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Dec.26/04 - Jan.2, 2005 |
17 - Reflecting popularity of lingua
Professor Piero Trifone breaks down Italian language studies worldwide
By Antonio Maglio
Originally Published: 2003-04-20
Do you know that in Japan our language is so popular that it produced a real fad?" asks Piero Trifone, one of the most authoritative scholars of the Italian language, and Dean of Siena's Università per Stranieri. "Two of the music groups most loved by Japanese teenagers are Pizzicato Five and Cibo Matto, and their songs, inspired by the soundtracks of Italian movies of the Seventies, bear titles such as 'Bellissima 90,' 'Arrivo a Capri,' 'Nicola,' and 'Nata a marzo.' This is evidence that the success of Italian is global, and not limited to the countries where our emigrants settled."
Trifone is the author, with Maurizio Dardano, of the famous Grammatica italiana that is in widespread use even outside of Italy; with Luca Serianni he compiled the monumental, 2800-page Storia della lingua italiana (three volumes published by Einaudi), the most complete reconstruction of Italian linguistics ever.
In his capacity as Dean of the University for Foreigners, Trifone carries out an intense promotion of Italian language and culture abroad. He does this especially from the standpoint of professional qualification: he successfully organized linguistic training courses for teachers of Italian abroad that were attended by some 4,000 teachers across the continents, and every year has his University promote a refresher course in Teaching of Italian to Foreigners.
What is it about Italy that fascinates foreigners, besides its monuments, culture and dynamism of enterprise?
"The whole world looks at Italy as the country of vacations and - why not? - of love. Vacations, love and pizza - which is even more globalized than hamburgers - are reasons for foreigners to be attracted to our lifestyle and therefore our language. Two characters in a recent Danish film, Italian for Beginners, exchange these lines: 'Are you married?' 'No, but I attend an Italian language class.' What I mean is that Italian today demonstrates greater vitality than German and even French, which is a prestigious and useful language but is considered too elitist and therefore less able to raise passion, curiousity or simple fun."
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