lundi 21 avril 2014

When just speaking Italian is not enough

I originally wanted to talk about Easter in Italy, but this story has been on my mind for the past few hours.

I spent the summer of 2006 in my father's town in Sicily. It was a great summer: the beach was great, I hung out with Italians practicing my Italian all day, Italy won the World Cup, I ate some great food, etc., etc. One thing from that summer, more sinister than I could even imagine, will always live on in my mind.

The thing you should understand about this town is that there are some people that don't know how to speak Italian. No, that wasn't a typo, there are people here that really don't know how to speak Italian. This is one of those places in Italy where the local dialect is alive and well. Of course all of the young people can speak Italian, but there are a lot of older people that never learned to speak Italian. Back when they were young Italian children weren't required to finish primary school and they spoke in dialect at home. One of my mother's aunts never even finished the 2nd grade. They understand Italian, though, from watching TV, but they just can't speak it because everyone else around them speaks dialect so there was never any reason to learn how to speak Italian. Speaking in dialect, however, is not only limited to elderly people. My cousins are both university graduates, under 40 years old and they speak in dialect all the time.

So if you are a foreigner learning Italian and you go to one of these places it is a bit disappointing when you realise that you still have difficulties communicating even though your Italian is pretty good. I accept this difficulty as a challenge and usually just let everyone go on in Sicilian even though I can only understand half of what is being said. You feel proud when you realise that you have understood them and can respond. I just try to tell myself that the local dialect is part of their heritage and it would be awful if I made them speak in Italian (and besides, like I said, some of them don't know how to speak Italian).

One evening at the dinner table my cousin and her husband, who are both teachers, were talking about a student. This student's father came from Sicily, but the mother was from Bergamo up north near Milan (I didn't know this then, all I knew was that she was from the north). Even though all the conversation was in dialect, I understood that something terrible had happened to them. One day the student's brother was playing outside with another little boy (they were around 4 years old). They wandered off onto the neighbour's property where there was a well. The brother climbed onto the well and fell in. When the mother realised what was happening she jumped into the well to save her son. Unfortunately, she was too late to save him and she almost drowned herself. The paramedics had to resuscitate her when they arrived on the scene of the accident.

This is not the end of their horror. The family tried to prosecute the neighbour as not covering your well or filling it up is illegal. They were unable to do so, however. Why? The neighbour was one the leaders of the mafia. There was nothing they could do - he was completely protected and the family, unfortunately, was not.

This is the deepest, darkest side of Italy. (No, I am not saying that the mafia is in every nook and cranny of Sicily - there is so much more to Sicily than the mafia and I hate that everyone automatically thinks of the mafia when they think of Sicily because of all the American mafia movies.)



Lemon, olive and cactus trees framing such a beautiful setting. Author of photo: Den Nation.


A few days later my cousin and her husband talk about going to meet up with a student and her mother for ice cream after dinner. As usual, the conversation was in dialect and I completely missed that we would be meeting up with the same family that had lost their son in the well accident.

So there I am sitting in front of the mother, this person who had suffered so much in her lifetime, and I started to ask her questions about where she came from. It isn't too often that you come across someone from the north living in the south. I felt that she was almost as much a foreigner down there as I was. So I went on and on, asking her about her experiences in the south. I had no idea that this was the mother that had lost her son in the accident. I felt my cousin pressing hard on my foot and couldn't understand what the problem was. I went on, "So why do you say that you wish you had never moved down here?" My cousin started to hit me under the table. Ok, maybe I was getting a bit too personal, but the mother seemed so willing to talk to me that I thought that my questions weren't that invasive. I quickly rephrased my question, "I mean you must miss your family up there so much, that must be what you mean." I stopped asking her questions and encouraged her to ask me about Canada, which she was more than happy to do.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" my cousin said when we got in the car. "What, what did I say?" I responded. "You know that she lost her son in the well accident, why were you asking her all those insensitive questions?" Oh, no. I know it wasn't my fault and it wasn't my cousin's fault, but I still felt guilty. My cousin had forgotten that I did not completely understand everything when they spoke in dialect (she doesn't even realise she is speaking in dialect when she does) as I was usually able to put two and two together and I didn't want to bother my family at the dinner table by asking them to interpret what they had said into Italian.

This really reminded me that speaking Italian well is not always enough. In some communities, the local dialect is engrained into the local culture. You cannot really live and be integrated into these communities unless you can understand the local dialect. I met some foreigners down south who could speak the local dialect better than they could speak Italian.

I'll never forget the woman who lost her son in the well accident. Things have slowly been changing in Sicily, but I wonder if they have changed enough? The accident happened around 20 years ago. Does the neighbour have as much authority today as he had back then? I like to think that this is not the case, but things can't change that quickly. I hope the well can be closed one day.

14 commentaires:

  1. How awful! I really feel for her. What an uncomfortable situation for you to be in as well.

    RépondreSupprimer
    Réponses
    1. I know, it really is awful. She must blame herself so much, saying that she should have been watching him more. I hope that she doesn't think that, because no parent could watch their children 24/7.

      These kinds of situations are going to happen when you live abroad whether you want them to happen or not. I am happy to have these kinds of experiences - makes for good laughing material later! (well, I'm not laughing about the woman and her son, but you get the idea).

      Supprimer
  2. What a sad story! I really felt for you as well - I know that I find it harder to follow stories about other people and remember who is who when I'm working in French (where I understand pretty much everything) so it must have been really difficult for you in Sicilian dialect.

    I really hope that things will get better in Italy too. My friends there seem pretty optimistic about the new prime minister, so that's a start.

    RépondreSupprimer
    Réponses
    1. Yes, it's a terrible story and sometimes when I remember her it's all I can think of for a few hours (like when I wrote this post).

      The Sicilian dialects is one of the worst in Italy to understand. I find the Naples dialect, however, to be much worse.

      In my opinion, Italians articulate very well when they speak Italian. You only need to be around Sicilians speaking Sicilians to start thinking that.

      I really wish things could get better as well. Honestly, though, it must be the cynic in me, but I don't think the situation is looking up. There are more and more Italians moving to Bordeaux (great for me but not for Italy) as I hear Italian being spoken everywhere. Even in France, which suffers from its own brain-drain, Italians are moving over here in droves.

      Supprimer
  3. Poor woman.

    The thing about speaking a language pretty well is that people sometimes assume you understand everything. With someone who doesn't speak the language at all, they will slow down, but if you seem to understand the gist, they speak normally and it's easy to miss something.

    RépondreSupprimer
    Réponses
    1. They don't slow down at all, especially the elderly people. And I would even say that they don't slow down for people that don't speak the language well because they are not used to being around foreigners that can't speak the language. You just have to put yourself out there and hope for the best. It's a sink or swim situation.

      Supprimer
  4. In my family we speak Hokkien, a type of Chinese dialect. My husband was disappointed as he hoped to learn Mandarin with us but he only hears us speaking Hokkien. The Chinese community in Malaysia speak different dialects, and since not everyone could speak Mandarin, it is not uncommon to see two Chinese speaking English as they don't share a common dialect.

    RépondreSupprimer
    Réponses
    1. So you're saying that there are Chinese people that don't know how to speak Chinese? After my experience in Sicily, I totally believe what you are saying.

      I used to think that it was a bad thing that these Sicilians couldn't speak Italian. Now I think that it is really beautiful that they are so connected to their heritage and keep their traditions alive. Sometimes I find Canada (the south at least) to be too homogenous. It's interesting to see how united some countries are on a national level, but how regionally united they are in turn.

      Supprimer
    2. Chinese communities living outside of China and Taiwan do not naturally speak Mandarin or Chinese dialects. It depends on their family education. There are Chinese families in Singapore prefer to speak English to their children, so these children growing up having English as their mother tongue. I have a Malaysian Chinese friend here in France, she speaks Cantonese but understands Mandarin, I speak Mandarin but not comfortable in speaking Cantonese, so we always speak English among ourselves. On the other hand, I have a friend speaking Mandarin to her kids at home, speaks Cantonese to her husband and Hokkien to her mother. So there are three different Chinese languages spoken at the same time at home.

      Supprimer
    3. Wow, that sounds really complicated!

      In Canada some of the Italian immigrants' children speak some sort of Italian with a lot of dialect thrown in. That's because their parents only spoke dialect at home when they were growing up and never learned Italian (because like I said in my post, back then children only completed a few years of schooling) and then passed on their way of thinking to their children.

      I can see how some Chinese children growing up outside of China would grow up speaking English. If one parent spoke Mandarin and the other Cantonese, it would be pretty difficult to communicate. I hope they grow up knowing their parents' culture, though.

      Supprimer
  5. That is quite tragic. And I could feel for you trying to be open and friendly and not realizing the history involved. Reminds me of my first months in France when I didn't get all the nuances. You never know when to jump in a conversation for fear of the topic changing without you realizing!

    RépondreSupprimer
    Réponses
    1. You just kind of sit there like a dummy sometimes. It is so exhausting asking everyone to constantly repeat themselves. You just feel like just a pest, such a burden to everyone. I really hate this feeling. So sometimes I would just say nothing and get in trouble later (like in this case). You can't win, can you? Either your pester them to repeat themselves or you sit there and say nothing, oblivious to what is going on.

      Supprimer
  6. How sad, but I don't think you can beat yourself up about it. You said the woman seemed quite open to talking to you: I wonder if it's sometimes others who are more sensitive about blundering into these topics of conversation. After all, it's not as though she would have forgotten about her terrible loss until you brought it up. For some people, it may even be preferable to just have a "normal" conversation instead of being treated with kid gloves by everyone who knows her story.

    RépondreSupprimer
    Réponses
    1. I can understand my cousin not wanting to talk about it: it's a small town and everyone knows everyone's business. That said, maybe this lady was looking for a fresh, non-Italian face that didn't know about the accident so she wouldn't have to bear yet another person's pity. So yes, I definitely agree, she probably enjoyed conversing with me.

      Supprimer