The Italians

Read The Italians for Free Online

Book: Read The Italians for Free Online
Authors: John Hooper
Tags: nonfiction, Travel, Retail, Europe, Italy
Middle Ages had experienced self-rule, often as communes. Putnam’s analysis implies a line that divides Italy into just two areas: north and south. Cities like Bologna, on the periphery of the old Papal States, which were in practice independent of direct rule from Rome for much of their history, would come within the north. His thesis may not account for everything. Matera in Basilicata, for example, is a city that exhibits a fair amount of civismo . But his book does highlight an important way in which Italy’s history has contributed to its diversity. There are others.
    Government by foreigners has given a different flavor to different regions. In ancient times, Greek settlers established themselves on Sicily and in parts of the southern mainland, leaving an indelible mark on the local culture. Among other things, the name of the Calabrian mafia, the ’Ndrangheta, is thought to be of Greek origin. In Sicily, the Greek bedrock was overlaid with layers of Arab and Berber influence, which also touched parts of Puglia. The presence of Muslims over a period of centuries is often cited as an explanation for the traditionally low status of women in Sicily, and for the prevalence of so many dark-eyed, dark-haired beauties among the women of Puglia. Some Italians will tell you that, paradoxically, you are more likely to encounter a blond-haired or redheaded person on Sicily than on the mainland, and that that has to do with more than a century of Norman rule. What is certainly true is that the Spanish left their mark on the whole of the Mezzogiorno and are often blamed for having infused the southern upper classes with a contempt for work and an aversion to investment in anything but land. Precisely the opposite values have long held good in the north, which was repeatedly invaded by people of Germanic stock. The Goths and—probably to a much greater extent—the Lombards changed the ethnic composition of northern Italy and parts of the south as well. Austrian rule in the north in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is clearly visible in the mitteleuropäische look of the architecture of Milan and cities farther east. Saint Mark’s Cathedral in Venice bears witness to the influence of the Orthodox Christian east with which the Venetians traded profitably for hundreds of years.
    History—and specifically the endlessly shifting boundaries of the states in what is now Italy—helps explain why the country even today is such a linguist’s playground. Several completely foreign languages are spoken within its frontiers. More than three-quarters of the population of the Valle d’Aosta can speak either French or a Franco-Provençal patois. In the western districts of Piedmont, there are some 100,000 Occitan speakers. And in the Alto Adige/Südtirol, in addition to German, which is spoken by about 70 percent of the population—almost 350,000 people—there is Ladin, a language that is the mother tongue of some 20,000 Italians. Ladin is related to Friulian, which is spoken by far more people, around 300,000. Among the other languages to be found in Friuli–Venezia Giulia are Slovene, an archaic variant of Slovene known as Resian (considered by some experts to be a separate language), and various dialects of German.
    Croatian has a toehold in Molise. And there are some fifty Albanian-speaking communities scattered across the southern mainland and Sicily. The Arbëreshë, as they are known, are descendants of refugees who fled from Ottoman rule, beginning in the fifteenth century. Integration has whittled down their numbers over the years, but estimates of the number of Albanian speakers in Italy range up to a hundred thousand. * Another twenty thousand or so Italians are reckoned to speak a dialect of Greek called, appropriately enough, Griko. It lives on in a handful of villages in Puglia and Calabria, and even among some of the city dwellers of Reggio Calabria. Catalan is still spoken in and around the town of Alghero in

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