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In mid-century Italy, going to the cinema was the thing to do. The release of a new Totò film, the most recent Fellini, or Sergio Leone’s latest western were unmissable events. The next day’s water cooler chatter, newspaper headlines, and dinnertime gossip would revolve around new releases and their lingo, and to not be up to date was a special for...

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Sometimes referred to as “Romanaccio”–with the pejorative “accio” suffix emphasising its vulgar, bawdy qualities–this dialect is no-nonsense and direct, a linguistic embodiment of the Roman people. Listen for the dropping of vowels and the doubling of consonants–quando becomes quanno, ogni becomes gni–as well as prolific swearing, profanity, and th...

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Why are the Italian proverbs of Naples so famous and widespread? Beautiful Naples has a history, a culture, a sense of irony and a tradition unique in the world and proverbs are the tool that keeps them alive and that has made them, over time, popular even outside the city. Let’s give it a try, how many of you can pronounce and translate A dark hea...

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We Italians have mastered the art of talking with our hands. We can, in theory, have whole conversations without exchanging any words, though the real purpose of our gestures is to animatedly emphasize–a proclivity that has become famous worldwide, so much so that one such gesture was added to the emoji dictionary. Rather unfortunately, the name fo...

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Tucked deep within the mountainous landscape near the Adriatic Coast in southern Italy, a language and a culture dating back 500 years are at risk of disappearing. Roughly 1,000 people in the towns of Montemitro, San Felice, and Acquaviva Collecroce speak Slavomolisano – or na-našo (pronounced “na-nasho”) as it is known in the language – a blend of...

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There are many ways of transcribing and pronouncing this word that has no synonyms. The assonance with the term “hypochondria” can be relegated to an anatomical matter: in Greek, the word ypochondrios (meaning “under the ribs”) points to the precise spot where a pain was located, one due to deep discouragement, sadness, even depression. In the Neap...

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Today, we use the phrase “the die is cast” when we want to say we took a decision and we can no longer turn back. In Italian, it translates as il dado è tratto. While the expression is common in both languages, not everyone knows that, according to tradition, the first to utter these famous words was no other than Julius Caesar.   Many of us learn...

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REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN for “Teaching Italian Symposium/Workshops XVI: Activating SDGs in the Italian Classroom”– the 16th annual professional development program organized by the Coccia Institute for the Italian Experience in America and Prof.ssa Enza Antenos, Dept. of World Languages & Cultures, at Montclair State University. This year’s event w...

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Renaissance Evolution has received a grant from the Italian government allowing the foundation to provide Italian language and Italian history teachers to selected American schools within five states: Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, and Mississippi. "We are thrilled that the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has chosen Renaissance Evol...

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Mr. Razzano is a third-generation Italian American with ancestral roots in Campania, Italy. In 2018, he met Dr. Federico Pacchioni, the founding director of the Ferrucci Institute for Italian Experience and Research, while attending the Italian Perspectives series. Impressed by the Italian Studies Program at Chapman, the two men struck up a friends...

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