Sunday, October 10, 2010

Pasta, Conversation, and a Language Lesson

Wednesday was our last full day of class before our final with our beloved Florentine Art and History professor, Francesco. He is easily one of the best professors I have ever had, most because he is so unbelievably passionate about what he teaches.

His day job is giving tours all over Umbria, a region of Italy that includes his hometown of Perugia. He started by giving free tours as a college student to friends and relatives of friends, which has since grown into his own business that gives tours of Italy to many many people every year. If you’re ever in Umbria, look up “Guide in Umbria,” which is Francesco’s company. His accent is adorable and his knowledge is seemingly bottomless. You won’t regret it.

Today I had the pleasure of sitting near him and lunch and picking his brain over a big bowl of pasta one last time. He shared a few gems that I’d share with you. The conversation turned to Shakespeare, as conversations so often do when people realize that I am studying English and theater. I think it is most readily available melding of the two for most people. Francesco said that he loved Shakespeare and regretted only that he could not read it in its original English. I shared the same sentiment about Dante, whose poetry is absolutely stunning in Italian. Francesco told me that there is a saying in Italian that means “Translation is a betrayal.” I think it is something like, “La traduzione รจ un tradimento.” As sad as that makes me, it really is true. Languages are so rich with their own nuanced meanings and contextual rhythms that it is so hard to reproduce the emotional and linguistic effects of writing in a different language.

A rather odd example of this is the handbook of Scientology, which, yes, I read over the summer just to understand what all the hype was about. L. Ron Hubbard wrote that book with the idea of translation in mind, using very simple tenses and sentence structures that would make it fast and easy to translate, thus spreading his weird message around the world even faster. But he lost something with that choice. The language is passive, often devoid of emotional meaning. Just something that made me think.

Francesco also told me what “Ciao” means—a secret known to less than one percent of Italians in his estimation. Ciao is derived from schiavo, the Italian word for “slave.” So when you greet people with ciao you are essentially saying “I am the slave of you.” Something for your random information file.

Peace.

3 comments:

  1. Oh. That I did not know Schiavo. Thank You telling the origin of Ciao. In my country we use generally the word ciao and due to that it was so interesting to read this.

    Grazie mille.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Pasta, Conversation, and a Language Lesson...

    I found your entry interesting do I've added a Trackback to it on my weblog :)...

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...