Italy’s ruling party, led by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, has proposed new legislation that would penalize the use of English and other foreign words in official communications with fines of between 5,000 and 100,000 euros.
The aim of this legislation, which has been widely condemned in the country, even by the leading specialists in Italian linguistics and philology, the prestigious Accademia della Crusca, is to “defend and promote the Italian language” and protect national identity, according to Ms. Meloni’s right-wing party.
A member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies gave an example by tweeting about “Anglomania” criticizing the party.
The new proposal, supported by Meloni, was put forward by Fabio Rampelli, a member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies. In a tweet posted on his Twitter profile, the deputy gave an example of a so-called “Anglomania”, which would result in Italian politicians and bureaucrats being fined if the law was passed.
Mr Rampelli writes: “In the House of Representatives we speak Italian. We continue our fight for using our language instead of English. We don’t understand why we call the automatic hand sanitizer dispenser ‘dispensing’.”
Instead of using the word “distributor” in English, Mrs. Meloni’s government of civil servants would like to use the Italian expression: “dispensatore di liquido igienizzante per le mani”.
Italian – like most other European languages - has adopted many English terms in recent years, in part because they were terms for “new” things that were not part of the Italian tradition.
According to the latest data, Treccani, the highly respected encyclopedia of the Italian language, currently contains 9,000 English words and 800,000 Italian words. Since 2000, the number of English words entering the Italian language has increased by 773%.
