But such controlled attempts to encourage one’s own ‘national language(s)’ hinder more than improve what they set out to do. The proposed Bill states the spread of English ‘demeans and mortifies’ Italian and has ‘negative repercussions for society as a whole’. Such a zero-sum approach makes for easy political grist, but is supremely blinkered.
Promoting one’s native languages – in this case, Italian – by connecting it with the suppression of non- native ones makes for a false binary. Terming English as a ‘British language’ is taking a narrow, archaic view of a de facto facilitating language, especially one used across multilingual Europe of which Italy is part of.
The draft Bill’s argument that English use is ‘particularly negative’ after post- Brexit Britain is no longer part of Europe makes as much sense as specious arguments that English be consigned to the dustbin in post-Independence India.
As we know ourselves in India, foisting a language upon a people can be as ineffective, fomenting unnecessary reactive resistance, as efforts to pull out a language that has popular use. Languages are tools – as is ChatGPT that Italy ‘temporarily blocked’ over data security concerns a day before proposing fines against foreign language usage.
Having more languages in one’s linguistic arsenal in today’s connected world puts countries and societies at an advantage. And without having to lose one’s tongue in a linguistic free market.
