WTI Magazine #42    2014 September, 3
Author : Manuela Bianchi for learnitalygroup.com      Translation by:

With the term romance or neo-Latin languages, we refer to those derived from Latin, following the expansion of the Roman Empire. But what does "romanzo" (novel) specifically mean? This word comes from the latin adverb "romanice" and refers to the vernacular way of talking (Romanice loqui), compared to the official Latin way of talking (Latin loqui). As an obvious result, the number of Romance languages would correspond to the number of all the different varieties of languages spoken in the vast territory once known as the Roman Empire.

To simplify things, Romanists have recognized nine romance languages. Among them we obviously find the Italian language. Yet, romance languages derive from Latin, and Latin belongs to a wider family of language called "Indo-European". Among the Indo-European languages there also are Germanic ones, and English comes straight from this root.

This is to remember that, in the world of linguistics, apparently very distant languages have been recognized as belonging to a common stock. Now, contacts between different cultures have led through the centuries to the creation of countless interference phenomena between them. It happens, therefore, that two languages can resemble in many respects, including the vocabulary. But as we have already told in other occasions, each language is socially coded and every culture interprets reality in different ways and forms.

For this reason, two words that apparently are similar can have two different meanings in their respective language systems: it is a very important topic to all language teachers for foreigners, called "false friends". Between Italian and English, for instance, let's talk about the Italian verb "attendere" (to wait) and the English verb "to attend"; or the Italian word "attualmente" (currently) and the English word "actually"; or the English "camera", a word that in Italian means "room". The Italian word "concorrenza" (competition) is very far from the meaning of the English word "concurrence"; the Italian "definitivamente" means "ultimately", far from the English similar word, "definitively". It can be said that a person is "educated", but in Italian that would not mean "educato" (which, instead, means "polite").

So, a little advice for those who love our language and want to learn it at the best: analyze these suspicious "friends" because, as an Italian proverb says, "to trust is good but to not trust is better"!

Today we will also discuss a topic that requires just a little memory effort: masculine and feminine plural of adjectives. We know that some students mistake the concordances of adjectives, as has recently happened at our headquarters in New York. Here is an example of this error: " le ragazze sono belle e divertente". There is something that does not come back in this phrase, and as the topic is simple, let's just briefly remember the rule. The adjectives in -o (masculine singular) form the plural in-i, while the adjectives in-a (feminine singular) form -e in the plural. For example: bello>belli; bella>belle. So far so clear. You just need to know that a few adjectives end in –e both in the masculine and feminine singular, such as gentile (kind), divertente (funny), intrigante (intriguing), attraente (attractive), intelligente (intelligent), importante (important) and so on. These adjectives form the plural in-i both for the masculine and for the feminine. So when you have an adjective ending in –e you have to be able to recognize the feminine plural of those ending in –a (bella>belle) and the singular of those ending in –e (importante).

In light of this brief summary, this is where the error was in the previous sentence: the right sentence is "le ragazze sono belle e divertenti" (girls are beautiful and fun). It 's easy! You just have to memorize the few adjectives that in their singular end in –e, and you are good to go!