“The not rare cases of total marginalization of the Italian languageespecially when it is removed from above, by Italians, and in Italy, not abroad or by foreigners (Italians are very good at hurting themselves). Unfortunately, the most obvious examples of total and authoritarian marginalization of Italian have occurred and are occurring in a sector of primary importance and great weight such as the university environment”. This is the warning that comes from the linguist Claudio Marazzini, president of the Accademia della Crusca, with a speech entitled ‘New laws on Italian. But are they really ‘linguistic policy’?’, published on the website of the age-old Florentine institution, intervening on the bill filed in the Chamber which has aroused controversy over the hypothesis of introducing fines for those who use English words.
According to Professor Marazzini, the controversies have led to the neglect of “interesting and rather new elements, although present in the law”, such as the question of employment contracts in Italian, “which deserves to be examined by labor law experts, but which at first sight seems legitimate and desirable to me”. “In a climate of globalization and the strong presence of multinationals operating in Italy, in fact, the constraint of the employment contract also drawn up in Italian could be a guarantee not to be overlooked – claims the illustrious historian of the Italian language – Even before an economic sanction, in cases of violation one could think of the simple nullity of the actcertainly effective.”
According to the president of the Accademia della Crusca, the debate so far has focused “on the preamble to the bill 734, written in a way that is not very consistent with the content of the eight articles, such as to suggest above all a fight against individual foreign elements introduced into the language , and such as to draw too much attention to the sanctions associated with their use”. But in Marazzini’s opinion, more than the fight against the use of a single English word, we should pay attention “to the real game that is played in the universities“. For this he warns: “It would be necessary to clearly distinguish the introduction of English terms into the common daily use of speakers, from theabuse of English in public social communication of state institutions (to which it would have been better to limit the intervention). Above all, it would be necessary to be very attentive to a phenomenon that does not seem to have been clearly understood by the legislator”.
The president of the Accademia della Crusca explains that “it is necessary to identify with precise discernment the different levels and areas of discrimination of our language” and identifies “at least three: 1) discrimination in university bureaucracy; 2) discrimination in university teaching; 3) discrimination in university research”.
Marazzini accuses: “In the university bureaucracy the use of Italian is forbidden in funding applications international, national, and very often (and this is the least justifiable case) also locally. Applications must all be submitted exclusively in English, otherwise they will be null and void. A partial justification can be found for applications submitted to international bodies. However, even for ‘national’ research questions the choice of English exclusively has been imposed in recent years, with the most imaginative motivations, and even sometimes invoking the principle that the judgment of foreign evaluators is always and certainly a guarantee of impartiality , regardless of competence and specificity, which instead for certain searches would necessarily also require knowledge of Italian. Reacting to these meaningless impositions, we have always maintained that it is not a question of eliminating English, but at the same time there is no reason to eliminate Italian. The solution of the two coexisting languages would guarantee, as it has been for years, maximum transparency, and would fully satisfy the needs of international circulation, while safeguarding the legitimate rights of the official language. However this argument, in its apparently indisputable linear logic, has never met with the favor of the ministry, which has not even deigned to discuss it with us. Why does the ministry never try to consider a different course of action, or at least fail to explain in an understandable way the reasons for its choice?”
“It seems to me that in this case, that is the most serious case of forced abolition of Italian in public useif one really wanted to reverse the trend, it would not be necessary to introduce the complication of new laws (remaining at a standstill awaiting their more or less probable approval). An immediate formal act would suffice: whoever issues the notices, i.e. the ministry, is perfectly and easily able to influence the choice of language. He did it in the past, to the detriment of the Italian. It can do it today, to the advantage of Italian – writes Marazzini – If the promoters of the new rules really love Italian and want to stop its unjust marginalization, they should first of all promote a campaign of persuasion in the ministries of a government in which the political forces of their own majority are represented”.
As for university teaching increasingly entrusted to English, “even where there is no utility in choosing, it would be more than sufficient invite the Ministry of the University to comply with the provisions of sentence 42/2017 of the Constitutional Court, a ruling that has been substantially ignored, if not deliberately and astutely disregarded, in the silence of Parliament and Governments. The promoters of the new laws, therefore, could take charge of parliamentary questions, which would not fail to break the veil of oblivion on a well-known and long-standing but beautifully neglected problem”.
Finally, on university scientific research, “it would be enough to leave free space for the researchers’ choices, however avoiding forcing them through subtle a priori discrimination in the evaluation of ‘products’ in the Italian language. The specificities of the sector should also be taken into account, connected to the difference between disciplines indirect push, harmful and fraudulent, to the abandonment of Italian, leaving room for the free choice of scholars, without playing cards, as is done today, when there is a tendency to favor what is perhaps mediocre or of lesser value, and which boasts only the advantage of being offered in English. The assessment must be made on the contents and their real weight, not a priori on the choice of language, a choice which, on top of everything else, marginalizes other foreign languages, starting with those of the EU”.