High Seas and Hot Winds

No better time than spring to brush up your italiano

Photo by Catherine Kay Greenup on Unsplash

Cari amici,

Welcome to today’s guazzabuglio (hodgepodge) of Italian language tidbits that I hope you’ll find interesting and/or useful. Let’s jump right in.

Expression of the day

A friend of mine, Margherita, is fond of describing her state of being swamped with things to do as follows: “Sono in alto mare,” meaning, literally, she’s “in high seas.” The English equivalent might be “in over my head,” though that suggests that the person doesn’t have the skills/capacity to do what’s needed. Maybe “knee deep in s--t”? Nah, let’s stick with “swamped.”

Instagram account of the day

I really enjoy Manolo Trinci’s Instagram (@manolo_trinci). He’s a Roman with a high-octane enthusiasm for grammar, syntax, and etymology, and he always ends his frenetic explanations with “Chiaro, no?” spoken with a hint of an evil cackle. I like his tendency to point out the more arcane aspects of Italian, including mistakes Italians make. He’s on YouTube too, if you prefer.

In one of his posts, Manolo discusses the origin of fon, a word that struck me as odd when I first heard it at the community swimming pool. It means hairdryer, and I assumed the word (used more often than asciugacapelli) had something to do with the shape of the apparatus or the fact that you hang it up when you’re done, like the old-fashioned telephones you’ve seen in movies. But no.

Fon (or less commonly phon or fono), Manolo explains, derives from the German föhn, meaning a dry, hot wind. How utterly perfect! Leave it to the Italian language to adopt a poetic, descriptive term for an appliance instead of the mundane asciugacapelli (literally, “dry + hair”). So the next time you’re signing in at a gym or wherever and someone hands you an electronic card that will activate the locker room doccia (shower) and fon, you won’t need to wonder what possible use you could have for a phone.

Name derivation of the day (okay, two, actually)

Recently some friends of mine ran into citizenship-recognition trouble due to a very common Italian-to-English name conversion: Vincenzo to James. If you’re scratching your head about that one, remember that Cenzo is a frequent diminutive of Vincenzo, and if you say “Cenzo” (with a closed “e” that sounds like the “a” in James) and “James” one after the other, you can hear why Italian immigrants would Americanize Vincenzo in such a way. In fact, there’s even an article about it.

As you know if you read this letter, I was up in Lombardia to dig up old family records recently. In Milano, my genealogist friend, Elena, and I got to talking about names, or, more accurately, I was complaining that some immigrants changed their names in ways that make proving their identity difficult. For example, my maternal grandmother, Maria Clementina, ended up being called Nellie in the U.S., which has never made sense to me. Even though she never changed her name legally, that’s what’s on her naturalization certificate. Crazy, no?

No, not crazy, said Elena, swooping in with an explanation. Clementina (most Marias were called by their second name, since most girls were Maria-somethings) would most likely have been called, affectionately, Clementinella, and from there it’s not a big jump to Nellie. Whoa, mystery solved! That blew me away, but then Elena has a knack for doing that.

Language comprehension test of the day

On that same research trip, in Rodero, a postage-stamp village, Elena and I were aided in our quest by Silvana, an industrious woman who has painstakingly compiled the genealogies of various roderesi families from documents in the parish archives. Though we were thrilled to have the handwritten lists she made of my Ossola ancestors—and I’ll always be deeply grateful to her for that—the tradeoff was having to search for the affiliated documents we needed with her nonstop monologue as accompaniment. Do you know how hard it is to concentrate on deciphering 500-year-old spidery handwriting, in Latin, while being bombarded with an endless stream of chatter? This woman can talk without breathing, I swear, and even Elena commented on her verbal speed.

Which brings me to my point: I understood about 90 percent of what Silvana said, which I was chuffed about not only because of her speed, but also because she was talking about some pretty random stuff. And that’s a good example of something to keep in mind if you’re a language learner—there will always be people you have trouble understanding, and those experiences can kick a big hole in your confidence. Don’t let them. Remember, some people mumble or throw in dialect, or their speech reflects regional differences your ears aren’t tuned for, or they talk so softly that you’re lucky if you catch every third word. And sometimes they’re speaking clearly but you’re having an off day. It happens. Focus on the wins.

Language learning modality of the day

Perugia, with its huge university system, music conservatory, and Università per Stranieri that draw students from all over Italy and around the world, is quite the little melting pot. I benefit from that every Wednesday afternoon at uno scambio di lingua (a language exchange) in which we speak Italian for the first hour and English for the second. (Depending on who’s there, some people might splinter off into smaller groups to practice speaking French, Spanish, or Chinese.)

Begun by Isabella Paoletti, the director of Associazione CRIS (Centro di Ricerca e Intervento Sociale), the scambio is made up of a core group of Italians who live in Perugia, a handful of resident immigrants (I’m one, and often the only English madrelingua there), and a constantly changing roster of foreigners who are here temporarily for work or study. Isabella sees a larger purpose for the group than language practice; she views language exchange in a friendly, social environment as a way to minimize racism and prejudice through cultural awareness. And she’s not wrong. Popping in and out of the group are people from these countries: Japan, China, Russia, Iran, Mali, Morocco, Hungary, Spain, France, Czech Republic, Korea, Canada, Pakistan, Germany, Argentina, Brazil, Greece, the Netherlands, the U.S., and the U.K. And that’s an incomplete list.

We talk about everything—sometimes language itself (one of my favorites is translating idioms), but more often personal stories, tales of homelands and histories and societal customs, favorite places and foods. We share anecdotes, advice, and resources like dance and exercise classes, music concerts, and art shows. We show up not knowing who will be there (though an optional WhatsApp group keeps some of us in touch) or what we’ll end up learning. Sometimes an individual will talk a lot, sometimes not so much. But we always come away with some new awareness, whether it’s about languages or the people who speak them.

Italian word of the day

I learn all kinds of vocabulary on dog walks with my friend Hana, most of which I don’t retain because I’m not much of an auditory learner. Recently she taught me a word that might not be terribly useful, but what the heck, trot it out and impress your friends. Now that I’ve written it down, I might remember it: pascolare, meaning “to graze” (brought to mind because our dogs were eating grass). It can also mean “to pasture,” in the “putting out to” sense. A pasture, on the other hand, is un pascolo.

Easter treats vocab of the day

I had Easter lunch with friends, which included fried artichokes, pasta with wild asparagus (some of it from their garden, some from fields near Spello), torta pasquelina (a spinach, egg, and ricotta pie), and three traditional dolci (not counting the giant chocolate egg we never got around to cracking open).

One dessert was the traditional colomba, a soft cake similar to panettone, but made in the shape of a dove. Another was Perugia’s traditional ciaramicola, a cake colored red with Alchermes liqueur and topped with meringue (the colors, red and white, are those of the city’s stemma, or coat of arms) and lots of sprinkles. The third was pastiera napoletana, a crostata made with, among other ingredients, ricotta, grana cotta (wheatberries), and orange flower water. For an authentic recipe, hop on over to this post at Puntarelle. There. Now you know the names of three of the one billion dolci you might run into in Italy.

Tutto chiaro, no? (Yep, stole that.)

Basta per oggi, tocca a te! Tell me about your language learning adventures, your favorite words or expressions, what makes you stumble when speaking Italian, or anything else that will spark life in the language center of our brains.

Tante belle cose, alla prossima—

Cheryl

Aghhh! I’m slacking in the books and poems department. Mea culpa!

P.S. My book! Which you can buy here or on the usual sites, or, better yet, order it from your local bookstore. Another fab option is to ask your library to stock it. If you read it and like it, please tell your friends and/or leave a few lines of praise on any bookish site. You’d be surprised how much a rating or review helps authors. Baci!