«The not rare cases of total marginalization of the Italian language must be fought without hesitation, especially 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 secular Florentine institution, intervening on the bill filed in the Chamber of Deputies by Fabio Rampelli of FdI entitled «Provisions for the protection and promotion of the Italian language and establishment of a Committee for the protection, promotion and enhancement of the Italian language», 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 the Italian language, «which deserves to be examined by labor law experts, but which At first sight it 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 act, which is certainly effective”.
Rampelli calls Tagadà live: “Don’t joke about the Italian language, it risks disappearing”
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 foreignisms introduced into the language , and such as to draw too much attention to the sanctions associated with their use”. In Marazzini’s opinion, more than the fight against the use of a single English word, attention should be paid to «the real game played in the universities». For this reason he warns: «It would be necessary to clearly distinguish the introduction of English terms in the everyday common use of speakers from the abuse of English in the 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 grasped by the legislator”. The president of the Accademia della Crusca explains that «it is necessary to identify with precise discernment the different levels and spheres of discrimination of our language» and identifies «at least three: 1) discrimination in the university bureaucracy; 2) discrimination in university teaching; 3) discrimination in university research».
Marazzini accuses: «In the university bureaucracy: the use of Italian is prevented in applications for international and national funding, 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 for eliminating 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 line of action, or at least fail to explain the reasons for its choice in an understandable way?».
«It seems to me that in this case, i.e. the absolutely most serious case of forced abolition of Italian in public use, if one really wanted to reverse the trend, it would not be necessary to introduce the complication of new laws (remaining at the stake waiting of their more or less probable approval). An immediate formal act would suffice: whoever issues the notices, i.e. the ministry, is perfectly and easily capable of influencing 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 – The promoters of the new rules, if they really love Italian and want to stop its unjust marginalization, 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 the choice, it would be more than sufficient to invite the Ministry of the University to comply with the provisions of sentence 42/2017 of the Constitutional Court, a sentence which 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 problem, but nicely overlooked”. Finally, on university scientific research, «it would be enough to leave free space for the choices of the researchers, while avoiding forcing them through a sneaky a priori discrimination in the evaluation of the ‘products’ in the Italian language. The specificities of the sector, connected to the difference between disciplines, should also be taken into account. In this way, an indirect, harmful and fraudulent push towards the abandonment of Italian would be avoided, 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 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».