[At-Large] My comments on new gTLDs and the role of ICANN

[Roberto Gaetano]

Just a quick addition to the comprehensive post of Vittorio.
In Italy we have also other languages, like Furlan, spoken in the
North-East, that, while not taught is schools or recognized officially in
the administration, have an entry in the ISO table of languages.
Also, the different treatment of the populations who speak French, German or
Slovenian vs. those who speak Piemonteis, Furlan, and others, is that the
former communities had a sovereign country to back up the population, and it
became therefore a matter for international treaties, while the latter were
left at the mercy of the Italian Government, who could decide alone, without
any challenger.
Cheers,
Roberto


> -----Original Message-----
> From: at-large-bounces at atlarge-lists.icann.org 
> [mailto:at-large-bounces at atlarge-lists.icann.org] On Behalf 
> Of Vittorio Bertola
> Sent: Saturday, 08 November 2008 16:22
> To: At-Large Worldwide
> Subject: Re: [At-Large] My comments on new gTLDs and the role of ICANN
> 
> Thompson, Darlene ha scritto:
> > Hi Vittorio,
> > 
> > One thing in your e-mail below really stood out to me and I 
> would like 
> > to ask you a question.  This is a question only and should not be 
> > taken as me disagreeing with you.  Rather that we, in 
> Nunavut, Canada, 
> > are facing a similar problem with an ancient language 
> disappearing and 
> > I would like to compare notes with you as an open discussion.
> > 
> > The language to which you refer - are only the elderly 
> speaking it or 
> > are there any children that regularly use it at home and at play?
> 
> I think that the situation is similar to the one that you 
> report, though on a bigger scale. In cities, only people 
> 50-year-old or above usually know and talk the language; they 
> already did not teach it to their children born in the 70s 
> and later. In the mountains and hillsides, however, the 
> language is still common and most young people know it, 
> though they rarely use it.
> 
> We are talking about a potential speaking base of about 3-4 
> million people, plus a similar number emigrants in other 
> parts of the world (mainly Argentina) who kept it to a 
> certain extent. But the number of people actually using it in 
> everyday activities is much much smaller.
> 
> And it's not a single case - there's dozens of similar 
> situations throughout Europe, only in Italy there's at least 
> nine major endangered languages and several minor ones (see 
> http://www.helsinki.fi/~tasalmin/europe_index.html if you 
> like - and that's a 15-year-old picture).
> 
> The problem is that these languages have been dismissed and 
> abandoned throughout the entire 20th century - first in the 
> fascist era, when minority languages different from Italian 
> were considered a threat to nationalism, then in the decades 
> after the second world war, when television unified attitudes 
> and language throughout the country, and when a cultural 
> environment mostly dominated by left-wing thinkers saw these 
> ancient customs as a symbol of the agricultural past and of 
> inequalities.
> 
> For these reasons, while there is official recognition in 
> certain geographical areas of foreign minority languages 
> (French, German,
> Slovenian) that are taught at school, there is no recognition 
> of the ancient regional languages of Italy (from Piemonteis 
> to Sicilian), which are not taught at schools nor used in 
> official documents.
> 
> The biggest problem is that these are mostly oral languages; 
> even if actual literature exists, including poetry and plays, 
> there is no attitude and often no real standard to write 
> these languages down. They are considered to be "a thing of 
> the past", and often associated with the miseries of 
> pre-urban life, and with the ignorance of peasant ancestors. 
> The ones from Northern Italy were also frequently associated 
> with anti-immigration or plainly racist political movements, 
> which didn't help the recognition of their actual cultural value.
> 
> Now, why would a TLD help?
> 
> I think that the main issue is that these languages are dying 
> because people underestimate their importance. They do not 
> bother to use them or to teach them to children, because of 
> this perception of something useless, a relic from the past, 
> and also something funny and worthless.
> 
> People do not feel attached to them, paradoxically because 
> they do not realize that they exist and are in danger: 
> certain ways of saying and of speaking have been always part 
> of the local culture, so that people do not even notice that 
> they are using them (actually, most Italians can easily tell 
> that I am from Turin when I speak Italian, from certain 
> grammatical constructs, pronounciations or uses of verbs that 
> are literal translations of ones from Piemonteis, and that no 
> proper Italian speaker would use).
> 
> However, the more our world becomes global, the more our 
> roots become important - in a globalized culture, it is this 
> kind of ancient roots that gives you an identity amidst 
> people with other roots living with you.
> 
> A TLD, in my opinion, could be an effective wake up call - a 
> way to boost the sense of identity and create interest around 
> this cultural
> heritage: "if they create a set of Internet addresses for 
> this culture, there must be some value in it". And it could 
> be a call in the right direction, that is, transform this 
> culture from oral to written and from analog to digital, and 
> make material available for preservation online.
> 
> Then, I don't know - maybe it isn't. But it's always better 
> than just sit down and watch it die.
> 
> Ciao,
> -- 
> vb.                   Vittorio Bertola - vb [a] bertola.eu   <--------
> -------->  finally with a new website at http://bertola.eu/  <--------
> 
> 
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