Tuesday 18 May 2021

Bilingual Hearts


 

In Italy it is common to refer to the British Isles, Great Britain , the United Kingdom as Inghillterra. Literally of course Inghilterra is England. Great Britain would be Gran Bretagne, the United Kingdom - il Regno Unito, Le isole Britanniche- the British Isles. Inghilterra is an all embracing term for all of these names, not just England. That's the way it is, it's not offensive to the Scots, Welsh and Irish, not at all.

Sometimes the people living on the British Isles are referred to as Anglo-Sassone, the Anglo Saxons, or the British -i Britannici. 

It's the same in France, Les anglaises are the British, not just the English.  Scots people might loudly protest, 'Je suis Ecosse', not wanting to be called anglais, which is right , because they're not, they're Scottish. In Italia they are the Scozzese.

If you go to settle in a country which is not the one where you were born, not the one where your mum and dad live, not the one where they speak the language that you grew up speaking, for whatever reason, you will inevitably be asked, 'where are you from?' so here I am, I am English, from England, from the British Isles. Born in Britain where one of the first jokes I heard was,

'A Scotsman, an Englishman and a Welshman were looking at a cow in a field. The Englishman says 'That's an English cow'. The Welshman says 'that's a Welsh cow.' The Scotsman says 'That's a scottish cow, you can tell by the bagpipes.'

Now though after so many years Italy is my home. Italian is not my first language, it's acquired.  It doesn't come from deep in my heart like English does. It doesn't churn up vivid deep memories of childhood like English does, but I love it, I love the language and the people. I love England and Britain and its people.

I'm going to try and make my blog more bilingual so it will hopefully help and enrich anyone who loves these two countries.

Italy and Britain complement each other. They admire each other in unexpected ways with no envy at all. For example -queueing. Italians watch the way English people queue in awe. Knowing they are not keen on queuing they have a machine with a number, you take the number then you can chat and browse until your number is called. I'll be coming back to that in another post.

For today I will just say how Italy and  Britain complement each other. Shakespeare set quite a few of his plays in Italy.

Romeo and Juliet was a novella written by an Italian called Luigi Da Porto and Shakespeare used the story to give the world the rich language of love.

Romeo and Juliet is set in Verona.

Othello is set in Venice.

Much Ado about Nothing is set in Sicily.

The Merchant of venice is set in.. well Venice.

Two Gentlemen of Verona is set in .. Verona, and is supposedly the first play Shakespeare wrote.

All's well tha ends well is set in Florence

Julius Caesar is set in Rome.

Just to start the ball rolling with a new phase of my Cappuccino and Brioche blog which will have a more bilingual approach. I hope you enjoy reading it and love England and Italy like I do.





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