KEY POINTS:
- A bill supported by the Italian Prime Minister would see Italians fined for using English in official communication.
- Violations of the new legislation could attract fines of up to €100,000 ($160,708).
- The legislation has been described as “comical” by other politicians.
Italians could soon be hit with hefty fines for using English and other foreign words in official communication.
A bill, which has yet to go up for parliamentary debate, would make Italian “mandatory for the promotion and use of public goods and services”.
It also bans English words or acronyms from job titles and specifies that Italian must be used as the primary language, even in offices that deal with non-Italian-speaking foreigners.
Violations of the new legislation could attract fines from €5,000 ($8,035) to €100,000 ($160,708).
A “comical” bill
Fabio Rampelli, a member of Italy’s lower chamber of deputies, introduced the legislation, which is supported by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
Under the proposed law, the country's culture ministry would also establish a committee to “correct use of the Italian language and its pronunciation” in schools, media, commerce and advertising.
This would mean that saying “bru-shetta” instead of “bru-sketta” could be a punishable offence.
Though the legislation encompasses all foreign languages, it is particularly aimed at the use of English words and the increasing anglicisation of Italian, which “demeans and mortifies” the language, according to the bill.
Italian news agency Dire reported last Friday that +Europa party deputy Benedetto Della Vedova had referred to the bill as “comical”.
In a statement, he questioned whether Ms Meloni would be punished for describing herself with the English word “underdog”, which she has previously done.
The draft bill comes after the government recently moved to defend another part of Italy's culture, banning the use of laboratory-produced food.
Italy has also been pushing to limit the use of the word “Prosecco” to describe wine produced in a particular geographic area, rather than the name of a grape, restricting its use by Australian winemakers.
The influence of mainstream media
Dr Angela Viora is a lecturer in European Languages at Monash University who has taught Italian both in Italy and Australia for almost 20 years. She believes the language used by public-facing figures is important.
“People speaking through the TV, through magazines and journals and newspapers, how they communicate in Italian, this is the way [people learn],” she said.
“If I'm exposed to a TV program where Italian is spoken in a very poor way, that has nothing to do with English.”
Dr Viora said banning English wouldn’t necessarily strengthen the language, with the main goal of the legislation to “defend and promote the Italian language”.
“If we have a problem with Italian, if they feel the trend is that Italian is becoming impoverished, English is overused or misused, let's put in place strategies to improve the learning and the use of both languages. They can coexist,” she said.
Keeping up with technology
Dr Viora said English words were often used in place of their longer and wordier Italian counterparts.
In a pinned tweet, Mr Rampelli criticises the use of the English word “dispenser”, which in Italian is expressed in a longer phrase: “dispensatore di liquido igienizzante per le mani”.
Technology has been one of the greatest drivers of the introduction of English words into the everyday Italian language, according to Dr Viora.
“We use streaming [services] and we advertise the streaming channels in Italian, so ... we can say scaricare … but you know they say it's downloading,” she said.
Dr Viora described the introduction of English words into Italian, particularly those pertaining to technology, as “logical” and a process that shouldn’t be stopped.
She views the English language as an important communication tool, "it's a resource for tourism and it's a resource for being able to communicate with the migrant community".
The bill will have to be approved by both houses of parliament to become law and so far, there is no indication of when this might happen.
