeps doesn’t catch the fish.)  But in Italy, as everywhere,  “L’ospite è come il pesce; dopo tre giorni puzza.”  “Guests are like fish, after three days they stink.”

 
Words and Expressions

*trattare a pesci in faccia — to mistreat, to humiliate, to mortify

*un pesce fuor d'acqua — a fish out of water

*un pesce lesso — a boiled fish (boring person)

*prendere un granchio -- to take a crab (make a blunder, overshoot the mark)

*pescivendolo -- fishmonger

*pescheria -- fish shop

Cav. Dianne Hales is the author of La Bella Lingua: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language.

 

Becoming a Knight of the Italian Language

Il Cavaliere

The Knight

The President of Italy, Giorgio Napolitano, has awarded me the highest honor the government can bestow on a foreigner: honorary knighthood, with the title of Cavaliere dell’ Ordine della Stella della Solidarietà Italiana (Knight of the Order of the Star of Italian Solidarity) in recognition of La Bella Lingua as "an invaluable tool for promoting the Italian language."  The onorificenza (honor) was presented at a ceremony at the Italian Consulate in San Francisco on March 25. (Photo above; i will post more at my website in the coming week.)

Italy has a long tradition of honoring citizens who have served their country in extraordinary ways with a cavalierato (knighthood). Individuals in the military and in civilian life may be named to a specific ordine cavalleresco (knightly or chivalrous order), depending on the nature of their achievements. The noun cavaliere is always masculine, and both male and female knights are referred to as Cavaliere, abbreviated as Cav.

After World War II the Italian government created the Ordine della stella della solidarietà italiana (Order of the star of Italian solidarity) to honor and express appreciation to those outside the country who  contributed to the reconstruction of Italy (la ricostruzione dell’Italia). This designation is now conferred upon Italian expatriates and foreigners (stranieri, like myself) who have contributed to la preservazione dell'italianità (the preservation of the Italian spirit) and il prestigio nazionale all'estero (the national prestige abroad) through various activities.

The first mentioned is la promozione della lingua italiana (promotion of the Italian language), and I am proud that LA BELLA LINGUA has served this worthy purpose. Other honorees have been recognized for their volunteer work, philanthropy, scientific and technological research, commercial ventures, and la promozione eno-gastronomica (promotion of wine and gastronomy).

The nomination process involves an advisory committee called Il Consiglio dell’Ordine, whose members include  il Capo del Cerimoniale Diplomatico della Repubblica (the head of Diplomatic Ceremony for the Republic). They make recommendations to the Ministro degli Esteri (Foreign Minister), who presents the final nominees to Il Presidente della Repubblica.

I am, for once, senza parole (without words). To receive un’onorificenza così particolare, così grande, dal governo d’Italia (an award so special, so great, from the government of Italy) is  a great and unexpected honor. However, the recognition does not belong only to me.  I accepted the beautiful medallion (in three sizes and forms for various occasions) con profonda umiltà e gratitudine a nome di tutti coloro che considerano la lingua italiana uno dei più bei regali che Italia ha fatto al mondo intero (with profound humility and gratitude in the name of all who consider the Italian language one of the most beautiful gifts that Italy has made to the world).

To the government of Italy and to the many Italian sostenitori (supporters) of La Bella Lingua, grazie di cuore (thanks from the heart). Viva l’italiano!

Words and Expressions

cavaliere errante –- knight errant 

cavaliere servente –- ladies’ man

cavalleria –- chivalry

Il Cavaliere–- political nickname for Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi

Click below for a particularly moving rendition of Italy’s national anthem, Fratelli d’Italia, sung a cappella by Roberto Benigni at this year’s San Remo music festival

 

Dianne Hales is author of LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language.

Cooking Up the Italian Language

Il padre della cucina italiana

The Father of Italian Cooking 

Long after the unification of Italy in 1861, the “new” Italians continued to cook and eat like the “old” Pisans, Romans, Sicilians, or Genovese they had always been. The man who almost single-handedly overcame regional divisions to create a truly national cuisine was Pellegrino Artusi (1820-1911).

Born in Forlimpopoli in Emilia-Romagna, he moved to Florence as a young man and prospered as a self-styled banker, trader, voracious scholar, and most of all, as he put it, a passionate seeker “of the good and the beautiful wherever I find them”--particularly al tavolo (at the table). Retiring at age 50, the lifelong bachelor transformed his kitchen into a culinary laboratory.

A portly man with a bushy white walrus mustache that extended to his sideburns, Artusi compiled 475 ricette (recipes), along with down-to-earth advice on health and nutrition, into a thick volume worthy of its impressive title, La scienza in cucina e l’arte di mangiar bene (The Science of Cooking and the Art of Eating Well).

No publisher wanted his homespun cookbook. After a string of contemptuous rejections, Artusi dedicated his book to his two cats and published 1000 copies himself in 1891. It took four years to sell them. But despite this sluggish start, L’Artusi, as the book came to be known, became a literary phenomenon and a landmark in Italian culture.

The inhabitants of every household, humble or high-brow, wanted their own L’Artusi. They still do. L’Artusi remains il libro più letto sulla cucina italiana (the most read book on Italian cooking).

When I came across a copy at a villa we were renting, Artusi won me over with his first sentence, “Cooking is una briconcella--a troublesome sprite,” he observed, “Often it may drive you to despair. Yet when you do succeed, or overcome a great difficulty in doing so, you feel the satisfaction of a great triumph.”

A lover of words as well as food, Artusi committed himself to “our beautiful, harmonious language,” based on the Tuscan tongue of Dante. Translating from dialects and using a light, engaging style, he also introduced regional recipes, such as piselli col prosciutto (peas with ham from Rome) and stracotto di vitello (veal stew from Florence) that many Italians in other places had never tasted.

For the 14th edition, bulging with 790 recipes (many contributed by readers), Artusi, who lived to age 91, added a celebratory preface called “The Story of a Book that Is like the Story of Cinderella,” the saga of a scorned manuscript that became a sensation—and laid the foundation for Italian cuisine as we know it.

One hundred years after Artusi’s death in 1911, the Casa Artusi in Forlimpopoli, un centro di cultura 
gastronomica di
 cucina domestica 
italiana (a center of gastronomic culture of Italian home cooking), is celebrating the Centenario Artusiano (Artusi Centenary) with special events, including dinners, conferences, exhibitions, and performances. Just visiting the site is enough to far venire l'aquolina in bocca (make one's mouth water). 

Words and Expressions

cucina casalinga –- home (literally housewife) cooking

alta cucina -- haute cuisine

alla maniera dell’Artusi -- in the manner of Artusi

essere /diventare un mago in cucina  -- to be / become a magician (whiz) in the kitchen

avere un palato fine -- to have a refined palate

Dianne Hales is the author of LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World’s Most Enchanting Language.

Comforting with Words in the Italian Language

Words of Compassion

Parole di cordoglio

The headlines were no less horrible in Italian: “Morte e devastazione in Giappone.” (Death and devastation in Japan.) “L'apocalisse in Giappone.” (Apocalypse in Japan.) “Disastro nel Pacifico” (Disaster in the Pacific.)

Italy – like Japan and California – lives with the constant threat of a terremoto (earthquake). Italian even has a word for “un terremoto in mare” (an earthquake in the sea): un maremoto, which creates the muraglia d' acqua (wall of water) we call a tsunami. But even in Italian non ci sono parole (there are no words) for such a cataclisma, calamità, catastrofe, o  immane tragedia (cataclysm, calamity, catastrophe or immense tragedy).

In a message to the emperor of Japan, Giorgio Napolitano, the President of Italy, described the devastanti conseguenze (devastating consequences) of the seismic events as beyond ogni immaginabile misura (every imaginable measure). But he offered touching words of consolation and support.

Napolitano praised Japan’s “popolazione straordinaria, la cui dignità e compostezza (extraordinary population, whose dignity and composure) earned the respect and admiration of the entire Italian nation. Emphasizing tutta la vicinanza del popolo italiano (all the nearness of the Italian people) to the Japanese, he proclaimed, “Siamo al fianco del Giappone in questo drammatico frangente," (We are at the side of the Japanese in this dramatic emergency.)

All of us everywhere are touched (siamo tutti colpiti) by the events in Japan. Here are some phrases to express your sympathy in Italian:

*All our support to the Japanese people -- Tutto il nostro sostegno al popolo giapponese

*
All our thoughts go toward Japan -- Tutti i nostri pensieri vanno al Giappone

*
Prayers for the victims -- preghiere per le vittime

*We are whole-heartedly with you -- Siamo con voi

*We send these words with profound emotion, profound sadness  -- Inviamo queste parole con profonda commozione, profondo dolore

*We share in the sadness of the victims of this monstrous tragedy -- Partecipiamo commossi al dolore delle vittime di questa immane tragedia

*Strength and courage! -- Forza e coraggio!

Words and Expressions

At any time of loss, the most comforting phrases are the simplest, say linguists Valeria della Valle and Giuseppe Patota in Le parole giuste (The Right Words). Avoid the triteness of "condoglianze" (condolences), they advise, and speak or write from the heart:

Ti sono vicino -- I am near you.

Ti siamo -- we are you

Vi siamo vicini -- we are close to you (plural)

Partecipo al tuo dolore -- I share in your sadness

My thanks to Kristin Espinasse of “A Day in a French Life,”  who inspired this post.

Sometimes music expresses what words cannot. Click below to hear Renee Fleming sing from Giuseppe Verdi's magnificent Requiem:

Dianne Hales is the author of LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language.

Celebrating the 150th Anniversary of Italy and Its Language


Il Centocinquantesimo Anniversario d’Italia

The 150^th Anniversary of Italy

In 1860, the charismatic general Giuseppe Garibaldi led a band of 1,000 red-shirted irregulars into the mezzogiorno, the hot land of the midday sun. As the troops of  Il Risorgimento, the nationalistic movement, marched in triumph across Sicily, Garibaldi, wearing his trademark poncho and sombrero, spotted a robust youth dozing under a carob tree. Reining in his horse, he asked, “Young man, will you not join us in our fight to free our brothers in Southern Italy from the bloody tyranny of the Bourbon kings? How can you sleep when your country needs you? Awake and to arms!”

The young man opened his eyes and silently flicked the fingers of one hand under his raised chin. The timeless gesture translates into “I don’t give a **** (insert the expletive of your choice).” Garibaldi accepted his wordless dismissal and rode on.

Such indifference was not uncommon throughout the patchwork of city-states, duchies, and remnants of foreign empires. Yet against all odds, the people of the peninsula came together to form a united nation in 1861. On March 17 Italy celebrates its 150th anniversary -- an achievement many still view as something of a miracle.

“We have created Italy,” one of its founding fathers sighed. “Now we must create Italians.”  At the time four in five of its citizens were illiterate. Fewer than 10 percent spoke Italian exclusively or with greater ease than local a dialect. Crowds cheering “La Talia,” as they pronounced the unfamiliar word l’Italia, thought it was the name of their new queen.

What brought Italians together?  I believe it was their dedication to what Italy’s president has called  “la nostra prima patria” (our first fatherland): Italian. “When a people has lost homeland and liberty, their language takes the place of a nation and of everything,” observed Luigi Settembrini, a nineteenth-century Neapolitan “professor of eloquence.”  

Italian -- la bella lingua -- was painstakingly crafted in the late Renaissance by a group of high-spirited Florentine intellectuals who set out to separate the literary equivalent of flour (good language) from bran (bad language). The fun- and food-loving members of L’Accademia della Crusca  (Academy of the Bran) playfully gave themselves nicknames related to cooking and baking, such as Lievito  (yeast or leaven) and Grattugiato (grated). These witty wordsmiths devoted decades to a serious mission: compiling the first great dictionary of officially recognized words in any European tongue.

Within the 960 oversized pages of the Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca, published in 1612, lies Italian’s genome, constructed of words chosen to please the ear, the eye, and the soul.  No less than artists in a Renaissance bottega  (workshop), the linguistic  “bakers” of La Crusca  created a living masterpiece. Because of their efforts, the lyrical language of Dante, the poet Petrarch, and the master storyteller Boccaccio -- le tre corone (the three crowns) of Italian literature -- still echoes in Italy’s classrooms, shops, and streets.

La Crusca is marking the nation’s anniversario with a stravizzo delle parole (an extravagant banquet of words) on March 16,  la notte tricolore (the night of the tricolor, the Italian flag), in the Piazza San Croce in Florence.   All of us who cherish Italy and its language join in the celebration. 

Viva l’Italia! Viva l’italiano!

Dianne Hales is the author of LA BELLA LINGUA, My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language.

Click below to hear Verdi’s “Va Pensiero,” the  poignant lament of  enslaved Hebrew captives longing for their homeland, which became an unofficial anthem for the unification movement.

Crazy as March in the Italian Language

Marzo Pazzerello 

Crazy March 

American basketball may have created its own form of March madness, but marzo (named for Mars, the god of war) has always had a reputation for being “pazzo” (crazy) in Italy.  The Roman horse above, decked out for Carnevale, seems to take this annual zaniness in stride.

In English we say that March comes in like a lion and leaves like a lamb. Italians say the same: "Marzo pazzerello arriva da leone e se ne va come un agnello." They also caution, “Arriva marzo pazzerello; esce il sole e prendi l’ombrello!”
(Here comes crazy March; the sun comes out, and you grab your umbrella!)  

Many a March day fa brutto (literally, it “makes” ugly weather). On some days piove (it rains). On others fa freddo (it’s cold). How cold? “Il freddo di marzo penetra nel corno del bue,” the saying goes. 
(The cold of March pierces the ox’s horns.—or more colloquially, when it’s cold in March, you freeze your bum off.) 
 

The following weather previsione (forecast) from an Italian newspaper captures the craziness of March's cattivo tempo (bad weather): “Piogge in arrivo!” (Rains are coming!) “Forte maltempo e anche neve da mercoledì a venerdì.“ (Strong bad weather and also snow from Wednesday to Friday.) 

Western Italy should expect “un rapido peggioramento” (rapid worsening) with “una forte perturbazione atlantica “ (strong Atlantic disturbance). Residents of northeastern Italy are warned to watch out for “acqua alta a Venezia" (high water in Venice) and a “scirocco eccezionale” (exceptional southeast wind). The coming days will bring a “profondo vortice ciclonico in una delle peggiori configurazioni per tutta l'Italia” (a severe cyclonic storm in one of the worst configurations for all Italy), creating “fortissimi venti” (the strongest possible winds). 

According to folk lore, the last three days of March are called "i giorni della vecchia" (the old lady's days) or "giorni imprestati" (borrowed days). Way back in the time when March had only 28 days, an old woman decided to take her sheep into the fields because, as she declared, March was over and could not torment her with cold any more. Offended by these words, March "borrowed" three days from April and made sure that they chilled the old woman to the bone. 

My favorite March saying bears a happier thought: Vento di marzo, odore di primavera! (Wind of March, smell of Spring!)

Words and Expressions: 

Non c'é marzo cosi bello senza neve sul cappello -- March is not so beautiful without snow on your hat

Marzo: un sole e un guazzo -- March: a sun and a shower 

"Sole di marzo, onda di mare, pianto di donna -- non ti fidare." -- March sun, sea wave, crying of a woman--don't trust any of them.

Fine di marzo, primi di aprile, ancora freddo puo venire -- End of March, first days of April, more cold can still come

Dianne Hales is the author of LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language. 

The perfect way to spend many a March day is to  snuggle al calduccio (into a warm and cozy little place) and savor the sounds and images of “Piove” (“It’s Raining”) by Alex Britti.

 

Celebrating Women in the Italian Language

la donna
woman

Italy celebrates la giornata della donna (woman’s day) on March 8, when husbands, boyfriends, and bosses present the women in their lives with bouquets of yellow mimosa. This international celebration is a relatively recent invention, created in 1911, but la donna has always played a complex, critical role in Italian life -- and language.

 No one may have understood this better than Nicolò Tommaseo, a nineteenth-century essayist and iconoclast  whose passions included women and words. He demonstrated his devotion to the latter by compiling the Dizionario dei sinonimi, an encyclopedic narrative dictionary of Italian synonyms, published in 1864, and unmatched in any other language and literature. 

Italian alone, he contended—and in particular the Tuscan dialect that shaped the language—captures sfumature (nuances), the same word Italian uses for the subtle brush strokes of artists like Leonardo da Vinci.

 In Italian, for instance, a donna can also be a:

    *donna allegra or donna di facili costumi -- a woman of easy virtue 
    *donna di casa -- housewife (also called a casalinga)
    *donna di mondo -- worldly, sophisticated woman
    *donna di servizio –-housemaid, domestic help
    *prima donna -- leading lady
    *donnina -- clever or sensible girl
    *donnino -- womanly or mature girl who takes on adult responsibilities despite her young age
    *donnetta -- common or ordinary woman, also an old maid or a woman of no value
    *donnaccia -- bad-tempered woman, tart, prostitute
    *donnone -- tall, imposing or large woman
    *donnicciola -- simple or stupid woman.  gossip, or if used for a man, sissy or coward 

    A donnaiolo, however, is no lady, but a ladies’ man or womanizer.

Tommaseo further distinguished between una donna cattiva and una cattiva donna (English speakers would translate both as a bad woman).  However, the phrases do not have the same meaning in Italian. Una cattiva donna dresses badly and presents herself poorly, while una donna cattiva is spiteful and full of malice. Either could be una cattiva moglie (bad wife), who isn’t good at running a household and caring for a family, or una moglie cattiva, with a mean or wicked spirit.

Words  and Expressions:

fare la primadonna -- to act like a primadonna

"Chi dice donna dice danno" -- who says woman says damage (women are synonymous with harm)

"Quel che donna vuole Dio lo vuole" -- what woman wants, God wants.

"Nè donna, nè tela a lume di candela" -- Choose neither a woman nor linen by candlelight (to avoid  a nasty surprise the next morning)

Dianne Hales is author of LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language.

One thing is certain: La donna, by any and all names, has always enraptured the Italian uomo (man). Hear and see the reasons why in this charming tribute by the popular Italian singer Zucchero, whose name translates as "Sugar."

 

Celebrating Carnevale in the Italian Language

Carnevale
Carnival

Thanks to my Catholic childhood, I could easily follow the Sunday mass in the tiny stone church of the Borgo Monte Vibiano Vecchio in Umbria.  Then the white-haired priest began to preach in ever more impassioned tones about the evils of “i peccati della carne,” which I translated literally into “the sins of the meat.”  

Had the Church reinstated its Friday ban on meat?  Had the dreaded mucca pazza (mad cow) returned?  I glanced at the dozen or so townspeople in attendance. Most were averting their eyes and looking embarrassed—or guilty. An Italian friend later explained why:  “carne” also means flesh, and a sermon on the sins of the flesh could discomfit almost anyone.

For centuries the pre-Lent festivities of carnevale sumptuously celebrated “carne” in every sense. However, the name comes specifically from the Latin for meat (carnem) and “take away or remove” (levare).  A church decree dating back to 653 declared that anyone who ate meat during the forty days of Lent (Quaresima in Italian) could not receive communion on Easter. Charlemagne reportedly sentenced Lenten meat-eaters  to death. 

The prospect of  long months without meat or merriment inspired Italians to gorge themselves  throughout--and often long before-- la settimana grassa (the fat week) before Ash Wednesday. It also inspired a luscious vocabulary for the culinary treats of this festive time, such as the delicate fried pastries we might call fritters.  In Piedmont, they’re bugie (little lies); in Tuscany, cenci (rags); in Milan, chiacchiere (gossips); in Emilia-Romagna, lattughe (lettuce leaves).  Cooks elsewhere may call them nastri delle suore (nuns’ ribbons), galani or sfrappe and add ingredients such as raisins and anise.

The sin-drenched Venetian Republic was famous for indulgences of carne in its more sensual sense. During Carnevale, which lasted for months,  party-goers of all classes hid their identities behind elaborate maschere (masks). Artisans known as mascherari gained fame for their exquisite creations, which came in three varieties.  The bauta covered the entire face but had no mouth opening and a lot of gilding.  The oval-shaped moretta was worn by women, often along with a veil. The full-face white larva (from the Latin for mask or ghost) was made of fine wax cloth.  For a dazzling display  of Venice’s Carnevale finery, click on this video:

 

Words and Expressions:

fare le frittelle –- literally, to make the fritters; to celebrate Carnivale
carnevalone –- the four extra days of Carnevale celebrated in places like Milan
carnevalata –- Carnival revelry
A Carnevale ogni scherzo vale –- Anything goes at Carnival time.
L’amore di Carnevale muore in Quaresima –- a love that starts during Carnival dies in Lent.

Dianne Hales is the author of LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language.