ITALIAN LANGUAGE: ACCADEMIA CRUSCA, 'AT RISK OF DISAPPEARANCE WITH ENGLISH DOMINATION IN UNIVERSITY''
“The progressive elimination of Italian from university teaching (as well as research) in view of a future monolingualism English constitutes, as the European Federation of National Institutions for Language has also observed, a serious risk for the survival of Italian as a language of culture, first of all, but also as a language tout court , once deprived of fundamental sectors such as technical and sectoral languages”.
This is the alarmed concern that the Accademia della Crusca, through its president Paolo D'Achille, full professor of Italian Linguistics at the Department of Humanistic Studies of the University of Roma Tre. addressed to the Minister of University and Scientific Research, Anna Maria Bernini. The position taken by the president of the Accademia Crusca comes after in recent days the secular Florentine institution, reports Adnkronos, was informed of the fact that at the University of Bologna, Rimini headquarters, the Degree Course in Economics of Tourism, starting from the 2024/2025 academic year, will cease while the one called 'Economics of Tourism and Cities' will remain in place, the teachings of which will be held entirely in English.
This report was followed up a long series of emails with requests for intervention, also received from tourist operators. “In its capacity as a state institute which has among its institutional tasks that of promoting and protecting the study of the Italian language”, the Accademia della Crusca has decided to make its voice heard with an open letter addressed to Minister Bernini and the Magnificent Rector of the Alma Mater University of Bologna, Giovanni Molari.
“The course in English is a three-year course and among the objectives of all three-year degree courses, of any class, is, by law, that those who obtain the qualification have full command of Italian; how can this objective be ensured from a course 'which will be taught entirely in English', as specified on the Alma Mater website? – asks the president of the Accademia della Crusca. There is an explicit ruling from the Constitutional Court which, while admitting and indeed promoting teaching in English, expressly requires that the Italian language not be completely excluded from every course of study, so much so that even the Polytechnic of Milan, which provided courses (which were master's courses and not three-year courses) entirely in English, took this ruling at least partially into account by inserting some courses (even if secondary and/or optional) in Italian.
How is it possible that this sentence is ignored?”. Paolo D'Achille, finally, underlines that the title of the course, “Economics of tourism in the disused Italian title, Economics of Tourism and Cities in the English one, talks about tourism and it is plausible to think that we are referring to what has as its object Italy, its cities, its incomparable heritage of natural, artistic, archaeological, historical and cultural assets. Is it possible that in this context the Italian language is completely cut out? But aren't the names of the cities, of the artists, of the works, of the museums still in Italian?” The Accademia della Crusca is now awaiting answers to these questions from Minister Bernini and the rector Molari.
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