APOcolocyntosis

We are in 2009, but sometimes I think Italy still lives in 1909, one hundred years ago.

There were no radio or tv, almost no cinema, Italy had been united only for 58 years, and the Italian language was basically spoken by a few people in the north-west. When Italy entered the Great War (1915, one year later than the rest of Europe), our army suffered big communication problems due to the lack of a shared language. People from the South were only able to understand each other through a similar dialect but not people from the North, and vice versa. And they had serious problems understanding the orders given by their officers, who were speaking Italian. Only after the Second World War, thanks to the spreading of television, we learnt Italian. Our parents, born between 1940 and 1960, still used the dialect as mother tongue, and only at school they learnt Italian. Thus, it has not been so easy to create a nation and to give its people a shared language in only one century (1861-1961). This might explain why we have so many problems at learning foreign languages, such as English.

Even our ministers, as shown by the video above (he is the former vice-premier, Francesco Rutelli, under Prodi II Government) and members of Parliament, are not able to speak a proper English. Finding someone able to speak English is almost impossible if you are far from the touristic centers or inside a University. And even at the University you can take a Master’s degree -specially in Politic Sciences- without speaking English.

This is a big problem for a country which is supposed to belong to the European Union. So from abroad one can think that the Government is making a big effort to improve the knowledge of foreign languages.

Absolutely false.

Our geniuses, specially from the “Lega Nord”, that we could translate in “Northern League Party”, allied with Silvio Berlusconi in the actual Government, are preparing a law to force the teaching of the dialects in the compulsory school.

That’s way I wrote we seem to live in the Italy of one century ago.

In some key fields, we have some lacks as compared to the rest of Europe. Italy have problems with the Internet and the English language: we still prefer the use of mobile phones and the dialect. Just the opposite to the EU.

Recently a friend from Finland came to Italy for a visit, and the differences of Italy and a truly developed country were clearly pointed out. In a developed country, like Finland, even the bus driver is able to speak English. It doesn’t matter the level of education you have, you have to know English. On the opposite side we have Italy, where if you want to survive for more than a week, you are forced to learn Italian. Otherwise nobody would understand you when asking for a pizza, buying bread, asking for something in an office,…

And our government wants to teach the dialect at school..

CREDITS: Since my english sucks (ok, probably not like Rutelli), I needed a major revision. I found the best ever english reviewer in Finland, coming from Galicia. So I abs need to cite her.

Kiitos Iria!

Technorati Tags: dialect, English, francesco rutelli, italian, italy, languages, Lega Nord, mother tongue, school, silvio berlusconi, teaching, umberto bossi, worl war, WWI, WWII