Open arriving to work this morning I had waiting for me in my personal email in-box an email composed entirely in Italian. How else could it go?
In the restroom stall while changing from my commuting Lycra and polyester to my office job denim and cotton, I got to thinking about Italiana. Being in the cycling frame of mind, I got to thinking of the movie Breaking Away and how the main character, in his Italian persona, once says farewell to his love interest: "buenanotte". In Spanish good night is "buenas noches". Spanish and Italian are very similar languages, and phonetically the two farewells differ mainly by the soft "t" of the Italian being replaced with the hard "ch" of the Spanish. And this got me thinking.
I thought of how a slangy pronunciation of "you" has become CHOO or JOO. Once again the difference in pronunciation being a soft consonant, this time a "y" changed to the harder "ch" or "j". And this got me thinking.
We English speakers pronounce it "JOO-lee-uss" as in Julius Caesar. But the more accurate Latin is "YOO-lee-oose" as in "YOO-lee-oose KEE-sar". Again, the same difference from soft "y" to hard "j". Or "YAY-soose" as in Jesus Christ. Some people, of course, say "HEY-soose" or "HEY-zoose".
I didn't have anywhere in particular I was going with these thoughts. I suppose it's worth wondering if the transition from soft to hard is a common one, but by this time I had finished changing into my jeans and T-shirt and was on my way to disengaging my brain by way of sitting in a morning meeting.
Adiós mofos.
2 comments:
Goodnight in Italian is "buona notte" not whatever Spatalian you invented. Also, in Italian, as in most foreign language, countries, heritages, etc are not capitalized. Finally, Italian refers to words in the masculine form if there is ever any ambiguity about which to use. Therefore, you were thinking about italiano, not Italiana... sei ragazzo pazzo.
...or Prego. It's in there.
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