First, let me say one thing: your English stumbling is pretty agile. Of course, it's never like writing in your native language, but from where I'm sitting, you've got nothing to worry about.
Among other things I torture my students with is teaching them about where English comes from. That's my favorite image to use, for the obvious reason that it's beautiful instead of looking like something make with the chinciest family tree software ever.
While, in general, I don't have the aversion to my country that you seem to have about yours, the US has a pretty checkered past, especially here in South America. And, of course, right now... well, I hardly know how to put it.
I don't know much about Italian, but Portuguese has a pretty reliable orthography and tame phonology: almost no consonant clusters, reliable pronunciation from spelling, though there's some ambiguity going the other way.
English being pretty much the polar opposite of that, it presents a frustrating challenge Portuguese speaker. I spend a lot of time apologizing for its craziness.
It is a challenge for Italians as well, English pronunciation is "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma." Thanks for your lovely comment, Cary.
I love that you used that particular quotation. Suddenly thinking of Russia = English blew my mind a little. I realized there are weird, fun parallels to follow.
I am trying to decide if trans-Ural Russia is Old English or all the Latin stuff that’s been piled upon that. I mean, chronologically, European Russia would be Old English, but my gut tells me Asian Russia, distant and strange, vast and not wholly known, is Old English, thick with a taiga of forever-lost dialects and periodically invaded by Far Eastern Vikings. There’s a post or story or a poem or two in all this for sure.
Well, technically, Russian grammar is very similar to Latin, for instance, in Italian and English, the verb "to help" is followed by a direct object (accusative), whereas in Latin and Russian, the object is indirect, and you have to use the dative, and there are lots of other examples. But you're right, in Asian Russia there were – and still are – different ethnic groups not only Slavic/Indo-european ones, but also Uralic and Mongolian ones: https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/y6z0zl/ethnic_map_of_russia_2010/#lightbox. Now that you mention it, I'll be expecting at least a story and a poem written by you on this fascinating subject, Cary. Whenever you're ready...
Oh, that’s a lovely map. It’s hard for people outside of Asia and Africa to understand the linguistic diversity in these continents. It’s just out of this world. It makes me tingle with glee.
Deal on the story and poem. I get on them after the current story (the ancient, forgotten world one). Not really related, but my connection-making mind feels I should mention it, though I can’t suss out why: I have a post about the philosophy of Conan the Barbarian in the works too.
OK, Cary, I was already hooked, now I want more and more of whatever your beautiful mind will come up with.
I tingle too! There's so way more to this Earth than some people can handle, but we definitely can and will – more diversity, more colors, more wonders!
I loved reading this, Portia, and was entranced by the wonders of the language tree. I think you write beautiful English.
I also think grammar and syntax are exciting and delightful. I had an inspirational Latin teacher who used it to say it was all the most wonderful puzzle just waiting to be solved, and we all had the tools to do so. And then…the discovery of language that looked different: Greek and Hebrew…well, that really caught my imagination: each letter like a jewel.
And, on top of all that wonder is the magic (and horror) of the meanings all those words carry. Terrible that they brought Fascism to the world, wonderful they give us Dante. È straordinario.
È davvero straordinario, language is such a magnificent tool, what a shame when it's used to spread hate, lies, and violence. Your teacher was right, and I can see you've learned your lessons well. Grazie di cuore, Nicolas!
“While Italians at their best are a creative, friendly, caring bunch, at their worst they can be arrogant, narrow-minded, cowardly jerks, the fertile ground for fascism” isn’t this true everywhere?
You're right, Jim, humankind shares the same good traits, and the same bad ones. We're all brothers and sisters, after all, whether we like it or not. ;-)
Hi Portia. I recognize what you are saying about Italy but I must confess I love traveling all through Italy including Sicily. Ironically, I love all the Greek ruins in southern Italy and Sicily. I recognize my error of describing Italy as different than Sicily as Sicily is part of Italy but who am I to tell you. I have no problem being corrected as I always try to remember “I know nothing.” Damn, another one of those pesky Greeks. 🥴♐️♐️♊️
Hi Jim, I know nothing too, so that makes it two of us. Due to our relatively recent history as a unified Country (1861), us Italians don't have a strong, national feeling, anyway, unless the Azzurri soccer team plays a match. We usually identify ourselves as coming from different regions. Praise be to the pesky Greeks, they surely knew a thing or two about life and the world.
Yes those Greeks. Unfortunately the Greeks also clearly showed the great many flaws of the human condition like chauvinism, glorifying war, slavery and something I recently learned about PROPAGANDA. It turns out that ancient Hittite ruins tell a story about an ancient war that seems to line up in time and location with the Trojan War. However, in this telling the other side wins. Apparently the people we identify as Trojans may have actually been people aligned with the Hittite’s.
So not only do I know nothing and you know nothing it seems almost everything we have ever learned is a fabrication.
Portia: Native Italian speaker, speaks Russian, speaks French, speaks English, speaks "Dutch" (that really should be a translation for "deutsch" -- rather than the language of The Netherlands).
Living 20 years in The Netherlands.
The Netherlands early developed the idea of Freedom, where, as early as the 17th Century, Baruch de Spinoza could be free to write his "Ethics" and "Politico-Theological Treatise".
Nancy (the Love-of-my-Life for 53-years and ongoing) and I LOVE The Netherlands.
Thanks again, Armand. Spinoza could write and publish in the Netherlands, when it was very dangerous everywhere else, for someone with his ideas. I think you and Nancy would love Holland now, there are flowers everywhere, virtually in every nook and cranny of any streets!
My mother was Italian, my wife is italian too. I know Italy very well and have no problems with the Italian language. But you are absolutely right when you say that Italian culture is no longer the same and that the Italian language has become impoverished. I totally agree with you.
"Se vuoi qualche volta chiacchieriamo in italiano!" ;-)
Since moving to Japan, I spend my days reading and writing in English. I write emails and read some Japanese for work, while Italian comes a distant third.
Strange as it may sound, I now feel my own language as alien. I've tried writing in Italian, but I don't like the results. Lately, I've even started guiding Italian tourists around Tokyo to "practice" the language!
You're totally immersed in two other languages, it's not easy to keep up. Maybe, reading some good writing in Italian could help: Gadda, Arbasino, Calvino, and Umberto Eco, for instance. Or we could write to each other in Italian, come to think of it. ;-)
Your reluctance to return to Italy for that immersive experience brings new meaning to 'you can't go home again.' You've already seen how your native land and culture have diminished with time and carelessness. I too have watched as my home town has swallowed all my landmarks, covered them over with condos and stack-and-packs; otherwise pillaging whatever heritage was there from its beginning. Granted, the town is less that 200 years old. Such is the American West and its European influence. It didn't take long for the Italians, Germans, Danes, English, and Spanish to lose their European languages and customs, but does it have to take only a couple of generations to wipe out even the pioneer culture that sprouted with the first ranches and small towns. At least the local indigenous people have held tight to their millennia-old ways.
I loved this article, Portia, and look forward to Part Two.
Thanks, Sue! Maybe, the Native Americans hold on to their cultural heritage – what's left of it– because they've got nothing else to cling on. The European settlers and migrants had everything to gain, and wanted to become new Americans as quickly as possible. How come that, instead of keeping the good from the past, all that remains are horrible things like racism, greed, violence?
If you didn't remind us that English isn't your native language, I'd never guess. I'm fascinated by your relationship with Italian. Now I'm curious about something: how's your relationship with Dutch?
Merci, Versailles! My relationship with Dutch is a bit weird: I can read it, and translate from it all sort of texts, but I speak it at a very basic level. My husband and I are misanthropes, and have always practiced social isolation, well before it became necessarily "fashionable."
I understand. You because you have the opportunity to speak a language doesn't mean you want to. I'm that way with German. I spoke it with my parents and now that they're gone I have no desire to speak it with anyone else.
This was lovely - and great fun. Italian's such a beautiful language; but I think you're right about languages' potential to acquire a freight of associative meaning. Really looking forward to Part 2. (Btw, the upcoming WTRI has a vaguely philological intro - it's actually about something else - I'll be interested to hear what you think...)
This is such a delightful post, Portia, and a fascinating take on the experience of living away from one's homeland and home culture, and the way our relationship with both can change. And beautifully expressed.
But you write such good English, Portia—which is more than I can say for far too many native English speakers...
One problem with Italian newspapers, and with so much speaking as well: never less than three words where one would do. So garrulous… when a few gestures used to say it all.
I loved your tree. I wondered where you live in the Netherlands. I spent over thirty years in Brussels. At the outset, thoroughly confused—the local French dialect sounded more harsh than Nederlands and the Flemings all seemed to speak nothing but their local dialect. On my second day, I found myself interpreting for a Dutch lady who was trying to communicate, via English and French, with Flemish workmen who only spoke Brusselaer. Coming to Ieper/Ypres for the first time, I caught sight of a huge poster in West Vlaams patois and exclaimed, “Five kilometers further and they’ll all be speaking Afrikaans!”
Years later, I mentioned this to a Flemish friend who said, “Actually, you were right. That’s where most of the Afrikaners came from…”
Anyway, living in Brussels, on many, many weekends we’d drive to Zeeland, lovely places like Veere, Middelburg, Zierikzee. Somewhere… exotic. Within easy reach.
And now that we’re living in Nice, “somewhere exotic” is just 40 minutes’ drive across the border, to the seaside resorts and mountain villages of Liguria…
In many ways, I’d have preferred to live in Italy—but the Byzantine bureaucracy scares me even more than its top-heavy French equivalent.
As for fascism, forms of the disease are everywhere now, even in countries that once seemed so sane, places like England, The Netherlands, Sweden, Catalonia. And, of course, the USA.
I live in Zaandam, close to Amsterdam, I've yet to visit many other places in the Netherlands, especially in the South. Funny anecdotes about the Belgians, a small country with so many different dialects! No, don't go live in Italy, just visit Liguria, a most beautiful region. But did you know that Nice was Italian until 1860, together with the Duchy of Savoy? What a lucky escape they had! And I can't believe we're still fighting fascism, after all the WW2 bloodbaths. But they're going to lose again.
What a lovely post. So funny about the bad grammar in Italian newspapers. I get being antsy around people. Me too. I spent 3 months in Firenze in 1976. I was an aupair for a dysfunctional Italian family. One night the father got drunk & threw a plate of tripe at me. He wasn’t aiming for me exactly. I loved Julia the mother. She was special & kind to my then displaced dysfunctional self. I also had lunch with princess Isa Amici Grossi, a hang over from my mother’s Fulbright year there. I remember nothing about the lunch. It’s in a chapter of my memoir called The Bicentennial Trollop🍷🕶️🇮🇹
Trees are the best, the most miraculous thing in the whole Universe. I still remember your post about the lemon tree and the little boy who hated poetry.
First, let me say one thing: your English stumbling is pretty agile. Of course, it's never like writing in your native language, but from where I'm sitting, you've got nothing to worry about.
Among other things I torture my students with is teaching them about where English comes from. That's my favorite image to use, for the obvious reason that it's beautiful instead of looking like something make with the chinciest family tree software ever.
While, in general, I don't have the aversion to my country that you seem to have about yours, the US has a pretty checkered past, especially here in South America. And, of course, right now... well, I hardly know how to put it.
I don't know much about Italian, but Portuguese has a pretty reliable orthography and tame phonology: almost no consonant clusters, reliable pronunciation from spelling, though there's some ambiguity going the other way.
English being pretty much the polar opposite of that, it presents a frustrating challenge Portuguese speaker. I spend a lot of time apologizing for its craziness.
It is a challenge for Italians as well, English pronunciation is "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma." Thanks for your lovely comment, Cary.
I love that you used that particular quotation. Suddenly thinking of Russia = English blew my mind a little. I realized there are weird, fun parallels to follow.
I am trying to decide if trans-Ural Russia is Old English or all the Latin stuff that’s been piled upon that. I mean, chronologically, European Russia would be Old English, but my gut tells me Asian Russia, distant and strange, vast and not wholly known, is Old English, thick with a taiga of forever-lost dialects and periodically invaded by Far Eastern Vikings. There’s a post or story or a poem or two in all this for sure.
Well, technically, Russian grammar is very similar to Latin, for instance, in Italian and English, the verb "to help" is followed by a direct object (accusative), whereas in Latin and Russian, the object is indirect, and you have to use the dative, and there are lots of other examples. But you're right, in Asian Russia there were – and still are – different ethnic groups not only Slavic/Indo-european ones, but also Uralic and Mongolian ones: https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/y6z0zl/ethnic_map_of_russia_2010/#lightbox. Now that you mention it, I'll be expecting at least a story and a poem written by you on this fascinating subject, Cary. Whenever you're ready...
Oh, that’s a lovely map. It’s hard for people outside of Asia and Africa to understand the linguistic diversity in these continents. It’s just out of this world. It makes me tingle with glee.
Deal on the story and poem. I get on them after the current story (the ancient, forgotten world one). Not really related, but my connection-making mind feels I should mention it, though I can’t suss out why: I have a post about the philosophy of Conan the Barbarian in the works too.
OK, Cary, I was already hooked, now I want more and more of whatever your beautiful mind will come up with.
I tingle too! There's so way more to this Earth than some people can handle, but we definitely can and will – more diversity, more colors, more wonders!
I loved reading this, Portia, and was entranced by the wonders of the language tree. I think you write beautiful English.
I also think grammar and syntax are exciting and delightful. I had an inspirational Latin teacher who used it to say it was all the most wonderful puzzle just waiting to be solved, and we all had the tools to do so. And then…the discovery of language that looked different: Greek and Hebrew…well, that really caught my imagination: each letter like a jewel.
And, on top of all that wonder is the magic (and horror) of the meanings all those words carry. Terrible that they brought Fascism to the world, wonderful they give us Dante. È straordinario.
È davvero straordinario, language is such a magnificent tool, what a shame when it's used to spread hate, lies, and violence. Your teacher was right, and I can see you've learned your lessons well. Grazie di cuore, Nicolas!
Figurati!
You know this idiom, that's impressive and very figo!
“While Italians at their best are a creative, friendly, caring bunch, at their worst they can be arrogant, narrow-minded, cowardly jerks, the fertile ground for fascism” isn’t this true everywhere?
You're right, Jim, humankind shares the same good traits, and the same bad ones. We're all brothers and sisters, after all, whether we like it or not. ;-)
Hi Portia. I recognize what you are saying about Italy but I must confess I love traveling all through Italy including Sicily. Ironically, I love all the Greek ruins in southern Italy and Sicily. I recognize my error of describing Italy as different than Sicily as Sicily is part of Italy but who am I to tell you. I have no problem being corrected as I always try to remember “I know nothing.” Damn, another one of those pesky Greeks. 🥴♐️♐️♊️
Hi Jim, I know nothing too, so that makes it two of us. Due to our relatively recent history as a unified Country (1861), us Italians don't have a strong, national feeling, anyway, unless the Azzurri soccer team plays a match. We usually identify ourselves as coming from different regions. Praise be to the pesky Greeks, they surely knew a thing or two about life and the world.
Yes those Greeks. Unfortunately the Greeks also clearly showed the great many flaws of the human condition like chauvinism, glorifying war, slavery and something I recently learned about PROPAGANDA. It turns out that ancient Hittite ruins tell a story about an ancient war that seems to line up in time and location with the Trojan War. However, in this telling the other side wins. Apparently the people we identify as Trojans may have actually been people aligned with the Hittite’s.
So not only do I know nothing and you know nothing it seems almost everything we have ever learned is a fabrication.
Nothing new under the sun, Jim...
Portia: Native Italian speaker, speaks Russian, speaks French, speaks English, speaks "Dutch" (that really should be a translation for "deutsch" -- rather than the language of The Netherlands).
Living 20 years in The Netherlands.
The Netherlands early developed the idea of Freedom, where, as early as the 17th Century, Baruch de Spinoza could be free to write his "Ethics" and "Politico-Theological Treatise".
Nancy (the Love-of-my-Life for 53-years and ongoing) and I LOVE The Netherlands.
Thank you so much for sharing!
Thanks again, Armand. Spinoza could write and publish in the Netherlands, when it was very dangerous everywhere else, for someone with his ideas. I think you and Nancy would love Holland now, there are flowers everywhere, virtually in every nook and cranny of any streets!
My mother was Italian, my wife is italian too. I know Italy very well and have no problems with the Italian language. But you are absolutely right when you say that Italian culture is no longer the same and that the Italian language has become impoverished. I totally agree with you.
"Se vuoi qualche volta chiacchieriamo in italiano!" ;-)
Volentieri, Michael, con grande piacere! Un saluto alla tua signora.
La mia signora ricambia! Ciao Portia, scusa per l'orario del commento e "buona alba"!
Since moving to Japan, I spend my days reading and writing in English. I write emails and read some Japanese for work, while Italian comes a distant third.
Strange as it may sound, I now feel my own language as alien. I've tried writing in Italian, but I don't like the results. Lately, I've even started guiding Italian tourists around Tokyo to "practice" the language!
I know, it's sad very sad.
Looking forward to Pt. 2!
You're totally immersed in two other languages, it's not easy to keep up. Maybe, reading some good writing in Italian could help: Gadda, Arbasino, Calvino, and Umberto Eco, for instance. Or we could write to each other in Italian, come to think of it. ;-)
Beh, mi sembra che lo stiamo gia' facendo ;-)
Adesso sto leggendo I promessi sposi con una mia studentessa... ma non mi sembra molto utile per fare pratica di italiano.
Your reluctance to return to Italy for that immersive experience brings new meaning to 'you can't go home again.' You've already seen how your native land and culture have diminished with time and carelessness. I too have watched as my home town has swallowed all my landmarks, covered them over with condos and stack-and-packs; otherwise pillaging whatever heritage was there from its beginning. Granted, the town is less that 200 years old. Such is the American West and its European influence. It didn't take long for the Italians, Germans, Danes, English, and Spanish to lose their European languages and customs, but does it have to take only a couple of generations to wipe out even the pioneer culture that sprouted with the first ranches and small towns. At least the local indigenous people have held tight to their millennia-old ways.
I loved this article, Portia, and look forward to Part Two.
Thanks, Sue! Maybe, the Native Americans hold on to their cultural heritage – what's left of it– because they've got nothing else to cling on. The European settlers and migrants had everything to gain, and wanted to become new Americans as quickly as possible. How come that, instead of keeping the good from the past, all that remains are horrible things like racism, greed, violence?
Looking forward to reading whatever you have to say about Nabokov!
Spoiler alert: I love him, am obsessed with his writing. Thanks, Erik, it's lovely to have you here!
If you didn't remind us that English isn't your native language, I'd never guess. I'm fascinated by your relationship with Italian. Now I'm curious about something: how's your relationship with Dutch?
Merci, Versailles! My relationship with Dutch is a bit weird: I can read it, and translate from it all sort of texts, but I speak it at a very basic level. My husband and I are misanthropes, and have always practiced social isolation, well before it became necessarily "fashionable."
I understand. You because you have the opportunity to speak a language doesn't mean you want to. I'm that way with German. I spoke it with my parents and now that they're gone I have no desire to speak it with anyone else.
This was lovely - and great fun. Italian's such a beautiful language; but I think you're right about languages' potential to acquire a freight of associative meaning. Really looking forward to Part 2. (Btw, the upcoming WTRI has a vaguely philological intro - it's actually about something else - I'll be interested to hear what you think...)
Thanks, WTRI, I always look forward to reading your articles!
This is such a delightful post, Portia, and a fascinating take on the experience of living away from one's homeland and home culture, and the way our relationship with both can change. And beautifully expressed.
Oh, thanks, Jeffrey, you're the master of telling such experiences. Yesterday I enjoyed your post so much, and I'm always eager to read more of them!
🙏
What a great read for a Saturday! Thanks, Portia. :-)
Thanks, Tim, get well soon!
On the mend already. :-).Thanks!
But you write such good English, Portia—which is more than I can say for far too many native English speakers...
One problem with Italian newspapers, and with so much speaking as well: never less than three words where one would do. So garrulous… when a few gestures used to say it all.
I loved your tree. I wondered where you live in the Netherlands. I spent over thirty years in Brussels. At the outset, thoroughly confused—the local French dialect sounded more harsh than Nederlands and the Flemings all seemed to speak nothing but their local dialect. On my second day, I found myself interpreting for a Dutch lady who was trying to communicate, via English and French, with Flemish workmen who only spoke Brusselaer. Coming to Ieper/Ypres for the first time, I caught sight of a huge poster in West Vlaams patois and exclaimed, “Five kilometers further and they’ll all be speaking Afrikaans!”
Years later, I mentioned this to a Flemish friend who said, “Actually, you were right. That’s where most of the Afrikaners came from…”
Anyway, living in Brussels, on many, many weekends we’d drive to Zeeland, lovely places like Veere, Middelburg, Zierikzee. Somewhere… exotic. Within easy reach.
And now that we’re living in Nice, “somewhere exotic” is just 40 minutes’ drive across the border, to the seaside resorts and mountain villages of Liguria…
In many ways, I’d have preferred to live in Italy—but the Byzantine bureaucracy scares me even more than its top-heavy French equivalent.
As for fascism, forms of the disease are everywhere now, even in countries that once seemed so sane, places like England, The Netherlands, Sweden, Catalonia. And, of course, the USA.
I live in Zaandam, close to Amsterdam, I've yet to visit many other places in the Netherlands, especially in the South. Funny anecdotes about the Belgians, a small country with so many different dialects! No, don't go live in Italy, just visit Liguria, a most beautiful region. But did you know that Nice was Italian until 1860, together with the Duchy of Savoy? What a lucky escape they had! And I can't believe we're still fighting fascism, after all the WW2 bloodbaths. But they're going to lose again.
Thank you, Peter, this comment deserves a good reply. I'll be back, as Schwarzy said. ;-)
What a lovely post. So funny about the bad grammar in Italian newspapers. I get being antsy around people. Me too. I spent 3 months in Firenze in 1976. I was an aupair for a dysfunctional Italian family. One night the father got drunk & threw a plate of tripe at me. He wasn’t aiming for me exactly. I loved Julia the mother. She was special & kind to my then displaced dysfunctional self. I also had lunch with princess Isa Amici Grossi, a hang over from my mother’s Fulbright year there. I remember nothing about the lunch. It’s in a chapter of my memoir called The Bicentennial Trollop🍷🕶️🇮🇹
Wow, Lucinda, quite an eventful 3 months I reckon. It's shame you don't remember the lunch at the princess, though. I love your memoir's title!
That’s the chapter title. The memoir which is more autobiographical is The Dirty Debutantes’ Daughter. 💕
That's even more alluring, Lucinda, well done!
⚜️⚜️💕🌷
Portia are you connected with Monica Sharp. https://monicasharp.substack.com/p/report-from-italy-unstamped-time. (This is one of my favorites )
An American living in Florence for a long time. You two would have lots to talk about I think.
Why, thank you kindly, Tod, I'll check Monica out, she sounds intriguing. I'm partial to Florence though, Tuscany is Italy at its finest.
I love this, your writing, your honesty, everything. And that tree! Thank you. ❤️
The language family tree, I meant, but now that I look at the mossy tree again, that one, too!
Trees are the best, the most miraculous thing in the whole Universe. I still remember your post about the lemon tree and the little boy who hated poetry.