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Dec.26/04 - Jan.2, 2005 |
14 - Importance of speaking dialects
Professor Jana Vizmuller Zocco predicts end of Italian language in Canada
By Antonio Maglio
Originally Published: 2003-03-30
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York University Professor Jana Vizmuller Zocco
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I was born in Bratislava in Czechoslovakia, a country that does not exist anymore. Right after the Soviet invasion of 1968, my parents decided to leave the country. We had some friends in Sondrio, where we had stayed in the past, and they accommodated us for awhile. We applied for a visa in Milan, and the Canadian Consulate suggested that we could start our new life in Toronto, as refugees. And here I am."
Jana Vizmuller Zocco teaches Italian Language and Linguistics at York University. Her Italian is perfect ("Although unfortunately I do not speak any dialect"). She learned it in Sondrio, perfected it in the Italian neighbourhoods where her family settled upon arriving in Toronto ("I fell in love with your community at once"), refined it through her studies at the University of Toronto and courses and frequent visits to Italy. She also practices every day with her family: her husband, Sicilian Orazio Zocco, and their daughter, Josie, as well as with her colleagues and numerous Italian friends.
"Without a good knowledge of the language," she says, "one cannot understand Italian culture. But any knowledge will be incomplete if it does not include knowledge of dialects. I don't say that one should speak them, but at least know where they come from and how much they influenced a lingua franca that drew strength from coexisting with them. This is the lesson first taught by 19th century scholar Graziadio Isaia Ascoli. However, the strength of his intuition was never properly recognized, especially in Canada."
What are you doing about this at York University?
"Our courses of Italian Linguistics and History of the Italian Language include studies on the historic roots of the dialects, but we cannot afford to go any deeper, since the cutbacks are endangering even the courses of Italian. Clearly there is little opportunity to delve into dialects. However, in a course taught with Prof. Gabriele Scardellato about Italians in North America we have the chance to explore the cultural roots of those immigrants, especially of the Fifties and Sixties, who often arrived here with a linguistic patrimony limited to their dialect."
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