Italy’s heavy-handed push to stop spread of English
Rome: Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s party has proposed imposing fines of up to €100,000 ($163,000) on public and private entities that use foreign terms, most notably English, instead of Italian in official communications.
“It is not just a matter of fashion, as fashions pass, but Anglomania [has] repercussions for society as a whole,” said the text of the draft bill, calling for the Italian language to be protected and nurtured.
The ruling party of Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s prime minister, has pushed new measures to stop the use of foreign languages, especially English. Credit:Bloomberg
The bill was presented by lawmakers from Meloni’s nationalist Brothers of Italy party and will have to be approved by both houses of parliament to become law. There was no indication of when this might happen.
It said the spread of English “demeans and mortifies” Italian and proposed that all public and private bodies had to use the language of Dante to promote their goods and services.
It also stipulates that all names and acronyms indicating jobs in companies operating in Italy should be spelt out in the local language, with foreign words only allowed if they prove to be impossible to translate.
The bill said the widespread use of English in Europe was “even more negative and paradoxical” given that Britain had quit the European Union.
A protest in Rome, in 2020. The fines are intended to wind back the use of English terms in Italy. Credit:LaPresse
If the draft becomes law, the government might have to get its own house quickly in order. When it took office last October, it added the English term “Made in Italy” to the name of the industry minister, while Meloni herself occasionally drops foreign words into her speeches.
In her inaugural address to parliament as prime minister in October, Meloni described herself as an “underdog”.
The draft bill comes just days after the government moved to defend what it sees as another important part of Italy’s culture, banning the use of laboratory-produced food to safeguard the country’s agri-food heritage.
The measures provide for fines as high as €60,000 and for the confiscation of “synthetic food”. The proposed penalties, which the Italian Parliament would need to turn into law, cover both food for people and animal feed.
Meloni has long railed against food trends that contrast with Italy’s classic Mediterranean diet, which is heavy on fruit and vegetables as well as pasta and fish. During her election campaign last year, she repeatedly lambasted European Union rules regulating the use of insects for human food, saying the bloc should have concentrated more on energy policy than on niche foods.
Reuters
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