Diary: Thea Lenarduzzi, (1) Language Families

My nonno was bilingual, as were most Italians of his age, for whom a regional language had always coexisted with Italiano standard. In fact, he was trilingual, speaking the very local Friulano with his wife, regional Veneto with his children, and nationalized Italian with my sister and me, who spoke that alone. No one is sure why he came to use different tongues for wife and children—“era così, nina …,” it’s like that, dear, says Nonna—but there seems to be an element of compromise. I think of Veneto as a kind of halfway house between Italian and Friulano, less strange to the non-speaker’s ear; I can understand most Veneto, while Friulano flummoxes me. The rationale in Nonno’s case may have been more personal, though: Veneto is the language his own mother grew up speaking, the language of her father’s “high” family, and the language his father knew to use to first get her attention. It is a tongue of airs and graces compared to the Friulano of the field hands. It was, his wife insisted, better. But this does not explain why the couple came to speak Friulano between themselves. Perhaps it was tit for tat.