Italians of the Diaspora

How much is an apartment to rent in Italy ?

Like anywhere else there's a wide variation depending on the town, the area, the size, the upkeep, etc.

Best thing to do is just google apartments in a particular town.
 
Like anywhere else there's a wide variation depending on the town, the area, the size, the upkeep, etc.

Best thing to do is just google apartments in a particular town.

A lot of foreign young people stay in youth hostels until they figure it out.

Generally, anywhere you want to be is expensive, as it is all over the world. :) You also have to consider job opportunities. Won't matter if the place is really cheap if there's no work.
 
A lot of foreign young people stay in youth hostels until they figure it out.

Generally, anywhere you want to be is expensive, as it is all over the world. :) You also have to consider job opportunities. Won't matter if the place is really cheap if there's no work.

What about investing in apartments / real estate or running your own business there ?
 
What about investing in apartments / real estate or running your own business there ?

In your Country, go see a decent Financial Advisor to assess your situation (Consulente in Italian), and then ask to get you in contact with a decent Financial Planner.

(don’t skip these steps)
 
Thanks, Regio. I'm glad you and your family enjoyed them. :)

Yes, our adjustment to America was made much harder by the fact that we weren't surrounded by "Italians". We weren't even surrounded by "Italian-Americans". There were Italian descendants in the industrial town to which we migrated, but by the time we arrived, these people were third and even fourth generation Italians. If they spoke the language at all, it was their own dialect from Napoli or Reggio Calabria or Palermo, which was unintelligible to us. (The only Northern Italians I knew growing up were the members of my father's family, and the people at the "Parmigiano" club in Astoria, Queens, to which we drove a couple of times a year for events, and later, for some ill fated attempts to find me a husband among "our" kind of Italians. :) Most only had a smattering of it anyway.

Their food was different too. Even the Italy they knew from their grandparents' stories was a totally different Italy from ours. It no longer existed. It was surprising how little they actually knew of Italian culture and history, and that they didn't speak standard Italian. Then, it wasn't like New York City or Philadelphia or even Boston, where actual heavily "Italian" neighborhoods still existed and in fact still exist in part today. Everyone was scattered around, many had intermarried, etc. It also was a much bigger production in those days to stay in contact with family from home. My mother, and I, missed family desperately. Her father died suddenly of a stroke. When they finally let her know she screamed and fell to her knees in the kitchen. I still have it all in my head to this day.

All of this made it extremely difficult for my mother, and for me, because I was older and felt so attached to "home", and family, and friends. The very sights and smells here were so foreign, especially for my mother, who came from the Italian Riviera. Years later, my husband and I took my parents on a trip to California. When we got to Santa Barbara, and she saw the road hugging the sea, the palm trees, the fig trees, smelled the wild rosemary, and wild thyme and the flowers, she teared up. Why couldn't we have come here, she said. She had no idea America had a place like that. Not that the northeast isn't beautiful, but it's so very different.

La Spezia:
spezia.jpg


Lungomare:
la-spezia_dscf2066.jpg



Santa Barbara:
GettyImages-486896097.jpg



los-angeles-california-31-1024x768.jpg


Anyway, yes, my paternal grandparents went to the U.S. during the early migrations. My nonno started a logging company in Pennsylvania, where they had seven children. When he had made enough money he took them all back to Italy. It was all for nought. Instead of investing in good farmland near Sarzana in the plain, where he could have made an even bigger fortune, he bought apartment buildings and a restaurant and store. They didn't make the money he hoped. Then life became very difficult under the fascists, and slowly the much older children, who were American citizens, went back to the U.S. They had reverse homesickness. :) My father was the last holdout. A real Italian patriot, he didn't want to go, especially as things were finally starting to turn around. My grandmother literally forced him.

Oh well, it worked out in the long run. He became very successful, even though he was in his thirties when he arrived, with not one word of English, but it wasn't easy. Even my mother adjusted in time. She liked the convenience of life here, and the lack of the stultifying bureaucracy. Life in Italy can be spectacular if you have a good position, but even then it's not always convenient. :)
Angela, wow! Quite a story, yours!

I can imagine how hard all the situation must have been for your family, and especially for your parents (young people usually adapt better), but I'm sure it also made you stronger.
I assume those days you haven't visited family in Italy from time to time? Probably it was not so easy as nowadays.

As for your paternal grandfather, I think he was very successful then, even if he hasn't made all the money he hoped. And your grandmother contradicted the famous music, yes? This is Valdir Anzolin (AFAIK he and my mother share two great-grandparents - those from Belluno):

"Cento lire me te le do
Ma in America no no no" :)
Anyway, "le parole di ogni mamma dicon sempre la verità", so she was right after all (in forcing your father). ;)
Jokings apart, I can imagine how difficult it was for him.

Now you posted these pictures together, yeah, Santa Barbara does have this "aura" from riviera. But a real aura, not that one from haplogroups. Lol
(Hey, by any chance did you eat good artichokes in there?) :)
Well, I know what you mean, 'cause the geography of South Brazil also helped immigrants in their adaptation, admittedly, and I'm sure that part of California would have helped your mom as well.
Btw, I confess I prefer cold, cloudy and humid weather, and no, I'm not depressive. :) It's just that I'm somewhat sensible to strong light, and I'm absolutely hot-natured. I can stand dry weather, but not the heat, that's why I guess I'd like more the climate from Santa Barbara than the Riviera's, or at least the summer. But of course, climate is not the whole opera. :)

The fact those "Italians" didn't know Italian history doesn't surprise me. I'm sure most of our "Italians" didn't - and don't - know it very well, and this is true for the immigrants themselves, who generally told stories just about their own specific locations and way of life, it seems. In fact, I'd guess that even in Italy many people didn't know Italian history - at least till some time ago; now virtually everybody go to school -, as in Brazil many people don't know even the basic of Brazilian history.
But it really surprised me that "outdated" comment of my grandfather, who still thought Italy was poor (probably referring to the Italy of his father, i.e., Padova from the 1870s/80s), in consonance to what you just related. Plus, in 1990s he still spoke "fiorini" rather than the name of the Brazilian currency. Funny! :)
Also similarly to what you said, there were different dialects in S. Brazil, and not all "oriundi" were able to communicate properly with each other, especially in the old times, before the "Talian" emerged. My mother told me she didn't unserstand well what the neighbors cremonesi used to say, when she lived in the country. That's decades after the immigrarion period!
Yet, a difference between the immigration to South Brazil and to other places was that, while in USA, for instance, those who were born there knew how to speak English, there were many people born in South Brazil (mainly from the first generation, but not only) who didn't know how to speak Portuguese well, or didn't speak it at all, due to isolation. My father has old cousins in the country whose first language is still the Talian. That's in 2019!
And not just Italians, btw. I dated a German descendant some years ago, and I remember her paternal grandmother also spoke Portuguese very baddly - with an enormous accent -; her first language was the Hunsrückisch. And that's more than 150 years after the immigration of her German folks. Just amazing! Now, certainly, cases like these are becoming rare, whereas they were relatively common till some few decades ago. Anyway, it's an interesting and somewhat uncommon feature of my area.
 
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Angela, wow! Quite a story, yours!

I can imagine how hard all the situation must have been for your family, and especially for your parents (young people usually adapt better), but I'm sure it also made you stronger.
I assume those days you haven't visited family in Italy from time to time? Probably it was not so easy as nowadays.

As for your paternal grandfather, I think he was very successful then, even if he hasn't made all the money he hoped. And your grandmother contradicted the famous music, yes? This is Valdir Anzolin (AFAIK he and my mother share two great-grandparents - those from Belluno):

"Cento lire me te le do
Ma in America no no no" :)
Anyway, "le parole di ogni mamma dicon sempre la verità", so she was right after all (in forcing your father). ;)
Jokings apart, I can imagine how difficult it was for him.

Now you posted these pictures together, yeah, Santa Barbara does have this "aura" from riviera. But a real aura, not that one from haplogroups. Lol
(Hey, by any chance did you eat good artichokes in there?) :)
Well, I know what you mean, 'cause the geography of South Brazil also helped immigrants in their adaptation, admittedly, and I'm sure that part of California would have helped your mom as well.
Btw, I confess I prefer cold, cloudy and humid weather, and no, I'm not depressive. :) It's just that I'm somewhat sensible to strong light, and I'm absolutely hot-natured. I can stand dry weather, but not the heat, that's why I guess I'd like more the climate from Santa Barbara than the Riviera's, or at least the summer. But of course, climate is not the whole opera. :)

The fact those "Italians" didn't know Italian history doesn't surprise me. I'm sure most of our "Italians" didn't - and don't - know it very well, and this is true for the immigrants themselves, who generally told stories just about their own specific locations and way of life, it seems. In fact, I'd guess that even in Italy many people didn't know Italian history - at least till some time ago; now virtually everybody go to school -, as in Brazil many people don't know even the basic of Brazilian history.
But it really surprised me that "outdated" comment of my grandfather, who still thought Italy was poor (probably referring to the Italy of his father, i.e., Padova from the 1870s/80s), in consonance to what you just related. Plus, in 1990s he still spoke "fiorini" rather than the name of the Brazilian currency. Funny! :)
Also similarly to what you said, there were different dialects in S. Brazil, and not all "oriundi" were able to communicate properly with each other, especially in the old times, before the "Talian" emerged. My mother told me she didn't unserstand well what the neighbors cremonesi used to say, when she lived in the country. That's decades after the immigrarion period!
Yet, a difference between the immigration to South Brazil and to other places was that, while in USA, for instance, those who were born there knew how to speak English, there were many people born in South Brazil (mainly from the first generation, but not only) who didn't know how to speak Portuguese well, or didn't speak it at all, due to isolation. My father has old cousins in the country whose first language is still the Talian. That's in 2019!
And not just Italians, btw. I dated a German descendant some years ago, and I remember her paternal grandmother also spoke Portuguese very baddly - with an enormous accent -; her first language was the Hunsrückisch. And that's more than 150 years after the immigration of her German folks. Just amazing! Now, certainly, cases like these are becoming rare, whereas they were relatively common till some few decades ago. Anyway, it's an interesting and somewhat uncommon feature of my area.

No, it was different in the U.S. Even the children of the actual immigrants often understood Italian but didn't speak it very well. There was this mania to be "AMERICAN", and that meant eating hamburgers, playing baseball, speaking English. That's all it took, and you were completely accepted. My husband is third generation from southern Italy, but he doesn't speak a single word of Italian. All of his cousins married out except for him. When his grandmother met me she almost fell to her knees in thanksgiving. :) I became her absolute favorite, and she would teach me all her Neapolitan recipes, and tips on keeping your man happy. To wit, when it's about time for him to come home, change your apron, comb your hair and put on some lipstick. :). However, as she said to me, while her grandson was a very good boy, all the same I should tell him what she told her husband before they got married: your house and clothes will be clean, there'll be good food on the table, and I'll raise your children right, but if you ever raise a hand to me in anger, don't go to sleep after that because you'll never wake up! Trust me, she meant it. :) She was a pip! Oh, and no smoking in the house, and only one glass of wine with supper! She also believed in white magic, if you know what I mean, and so on Christmas Eve one year she taught me how to get rid of the mal occhio and unwanted guests and all sorts of other things. I didn't have the heart to tell her I didn't believe in any of it. I loved my grandparents and great aunts and uncles so much, and couldn't spend time with them the way I wanted, so I sort of adopted her. :)

Strange thing is that my husband, without speaking a word of Italian, is far more an Italian man in a very old-fashioned sense than my male cousins in Italy. I call it the diaspora effect. :) My Greek American friends tell me it's the same thing with Greeks. Italian Americans are less clannish than the Greeks though. Everyone intermarries. Well, almost everyone but me. A Southern Italian was about as "foreign" as I could imagine going. Oh, my husband even studied the "classics" in university: Latin, Greek literature, the history of the Greek and Latin cultures etc.to keep in touch with his "roots".

That reminds me. By the time of Mussolini in Italy people were not only taught Italian and Roman history(well, the version he approved), but were all instructed in "standard" Italian, i.e. Tuscan as modified by Manzoni etc., lingua toscana in bocca romana. At least that's the way it was everywhere north of Rome except perhaps for the Veneto. It was your patriotic duty to know those things. My father, as I said, without being at all fascistic, rather the opposite, was a great Italian patriot in the tradition of Mazzini, who was his hero. He was also an anti-cleric. So, we had portraits of Mazzini and Garibaldi on the wall, not the Pope. :) He knew a lot of Dante by heart and other Italian poets, mostly self taught, and the lyrics and melodies of all the Italian operas. Those were my lullabies. He was a brilliant man, my father, especially in mathematics, with many talents: a great voice and wonderful artistic skills on top of everything else. He apprenticed to a sculptor in Carrara for a while. If only Italy had the opportunities that people are afforded in America.

Actually, I went back to Italy more often than they did. My father could only go for two weeks at a time on visits. I went during the summers for much longer, even the summers during university. I studied there too. It was very important to me. Then, with work and children, it was two to three weeks at a time maximum. Now, I can call my own shots and go for longer. I still plan on retiring there for five or six months a year. The mistake I made was in not speaking to my children only in Italian. I did some of the time, but not always, so although they can understand a lot they're not fluent. It was difficult because it left my husband out if we all spoke Italian, and I was uncomfortable with that, as was he. I joke sometimes and say that when I'm old and doddering and have dementia my husband won't understand a word I'm saying, and neither will the nurses.

Speaking of the language, it was indeed difficult to communicate with some of the old Italian people here in the U.S., and their children only knew a smattering of dialect as well. In Italy, again because of Mussolini it was important to speak standard Italian. My father was manic about it. He spoke it beautifully and he wanted that for me too. He went to the extent of forbidding anyone from speaking even the Lunigiana dialect or his own Parma dialect in front of me. Then he'd teach me some verses and make me show off my "pure" Italian. Yes, he'd have me sing too, in my puffy party dress and white lace topped socks and black Mary Janes. Just like the movies. :) My "American" cousin told me he thought I was the Virgin Mary when I came from Italy, a Virgin Mary with a gold cross necklace and little golden drop earings in my ears. You can imagine how I went over with the jeans and sneaker set at my school. :) The nuns thought so too. I was the Virgin in every May Day parade and pageant I can remember.

Yes, great artichokes in California. Have you been there? I think Castro is still the artichoke capital of the world. Every spring I get a bag shipped to me of the tiny, tender ones, and fry them Jewish style and make a pasta with the rest. The restaurants in California can be very good, and they're very "Mediterranean". In one in Monterrey, which we adored, they served small ones as gratis appetizers. The self-important waiter started to tell us how to eat them. My father interrupted and said, young man, I was eating artichokes before you were born. :) Outside of a restaurant my father saw a huge fig tree behind the restaurant. It was groaning with the weight of the figs, and the floor was littered with them. He went in and asked the owner if he could pick some. The owner was glad to get rid of the excess. He should have been preserving them, of course. My Dad still wore those caps that older Italian men wore. He filled it with figs. All these "Americans" gathered round asking what they were and how to eat them! I think he filled that cap five times.

I have my father's genes for cold weather, and quite enjoy winter, but my mother was a Mediterranean through and through. She detested the cold and liked nothing better than to curl up and fall asleep in the sun. Meanwhile my father and I would be under the trees because we burned so badly. Fwiw, the climate in Santa Barbara is very like the climate in Liguria, imo. It's cool and pretty rainy in winter, and hot and pretty dry in the summer. I can't abide humidity, and neither could my father. They're mountain people his family, having lived for more than 500 years up in the Apennines, still cool in the summers, and snow eight months a year it sometimes seems. No offense to anyone from the Po plain, but I would not ever choose to live there, not even in Parma itself. It's cold and wet in the winter and brutally hot and humid in the summer. Firenze, one of my favorite cities, has an unfortunate climate as well imo.

My grandmother, like all Italian mothers and grandmothers, wanted to keep the family together. The seven oldest would never go back to Italy. My father was the last hold out. He was the toughest man I ever met, the strongest, but even he couldn't say no to his mother forever, and he was in his thirties. :) One last story: when my father got his first project for over a million dollars, he went out with his partners to celebrate after work, something he never did. His mother lived with us. Once it was past nine o'clock she paced and paced in her long white nightgown with her long white braid swishing around, muttering, just wait till he gets home, Menelich. I'll fix him. My mother begged her not to get upset, as she wasn't. When he came home, a little the worse for the wear, it must be said, she asked him what he thought he was doing. She didn't like the answer. She slapped him right across the face and said, "A decent man comes home to his wife and children at a decent time. I don't care how old you are (He was over 40), until the day I die I'm still your mother. I thought he'd have a heart attack, but he took it.

I always wonder who started the absurd idea that Italian women are weak.

Well I could go on reminiscing forever, but I don't want to bore you. It's been fun, though.
 
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No, it was different in the U.S. Even the children of the actual immigrants often understood Italian but didn't speak it very well. There was this mania to be "AMERICAN", and that meant eating hamburgers, playing baseball, speaking English. That's all it took, and you were completely accepted. My husband is third generation from southern Italy, but he doesn't speak a single word of Italian. All of his cousins married out except for him. When his grandmother met me she almost fell to her knees in thanksgiving. :) I became her absolute favorite, and she would teach me all her Neapolitan recipes, and tips on keeping your man happy. To wit, when it's about time for him to come home, change your apron, comb your hair and put on some lipstick. :). However, as she said to me, while her grandson was a very good boy, all the same I should tell him what she told her husband before they got married: your house and clothes will be clean, there'll be good food on the table, and I'll raise your children right, but if you ever raise a hand to me in anger, don't go to sleep after that because you'll never wake up! Trust me, she meant it. :) She was a pip! Oh, and no smoking in the house, and only one glass of wine with supper! She also believed in white magic, if you know what I mean, and so on Christmas Eve one year she taught me how to get rid of the mal occhio and unwanted guests and all sorts of other things. I didn't have the heart to tell her I didn't believe in any of it. I loved my grandparents and great aunts and uncles so much, and couldn't spend time with them the way I wanted, so I sort of adopted her. :)

Strange thing is that my husband, without speaking a word of Italian, is far more an Italian man in a very old-fashioned sense than my male cousins in Italy. I call it the diaspora effect. :) My Greek American friends tell me it's the same thing with Greeks. Italian Americans are less clannish than the Greeks though. Everyone intermarries. Well, almost everyone but me. A Southern Italian was about as "foreign" as I could imagine going. Oh, my husband even studied the "classics" in university: Latin, Greek literature, the history of the Greek and Latin cultures etc.to keep in touch with his "roots".

That reminds me. By the time of Mussolini in Italy people were not only taught Italian and Roman history(well, the version he approved), but were all instructed in "standard" Italian, i.e. Tuscan as modified by Manzoni etc., lingua toscana in bocca romana. At least that's the way it was everywhere north of Rome except perhaps for the Veneto. It was your patriotic duty to know those things. My father, as I said, without being at all fascistic, rather the opposite, was a great Italian patriot in the tradition of Mazzini, who was his hero. He was also an anti-cleric. So, we had portraits of Mazzini and Garibaldi on the wall, not the Pope. :) He knew a lot of Dante by heart and other Italian poets, mostly self taught, and the lyrics and melodies of all the Italian operas. Those were my lullabies. He was a brilliant man, my father, especially in mathematics, with many talents: a great voice and wonderful artistic skills on top of everything else. He apprenticed to a sculptor in Carrara for a while. If only Italy had the opportunities that people are afforded in America.

Actually, I went back to Italy more often than they did. My father could only go for two weeks at a time on visits. I went during the summers for much longer, even the summers during university. I studied there too. It was very important to me. Then, with work and children, it was two to three weeks at a time maximum. Now, I can call my own shots and go for longer. I still plan on retiring there for five or six months a year. The mistake I made was in not speaking to my children only in Italian. I did some of the time, but not always, so although they can understand a lot they're not fluent. It was difficult because it left my husband out if we all spoke Italian, and I was uncomfortable with that, as was he. I joke sometimes and say that when I'm old and doddering and have dementia my husband won't understand a word I'm saying, and neither will the nurses.

Speaking of the language, it was indeed difficult to communicate with some of the old Italian people here in the U.S., and their children only knew a smattering of dialect as well. In Italy, again because of Mussolini it was important to speak standard Italian. My father was manic about it. He spoke it beautifully and he wanted that for me too. He went to the extent of forbidding anyone from speaking even the Lunigiana dialect or his own Parma dialect in front of me. Then he'd teach me some verses and make me show off my "pure" Italian. Yes, he'd have me sing too, in my puffy party dress and white lace topped socks and black Mary Janes. Just like the movies. :) My "American" cousin told me he thought I was the Virgin Mary when I came from Italy, a Virgin Mary with a gold cross necklace and little golden drop earings in my ears. You can imagine how I went over with the jeans and sneaker set at my school. :) The nuns thought so too. I was the Virgin in every May Day parade and pageant I can remember.

Yes, great artichokes in California. Have you been there? I think Castro is still the artichoke capital of the world. Every spring I get a bag shipped to me of the tiny, tender ones, and fry them Jewish style and make a pasta with the rest. The restaurants in California can be very good, and they're very "Mediterranean". In one in Monterrey, which we adored, they served small ones as gratis appetizers. The self-important waiter started to tell us how to eat them. My father interrupted and said, young man, I was eating artichokes before you were born. :) Outside of a restaurant my father saw a huge fig tree behind the restaurant. It was groaning with the weight of the figs, and the floor was littered with them. He went in and asked the owner if he could pick some. The owner was glad to get rid of the excess. He should have been preserving them, of course. My Dad still wore those caps that older Italian men wore. He filled it with figs. All these "Americans" gathered round asking what they were and how to eat them! I think he filled that cap five times.

I have my father's genes for cold weather, and quite enjoy winter, but my mother was a Mediterranean through and through. She detested the cold and liked nothing better than to curl up and fall asleep in the sun. Meanwhile my father and I would be under the trees because we burned so badly. Fwiw, the climate in Santa Barbara is very like the climate in Liguria, imo. It's cool and pretty rainy in winter, and hot and pretty dry in the summer. I can't abide humidity, and neither could my father. They're mountain people his family, having lived for more than 500 years up in the Apennines, still cool in the summers, and snow eight months a year it sometimes seems. No offense to anyone from the Po plain, but I would not ever choose to live there, not even in Parma itself. It's cold and wet in the winter and brutally hot and humid in the summer. Firenze, one of my favorite cities, has an unfortunate climate as well imo.

My grandmother, like all Italian mothers and grandmothers, wanted to keep the family together. The seven oldest would never go back to Italy. My father was the last hold out. He was the toughest man I ever met, the strongest, but even he couldn't say no to his mother forever, and he was in his thirties. :) One last story: when my father got his first project for over a million dollars, he went out with his partners to celebrate after work, something he never did. His mother lived with us. Once it was past nine o'clock she paced and paced in her long white nightgown with her long white braid swishing around, muttering, just wait till he gets home, Menelich. I'll fix him. My mother begged her not to get upset, as she wasn't. When he came home, a little the worse for the wear, it must be said, she asked him what he thought he was doing. She didn't like the answer. She slapped him right across the face and said, "A decent man comes home to his wife and children at a decent time. I don't care how old you are (He was over 40), until the day I die I'm still your mother. I thought he'd have a heart attack, but he took it.

I always wonder who started the absurd idea that Italian women are weak.

Well I could go on reminiscing forever, but I don't want to bore you. It's been fun, though.
Not at all. I'm reading your stories with great interest. I just loved your husband's grandmother, btw, and I must say your father somewhat looks like mine, in several aspects. :)
I myself wish I could write more, but I usually have a hard time doing it in English.

I definetely identify with somethings you related, as you'll see further up.

I couldn't eat artichokes in California, unfortunately. Probably you don't remember, but you told me about them at the end of 2015 in the old 23andMe forum. I asked tips for my trip in there, and you gave me some, including of wineries in the Napa area, one of my destinations. Thanks again! :)
Yeah, Po Valley may be very hot. Indeed, my eldest brother was choosing a place to visit with my parents in next July. He gave up the Veneto due to the possible heat, and decided to go to Canada with them.
Btw, these east ocean coasts tend do have milder summers (and winters), in comparison to west coasts in similar latitudes. See Vancouver, for example. Anyway, California coast has a relatively mild climate. The averages low and high in Santa Barbara in the hottest month are 15.8 and 24.4, respectively, and they're associated to dryness (Riviera is also somewhat dry in summer, but I guess Santa Barbara is even drier), meaning even less heat index, and "humidex" (if you're Canadian). Averages from latitude 34°! Check out the averages from, say, Wilmington, in opposition. But I know the temperatures may be very high also in Santa Barbara, occasionally.
I get burned in the sun too, however, my problem is more with the light itself. It really disturbs my eyes - certainly much more than average - and causes me headache and some prostration. Sunglasses are mandatory. :)

Yeah, also in Brazil the Italian descendants were stimulated to speak just in Portuguese, including by the government - forcibly - during the World War II mainly, but also by some parents. There were those parents who even prohibited the kids to speak "Italian" at home. That's not necessarily because in the past it was associated to, say, low status(?), or simply no study, but also because they wanted them to integrate. Some were even ashamed to speak. Things changed later, which imo was good. The language does have cultural importance, and it's part of our history. Still, my own (close) family never bother too much in learning what they call(ed) "the dialect", je je je. My mother used to say Talian was making the learning of Italian difficult. My father doesn't mix them up, but he was not an enthusiast of the Talian. He respected it a lot, but certainly preferred Italian, as my siblings - oblivious to Talian. One of them was (and probably still is) a great fan of Verdi, then imagine! ;) https://youtu.be/0upXYbw-gBQ
In fact, he's a composer himself (he does it as hobby), and his first opera, still to be premiered this year, is in Italian. In family, I (the youngest) am the one who give Talian lots of value, even if I don't speak it very well, and genealogy itself*. I mean, I understand your father, some of my own grandparents and the political purposes of the past, but times changed. Can you imagine,say, Naples without its linguistic particularities, for example? They're part of its "soul". :) Italian should be learned by all Italians, obviously, but there is nothing wrong in "keeping" regional languages. Well, I guess I convinced my parents of the importance of Talian anyway. :)
*People have "some" interest in genealogy, you know. More, or less, but they have. I always had much more interest on it though, than my siblings and people in general. There is this old video in which I show up still as a little child proposing a toast for a certain great-grandfather, on occasion of some holiday. They looked at me as they were saying: wtf? Lol Those times I already wanted to know who my 2nd great-grandparents were, and part of their stories. I remember we had just three or four names from this specific generation. A bit more than ten years ago, I was designated to find the exact birth place of my father's paternal grandfather (we knew just the province), after a lawer failed in the task. The purpose was the dual citizenship. Then I figured out that the last name changed in Brazil - hence the initial difficulty -, and also the place of origin. Anyway, I was already in the mood, and started to build what became a huge tree. Today I'm "the guy who knows about the family". Lol As for DNA, I tested my parents already, and now I'm going to test a maternal uncle. :)
Btw, my father-in-law is a typical Brazilian, from a Central area in the country, but my mother-in-law is also Northeast Italian in ancestry. However, she descends from Italians who settled in Espirito Santo, more to the North. There was no big isolation in there, and they integrated much quicker. To exemplify how the "side effect" of the isolation in South Brazil caused the preservation of the language, see that my mother-in-law, granddaughter of Italians in paternal side and great-granddaughter in maternal, doesn't speak a single word of Talian or related language. In fact, I accidentaly noticed she did know one, but she didn't know it was Venetian. I told her. :) Still, I do know some few people in Espirito Santo speak Talian - or similar language.
Finally: Yes, most Venetians didn't speak Italian at the time of the immigrarion (I guess more than 90%), but there were exceptions even between immigrants. My father's maternal grandfather was one of them, and apparently he did know how to speak it more or less. It's at least what a letter suggests (to my grandparents, who were living in a different city, so I assume my grandmother spoke it as well). Tell me if I'm wrong (I'll send it to you through PM), but it doesn't seem to me a pure Venetian.

I believe in the "diaspora effect". :) I'd risk to say an akin phenomenom may be observed not just among descendants, but among the migrants themselves, even if the migration happens regionally (at least in countries with lots of diversity, like Brazil and Italy themselves). It happened with me. Sometimes you have to leave your place to value certain things and reinforce identity.
My parents and kids (including me, naturally) left our land time ago. Y-DNA's fault. ;) At the beginning, some of us wanted to come back, but they ended up adapting after all. I say "they" because I myself never adapted completely. When I reached the age, I came back to my land and lived there several years. Then your grandmother came, I mean, my mother, and said: come here, let's keep all together. :) Obviously she convinced me, but you know... I also loved the place where I was born, as your father. It was very difficult for me. Sometimes I asked myself if it worthed, even loving my family above all. I mean, today is so easy to travel that I could have had both, I guess...

ED: correction.
ED2: I couldn't send the PM. It says you exceeded your quota.
 
Yes, WWII had a profound impact on Italian Americans too. People forget that a lot of Italians and Germans who hadn't gotten citizenship were "interned". It was even more important to jettison things that made one "foreign", and that included speaking a "foreign" language. Some even changed their names. I've been told that a lot of Muellers became Millers, for example.

Nonna Anna (really Marianna), was an extraordinary woman. The first time I went to dinner at their home, and this white haired Italian grandmother wearing a flowery apron and orthopedic shoes whipped out a cigarette and lighter I almost fell off the chair. :) She had picked up the habit from her children. She also had a very, well, I think I have to call it "bawdy" sense of humor. I had never heard a woman curse. My mother spoke like a Mother Superior in a convent, and my grandmother and aunts and great-aunts were also very restrained. You know what I mean: certain things were only spoken of in whispers and among adult women. Well, not Anna. Sometimes I blushed so hard I looked like a tomato. I would also get told regularly to speak up, per l'amor' di dio, when I wanted something. I couldn't be heard over the noise they made. :) To me, it seemed like they were fighting, but they weren't, although they could fight, alright.

She took her children back to see her husband's family once. It didn't go well. Someone told her brother in law that she was seen talking to another returned Italian American at the post office, a man, horror of horrors. The brother in law started yelling at her at dinner so she took the bowl of spaghetti she was eating and threw it right in his face. She told him he wasn't her husband, and he had no right to question her! The local Italian priest in America who got on her "wrong" side also got short shrift. Sometimes she let her boys sleep in on a Saturday morning instead of going for religious instruction. When he came to bless the house for Easter one year and reprimanded her she took her broom and swept him out of the house. They were the only Italian family who didn't go to the "Italian" church. She seemed to me the very personification of a Neapolitan woman: warm, generous, direct, feisty and hot tempered.

Part of my father's insistence on speaking "Italian" was tied up with his politics, his view of Italy, and the place it should hold in the world. He wanted Italy and Italians to be strong, to no longer be the victim(s) of foreign governments, and to ensure that he believed that Italy had to be united against the outside world, and that necessitated a common language. A divided people who couldn't even understand one another properly would always be kicked around by the rest of the world. As I said above, he idolized Mazzini, except in that he wasn't as religious as Mazzini, although Mazzini too was an anti-cleric. Yes, the two things can go together. :)


It was also tied up with his love of Italian literature. Reading "I Promessi Sposi" wasn't the chore for him that it is for most Italian school children, and learning whole passages of Dante and Petrarca was a delight.

Part of it was also very practical, however. "Dialect" speakers were seen as uneducated, poor, lower class, in our part of Italy. If you wanted a good job, preferment, it was important to "sound" a certain way. It was always the same in England. Your "language" told people everything they needed to know about you and your status. There has been some movement in trying to recognize the "old" dialects in my area, but it won't really work. There are too many southern Italians who migrated there, not to mention people from further afield lately. People have to have a common language for everything to function. Even in the south things have changed. I know older Sicilian Americans, who do speak their parents' "dialect", who go to Sicily and find that even the Sicilian dialect has changed and they're not perfectly understood. The advent of television changed everything. Standard Italian has had a big influence on the Sicilian language, and there's no going back. Don't misunderstand though, "core" Neapolitans of a certain type still speak a dialect. When the movie "Gomorrah" was released, it had subtitles in "Italian", because people in other parts of Italy would not be able to understand the dialect. Up until a few decades ago there were still a substantial number of Genovesi who spoke or at least understood "Zenese". See the following by our poet laureate.

Creuza de ma'

I'm not the geneaologist you are. My father's geneaology was done by an uncle working in the churches of their villages in the Apennines. His people can be traced back to the mid 1500s with the Council of Trent and there are scattered records even further back. I don't doubt that they were there from the early Middle Ages, although there were periodic arrivals of men fleeing "uncomfortable" situations in other parts of Italy. Those villages, only loosely supervised by a very distant bishop, were a perfect place for men who didn't want to answer to local lords and robber barons. One of his ancestors was supposedly a "pirate", probably a privateer, in Rimini. My father's grandparents still had a gold basin and candlesticks from him. In another thread I showed their coat of arms over the village gate and at the door of the old family house. My mother's lines are spottier because of damage to archives during the war, but again a member of her family did the family tree. I filled in what I could but I'm not that dedicated to it. Part of that is because of what I know of genetics. Go back to your great, great grandparents and you actually start carrying the dna of only a few of them.

What I am fixated on and always have been is the "people" of my ancestral areas, most of whom are my "cousins" to one degree or another, in particular my mother's areas, where I was born and lived, although also my father's, where I know we're all very closely related to one another. I have studied their history, their culture, their food, their sufferings, for decades. I wanted to know what "made" them (us), how they came to be, how they came to have the character I so love. That led me to population genetics eventually. Most of my family think I'm mad. I tried to explain all of this to my adored great aunt, but after listening intently she just waved her hand to encompass the whole terrain and said, "but we've always been right here". :) To some degree, for at least a thousand years, she was correct.

Believe me, I've sometimes wondered if my father did the right thing. In America I feel very Italian, and in Italy very American. It's as if I'm suspended between the two places, hovering over the Atlantic ocean
somewhere. It's not always comfortable.

I'm going to be presumptious and express a personal opinion about what you said. You were right to join your family. It's the only thing that matters. I've seen it over and over again with old people. When the end draws near, money, position, status, none of it matters. The only thing that matters is the people we have loved and how we treated them. Keep them close.
 
Yes, WWII had a profound impact on Italian Americans too. People forget that a lot of Italians and Germans who hadn't gotten citizenship were "interned". It was even more important to jettison things that made one "foreign", and that included speaking a "foreign" language. Some even changed their names. I've been told that a lot of Muellers became Millers, for example.
Nonna Anna (really Marianna), was an extraordinary woman. The first time I went to dinner at their home, and this white haired Italian grandmother wearing a flowery apron and orthopedic shoes whipped out a cigarette and lighter I almost fell off the chair. :) She had picked up the habit from her children. She also had a very, well, I think I have to call it "bawdy" sense of humor. I had never heard a woman curse. My mother spoke like a Mother Superior in a convent, and my grandmother and aunts and great-aunts were also very restrained. You know what I mean: certain things were only spoken of in whispers and among adult women. Well, not Anna. Sometimes I blushed so hard I looked like a tomato. I would also get told regularly to speak up, per l'amor' di dio, when I wanted something. I couldn't be heard over the noise they made. :) To me, it seemed like they were fighting, but they weren't, although they could fight, alright.
She took her children back to see her husband's family once. It didn't go well. Someone told her brother in law that she was seen talking to another returned Italian American at the post office, a man, horror of horrors. The brother in law started yelling at her at dinner so she took the bowl of spaghetti she was eating and threw it right in his face. She told him he wasn't her husband, and he had no right to question her! The local Italian priest in America who got on her "wrong" side also got short shrift. Sometimes she let her boys sleep in on a Saturday morning instead of going for religious instruction. When he came to bless the house for Easter one year and reprimanded her she took her broom and swept him out of the house. They were the only Italian family who didn't go to the "Italian" church. She seemed to me the very personification of a Neapolitan woman: warm, generous, direct, feisty and hot tempered.
Part of my father's insistence on speaking "Italian" was tied up with his politics, his view of Italy, and the place it should hold in the world. He wanted Italy and Italians to be strong, to no longer be the victim(s) of foreign governments, and to ensure that he believed that Italy had to be united against the outside world, and that necessitated a common language. A divided people who couldn't even understand one another properly would always be kicked around by the rest of the world. As I said above, he idolized Mazzini, except in that he wasn't as religious as Mazzini, although Mazzini too was an anti-cleric. Yes, the two things can go together. :)
It was also tied up with his love of Italian literature. Reading "I Promessi Sposi" wasn't the chore for him that it is for most Italian school children, and learning whole passages of Dante and Petrarca was a delight.
Part of it was also very practical, however. "Dialect" speakers were seen as uneducated, poor, lower class, in our part of Italy. If you wanted a good job, preferment, it was important to "sound" a certain way. It was always the same in England. Your "language" told people everything they needed to know about you and your status. There has been some movement in trying to recognize the "old" dialects in my area, but it won't really work. There are too many southern Italians who migrated there, not to mention people from further afield lately. People have to have a common language for everything to function. Even in the south things have changed. I know older Sicilian Americans, who do speak their parents' "dialect", who go to Sicily and find that even the Sicilian dialect has changed and they're not perfectly understood. The advent of television changed everything. Standard Italian has had a big influence on the Sicilian language, and there's no going back. Don't misunderstand though, "core" Neapolitans of a certain type still speak a dialect. When the movie "Gomorrah" was released, it had subtitles in "Italian", because people in other parts of Italy would not be able to understand the dialect. Up until a few decades ago there were still a substantial number of Genovesi who spoke or at least understood "Zenese". See the following by our poet laureate.
Creuza de ma'
I'm not the geneaologist you are. My father's geneaology was done by an uncle working in the churches of their villages in the Apennines. His people can be traced back to the mid 1500s with the Council of Trent and there are scattered records even further back. I don't doubt that they were there from the early Middle Ages, although there were periodic arrivals of men fleeing "uncomfortable" situations in other parts of Italy. Those villages, only loosely supervised by a very distant bishop, were a perfect place for men who didn't want to answer to local lords and robber barons. One of his ancestors was supposedly a "pirate", probably a privateer, in Rimini. My father's grandparents still had a gold basin and candlesticks from him. In another thread I showed their coat of arms over the village gate and at the door of the old family house. My mother's lines are spottier because of damage to archives during the war, but again a member of her family did the family tree. I filled in what I could but I'm not that dedicated to it. Part of that is because of what I know of genetics. Go back to your great, great grandparents and you actually start carrying the dna of only a few of them.
What I am fixated on and always have been is the "people" of my ancestral areas, most of whom are my "cousins" to one degree or another, in particular my mother's areas, where I was born and lived, although also my father's, where I know we're all very closely related to one another. I have studied their history, their culture, their food, their sufferings, for decades. I wanted to know what "made" them (us), how they came to be, how they came to have the character I so love. That led me to population genetics eventually. Most of my family think I'm mad. I tried to explain all of this to my adored great aunt, but after listening intently she just waved her hand to encompass the whole terrain and said, "but we've always been right here". :) To some degree, for at least a thousand years, she was correct.
Believe me, I've sometimes wondered if my father did the right thing. In America I feel very Italian, and in Italy very American. It's as if I'm suspended between the two places, hovering over the Atlantic ocean
somewhere. It's not always comfortable.
I'm going to be presumptious and express a personal opinion about what you said. You were right to join your family. It's the only thing that matters. I've seen it over and over again with old people. When the end draws near, money, position, status, none of it matters. The only thing that matters is the people we have loved and how we treated them. Keep them close.
Sounds picturesque. :) I'm not PhD in South Italians, but the bravissima granny seems to correspond to the stereotype of a Neapolitan mamma, out of an Italian movie. I say it 'cause in fact I have never been in close contact with a typical Southern Italian family, so I have no reference beyond TV. Anyway, I wouldn't have imagined nothing too different from what you described, almost scenic.
Apparently it's impossible to get bored in a South Italian circle. :)

As for Italian language etc., it's really complicated, because the context would still include politics, apparently, and I'm not that tuned into it. So not sure what to say. Whilst I understand the purposes you mentioned, and don't disagree, I also believe a price was paid for the cause, culturally, but also concerning freedom. No problem; that was a different time, and that's history! Actions and reactions of political nature still contaminate the matter, though. Even so, I guess there is no need to "pay" it anymore, and in fact regional peculiarities make a country richer imo. I see languages as part of "cultural packages", and my fear is that the death of a language could inevitably correlate to the death of a whole package. Hope I'm wrong. Anyway, I'm for freedom, of course, especially in the individual level. At the end, people must be free to do what they want in this regard. If they don't care, due to, say, utilitarianism - or whatever reason -, ok. If they care, even if they are being just "romantic" - I must be one of them :) -, and there is a relevant demand for keeping it, then ok as well. In this last case, even government could help occasionally (through the representatives of the very people, of course). It happened in cities of South Brazil, for example, where Talian is taught in public schools for those who have interest. Meanwhile, some people don't even think about the matter, and again: nothing wrong.
In short, caring about a cultural heritage is good. That's positive, "affirmative". What I think is not acceptable at all is opportunism, racism, the despise to different cultures, be it for economical reasons, religious, you name it. That's negative. The two things must not be confused, because they are not necessarily associated to one another. I know you haven't said otherwise, btw.
Finally, despite what I just said, I'm aware that certain movements are just inevitable. Repeating history, many things we care about will eventually die (and languages can be one of them, sure). It's just a matter of time. But we're still alive, so... :)
Btw, wow!, Zenese seems pretty different. I don't get virtually anything of the music!

I'm also curious on people, and not just about my own, but especially about them, which is natural. The willing to know our own family would be part of the same mecanism. But names per se won't tell us too much about our family history, i agree. Anyway, researching was fun, so basically a hobby, but also somewhat educational for me, since it was possible to learn some things in the process. Apart the factoids themselves, as for example that one about an ancestor cimbro. :) The intellectual curiosity on family and people came early in my case, as you could notice, but I've never really feed my time with it till more recently.

Regarding to be with family, yeah, you must be right! Anyway, it already happened. Let's move on. :)
And hey!, you were not presumption. Be sure I sincerely appreciate your oppinion.
 
It's odd. I don't understand the men supposedly speaking Bergamesco all that well, but I understand both the nonna here and her interviewer quite well, and she's supposedly speaking a Veneto dialect.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gASt0urMNDM
I saw this video years ago, and saved it. :)
Angela, you're too kind for recognizing, but I guess I was screwing up your another thread. It's about Appennino, not Rio Grande do Sul. So I continue here. :)

The only portuguese word the nonna talked was "querido" (caro; dear). Well, in fact she didn't talk that much, and didn't build many sentences, while the interviewer - with a huge Brazilian accent btw - did very basic questions. Perhaps it explains why you got it better? In the scenic piece, on the other hand, there was a more fluent conversation. Anyway, that's a version almost 150 years old of "Venetian", or "Venezian", if you prefer, be it a dialect or a language (particularly, I'm not so worry about it). :)
A maternal uncle said he talked in Venetian to some actual Venetians in his trip to NE Italy much time ago, and that they said: "hey, you talk like my grandparents". :) Still, actual Venetians apparently understand well Talian, and vice-versa. See for example the video I posted previously on this thread, showing an actual Venetian girl interviewing a "Venetian" from South Brazil.

My godfather, a Luthier born in Spresiano-TV, used to say there were roughly two kind of "Venetians", referring to dialects/languages: the one from countryside, with all its variations, and the one more, say, "cult", comparatively less different from Italian (after all, Venezian would have been heavily influenced by Italian/Tuscan in ~1500s). He said he didn't mixed up Venezian and Italian, at all. But I remember he and my godmother - virtually a "saint" woman; may God have her -, from Treviso-TV, talked to each other in Italian, always, and never in Venezian.
He loved to visit my relatives in countryside and talk to them in (an adapted) "Italian".

As for that supposed bergamasc, well, I'm not sure what it is. I assume it's an actual (old) bergamasch (perhaps with some influence of Venetian and Portuguese), because I didn't understand almost anything. But I assure you it's not portuguese, despite some portuguese words poping up. :)

Nice music. La Bella Polenta is one of the "most popular" musics of my own folks, together with La Bella Violeta, Quel Mazzolin di Fiori, Merica Merica and others.

I do know that many were disappointed (the propaganda in Italy was exaggerated). Still, some immigrants, satisfied, did send letters to relatives in Italy stimulating migrations; my guess is that sometimes they were absolutely sincere, and other times, still with good intentions, they were possibly distracted or induced by the fact they simply missed their folks. There were also letters of regret. It depends. So, some were really satisfied, some were not exactly happy but didn't want to go back for some reason, and some did want to return, as a mother-in-law's great-grandmother, just for example.
Check this video. It talks about those who were happy and those who were not:
https://youtu.be/WUHyIdeW5ZI

The situation must have been like this in Italy:
https://youtu.be/6-UfhwtOk2E

ah ah ah ah
Unfortunately the video missed the part the mafiosi give them some money before going away. :)
 
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When my Nana was young, she said her grandparents-both born and raised in Sicily-spoke Greek, but I have been skeptical of that, given that the Greek speaking part of the island is in the east and they were from the west, near Palermo. I rather believe they spoke Albanian; the Arbereshe community of Piana degli Albanesi (which was once called Piana dei Greci, 'Plain of the Greeks') is quite near Palermo. Also my great-grandfather was rather tall for someone of Mediterranean descent, save for someone with Dinaric roots, like an Albanian. My Nana, though, is the stereotypical short Mediterranean woman, I love her, she thinks I'm tall, I'm 5'9".
 
To my knowledge, the last Greek speaking areas in Sicily were in Siracusa and Trapani, but even there I think the "turn" came a couple of centuries ago.
 
@Regio,
Yes, all the dialects have changed since the advent of television, in particular, which had a great "leveling" effect. Sicilian Americans also tell me that when they go to Sicily they are told that they speak the dialect of not just grandparents, but great-grandparents. :)

People don't realize it, but even Tuscans have dialects within themselves, and different rules of pronunciation. They don't all introduce that "h" sound, for example. For example, some do say "ubriaca", not "ubriaha". :)

Fiorentino doc. :)

This is a fun video with local speakers highlighting the different "dialects" or "languages" of Italy. As I found when listening to Regio's videos, I find Veneto quite understandable, as is Emiliano, of course. It may have been different in the past. In the map they show Emiliano in parts of the Lunigiana, and Tuscan in the rest. It's very locale specific. Pontremoli, imo, is much more Emilian, Zeri a bit Ligurian, and Fivizzano really Tuscan. Where I was born and raised, and where my father was raised as well, despite his roots and being born in Sarzana, there's more of an influence from Tuscany, of the Lucca and Carrara and Pisa variety, than there is of Liguria, despite it being literally just over the border, but not as much so as Fivizzano. If I didn't know it myself, I'd know it from the reaction I get in other parts of Italy. Attentive waiters or owners of restaurants often bring me, without my asking, Vin Santo and cantuccini after dinner, and I hear the maids saying "La Tosca". :) That's what my father's Emilian family called my mother when they'd go up the mountains to see them. I used to get a little annoyed, to be honest. Fwiw, when we're in the north they often don't think my husband is Italian, partly, I'm sure, because he speaks only in English, but it REALLY aggravates him. Turn about is fair play. They don't think I'm local in the south, either. :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEEPyE-nR58

I basically sound like this, although in a lower register. :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PtAFlkKs_k
 
@Angela
Thanks for the explanations on the languages of your area. It amazes me how each area, sometimes little, has its own distinctiveness. Also, political borders don't necessarily correspond to languages/dialects borders, as you described. It's like the area of Caneva-PN and Sacile-PN, for example, where a kind of Venetian is used, rather than Friulan.
Very interesting the work of Stefano R. Galli. Bravo! The video on languages and dialects is great too. The regional differences we know, including genetical, seems roughly correlate to some different languages/dialects, sometimes in a pronounced way.
So, you seem to speak the "standard"; right? The girl in the video reminded me how standard Italian is beautiful. Imo the most beautiful in the worId, I must say.
I still remember the first sentence in Italian I learned much, much time ago, with my godfather: "È libero questo posto per favore?" ah ah
I have ancestors from an area known by its Vin Santo as well. It's the Vin Santo di Fregona. :)

Regarding looking local... As I was saying - I guess you saw my comment before I deleted it, but no problem :) -, my father and brother were in Italy in 2013, in occasion of the 200 years of birth of Verdi and Wagner. The presentations were in Verona and Milano, if my memory serves. Anyway, they commented my father was seen as local, while my brother looked foreign. My father does seem Italian imo (if not Italy, then Balkans). They thought my brother came from North, probably distracted by some traits, unimportant in isolation (as height, very light eyes etc. etc.). I bet people like you would easily identify him as Italian. As I already said, I'm not knowledgeble on this, but he seems to belong to a "Dinaric" type, rather than to a Northern one, as per his skull shape, nose... Anyway...
My sis, on the other hand, must have the most Italian looking of family, and Italian even for those who don't understand too much about phenotypes. So she fits perhaps even in stereotypes. I still remember an event much time ago in Italian embassy... My mother, sis and I were seated there waiting the beginning of the event, and then an old Italian "mamma" came handing a schedule, looked to us, pointed to her and said: you ARE Italian. je je je

Check this video. It talks about those who were happy and those who were not:
https://youtu.be/WUHyIdeW5ZI

The situation must have been like this in Italy:
https://youtu.be/6-UfhwtOk2E

ah ah ah ah
Unfortunately the video missed the part the mafiosi give them some money before going away. :)
Funny also the part (Bud) mixed up Garibaldi and General Custer. ah ah
Fwiw, while Garibaldi, The Hero of Two Worlds, tried to unify Italy, in Brazil he tried the independence of Rio Grande do Sul. je je je Didn't work. Still, he's a regional "hero" there, as one of the three leaders of Farrapos' War (Guerra dos Farrapos), or Revolução Farroupilha (Farroupilha Revolution) - the longest of its kind in Brazilian soil -, together with Bento Gonçalves and David Canabarro, between 1835-1845 (so before Italian immigration). There are in Rio Grande do Sul cities with the names of these three generals, two of them heavily settled by North Italians, as Garibaldi-RS and Bento Gonçalves-RS. Just out of curiosity.

The musical tradition also inspired his soul. :) Verdi is a religion there, as Puccini is in neighboring Toscana. They love opera too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkzGOF3COYo
I guess we were ruining the thread on dairy consumption and height, so here we go... :)

I agree, but I meant the culinary traditional inspired his belly. lol Just kidding! ;) Love Pavarotti.

Watched the BBC video, Angela. Simply great!

As for the other video... Whenever I stay a while without listening Va Pensiero, when I do it again, I shiver. It's really touching, even coming from Andre Rieu. :) No offense. It's not bad, but while he plays an important role in popularizing classicals, I still prefer the traditional, by far. So it's your time to shive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1JkhNOcXGo
And this is for your moments of nostalgia, when missing Italy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHkri8ZUqOA :)

Still regarding the dairy consumption and height etc., here's the proof of the role of genetics on physical traits, ah ah: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ey7-KlgD5g

Love coffee btw. Here the traditional is boiled, but I also drink espresso - generally Nespresso.
To finish, I must say I loved the espresso and the capuccino from USA, but their boiled coffee sucks imo. Looks like dirty water, or tea at best.
coffee.jpg

Cheers!

 
@Angela
Thanks for the explanations on the languages of your area. It amazes me how each area, sometimes little, has its own distinctiveness. Also, political borders don't necessarily correspond to languages/dialects borders, as you described. It's like the area of Caneva-PN and Sacile-PN, for example, where a kind of Venetian is used, rather than Friulan.
Very interesting the work of Stefano R. Galli. Bravo! The video on languages and dialects is great too. The regional differences we know, including genetical, seems roughly correlate to some different languages/dialects, sometimes in a pronounced way.
So, you seem to speak the "standard"; right? The girl in the video reminded me how standard Italian is beautiful. Imo the most beautiful in the worId, I must say.
I still remember the first sentence in Italian I learned much, much time ago, with my godfather: "È libero questo posto per favore?" ah ah
I have ancestors from an area known by its Vin Santo as well. It's the Vin Santo di Fregona. :)

Regarding looking local... As I was saying - I guess you saw my comment before I deleted it, but no problem :) -, my father and brother were in Italy in 2013, in occasion of the 200 years of birth of Verdi and Wagner. The presentations were in Verona and Milano, if my memory serves. Anyway, they commented my father was seen as local, while my brother looked foreign. My father does seem Italian imo (if not Italy, then Balkans). They thought my brother came from North, probably distracted by some traits, unimportant in isolation (as height, very light eyes etc. etc.). I bet people like you would easily identify him as Italian. As I already said, I'm not knowledgeble on this, but he seems to belong to a "Dinaric" type, rather than to a Northern one, as per his skull shape, nose... Anyway...
My sis, on the other hand, must have the most Italian looking of family, and Italian even for those who don't understand too much about phenotypes. So she fits perhaps even in stereotypes. I still remember an event much time ago in Italian embassy... My mother, sis and I were seated there waiting the beginning of the event, and then an old Italian "mamma" came handing a schedule, looked to us, pointed to her and said: you ARE Italian. je je je


Funny also the part (Bud) mixed up Garibaldi and General Custer. ah ah
Fwiw, while Garibaldi, The Hero of Two Worlds, tried to unify Italy, in Brazil he tried the independence of Rio Grande do Sul. je je je Didn't work. Still, he's a regional "hero" there, as one of the three leaders of Farrapos' War (Guerra dos Farrapos), or Revolução Farroupilha (Farroupilha Revolution) - the longest of its kind in Brazilian soil -, together with Bento Gonçalves and David Canabarro, between 1835-1845 (so before Italian immigration). There are in Rio Grande do Sul cities with the names of these three generals, two of them heavily settled by North Italians, as Garibaldi-RS and Bento Gonçalves-RS. Just out of curiosity.

I guess we were ruining the thread on dairy consumption and height, so here we go... :)

I agree, but I meant the culinary traditional inspired his belly. lol Just kidding! ;) Love Pavarotti.

Watched the BBC video, Angela. Simply great!

As for the other video... Whenever I stay a while without listening Va Pensiero, when I do it again, I shiver. It's really touching, even coming from Andre Rieu. :) No offense. It's not bad, but while he plays an important role in popularizing classicals, I still prefer the traditional, by far. So it's your time to shive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1JkhNOcXGo
And this is for your moments of nostalgia, when missing Italy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHkri8ZUqOA :)

Still regarding the dairy consumption and height etc., here's the proof of the role of genetics on physical traits, ah ah: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ey7-KlgD5g

To finish, I must say I loved the espresso and the capuccino from USA, but their boiled coffee sucks imo. Looks like dirty water, or tea at best.
View attachment 10942

Cheers!


Yes, I only speak standard Italian, like the young woman, and basically the same accent. I understand 90% of the Spezzino and the various Lunegianesi dialects and the mountain Pramzan of my paternal grandparents, but I can't speak them.

Partly because of my father's influence, but partly as the result of study in language classes here and in Italy, I'm a bit obsessive about Italian. I don't think there's a language in the world which can touch it for beauty. I love Italian poetry for that reason. I love to hear it declaimed aloud, especially by certain masters. I have a treasured series of CDs of Dante, and another one which is a collection of Italian poetry. (It's extremely difficult gramatically, however, so I'm always afraid of making a mistake. I found French and Spanish grammar much easier.)

The poet laureate of Liguria (The Cinque Terre) and winner of the Nobel Prize in literature.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2CXOu3V2Pc&list=PLW-G2e_QDKGqxA06_tPH-mEvbQvrXIA_Q&index=12
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAuwvrRtjJE

La Pioggia nel Pineto-Gabriele D'Annunzio
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OsUnxY5mgw

Se questo e' un uomo-Primo Levi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_M3dpL4nj3Q&list=PLWrQTkYKQceByD6zRFdDOuoVfV7I8XTPc&index=9

A tour de force in beautiful Italian (albeit with a rather harsh Tuscan accent) by Roberto Benignini on the nature of poetry. There are English subtitles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo9RPtgxSoU

I could go on forever. :) That's the thing about obsessions.

The chef and the art historian did a whole series on the food and art of Italy called "Italy Unpacked". I didn't much like the one on Liguria, but some of them were very good. This is the one on the Veneto.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_Uq3SmydSI&t=78s

One of the best weeks of my life was the week I spent on my own in a convent guest house on the island of Giudecca.

I've seen an advertisement for a tour along the canals of all the Palladium houses. I'm sure it's spectacular.

Making pesto with pinoli. :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJS9rIE1Uq4&list=PL4S_ehS1f_jha_8RQ9PJN2w5efmA0zD3b&index=12

I always get a bit teary when I hear Va Pensiero, but never more so than on this occasion. Tears and brividi...God bless Riccardo Muti for recognizing the emotion of the chorus and the audience, and dropping the professional stance for once and allowing not only an encore, but a participatory one. :)

It begins at 5:05 when someone shouts "Viva L'Italia" after the chorus had finished.

"Siamo in casa nostra...la facciamo tutti insieme...a tempo pero!" :) Properly broke my heart. If only my father could have heard it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPANwyaSlX4&t=525s

Sometimes I think it should be our anthem, but then I think of the struggle for a country, and I remember occasions like the following, and I think, no, leave it alone. We all know "Va Pensiero" and have it in our hearts anyway.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNSz0_XJD4s

My Italian relatives say that American coffee tastes like dirty dishwater. :)
 
Yes, I only speak standard Italian, like the young woman, and basically the same accent. I understand 90% of the Spezzino and the various Lunegianesi dialects and the mountain Pramzan of my paternal grandparents, but I can't speak them.
Partly because of my father's influence, but partly as the result of study in language classes here and in Italy, I'm a bit obsessive about Italian. I don't think there's a language in the world which can touch it for beauty. I love Italian poetry for that reason. I love to hear it declaimed aloud, especially by certain masters. I have a treasured series of CDs of Dante, and another one which is a collection of Italian poetry. (It's extremely difficult gramatically, however, so I'm always afraid of making a mistake. I found French and Spanish grammar much easier.)
The poet laureate of Liguria (The Cinque Terre) and winner of the Nobel Prize in literature.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2CXOu3V2Pc&list=PLW-G2e_QDKGqxA06_tPH-mEvbQvrXIA_Q&index=12
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAuwvrRtjJE
La Pioggia nel Pineto-Gabriele D'Annunzio
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OsUnxY5mgw
Se questo e' un uomo-Primo Levi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_M3dpL4nj3Q&list=PLWrQTkYKQceByD6zRFdDOuoVfV7I8XTPc&index=9
A tour de force in beautiful Italian (albeit with a rather harsh Tuscan accent) by Roberto Benignini on the nature of poetry. There are English subtitles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo9RPtgxSoU
I could go on forever. :) That's the thing about obsessions.
The chef and the art historian did a whole series on the food and art of Italy called "Italy Unpacked". I didn't much like the one on Liguria, but some of them were very good. This is the one on the Veneto.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_Uq3SmydSI&t=78s
One of the best weeks of my life was the week I spent on my own in a convent guest house on the island of Giudecca.
I've seen an advertisement for a tour along the canals of all the Palladium houses. I'm sure it's spectacular.
Making pesto with pinoli. :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJS9rIE1Uq4&list=PL4S_ehS1f_jha_8RQ9PJN2w5efmA0zD3b&index=12
I always get a bit teary when I hear Va Pensiero, but never more so than on this occasion. Tears and brividi...God bless Riccardo Muti for recognizing the emotion of the chorus and the audience, and dropping the professional stance for once and allowing not only an encore, but a participatory one. :)
It begins at 5:05 when someone shouts "Viva L'Italia" after the chorus had finished.
"Siamo in casa nostra...la facciamo tutti insieme...a tempo pero!" :) Properly broke my heart. If only my father could have heard it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPANwyaSlX4&t=525s
Sometimes I think it should be our anthem, but then I think of the struggle for a country, and I remember occasions like the following, and I think, no, leave it alone. We all know "Va Pensiero" and have it in our hearts anyway.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNSz0_XJD4s
My Italian relatives say that American coffee tastes like dirty dishwater. :)
Thanks again for the videos. I've been learning abt. Italy a lot here with knowledgeble Italians like you. Thanks for that.
I'll watch them carefully, little by little, as time and circumstances allow. But I already saw the Muti's Va Pensiero. Awe-inspiring. It maked me shive for a second time with a small interval, which is not common . :)

Regarding Italian language, I remember of when we were in an "interview" for the Italian citizenship, the last stage before the conclusion of the process. In certain moment my father and the interviewer were talking somewhat informally, and then Dante arrived. My father started reciting the beginning of Divina Commedia by heart, in Italian, and then the interviewer followed him. At the end, the interviewer was near to say: "hey, here is your citizenship". Lol

I agree that the current hymn is in the right place. I like to hear it also in soccer games, a capella or not. It can be breathtaking.
This one is good:
https://youtu.be/mT6ApDSKl7s
Some of these Rugby players really got emotive, je je:
https://youtu.be/NAZ7iFji2s4

Italian hymn is one of the most beautiful imo, together with Brazilian, French, and even American, English and Russian. Maybe the German too (also very beautiful).

As for coffee, a friend Brazilian, living in Seattle, explained me that the "problem" with the American coffee is the way it's ground, the thicker granularity, which generally results in a too weak beverage. So never mind the amount of ground coffee in the filter, supposedly. Anyway, if they like it, who am I to say them how to do it? Still, it seems dirty water to me. :)
 
Fiorentino doc. :)

That guy has lived abroad for many years, he wrote a Florentine dictionary for nostalgia, not to forget the vernacular.

This is a good example of Fiorentino doc/Florentine language. An old man from Florence. The accent is just the most genuine and typical of Florence's historic center.







This is another good example of Fiorentino Doc, he is a luthier and a violin maker.


 
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I find Veneto quite understandable, as is Emiliano, of course.


I find Venetian more understandable than other northern Italian languages.


It may have been different in the past. In the map they show Emiliano in parts of the Lunigiana, and Tuscan in the rest. It's very locale specific. Pontremoli, imo, is much more Emilian, Zeri a bit Ligurian, and Fivizzano really Tuscan.


This is an example of dialetto pontremolese, it's uber gallo-italic, even in northern Italy it is increasingly rare to find people who speaks such a strong dialect. The guy is from Pontremoli but is he fully native of Pontremoli? Because one of the surnames sounds Piedmontese, the other is both Lombard and Emilian





@Pax
Are you Tuscan?


I have grandparents from different areas of Italy, I cover the whole country.
 

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