News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Italian government seeks to penalize the use of English words. Parent comment

Re:Italian government seeks to penalize the use of English w... by flexie on Monday April 03, 2023 @12:59AM (#35418735)
English too, is a mix of foreign languages. Only dead languages don't evolve.

Italian is a descendant of the Latin language, which itself borrowed extensively from Greek. What is so special about today's Italian language that it should by all means be preserved in it's current form without continuing to borrow from foreign languages?

European languages borrow from English because the US offers so much that we voluntarily adopt in Europe. If most good movies, music, streaming services, computer hardware, computer software, Internet, electric cars, smartphones, AI, business ideas etc. were Italian, the English language would adopt more Italian words.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Italian government seeks to penalize the use of English w... by makingstuffs on Monday April 03, 2023 @04:10AM (#35420152)
The weirdest thing about this sensationalist proposal is that English was born out of Latin and there are a number of English words which are a letter removed from their Italian counterpart.

The example in the article (bru-shetta/bru-sketta) highlights the absurd pedantic nature of this proposal.

I truly weep for the world which we seem to have created.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Italian government seeks to penalize the use of English w... by TRiG_Ireland on Monday April 03, 2023 @07:42AM (#35421837)
English has some heavy Romance influences, but was certainly not "born out of Latin". English is a Germanic language at its core.
[ Parent | on HN ]