Becoming Italian Word by Word

Celebrating May Festivals in Italy and the Italian Language

Le feste di maggio 

May festivals 

If you’re heading to Italy in the coming weeks, you can cheer the drivers in the famous Mille Miglia (1000 mile) car rally or celebrate Pinocchio’s birthday in Collodi (Tuscany). Here are some other not-to-be-missed festivities:

*Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, one of the oldest music festivals in Italy, features opera, concerts and dance. The outdoor performances at night often end with dazzling fireworks displays. While in Florence, be sure to go the city’s famous Iris Garden, open to the general public only in May. You’ll gain an entirely new appreciation for the root of Florence’s Italian name: Firenze, derived from the Latin for “to flower or blossom.”

*Giro d’Italia, the largest cycling event of the country, begins on May 5 and eventually climbs the famous Passo dello Stelvio to finish at the summit for the first time in the history of the event.

*Corsa dei Ceri (Race of the Candles). The stony, silent town of Gubbio in Umbria explodes into frenzied excitement every May 15. Three teams of men run up and down its steep streets carrying Ceri, gigantic wooden constructions, each weighing about a thousand pounds and bearing a statue of a saint on top. The Ceri and the Corsa dei Matti (Race of the Crazy Ones, as it's nicknamed) may date back to the twelfth century, when Gubbio was miraculously spared from the forces of Frederick Barbarossa. 

*Calendimaggio, a series of medieval and Renaissance spettacoli (shows) with concerts, dances, archery, flag-waving, cross-bow displays and torch-lit processions, held in Assisi in early May.

*La Barabbata, a procession in which men wear costumes and carry tools representing the traditional trades while white buffalo pull floats displaying the fruits of the trades, celebrated May 14 in Marta on the shores of Lake Bolsena.

*La Festa di San Domenico, a procession on the first Thursday in May in Cocullo in the Abruzzi, highlighted by the carrying of a statue of the town's patron saint covered with live serpents.

*Sposalizio dell’Albero, the wedding of the tree, on May 8 in Vetralla in northern Lazio, in which townspeople decorate a couple of oak trees with garlands and plant new trees in a ceremony that asserts the town's domination over the forest.

*Infiorata di Noto, a huge festival with flower petal art displays and a parade in Noto, Sicily, during the third weekend of May.

*Il Palio di Ferrara, a historical horse race dating from 1279, run the last Sunday in May, with events every weekend of the month, including a procession with over 1000 people in Renaissance costumes on the Saturday night before the race.

Words and Expressions

festeggiare -- to celebrate, welcome, entertain

festaiolo -- party animal, merry maker

festino -- banquet, party, feast

far festa a qualcuno -- to welcome or greet someone warmly

Dianne Hales,  author of LA BELLA LINGUA: MY LOVE AFFAIR WITH ITALIAN, THE WORLD'S MOST ENCHANTING LANGUAGE, invites you to join her for a magical week of writing, cooking, and adventures on beautiful Capri this fall. Click here for details.

 

Celebrating a Year of Italian Language and Culture: Verdi

 
Giuseppe Verdi

(1813-1901)
 

As part of the Year of Italian Culture (l'anno della cultura italiana), Italy is celebrating the 200th birthday of Giuseppe Verdi--fondly nicknamed “Peppino”--the Michelangelo of Italian opera.  In more than thirty operas, this maestro of maestri gave “Italians” a unifying language and helped meld the patchwork of independent states and occupied territories into a unified nation.

The son of a poor tavern-owner in  Emilia-Romagna, this musical prodigy  became the village organist at age 12 .  As a young man, he fell in love with the daughter of his first patron, married,  had two children, and wrote two operas (one cheered and one booed at Milan's prestigious Teatro alla Scala. Then, in the span of three tragic years, Verdi’s children and cherished wife died.   He swore never to compose  again.

One night an impresario in Milan shoved a rejected libretto into Verdi’s hands. Alone in his room, he threw the manuscript onto a table. “Without my knowing why,” he later recalled,  “I found myself staring at the paper in front of me and saw these verses: “Va, pensiero, sull’ali dorate.” (Go, thought, on golden wings.)  He was so intrigued by the phrase from the biblical story of Egypt’s Hebrew slaves that he couldn’t sleep.

The libretto became the opera Nabucco, which premiered in 1842. Its poignant chorus, “Va, pensiero,”  the lament of the enslaved captives longing for their homeland, became an unofficial anthem for Il Risorgimento, the resurgence, a nationalistic movement that was sweeping the fragmented peninsula.

“The tune made him, then and for all time, the singer of his people’s liberty,” wrote an early biographer. The  day after Nabucco opened, people were singing the song in the streets. As nationalism grew, its advocates shouted,  “Viva V.E.R.D.I.!”—not only in homage to the composer, but as an abbreviation for “Victor Emmanuel Re D’Italia,” the Piedmont king who promised to liberate Italy from its foreign occupiers.

Attila, one of Verdi’s lesser works, included a line that stirred millions of patriotic souls: “You may have the universe, if I may have Italy.”  An Italian friend puts her own spin on this phrase: “You may have the universe, if I may have Verdi.”   I understand why.

Verdi insisted on strong situations, strong emotions, strong contrasts, and the strong language he called parole sceniche, dramatic words “that carve out a situation or a character.” What were le parole sceniche  of  his life?  Croce (torment), for sure, caused by crushing losses.  Delizia (delight) in a  half-century-long relationship with the soprano Giuseppina Strepponi that scandalized his hometown.  Vendetta? Verdi’s operas vibrate with hate-fueled vengeance, and he held fierce grudges for decades.

Verdi’s genius glowed long and bright. He composed Otello at 74 and Falstaff at 80. On January 21, 1901,  at age 88, Verdi,  whose music seemed  as vital as air to generations of Italians, died.  At the cemetery, Toscanini led a chorus of more than 900 singers in “Va, Pensiero.”   Without prompting, the entire crowd joined in the chorus  that had helped forge a nation. To listen to this stirring tune, click below.

 Words and Expressions from Verdi operas

croce e delizia  --  cross (torment) and delight, from La Traviata

sempre libera – always free, from La Traviata

Libiamo né lieti calici  che la bellezza infiora – Let’s drink to the happy goblets which beauty  embellishes, from La Traviata

la bella mano candida –  a beautiful white hand, from Rigoletto

 

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

 

 

Italian Christmas Carols: Songs of Joy in the Italian Language

 

Il canto di Natale 

 The Christmas Carol 

You expect Christmas to look different in Italy, but it’s surprising to discover that it sounds different too. Rather than jingling sleigh bells, the traditional sound of Christmas in Rome and southern Italy is the music of bagpipes and flutes played by shepherds from the Abruzzi. 

According to legend, shepherds entertained the Virgin Mary in Bethlehem with their simple instruments. Zampognari (bagpipe players), wearing shaggy sheepskin vests, felt hats, and crisscrossed leather leggings, used to come to Rome weeks before Christmas to play in churches. These days the shepherds arrive later and play their ancient instruments in front of elegant stores along the Via Condotti and other shopping streets near the Spanish Steps. 

Like so many other Christmas traditions, il canto di Natale (the Christmas song or carol) has Italian origins. In the thirteenth century, San Francesco (St. Francis) of Assisi and his followers, the first Franciscan friars, created a large number of Christmas hymns to give praise and thanks for the birth of il Bambino Gesù. 

Italians, like people in other countries, sing hymns such as Adeste Fidelis (“O Come All Ye Faithful") in the original Latin. However, the lyrics of other classic carols are quite different in Italian. Stille Nacht, for instance, originally written in German by an Ausrian composer, translates, not as “Silent Night,” but as Astro del ciel (Star of Heaven). Here is the first verse and the literal translation into English: 

Astro del ciel / Pargol divin /mite Agnello Redentor! 
 Tu che i Vati da lungi sognar / tu che angeliche voci nunziar, luce dona alle genti 
pace infondi nei cuor! 


Star of Heaven / Holy child / meek lamb, you are our savior! / You are the one that far away prophets dream about/ You are the one that angelic voices announce/ Enlighten us all / instill peace in our hearts. 

Among the many beautiful Italian canti di Natale, the most beloved (and my personal favorite) is Tu Scendi dalle Stelle, written by Alphonsus Liquori in the 18th century. Here are the lyrics in Italian and an English translation of the first verse: 

Tu scendi dalle stelle 

 O Re del cielo 

 E vieni in una grotta 

 Al freddo al gelo 

 O Bambino mio Divino Io 

 Ti vedo qui tremar! 

English translation 

From starry skies Thou comest 

 The King of Heav'n foretold, 

 Appearing in a manger, 

 Near frozen from the cold. 

 Jesus, dearest little Baby, 

 How I long to make Thee warm! 

Italians have adopted some American carols, even though phrases like “jingle bells” don’t translate. Here is the Italian version: “Suona jingle bells / tintinnando nei cammin 
le campanelle d'or/ 

 Jingle bells, jingle bells / suona jingle bells / E suonando porterà 
la gioia in ogni cuor.” English translation: Ring little bells! Golden bells are jingling inside the chimneys. Jingle bells, jingle bells/ ring little bells!

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

Click below to listen to an Italian version  of "Astro del Ciel":

Christmas in the Italian Language: The Saint of Light and Sight

 

La Festa di Santa Lucia (December 13) 

The Feast of San Lucia

In the dark of December parts of Italy light up to celebrate a saint whose name derives from the Latin lux or lucis for light (luce in Italian). 

Lucia was a young girl who lived in Syracuse on the island of Sicily in the third century. According to various legends, this saintly virgin would wear a wreath of candles as she carried food to Christians hiding in underground tunnels. When a suitor claimed to be captivated by her eyes, Lucia plucked them out and had them sent to him on a platter. (In another version, she was blinded and miraculously cured.) 

Denounced as a Christian, Lucia was ordered to work in a brothel by Roman authorities. She refused to go, and nothing—not even a fire set under her feet—could get her to budge. One of her persecutors ultimately killed her by stabbing her in the throat. 

The patron saint of sight, Lucia is often portrayed holding a plate with a pair of eyes on it. As a way of tasting the enlightenment St. Lucia brings, Italians eat “gli occhi di Santa Lucia” (the eyes of St. Lucia) usually made from bread or biscotti. The same phrase also refers to shells shaped like an eye that bring good luck if found on a beach.    

St. Lucia gained greater fame in 1582, when famine struck Syracuse. On December 13 a boat filled with grain appeared in the harbor. Rather than processing the grain into flour, the starving people simply boiled and ate it. 

Sicilians honor the memory of St. Lucia by lighting bonfires and abstaining from anything made of wheat flour on December 13. They traditionally prepare cuccia (which rhymes with Lucia), a dessert made of whole wheat berries, cooked in water and mixed with sweetened ricotta flavored with candied orange bits and shaved chocolate. 

Missionaries and mariners carried the legend ot Santa Lucia to Sweden, where she is credited with again saving a town from famine by sending a boat filled with food. At its helm was a woman dressed in white with a glow above her head. 

According to tradition, in some parts of northeastern Italy, including the cities of Bergamo, Cremona, and Verona, St. Lucia rides a flying donkey (asino volante) to bring gifts (regali) to good children and coal (carbone) to bad ones. To make sure she stops, youngsters leave out a snack for Lucia and carrots and hay for her donkey. However, they are warned never to try to catch a glimpse of her.If they do, she may throw ashes (cenere) in their eyes and temporarily blind them.

The phrase “Santa Lucia” is famous for a different reason in Italy —as a traditional Neapolitan song written in praise of the picturesque waterfront district, Borgo Santa Lucia on the Bay of Naples. In 1849 Santa Lucia became the first Neapolitan song to be given Italian lyrics and sung as a barcarola (gondolier's song) in the early stages of the Risorgimento, the fight for the unification of Italy. 

Enrico Caruso, the great Neapolitan opera singer, recorded the most famous 20th-century version, but everyone from Elvis Presley (in his 1965 album Elvis for Everyone) to Luciano Pavarotti has sung this iconic tune. 

Here are the lyrics to the opening verses in Italian and English: 

Italian 

Sul mare luccica 

L'astro d'argento

Placida e' l'onda 

Prospero e' il vento 

Venite all'agile 

Barchetta mia 

Santa Lucia 

Santa Lucia... 

English 

Over the sea 

shines a silver star. 

Placid is the wave. 

Fair is the wind. 

Come to 

my swift little boat, 

Santa Lucia, 

Santa Lucia. 

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

Click below to hear this lovely tune and see a very young Elvis in uniform.

The Christmas Season in the Italian Language

 

la stagione natalizia

the Christmas season

To celebrate la stagione natalizia in Italy, I am dedicating twelve blog posts to the sights, sounds, tastes, and traditions of Natale.  Buone feste! (Happy Holidays!)

In ancient times the Romans celebrated Saturnalia, a winter solstice festival with religious rites and drunken feasts. The early Christian church decreed December 25 — then the feast of the sun god Mithras -- as the birthday of Gesù bambino (Baby Jesus), the “true light” who came to dispel darkness in the world.

Modern Italian holidays blend religious and pagan festivities that create un’atmosfera natalizia that lasts from weeks before to weeks after December 25. Children in Italy, as elsewhere, often count down the days with a calendario dell’avvento (advent calendar).  

Although you can find more extravagant decorations (decorazioni) in the United States, Christmas lights (illuminazioni natalizie) and alberi di Natale are becoming more popular in Italy. In Torino lighting artists illuminate more than twelve miles of streets and squares. An 875-yard-tall Christmas tree—the world’s tallest, according to the Guiness Book of Records--made up of 450 lights stands near the top of Monte Ingino, above Gubbio in Umbria. Its bright star can be seen from as far away as Perugia. 

Here are the key dates in a season of celebrations:

*December 6, La festa di San Nicola, patron saint of shepherds and of Bari--and the inspiration for the American "Santa Claus."

*December 8, La festa dell'Immacolata, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, a Catholic holy day honoring Mary, the virgin mother of Jesus. In Rome the Pope comes to the Piazza di Spagna to drop a garland of flowers around the statue of the Madonna. (Since she stands atop a high column, firemen on ladders do the actual placement.)

*December 13: La festa di Santa Lucia, the festival of lights.

*December 24: La vigilia di Natale, the vigil or eve of Christmas.

*December 25: Natale,  the “birthday” of Gesù bambino.

*December 26: La festa di Santo Stefano, Saint Steven’s day.

*December 31: La festa di San Silvestro, Saint Sylvester’s day or New Year’s Eve (la vigilia di Capodanno).

*January 1: Il Capodanno, literally the top of the year.

*January 6: L’Epifania, Epiphany, which marks the arrival of the Re Magi, the three wise men, who brought gifts to the infant Jesus from afar.

Words and Expressions

addobbi natalizi or decorazioni natalizie –- Christmas decorations

palline dell’albero di natale -- Christmas tree ornaments

ghirlanda natalizia –- Christmas wreath

luci dell’albero di natale –- Christmas tree lights

Dianne Hales is the author of LA BELLA LINGUA, My Love Affair with the World's Most Enchanting Language -- an ideal Christmas gift for lovers of Italy and its language. 

Here is a classic Italian canzone di Natale, accompanied by images of la stagione natalizia:

Traveling in the Italian Language: The "Dog Days" of Summer

il sole
the sun

These are the days of il solleone, the period from mid-July to mid-August, when the sun falls under the zodiac sign of Leo (Leone).  

At the time of the Roman empire Serius (the dog star) rose and set with the sun, and people thought its red glow contributed to the summer heat. They used the term canicola (from cane for dog) to describe  the “dog days” at the  height of summer. "Come picchia il sole!" (How the sun beats down), people complain during these long giorni soleggiati (sunny days).

If we're on vacation, I am happy not to have to rise with the sun (alzarsi col sole) or get up at sunrise or first sun (allo spuntar del sole).  A few hours later a ray of sunshine (raggio di sole) creeps through our shutters to wake me. It reminds me of a literary description of being in jail: vedere il sole a scacchi (to see the sun in squares).“Che sole!“ (What a fierce sun!)  I think as I blink at the brightness of the sunlight (luce del sole).

Il culto del sole (sun worship) sweeps over Italy every August.  If I want to sunbathe (esporsi al sole), I put on a sunsuit (prendisole) and  look for un luogo soleggiato  (a sunny spot ) to take the sun (prendere il sole). 

Whenever I’m in the sun (al sole), I try to protect my eyes with sunglasses (occhiali da sole). To avoid sunstroke (un colpo di sole) I may duck under a sunshade (parasole). And I always remember sunscreen (crema solare)  to prevent a sunburn (una scottatura).

Even when Italians aren’t basking in the sun (crogiolarsi al sole), a gleam of sunshine  (il bagliore del sole) brightens their conversations.  A striking young woman is bella come il sole! (beautiful as the sun). A fact may be chiaro come il sole (as clear as the sun). Someone who acts openly without hiding anything does so alla luce del sole (in the light of the sun). And, of course, nulla di nuovo sotto il sole  (there’s nothing new under the sun), including the fact that il sole sorge -- e sorge per tutti (the sun rises -- and rises for everyone). 

Giovanni Capurro, a writer in Naples,  and  Eduardo di Capua, a posteggiatore (Neapolitan for a party or restaurant singer), composed “'O sole mio” (“My Sun”), Italy’s most famous love song, in 1898 and sold all rights to a music publisher for 25 lire. (Click below to hear the three tenors' classic rendition.)

Here is the English translation of the first verse:

“What a beautiful thing is a sunny day.

The air is serene after a storm.

The air is so fresh that it already feels like a celebration.

What a beautiful thing is a sunny day!"
 

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

Words and Expressions

il sole è alto --  the sun is up
l’impero del Sol Levante -- the empire of the rising sun (Japan)
sdraiarsi al sole -- to lie in the sun
eclissi solare -- solar eclipse

Little Easter in the Italian Language

 
Pasquetta

 After the grand religious rituals and elaborate feasts of Easter Sunday, Italians celebrate il lunedi dell’Angelo (Angel’s Monday) with a picnic in the countryside beyond the walls of their cities.  This national holiday is called Pasquetta, or little Easter.

Like so many words with diminutive suffixes, it implies something more personal and appealing.  “Pasqua di rinascita, Pasquetta di festa,” Italians say.  “Easter for rebirth; Pasquetta for party.” The simple picnic dishes feature endless variations on eggs, including frittatine (small omelettes) and tortini (small torte or pies).

I’ve come to think of endings such as –ino, -ello, and –etto as the linguistic equivalent of the heaps of sugar Italians add to a thimbleful of espresso to sweeten its taste.  A bambina (baby girl), like the little angel above, inevitably elicits cries of "Carina!" "Bellina!" "Tesorina!" "Bambolina!"  (Cute! Pretty! Little darling! Baby doll!) Almost everything to do with piccolini (little ones)  merits a diminutive, right down to culetto for a sweet little baby bottom. 

Many diminutives simply signify size or shape.  In contrast to an albero (tree), an alberino is a shrub; an alberello, a sapling; and an alberetto, a dwarf tree. Trousers are calzoni; calzoncini, shorts.    The Italian physicist Enrico Fermi coined the term neutrino  (little neutral one) for a particle even smaller than a neutron.  In music, prestissimo means a little faster than presto;  andantino, not as slow as andante. 

Thanks to diminutives, a sign outside a rustic osteria (a tavern serving simple food) can summarize its entire menu in three variations:

    Pranzo (lunch): 15 euro
    Pranzetto (lighter lunch): 10 euro
    Pranzettino (bite to eat): 5 euro.

Diminutives also can add a clever twist to common words. An especially endearing form of amore is amorino.  Doctors refer to the patient information insert that accompanies a prescription medication as a bugiardino (little liar).  A horse has a coda (tail), but Italian men and women may sport a codina (pony tail). Vento (wind) melts into venticello (a nice little wind), but gentler still is a brezzolina (soft little breeze). 

But not every little thing is a good one.  My Italian friends warn me to beware of people asking for a little anything, whether it’s a tiny little moment of your time (attimino), a peck of a kiss (bacino), or a bit of help (aiutino).  Usually they’re after much more.

Words and Expressions

Figlioli piccini dolore di testa, fanciulli grandini dolore di cuore -- young children, headache; older kids, heartache 

stellina di mogliettina  -- little star of a little wife (literally), a wonderful wife

capellini  (from capelli for hair) -- fine or thin hair (or spaghetti)

casetta (from casa for house) -- little house, cottage

negozietto (from negozio for shop) -- small shop

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

Inside Italy's Convents, Monasteries and Abbeys

My thanks to Silvia Bascelli for this guest blog on a largely unknown aspect of Italy's culture and history:

monachesimo 

monasticism 

 by Silvia Bascelli

The panorama of Italian architecture, both in cities and in the countryside, includes convents, monasteries, abbeys and charter houses (i conventi, i monasteri, le abbazie e le certose). These are the residences of people who live in religious communities: friars, monks and nuns (i frati, i monaci e le suore), organized into "orders” (ordini). The phenomenon, which came to be called monasticism (monachesimo), was widespread both in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches.

Monasticism emerged around 500 AD. Driven by a strong vocation (una forte vocazione), some of the faithful separated from the rest of the community to live a purer life (vivere una vita più  pura) and to get closer to God (avvicinarsi a Dio). This was also a kind of protest against the corruption (la corruzione) of the customs of the time and of the church itself.

Created by men and women of strong personality and religiosity (forte personalità e religiosità), each order lived under its "rule” (regola), that is, the precepts established by the founder. All the rules stipulated, among other obligations, that of living in chastity (vivere in castità).

Some orders, such as the Carthusians, led a contemplative life (vita contemplativa), almost entirely devoted to prayer (la preghiera) and work, normally agricultural (il lavoro, normalmente agricolo).One of the best known, perhaps also the first (forse il primo), is the order of Benedictines, founded by St. Benedict. Its Latin motto was "Ora et labora” '(Pray and work). The famous abbey of Montecassino, built by Saint Benedict, was destroyed by bombs during the Second World and then rebuilt exactly as before. 

The monastic institutions (istituzioni monastiche), especially those of the Benedictines, proved invaluable during the barbarian invasions (le invasioni barbariche), when they managed to preserve civilization and culture (la civiltà e la cultura).  Handwriting (la scrittura) itself had all but disappeared. Only thanks to the patient work of monastic scribes (amanuensi) was writing saved and newly diffused in society.

The monastic libraries also saved thousands of ancient books with all of the knowledge that had been transmitted (tutto il sapere che ci era stato trasmesso) in their pages. The popular novel, The Name of the Rose (Il nome della rosa), was set in one of these monasteries.

Today vocations (le vocazioni) have declined or almost disappeared (quasi scomparse) in Western nations, and in Italy as elsewhere there are very many empty convents (conventi vuoti). This is especially true in Rome, where the presence of the pope (la presenza del papa) had led to the building of many religious residences. Many empty convents and monasteries have been converted into residential hotels (strutture alberghiere). As a result, it is possible to find in Rome accomodations at reduced price (prezzi ridotti). The small rooms of the friars and sisters are certainly less luxurious (meno lussuose) than those in hotels, but they are clean (pulite), cost less (costano meno) and, above all. are almost always in the center of the city (nel centro della città).

The abandoned abbeys and chart houses located in the countryside have often been converted into museums that are open to the public (al pubblico). One of the greatest in the world (più grandi del mondo) is la Certosa di Padula. If you can’t visit it personally, check out this link. 

A special treat for visitors to some monasteries is the  heavenly sound of monks chanting:

 

Celebrating Italian Language Week

 

Viva l'italiano! 

This week marks the eleventh annual "settimana della lingua italiana" (Italian language week), with the theme of "Buon compleanno, Italia" (Happy Birthday, Italy) in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of Italy's independence.  But centuries before there was an Italy, there was Italian.

Its roots date back  nearly 2,800 years  when a band of itinerant shepherds and farmers,  possibly led by the legendary Romulus, settled  on the hills above the Tiber.  Their utterances  evolved into the volgare (from the Latin sermo vulgaris, for the people’s common speech), the rough-and-ready spoken vernacular.  Scrappy street Latin, not the classical, cadenced rhetoric of Caesar and Cicero, gave rise to all the Romance languages, including Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanian.

The first miracle of Italian is its survival. No government mandated its use. No mighty empire promoted it as an official language. No conquering armies or armadas trumpeted it to distant lands.  Brutally divided, invaded, and conquered, the Mediterranean peninsula remained a patchwork of dialects, often as different from each other as French from Spanish or English from Italian, for centuries. 

Italian as we know it was created, not born. With the same thunderbolt genius that would transform art in the Renaissance, writers of fourteenth-century Florence—Dante first and foremost—crafted the effervescent Tuscan vernacular into a language rich and powerful enough to sweep down from heaven and up from hell.  This priceless living legacy, no less than Petrarch’s poetry, Michelangelo’s sculptures, Verdi’s operas, Fellini’s movies, or Valentino’s dresses, is an artistic masterwork.

Through centuries of often-brutal foreign domination, words remained all that Italy’s people could claim as their own. “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” who dedicated his life to the language that came to define Western civilization.  

As a national spoken tongue, Italian is nuovissimo (very, very new). Rallying for one nation united by one language, Italians won their country’s independence in 1861. At the time four in five of its citizens were illiterate. Fewer than 10 percent spoke Italian exclusively or with greater ease than a local dialect. Word by word, generation by generation, village by village, the people of the peninsula became Italian speakers.

Ever-growing numbers of people around the world are trying to do the same. With only an estimated 60 to 63 million native speakers, Italian ranks 19th among the world’s most spoken tongues. Nonetheless it has become the fourth most-studied language (after English, Spanish and French).

Why do so many people want to study Italian? “I suspect it is because Italy and the Italian language are perceived as beautiful, fun, and sexy,” observed Stephen Brockman, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, in an essay called “A Defense of European Languages,” adding, “And why not? I can’t see anything wrong with that.”

Neither do I. 

Only a beautiful, fun, sexy language could inspire a love song like La Nostra Lingua Italiana (Our Italian Language), written in 1993. Popular songwriter Riccardo Cocciante celebrates Italian as serene, sweet, welcoming, universal, generous,  and sensual, the language of everyone looking for un po’ d’amore (a little love).

 

Here is the first stanza, followed by a rough translation:

Lingua di marmo antico di una cattedrale
Lingua di spada e pianto di dolore
Lingua che chiama da una torre al mare
Lingua di mare che porta nuovi volti
Lingua di monti esposta a tutti i venti
Che parla di neve bianca agli aranceti
Lingua serena, dolce, ospitale
La nostra lingua italiana

"Language of ancient marble in a cathedral

Language of the sword and tears of sorrow

Language calling from a tower to the sea

Language of the sea that brings new faces

Language of the mountain exposed to all winds

that talks of white snow to the orange groves

Language serene,  sweet, welcoming 

Our Italian language."

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

Flying like a Butterfly in the Italian Language

la farfalla
buttefly

“Per le farfalle?” (For the butterflies?) I asked when the owners of the villa we are renting explained why they had planted a field of lavender in front of the house. The sweet-smelling flowers would attract exquisite yellow butterflies, they explained, and create a lovely sight that would make passers-by smile.  They were right, but the very word farfalla has always been enough to make me smile.

Gli entomologi  (entymologists or bug scientists)  distinguish between a farfalla and a
falena (moth). Although both belong to the order Lepidoptera, farfalle prefer il giorno  (day) and falene la notte (night). As an Italian encyclopedia explains, una farfalla also makes a spectacular metamorphosis from un bruco (caterpillar) to a beautiful flying insect with “quattro grandi ali vivacemente colorate” (four big, brightly colored wings).  Butterflies  also "chiudono le ali a libro in posizione di riposo" (close their wings like a book in a position of rest).

As charming as butterflies may be, le farfalle have more to do than sfarfallare or sfarfalleggiare  (flutter about). They may show up on an Italian dinner table in dishes such as lepre con farfalle (hare with bowtie-shaped pasta). A farfallino, literally a small butterfly, also serves as a name for an empty-headed person--or a bow-tie.  A farfallone , a big butterfly, describes a huge blunder as well as someone superficial or flirty who is  “incostante in amore” (inconstant in love). 

In La Vispa Teresa, an Italian children’s classic rhyme, a little girl catches a butterfly who begs her to be set free. “Living and fluttering around I don’t do any harm,” it implores. “You are hurting me instead, squeezing my wings! Please let me free, I’m God’s creature too!’  The girl, regretting what she’s done to the butterfly, opens her hands and lets la farfarlla fly away.

The most famous Italian farfalla  did not fare as well.  The tragic heroine of Giacomo Puccini’s  Madama Butterfly is cruelly seduced and betrayed by Pinkerton, an American naval officer who turns out to be a faithless farfallone.  The first time I saw the opera  I remained dry-eyed until the very end, when Butterfly blindfolds her little boy before taking her own life.

As I  came to understand the words — and anticipate the plot — my heart started to break ever earlier in the opera. Last year, in a particularly captivating production at the New York City Opera, I got as far as the couple’s love duet at the end of act one, when Pinkerton concedes, “Un pò di vero c'è”  --there’s some truth in Butterfly’s fear that an American who catches a butterfly pierces its heart with a pin. I wanted to cry out to the naive farfalla to fly away while she could.

Yesterday an Italian friend presented me with a bouquet of flowers, topped by a delicate silk butterfly. "Sei la mia farfalla" (You are my butterfly), she said, "writing words that fly higher and higher" -- and, I hope, that  make people smile.

Words and Expressions

avere le farfalle nello stomaco -- butterflies in the stomach (an English idiom that Italian has adopted) 
stile a farfalla -- butterfly stroke (swimming)
acchiappafarfalle -- butterfly net
ignudo bruco --  literally a naked caterpillar, extremely poor

To listen to the enchanting love duet from Madama Butterfly, click below: