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The seminar “Artificial Intelligence and Language Learning: The Italian Model” opened today at the Embassy of Italy in Washington the 23rd annual Week of the Italian Language in the World. “This year, the underlying theme of the Week of the Italian Language is sustainability, with particular reference to sustainable learning of the Italian language...

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The Italian Language Week has two main thematic strands: sustainability linked to a great intellectualot the 20th century, Italo Calvino (ante litteram environmentalist writer) and democracy through the contribution made by renowned Harvard former professor Gaetano Salvemini (an intellectual historian committed to the struggle for democracy).  Both...

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Ironically, the Tuscans are often credited with inventing the modern Italian language. History books and encyclopedias alike record that the standard literary form of Italian is based on a Florentine dialect called “volgare”, which means “of the Volgo” or “of the people”. The credit goes to Dante Alighieri, who wrote Divina Commedia in said dialect...

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October 20 | 6:30 PM. THE ECOLOGICAL SOUL OF ITALIAN MUSIC AND SONGWRITING. A live radio show presented by Italian scholar and Radio DJ Sara Marinelli. Italian Cultural Insititute San Francisco, 710 Sansome St., San Francisco, CA. Register here. Start your weekend off on the right beat! Join scholar and radio DJ Sara Marinelli as she takes us on a...

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In mid-century Italy, going to the cinema was the thing to do. The release of a new Totò film, the most recent Fellini, or Sergio Leone’s latest western were unmissable events. The next day’s water cooler chatter, newspaper headlines, and dinnertime gossip would revolve around new releases and their lingo, and to not be up to date was a special for...

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Sometimes referred to as “Romanaccio”–with the pejorative “accio” suffix emphasising its vulgar, bawdy qualities–this dialect is no-nonsense and direct, a linguistic embodiment of the Roman people. Listen for the dropping of vowels and the doubling of consonants–quando becomes quanno, ogni becomes gni–as well as prolific swearing, profanity, and th...

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Why are the Italian proverbs of Naples so famous and widespread? Beautiful Naples has a history, a culture, a sense of irony and a tradition unique in the world and proverbs are the tool that keeps them alive and that has made them, over time, popular even outside the city. Let’s give it a try, how many of you can pronounce and translate A dark hea...

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We Italians have mastered the art of talking with our hands. We can, in theory, have whole conversations without exchanging any words, though the real purpose of our gestures is to animatedly emphasize–a proclivity that has become famous worldwide, so much so that one such gesture was added to the emoji dictionary. Rather unfortunately, the name fo...

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Tucked deep within the mountainous landscape near the Adriatic Coast in southern Italy, a language and a culture dating back 500 years are at risk of disappearing. Roughly 1,000 people in the towns of Montemitro, San Felice, and Acquaviva Collecroce speak Slavomolisano – or na-našo (pronounced “na-nasho”) as it is known in the language – a blend of...

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There are many ways of transcribing and pronouncing this word that has no synonyms. The assonance with the term “hypochondria” can be relegated to an anatomical matter: in Greek, the word ypochondrios (meaning “under the ribs”) points to the precise spot where a pain was located, one due to deep discouragement, sadness, even depression. In the Neap...

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