Welcome again to everybody! Make yourself at home. Have a seat in the overpriced, sweat-infused Razer™ gaming chair over there. In the time-honoured tradition of our group, here is our weekly discussion thread!

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  • @RedSquid
    2•1 year ago

    Yeah, I know, it’s stupid. But I will point out that Italian was chosen in around the 14th century - that’s why you can still read Dante and Petrarch and so on. Long before unification, Italian was displacing the other languages in terms of prestige or legal status. Like I’ve looked through old Kingdom of Two Sicily documents from the early 1800s and it’s all in Italian already.

    Personally, I would hope for a system like that in China - local languages are taught and protected, but everyone still has to learn Mandarin too. But I don’t see that happening now.

    • @frippa@lemmy.ml
      2•1 year ago

      Personally, I would hope for a system like that in China - local languages are taught and protected, but everyone still has to learn Mandarin too. But I don’t see that happening now.

      That would be perfect, another China w

      • @RedSquid
        2•1 year ago

        It’s ironic that the Dalai Lama once mentioned Trentino-Alto Adige as a model for Tibetan autonomy, kinda sus ngl. Vabbu.

        Also official status for a lot of these languages might help me, selfishly as I could finally get like a duolinguo course or whatever, in Sicilian :D

        • @frippa@lemmy.ml
          1•1 year ago

          Honestly I think we should sell either valle d aosta (better, they have only skii resorts for rich people) or Trentino (they at least keep apple prices low) to repay or giant debt

          • @RedSquid
            2•1 year ago

            I think you shouldn’t sell parts of the country to foreign vultures, I may be a bit biased or have a romanticized view being ‘not really Italian’, but the ‘debts’ that states run aren’t real in the same way as you or I if we borrow money from the bank. Also Italy should just get in the BRI and get some Chinese loans :)

            In a sane world, Germany would never have been able to exploit the “PIGS” (nice racist term there) to keep their exports going, but then we don’t live in a sane world.