Of accents and other things

CRESPELLANO JULY 18—Sorry haven't written for a bit. I've been busy running back and forth between Crevalcore and Crespellano. Stefania's parents are still at the beach. Franco took a day off from sailing and came home for a day last week to go to the dentist, other than that, we don't see her parents much. Moreover, there's no room at the inn, so to speak. They have had one of the 'bimbi' (kids or grandkids in this case) everyday for the whole summer. Virginia is allegedly putting on quite a little belly with 'nonna' (grandma) filling her full of 'pappa' (baby talk for pasta).

Just an interesting (to me) aside on the Italian language. It is basically pronounced as written once you learn that 'ch' makes the 'k' sound, that 'gli' is pronounced like '-illi-' in the English word 'million' and that double consonants must be voiced. Take these three words for example: 'papa' (pope); 'pappa' (baby talk for pasta); 'papà' (dad). To a native English speaker they might look like they are pronounced in the same manner. But, in fact, there are three separate pronunciations. The first one is easiest; just pronounce it like it looks. On the second, you must remember to hit the double 'Ps' (like we say 'bus stop' in English, with two distinct 'Ss'). The third has an accent which means to give that syllable emphasis ('pa-PA'). Accents in Italian either denote stress or are 'diacritical' which is fancy talk for saying that they are there to differentiate two words that are written and pronounced alike but have different meanings. 'Sì' with an accent means 'yes.' 'Si' without the accent means 'itself' or 'one's self.' Thus, 'nono' (one 'N') means 'ninth' and 'nonno,' two 'Ns' means grandpa. The funniest example that helps you remember how important it is to distinguish double consonants is the word 'penne' and 'pene'—one means a kind of pasta and the other means something that boys have and girls don't. I'll let you figure out which is which. So, pay attention the next time you order that kind of pasta in a restaurant and have a real Italian waiter. If he chuckles, you picked the wrong one...might want to stick with the pizza. People will most likely understand what you mean from the context but it's still funny. After you've had that happen to you a couple of times, you'll definitely have more compassion for the immigrant struggling to pronounce a word correctly who's holding up the line at the store. Stefania always laughed at me until I mastered my own personal Calvary, the word 'bagagliaio,' which means trunk, as in where you put your bags in the car. Try it out: 'bag-ahl-yeye-oh' with the 'gli' pronounced as noted above.

Summer has also had me exploring the reasons for the terrible, to me, phenomenon of dubbing TV shows and movies. I mention this again for we are in the dog days of summer. In Italy, this is REALLY the off season. So there are even more old crappy American movies and TV series than usual that have been dubbed into Italian. We went to the movies the other day and turned around and walked out. We were at the Meridiano, a new multiplex near Bologna. There were eight movies and all of them were American. I didn't come here to watch dubbed American movies, so we left.

Apparently, dubbing has its roots deep in the history of early-Twentieth century Italy. With the advent of radio (thanks to Signor Marconi, from Bologna) and talking pictures around 1930, Italy had certain dilemmas. First of all, at that time, most Italians didn't speak Italian. Italy was mostly an agricultural nation. Most people were uneducated and spoke there native regional dialect, which in most cases is not mutually intelligible to someone from the neighboring region. (Remember, modern Italian is basically the arbitrary selection of the Florentine dialect of Tuscany as the model for the modern tongue.) Furthermore, early sound technology was not good, which complicated the making of talkies. Finally, Benito Mussolini and his fascist party ruled the Penninsula. He might have made the trains run on time and he was also instrumental in the development of the RAI (Italian radio and eventually TV). Il Duce was determined that Italians would speak one language. This made sense, practically speaking. If a movie was made in the Roman dialect, other people would have no chance to understand the movie. By dubbing the movie into modern Italian, one could have actors from all over Italy make the movie and then have professional voice-over actors loop in the dialogue in the studio. This had the added benefit of making it easier to avoid the problems created by inferior microphones used at the time.

As the years passed, more and more Italians went to school where they learned "correct" Italian and were able to buy radios and go to movies. Two things happened. The regional dialects began to die out as a sort of 'pseudo'-standard Italian accent emerged. That is to say. a certain, accepted accent was used in movies, on the radio and on TV, that hadn't really existed before. This is much like the famed BBC received pronunciation (RP) that grew with the development of modern communication technology in the United Kingdom. To us and Brits alike, it sounds kind of haughty and artificial. Much is the same in Italy; most people really don't talk that way. In recent years, in England and in Italy alike, one has been able to hear more and more industry professionals speak with their regional accents. I watch the BBC quite often and am amazed at the diversity of the staff and the accents that one hears.

Italian movies and TV shows, however, still by and large dub most things with people who speak a little too perfectly. In the early days of Sophia Loren's career, she was thought to have too strong of a Neopolitan accent so another actress would loop in her dialogue in the studio. For many decades. one voice-over artist would follow the career of Hollywood stars and dub all of their movies. One actor would exclusively be the Italian voice for John Wayne or Gary Cooper etc. This is no longer the case. It's very expensive to dub films whether they are home-grown or foreign. There are a whole host of studios in Rome who are in competition with one another and only dub films and TV shows. Therefore, it is no longer possible for one actor to only do the voice of, say, Nicholas Cage.

Over time, Italians, who are quite good at dubbing, got used to this phenomenon and pay it no mind. I'd say that three-fourths of the material on TV here is foreign. Just imagine if this were the case in the U.S. and there was no dubbing. That would be a heck of a lot of reading subtitles, especially for children and older people!