Some politicians cannot resist using language as a weapon to project themselves as patriots.
The Italian Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci wrote: “Every time the question of language surfaces, in one way or another, a series of other problems are coming to the fore, like ‘the enlargement of the governing class’, the ‘relationship between the governing groups and the national-popular mass’ and the fight for ‘cultural hegemony’.”
Some question whether we are seeing a resurgence of linguistic fascism in countries like Italy. Fabio Rampelli is a parliamentarian of Fratelli d’Italia, the right-wing party of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. He is pushing forward new legislation that will punish the use of English and other foreign words in official communication with fines of between €5,000 and €100,000.
Rampelli argues: “In the lower chamber of deputies, we speak Italian. We continue our battle for the use of our language instead of English. We can’t understand why we call ‘dispenser’ the automatic hand sanitiser dispenser.” The Italian government would want Italians to use the much wordier Italian expression ‘dispensatore di liquido igenizzante per le mani’.
France also has an official obsession with fighting the hegemony of English. French bureaucrats try to ban Anglicisms such as ‘gamer’, ‘dark web’ and ‘fake news’.
Toubon Law is a French statute enacted in 1994 that “requires radio stations to play 35 per cent French songs”. The remaining 65 per cent is flooded with American music. By law, French children must study a foreign language. While eight languages are available, 90 per cent chose English.
Malta had its language battles in the past. Those who lived in the 1970s may remember the drive of some conservative linguists to replace non-semitic Maltese words with semitic-sounding equivalents. Ajruport had to be replaced by mitjar.
I will not reveal the proposed semitic equivalents of the military ‘about turn’, or even ‘chair’ as some may find them offensive and vulgar. Of course, almost everyone ignored these linguistic recommendations.
Like in parts of India, in Malta, English has often been adopted as a perceived symbol of social status and class. A century ago, it replaced Italian as the language of the educated, rich and powerful. Today, the spoken and written English of many of the ‘social elite’ leaves much to be desired.
Policies to impose the elimination of foreign phrases and words grotesquely and replace them with words that fell into disuse will almost always fail
The adoption of English words into the Italian language will continue to be an object of endless debate in Italy, with opinions split between protecting the integrity of the national language and accepting that living languages are fluid and constantly evolving. Still, it is unlikely that Rampelli will reignite linguistic fascism in Italy as the fascists did in the 1920s. Today, the socio-political environment is very different.
Treccani is a well-respected Italian-language encyclopaedia. It currently contains 9,000 English words and 800,000 Italian words. Since 2000, the number of English words inserted in the Italian language has grown by 773 per cent.
English is today the world’s most widely spoken language, with some 1.5 billion speakers, even if it is the native language of fewer than 400 million. English accounts for 60 per cent of world internet content and is the lingua franca of pop culture, international institutions and the global economy.
Across Europe, nearly 100 per cent of students study English at some point in their education. In former French colonies like Algeria and Morocco, shifting from French to English is seen as the key to modernisation and a form of political resistance to their colonial past.
The monolingualism of Anglophone countries comes with some risks. Even if globalisation may not continue to be as popular as it was in the last few decades, multilingualism is the future. Some sociologists and educators believe that learning new languages improves overall cognitive functions beyond the economic benefits of speaking multiple languages in a globalised world. Linguist Rosemary Salomone argues: “Observing life through a wide linguistic and cultural lens leads to greater creativity and innovation.”
The justification for English, or any other language, as a global lingua franca is based primarily on economic efficiency. Still, politicians will continue weaponising language to ‘protect the local language’ or ‘preserve the importance of cultural heritage’. A few will want to sound proud, patriotic and defenders of the nation.
Policies to impose the elimination of foreign phrases and words grotesquely and replace them with words that fell into disuse will almost always fail.
Time has repeatedly shown that it is not politicians or academics that help languages evolve but ordinary people who are interested in communicating effectively.