{"id":176,"date":"2009-09-01T11:01:31","date_gmt":"2009-09-01T15:01:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/?p=176"},"modified":"2009-09-01T11:01:31","modified_gmt":"2009-09-01T15:01:31","slug":"parla-come-mangi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/parla-come-mangi\/","title":{"rendered":"Parla come Mangi"},"content":{"rendered":"

Browsing through a magazine a few days ago I came across an article about a recent survey\u00a0which set out to\u00a0discover the best known Italian words throughout the 27 countries of the Unione Europea<\/strong>. Although the article itself was rather trivial it did remind me of something quite important: the existence of La Societ\u00e0 Dante Alighieri<\/strong>, the organization which undertook the survey.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Dante Alighieri Society\u00a0was created in 1898 by a group of intellectuals under the guidance of the Italian poet Giosu\u00e8 Carducci<\/strong>. According to their\u00a0constitution the main purpose of the society is to: <\/span>‘tutelare e diffondere la lingua e la cultura italiana nel mondo, tenendo ovunque alto il sentimento di italianit\u00e0, ravvivando i legami spirituali dei connazionali all\u2019estero con la madre patria e <\/span>alimentando tra gli stranieri l\u2019amore e il culto per la civilt\u00e0 italiana\u2019<\/span><\/em><\/strong> (\u2018protect and spread Italian language and culture throughout the world, universally upholding the feeling of \u2018being Italian\u2019, reviving the spiritual ties between our fellow countrymen <\/span>abroad and the motherland, and promoting amongst foreigners a love and admiration of the Italian civilization’). <\/span><\/p>\n

The founders named the association after Dante Alighieri because it was in his works of literature that the Italian language first took shape, eventually giving form to the official language chosen six centuries later when Italy came into being as a unified nation. <\/span><\/p>\n

Although the activities of the association\u00a0take place both in Italy and all\u2019estero<\/strong> (abroad) it is for its work in the latter\u00a0area\u00a0that the Societ\u00e0 Dante Alighieri is best known. In fact one of the first important actions which they undertook was the development of Italian language courses for Italian emigrants who had moved abroad to find work.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you would like to discover more about the Societ\u00e0 Dante Alighieri here is a link to their website: <\/span>Societ\u00e0 Dante Alighieri<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Parla come Mangi<\/strong> (Speak like you eat)<\/span><\/p>\n

As for the survey, well the question posed by the society on their website was: Quali sono fra queste 100, le dieci parole Italiane entrate nella vostra lingua che considerate pi\u00f9 importanti storicamente e culturalmente?<\/strong><\/span> (Which, out\u00a0of these 100 Italian words\u00a0absorbed\u00a0into your language,\u00a0do you consider to be the most\u00a0important from a historical and cultural point of view?) <\/span><\/p>\n

Here are the top 10 words chosen by roughly 10,000 voters:<\/span><\/p>\n

Pizza<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Cappuccino<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Spaghetti<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Espresso<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Mozzarella<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Tiramis\u00f9<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Bravo<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Allegro<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Lasagne<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Risotto<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The results are fairly predictable but perhaps a little depressing when you consider what is missing from the top 10\u00a0words in the list, e.g. pianoforte, opera, influenza,\u00a0terracotta, virtuoso, malaria<\/strong> <\/strong>\u2026\u2026\u2026all of which seem to me very common cultural and historical words. How come for example that mozzarella<\/strong> is at number 5 in the list and influenza<\/strong>\u00a0is only at number 56? Well I can only assume that the rest of Europe is just as obsessed with their stomachs as is the average Italian!<\/span><\/p>\n

Which Italian words would you have put at the top of your list? Please feel free to post a comment.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Browsing through a magazine a few days ago I came across an article about a recent survey\u00a0which set out to\u00a0discover the best known Italian words throughout the 27 countries of the Unione Europea. Although the article itself was rather trivial it did remind me of something quite important: the existence of La Societ\u00e0 Dante Alighieri…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3,619],"tags":[679],"class_list":["post-176","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-culture","category-italian-language","tag-dante-alighieri-society"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}