Migration and Language Policy

In comments on the The Record of Communist Language Policy post, James Schipper notes astutely:

One very important aspect of language policy is migration. The more migration there is within a multilingual state, the more minority languages are threatened. If Russians are free to move move into Latvia, then the Latvian language will be in danger, even if Latvian remains an official language in Latvia.

We are seeing this in Tibet too. The influx of Chinese in Tibet is the real danger to the Tibetan language. In the capital of Tibet, the Chinese are already the majority. The smaller a people is, the more they have to be able to control immigration if they want to survive as a nation.

Of course, by making its territory rigidly unilingual, the minority can create a linguistic barrier to immigration. If Latvian is the sole language of administration and instruction in Latvia, then Russians will think twice before settling there.

For minority languages there are two basic rules: concentrate yourself in one area and make that area as unilingual as possible. This is really only possible in a federal state in which the provincial borders match the linguistic borders as closely as possible.

In Switzerland, this territorial principle is strictly applied. No French in Zürich and no German in Genève. Of the 26 Swiss cantons, only 4 are not unilingual, but within those four there are internal linguistic borders. As usual the Swiss do it right. They are without doubt the only foreigners that deserve admiration.

It is sad but true that the only to really be sure of preserving your language is to have an independent state. This is one reason that I support many separatist movements - I assume that this may be necessary in order to preserve a minority tongue. James is correct, though.

Immigration into a region does indeed threaten a local tongue. This is a long-standing problem in the Basque Country of Spain. In Northern Italy, there are various Italian "dialects" spoken which are actually separate languages. They include Venetian, Emiliano-Romagnolo, Ligurian, Piedmontese and East Lombard and West Lombard .

These languages are part of a Romance branch called Gallo-Italic that is actually closer to Spanish and especially French than it is to Italian! Emiliano and Romagnolo may be separate languages and some of the Lombard lects are quite diverse.

The first four are in good shape despite having no status or rights at all granted by the Italian state, which has been on a mission since Mussolini to wipe out all of the Italian "dialects" are replace them with Standard Italian (which is actually based on the Tuscan dialect, selected in 1860 as the source of Standard Italian).

Truth is that this is unnecessary. Almost all non-elderly Italians speak Standard Italian well, and the vast majority of older folks do too. Visitors to other parts of Italy simply switch to Standard Italian when speaking to residents, and residents used Italian to speak to outsiders.

Anyway, while the first four are in good shape, East and West Lombard are not doing so well. The usual reason cited is a large number of immigrants to the region.

The Northern Italian languages are interesting in that they are spoken in economically vibrant regions - most minority tongues are spoken in the backwards, poorer and rural areas, and this backwardness is part of what keeps them alive.

But it is the very vibrancy of the Northern Italian economy that threatens the local languages due to many immigrants, most of whom probably don't want to learn the local language, and instead fall back on Standard Italian.

The Balearic Islands, where Catalan is spoken, and Corsica, where Corse is spoken, are also threatened by waves of immigrants and in particular vast numbers of tourists.

I didn't know about the Swiss language policy that James describes, but I have always thought that the Swiss were some of the most admirable foreigners out there.

Virgilio Giotti, Triestine Venetian Poet

Let's take a look again at Triestine Venetian .

Virgilio Giotti was a famous poet who wrote in Triestine Venetian. He was born in 1885 in Trieste, a child of Riccardo Schonbeck and Emilia Ghiotto. He died in Trieste in 1957. He is considered to be the most important Triestine Venetian author. For this, he was honored in 1957 by the Accademia dei Lincei.

Highly-regarded critics such Mario Fubini, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Gianfranco Contini, Cesare Segre and Franco Brevini enthusiastically described Virgilio Giotti as one of the most important Italian writers in Italian "dialects" of the 1900's.

From 1907 to 1919 he lived in Firenze. In 1912, he met Nina Schekotoff, a Russian from Moscow, the only woman he ever loved. In Tuscany, she bore him three children - Natalia, (Tanda), Paolo and Franco. Sons Paolo and Franco both died in Russia during World War 2.

Giotti first book was Piccolo Canzoniere in Dialetto Triestino, published in Florence in 1914.

He became famous in 1937, when the great critic Pietro Pancrazi, in a review in Corriere Della Sera pointed out the anti-dialectal character of Giotti: his poetry was described as écriture d'artiste (literary writing) or patois de l'ame (the language of love).

Pancrazi described Giotti as a poet who wrote mainly in dialect, but he differed from the usual poetry of Italian "dialects" that was often folkloric, standardized, generic, etc.

Giotti spoke Tuscan Italian as his principal language, and he considered Triestine Venetian as "the language of the poetry" only - that it only had a literary and cultural value, but was not useful beyond that.

Giotti's Triestine Venetian lexicon was impoverished and full of simple words, with only a very sparse use of idioms. Giotti's Trieste was far from the Trieste of Svevo, Saba and other writers: there's no Port wine, no psychoanalysis and no Mitteleuropa.

Giotti's world is one of sensations, little places, family and friends, the arcana of quotidian existence. He was a romantic poet of everyday life.

Let's look at one of Giotti's poems, With Bolàffio, in classic Triestine Venetian, then in modern Triestine Venetian, then in an Italian translation by Antonio Guerra (Italian language link) or Tonino Guerra (a famous Italian screenwriter), (Italian language link) and finally I will try to translate it into literary English.

If you think you can do a better job of translating this into nice poetic English, even a line or two, give it a shot. This translation stuff is kind of fun!


Con Bolàffio
Virgilio Giotti

Classic Triestine Venetian

Mi e Bolàffio, de fazza
un de l'altro, col bianco tavoja

de la tovàia in mezo,
su i goti e el fiasco in fianco,
parlemo insieme.

Bolàffio de 'na piazza
de Gorìzia el me conta,

ch'el voria piturarla:
'na granda piazza sconta,

che nissun passa.

Do tre casete atorno
rosa, un fiatin de muro,
un pissador de fero
vècio stravècio, e el scuro
de do alboroni.

Xe squasi mezogiorno
E un omo, vignù fora
de là, se giusta pian
pian, e el se incanta sora
pensier. Bolàffio

in 'sta su piazza bela,
noi, poeti e pitori,
stemo ben. La xe fata
pròpio pai nostri cuori,
caro Bolàffio.

In quel bel sol, in quela
pase, se ga incontrado
i nostri veci cuori;
là i se ga saludado
stassera alegri.


Con Bolàffio
Virgilio Giotti

Modern Triestine Venetian

Mi e Bolàffio, de muso
un co' l'altro, col bianco tavoja

dela tovaia in mezo,
su i calici e il fiasco de fianco
parlemo insieme.

Bolaffio, de 'na piazza
de Gorizia il me conta

ch'el voleria piturarla
'na grande piazza sconta

che nessun passa

Do tre casete atorno
rosa, un fiatin de muro
un pisador de fero
vecio stravecio, e il scuro
de do alberoni

Xe quasi mezogiorno
E un omo, vignù fora
de là, se giusta pian
pian, e il se incanta sora
pensier. Bolàffio

in 'sta sua piaza bela
noi, poeti e pìtori
stemo ben. La xe fata
proprio pei nostri cuori
caro Bolaffio

In quel bel sol, in quela
pase, se ga incontrado
i nostri veci cuori;
là i se ga saludado
stasera alegri


Con Bolàffio
Virgilio Giotti

Italian translation by Antonia Guerra


Io e Bolaffio, l'uno
di fronte all'altro, col bianco
della tovaglia in mezzo,
i bicchieri alzati e accanto il fiasco,
parliamo insieme.

Bolaffio mi racconta di una piazza
di Gorizia, che vorrebbe dipingerla:
una grande piazza nascosta,
dove nessuno passa.

Due tre casette intorno,
rosa, un poco di muro,
un pisciatoio di ferro,
vecchio stravecchio, e lo scuro
di due alberoni.

È quasi mezzogiorno.

E un uomo, venuto fuori di lì,
si mette a posto pian piano,
s'incanta sopra pensiero. Bolaffio,
in questa sua piazza bella,
noi, poeti e pittori, stiamo bene.

È fatta proprio per i nostri cuori,
caro Bolaffio.

In quel bel sole, in quella pace,
si sono incontrati i nostri vecchi cuori;
là si sono salutati stasera, allegri.


With Bolàffio
Virgilio Giotti

English translation by Robert Lindsay

Bolaffio and I, face
To face, sitting down
At a table dressed in white

In the middle
Picking up the wineglasses and a bottle nearby
Together we're talking

Bolaffio is telling me
He would like to draw

A picture of a square in Gorizia
It's a big hidden square

Nobody is walking through

2 or 3 small houses around
Rose-colored, a small wall
An iron pissoir*
Very old, and the dark shadows
From a couple of trees

It's around noon
And a man came out
Of that pissoir
Slowly, he buttons up his pants
And he stops himself
No thoughts in his head
Bolaffio

In his nice square
We, painters and poets
We feel good here
It was created just for our hearts
Dear Bolaffio

In this nice sunshine, In this
Peace, our old hearts
Have met each other
And tonight
They're enjoying each other


*pissing place= Vespasiano, where to piss


My friend Paolo describes Giotti's language as the old "Modern" Triestine Venetian.

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How Learning One Language Well Helps You Learn Others

In the comments, the ever-perceptive dano notes:

dano: The thing is, I've found that once you learn to speak a European language, and particularly a Latin-based one, you see similarities in many words across the board and a rough kind of pattern emerges, making it easier to learn more languages.

dano is correct - once you learn one Romance language, you can learn many others. Also, the better you know English, the more easily you can learn a Romance language because so many English words have Latin roots. I also know some Proto Indo European knowledge, so I can see roots that go back even farther back than Latin.

It helps to learn Greek and Latin roots in English. That way you can pick up more English words that you don't even know just by figuring out roots. Also it helps a lot with Romance languages.

Let's try a little experiment. I know English very well, including many obscure terms, and I am familiar with many Latin roots. I know Spanish fairly well. I know a tiny bit of French and know a few words in Indo-European. With that knowledge, let us see how far that will get me in Venetian, a language I had never heard of before, and Italian, a language I have never been able to make heads or tails of.

Comparison of Venetian and Italian with English, Spanish, French and Indo-European


Venetian gato, Spanish "gato", English "cat"

Venetian grasa, Spanish "grasa", English "gross" fat, corpulent

Venetian qua, Indo-European "kuon", French "chien", English "canine", "hound", dog

Venetian çena, Spanish "cena", dinner

Venetian scóła, Spanish "escuela", English "school"

Venetian bała, Spanish "bala", English "ball"

Venetian pena, English "pen"

Venetian bìsi, English "peas"

Venetian diałeto, Spanish "dialecto ", English "dialect"

Venetian sgnape, English "schnapps"

Venetian scóndar, Spanish "esconder", English, "abscond", to hide, to depart rapidly to avoid persecution

Venetian baxar, Spanish "besar", English "buss", to kiss, kiss

Venetian dormir, Spanish "dormir", English "dormitory", to sleep

Venetian pàre, Spanish "padre", English "patrilineal", father, in the father's family line

Venetian parlar, French "parler", English "parlance", to speak, way of speaking

Venetian scusàr, Spanish "excusar", English "to excuse", to forgive, to excuse

Venetian aver, Spanish "haber", to have, to possess

Venetian essar, Spanish "estar", to be

Venetian sentir, Spanish "sentir", English, "sentiments", to feel, feelings

Venetian venir, Spanish "venir", to come

Venetian cantar, Spanish "cantar", English "cantata", to sing, song

Venetian vaca, Spanish "vaca", cow

Venetian vardar, Spanish "guardar", English "to guard", to look, to guard

Venetian sghiràt, English "squirrel"

Venetian récia, Spanish "orecha"

Venetian plàstega, Spanish "plastica", English "plastic"

Italian forchetta, English "fork"

Italian ratto, Spanish "raton", English "rat"

Italian pipistrello, English "pipistrelle", bat, a type of bat

Italian asino, English "ass", donkey

Venetian mustaci, English "mustache"

Italian io, Spanish "yo", English "I"

Venetian mare, Spanish "madre", mother, English "matriarchal", rule by women

Italian uscita, English, "exit"

Venetian fiól, English "filial", son, relating to a son or daughter

Italian quando, Spanish "cuando", when

Venetian cascàr, English "cascade", to fall, waterfall

Venetian trón, English "throne" chair, king's chair

Venetian bèver, Spanish "beber", English "to imbibe", to drink

Venetian trincàr, English "to drink"

Venetian òcio, Spanish "ojo", English "ocular", eye, of the eye

Venetian morsegàr, English "morsel", to bite, a bite

Venetian nome, Spanish "nombre", English "name"

Venetian solo Spanish "solo", English "solo", only, alone

Venetian grande, Spanish "grande", English "grand" big, great

Italian piccante, Spanish "picante", English "piquant", spicy hot

Venetian calle, Spanish "calle," street

Venetian łéngua, Spanish "lengua", English "language"

Venetian senpre, Spanish "siempre", always

Venetian mar, Spanish "mar", English "maritime", sea, of the sea

Venetian nostre, Spanish "nuestro", our

Venetian vite, Spanish "vida", English, "vital", life, living

Venetian virtuosi, Spanish "virtuoso", English "virtuous"

Venetian serae, Spanish "seria", would be

Venetian spirito, Spanish "espiritu", English "spirit", ghost, spirit

Venetian segura, Spanish "seguro", English "secure", safety, safe

Venetian robar, Spanish "robar", English "to rob", to loot, to steal

Venetian mal, Spanish "mal", English "malevolent", bad, evil-minded


As we can see, there is a huge amount of similarity between Venetian, an obscure language I had never heard of, and Spanish and English. Even the frightening Italian has quite a few Spanish and English cognates. Learning one foreign language, or even learning your own language very well, really does help you to learn even more languages so much more easily. Go ahead and give it a shot!

A Look At the Venetian and Friulian Languages

Here we will compare Friulian and Venetian with Italian. The Friulian language is spoken in northeastern Italy. Among Friulian speakers, the language is affectionately known as Marilenghe and is best known from the Udine, the main town of the Friulian zone. It has 794,000 speakers and is in pretty good shape.

Friulian is probably closer to Latin itself than most other Romance languages. There is a close relationship with Ladin and Romansch. Most speakers also speak Standard Italian. In regions of Slovenia bordering Friuli, almost everyone speaks Friulian as a second or third language. Friulian is closer to French than to Italian. Friulian language edition of Wikipedia.

Friulian is in decline. It has lost 18% of its speakers since 1989 and since 1981, there has been a 20% decline in people speaking it to the children. There is one FM station that broadcasts only in Friulian and another station that broadcasts partly. There is only 15 minutes a week on TV in Friulian. There is one monthly magazine. All of these initiatives are private.

This is in contrast to Switzerland, where minority languages are promoted. Since Mussolini, Italy has had a policy to get rid of minority languages in favor of Italian. Only 20 schools have started teaching Friulian, and Italian is used as the vernacular. In Udine, about 40% of street signs are bilingual Friulian and Italian.

This paper analyzes the legal status of Friulian and feels that it is lacking, although a landmark law was passed in Italy in 1999. This law was very controversial, and public opinion in Italy continues to be that regional languages should all give way to Italian.

Venetian is said to be a dialect of the Italian language, but it is actually a completely separate language related more to French than Italian. It is spoken mostly in northeastern Italy in Venice, Trieste and other areas by 2,280,387 people, but the number may actually be up to 3 million. Venetian Wikipedia is here. There is television, radio and magazines in Venetian.

Venetian still lacks a unified orthography, so people just write it however they pronounce their local dialect. That Venetian is closer to French, Catalan, Portuguese and Spanish than to Italian seems outrageous to many people, but apparently it is based on structural similarities. Much of the Italian similarity is probably due to borrowing.

The Venetian cause has been taken up by Northern Italian separatists and has unfortunately become associated with fascist movements. This is ironic since Mussolini tried to stamp out Venetian. Various idiotic ethnic nationalist myths have arisen - that Northern Italians are Celtic (more White) and that Venetian is some kind of Celtic language.

There was a Celtic language spoken in the area some 1,800 years ago, but it has not left much trace on the languages of today. North Italians are not Celtic and Venetian has no relation to Celtic. Venetian is close to the northern Italian languages Piedmontese, Ligurian, Western Lombard , Eastern Lombard and Emiliano-Romagnolo.

The debate over regional languages being "dialects of Italian" was cemented by Mussolini's fascism, which tried to wipe out all regional languages. This feeling is still widespread in Italy today. However, speakers of regional languages refer to such a mindset as "that of the Roman Empire" and those who promote it as fascists.

My English translation is a free literary translation and is not literal or word for word at all. It translates the text into the best possible literary English.



Central (Udine) Friulian

Copiis

Il puar biāt al ą copiāt il Siōr
par dīj: "O soi come tč":
ma il Siōr nol ą copiāt.

Magari chel biāt j ą vuadagnāt,
ma i fīs, daspņ, cetant ąno pajāt
no savint jéssi sé?

Il lōr destin al č, savéso quāl?

Copie de brute copie origjnāl!



Eastern/Coastal (Triestino) Venetian


Copie

Il sempio il gą copią il Sior
par dir "Mi son come ti"
ma il Sior no'l gą copią.

Forsi quel sempio xč divegnudo sior,
ma i fioi, dopo, quanto i gą pagą par
non saver come xe stado?

Savč vł qual xč il loro destin?

copie dela bruta copia original!


Notes: Both Friulian and Venetian are structurally separate languages. It's very difficult to write in Friulian, and very few people know how to do it properly. Venetian is easier to write, and more speakers are able to write it.

Friulian ā is a long a.

Venetian x is the same as English z

Venetian ł resembles the "lh" sound. This sound does not occur in English.



Standard Italian


Il poveretto voleva copiare il Signore
per dire: "Io sono come te',
ma il Signore non ha copiato.

Forse quel poveretto ha guadagnato
ma i figli, dopo, quanto hanno pagato
non sapendo cosa ?

Sapete qual'č il loro destino?

Essere copia dell'originale brutta copia!

Notes: Poveretto: povero di mente: simpleminded fellow
Signore: educated, gentleman
Guadagnato: learned something, got wiser
Pagato: to pay in a moral, education way, to "learn your lesson"



English


The simple man tried to copy the gentleman,
so he could say, "I'm just like you",
but the gentleman could not be copied.

Now, maybe that simple man learned a thing or two,
but how much would his sons, later on, have
to pay for not knowing a thing?

The sons' destiny?

To be a copy of the original rude copy.