Hello! My name is Simon.
I am 21, I come from Turin,
and the language I speak is called Piedmontese.
It is a language spoken in northwest Italy,
in a region called Piedmont.
You will find it to be very different from Italian,
but in Italy it is considered a "dialect",
because, as you well know, when a language
is different from Italian, it's a "dialect".
Well, we have decided, in Italy,
that understanding each other is not important.
So, people confuse words with each other,
people can't understand anything,
and we achieved right what we wanted to achieve:
give up all these languages, all this variety.
The Italian State dislikes this variety,
people think we don't need every city
to have its own way of speaking.
So we have decided to stop being different,
and nowadays most people only speak Italian.
I'm staying here nearby Turin, and if I go out
it's very difficult to speak Piedmontese,
because most people are not used to hearing
a young man speaking Piedmontese.
Today there are even people who find it hard to understand it.
If you use the right Piedmontese words
they don't understand you, so you have speak
an Italianized Piedmontese, in order
in order to have more chances of making yourself understood,
hoping they will understand your need of speaking Piedmontese
and... I don't know.
Anyway, what we "achieved", so far,
in northwest Italy is that local languages are vanishing.
In other place, in Italy, they may be a little more present
but they are vanishing no matter how.
Especially because native speakers
tend to mix these language with Italian,
and so heavily that they tend to become
what they are not: variants of Italian.
Nowadays many good and upright things could be done,
but we need support.
Support, yet, doesn't come because no one wants it to come.
There's always something better to do
than saving Italy's linguistic variety.
Furthermore, most people say
"Come on, let's speak Italian,
let's speak English, let's speak Chinese,"
and maybe, if someone is truly interested,
we can bring out our accent, our cadence,
our style, I mean... the Piedmontese style,
the character of the Piedmontese people,
of the people that live here, that have a specific manner.
We let all this be revived in plays, comedies,
but
sad and people don't want it to live.
Well, I have to say, furthermore,
that Piedmontese is totally not a shitty language.
It's got an orthography, a literary tradition,
and all those characteristics
typical of an organized and structured language,
that tries to survive and exist.
Yet, nobody knows it, and if nobody knows it
we are in real trouble. In real trouble! Well...
Anyway, I don't wanna give up hope,
and I still speak it, with no shame,
and we'll see what will happen.
I thought it a good idea to take part in the Wikitongues project,
since this language is surely not common to hear around.
Bye, all the best,
and speak your languages!
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