Classic 😂. Knew a guy from the US who was traveling in Argentina. His surname was Rector. Once it was announced in a way that sounded a lot like “recto” (rectum). He never lived it down. It didn’t help that a nickname for his first name when read phonetically was local slang for a blowjob either.
A lot of Italian words we pronounce differently are mainly from back in the late 1800s/early 1900s when English speakers saw Italian words written down and had never heard them before so they just guessed pronunciation and we just kept whatever their guess happened to be.
@@Blox117LMAO IT's PISA you USA NOOORMIEEEESS MRRRMRMRMRMMRMRMR... I am going to visit NY for the first time in my life, this year. I am so excited. Love from Italy.
There's a story behind "pasta Alfredo". It actually originated in Rome, where there are still two restaurants with the name Afredo. Alfredo sold his first restaurant and later opened another. There's a video about it. But in the end it is basically "pasta al burro" with pecorino on top.
“Fettuccine Alfredo” they are simply fettuccine with butter and parmigiano reggiano (not Pecorino !) and it is a dish that was born in the Alfredo restaurant in Rome. The Americans then made an entirely "American style” version of this dish, adding things that do not exist in the original dish. So, as he says here in the video, saying “Alfredo doesn't exist”, is completely wrong ! It must simply be said that that version that the Americans make does not exist here in Italy. PS: In our homes in Italy we simply call this dish “pasta al burro” or “pasta burro e parmigiano” (butter and parmesan).
I'd like to see you do a reaction on how New Yorkers pronounce Italian words, some of them are pretty wild. I remember watching a video of some guy insisting that ricotta is properly pronounced 'rigada' or something like that.
They pronounce it that way because their ancestors which came from Napoli, Calabria, Sicilia (generally the south) spoke dialect at home and not standard Italian. Therefore things like Ricotta becomes Ricot‘ Prosciutto becomes Prosciut‘. Nontherless over the years the pronounciation just became worse and worse and I myself sometimes cringe when I watch the Sopranos 🤣
Pastrami is Romanian Yiddish, originally spelled pastrame. American English is a grab bag of loan words, usually keeping the original spelling for languages using Roman alphabet. So we have the fun of knowing or guessing which language’s rules apply. My surname is something most English speakers will guess the correct pronunciation of about half the time, being a German loanword in Bohemian Czech. What Spanish speakers do is something I would not recognize the first time I heard that pronunciation.
Pastrami is not a Yiddish word. It is a Romanian word. Air cured pastirma meats are popular across all the former Ottoman realms. But yes it (the most common beef version) became a popular part of American cuisine mostly thanks to Jewish immigrants, because it meets Kosher laws.
@@danieleyre8913 What I meant was that pastrami entered English through Romanian Jews. Much of southeastern Europe was part of the Ottoman Empire, so a Turkish origin seems reasonable.
@@tomhalla426 That’s all very true. But in the opening sentence of your post you claim that Pastrami is a Yiddish language word. That is a factual falsehood.
Pastrami is a Romanian food, but the word comes from Turkish: 'The name pastrami comes from the Turkish pastırma, derived from the Turkish and Azerbaijan verb bastırma meaning "to press".' (Wikipedia)
I feel your pain, Metatron, but hey we're speaking English! I'm sure that if you use an English word in Italian, it may very well mutate to some version of Italian pronunciation. I knew a guy at my last job who loved to talk about foreign places using the original language words. München for Munich as an example. I called him on it that many, many English speakers frankly wouldn't know what he was talking about. Syang Gang for Hong Kong? Moskva for Moscow? Nürnberg for Nuremberg? We English speakers mutate words for whatever reason. Speakers of other languages are welcome to do the same!
Oh boy, this one brings me so many personal memories! Ok, so I grew up surrounded by Italians, so naturally I became a fluent speaker of Italian at a young age. When I came back to Argentina, I used to get secretly angry whenever I saw badly labeled/pronounced Italian foods... It's been quite a few years and I have learned to live with the feeling. Here are a few examples: ñoqui instead of gnocco (singular ñoqui is a derogatory term for government employees), and ñoquis instead gnocchi (traditionally prepared on the 28th of each month), almost nowhere you find spaghetti but usually espagueti (or just fideos, umbrella term for pasta), lasaña instead of lasagna (always singular), pizza is most commonly pronounced [pisa] or sometimes **gasp** [piksa], and speaking of pizza, we have our own versions where dough is usually much taller and crusty instead of the original thin dough found in Italy, our two most popular pizzas are Muzza (of course pronounced [Musa]) which has only tomato sauce and cheese (which isn't always mozzarella, which in turn never is made with latte di bufala), and Napolitana which is heavy on garlic and tomato slices (tastes great), cappuccino always seems to be missing either a p or a c when they try writing the original Italian word (instead I prefer the Hispanized word "capuchino"). I'm sure there are more which I'm forgetting at the moment. Metatron, do more videos about Italian-Argentinian stuff! Ciaooo, a presto!
4:28 as a mexican I felt this sooo bad. in the US its the norm to say "want a tamale?" but the correct way to say it is "want a tamal?" tamale(s) is the plural and tamal is the singular
The Piedmont region of South Carolina bears the Italian name “Piedmont”. I find that interesting, given how South Carolina was mostly settled by Scottish and English peoples.
I suppose it’s being used in a more geographical context. At least in the case of South Carolina, it is being used aptly. For if I recall, “Piedmont” in Italian means something akin to “lowlands” or “foothills” in English, which quite accurately describes most parts of upstate South Carolina.
Now, imagine being born of Sicilian parents, raised in an Italian neighborhood in South Philadelphia, and going to a Preparatory School where you are the only Italian (Sicilian)!
I believe that bologna (also spelled baloney for the meat) is pronounced as such because Latin words that end in -ia have a pattern of turning into -y in english. Italia -> italy The Latin name for bologna was actually Bolonia, so this entered english, lost the a and the i turned into a y. But in Italian the ni became the similar gn, obscuring the pronunciation shift.
Grazie mille for your little declaration of Italian word's. In Germany they also pronounce some word's not so good. For example ,una Pizza "quattro stazioni". They mean a "quattro stagioni" Four season's. But they say four busstops. 😂
Buona domenica. I don't know if, where you live in the US, they serve supposedly Italian-style black coffee with a slice of lemon. This is unknown in Northern Italy, but I read that it was originally an old Sicilian custom that I think has died out in Sicily itself, but has remained alive in America. Other Italian cities with names in English: Turin (Torino), Genoa (Genova), Mantua (Mantova), Padua (Padova) and Leghorn (Livorno).
My Nonna was from Calabria, born sometime in the early 1900s. I'm not entirely sure of the exact year. She was mostly raised in the US. So, she had no formal italian education. I remember her saying she spoke dirt italian and didn't want her children or grandchildren to learn from her. I imagine she wasn't alone in her experience. I think italian Americans speak bizarrely because of reasons like the ones I've mentioned. It may be worth your time to find out.
Well, even if she had been raised back in Calabria in the early 1900s she wouldn't really have been given a formal "Italian education." Southern Italy in general in the late 19th and early 20th century was a very different place than it is today. Unless she came from a more urban center (and avoided the Wars) she would have had very shall we say "traditional" life for women in this region. The history of Italian migration into the USA is very interesting and sad. Your nonna came in a very dark time for Italian migrants. Her reception probably altered her opinions of fully expressing her Italian pride. The short version: from 1890-1940 Italians (especially Southern Italians and Sicilians) were the largest migration group in the USA. And just like today there was extreme racism and ant-immigrant feelings in the USA. And...since southern Italians tended to be poor, uneducated, and lacked trade skills they were extremely easy targets and victims. When WWI and WWII started things just got worse. It was very common for Italians to change their name, hide their Italian heritage, and quickly replace their Italian with English. It's a very sad event that took a long time in the USA to begin to change, and I hate to say it....but it seems they didn't really change. They just switched from attacking Italians to attacking Latin Americans the same why they did the Italians.
@@unarealtaragionevole. Today instead (but not only today) they attack black people. Unfortunately they always find someone to attack. Let's say that things haven't changed over the years.
@user-hu4nf1lh5i as far as I understand things you're spot on. The only thing I'd question is the formal education that she may have received in Calabria. Maybe she would've attended some sort of basic education either from a poorly funded primary school, a local parish, or maybe just exposure from her village of origin. More to the point, i think, th is must have repeated itself in a number of different ways. I imagine from each province speaking their own language, meeting in the US, and trying to speak in a way they could understand each other. Their children, like my father, wouldn't necessarily have known or understood that Italy had so many different languages that may have been mixed and match in the US. I don't really know, I really am guessing.
@@anthonyfrontera4495 Hello again, hmm....maybe "formal education" was not the best choice of wording. I apologize. Yes, they had schools in the south; and many at least had an opportunity to receive a primary education. But we are talking about a very different time period. The world in general, but specifically southern Italy at this time (assuming she came from a more rural region of course) had a very different mentality. When I said "formal education" I was actually talking about her Italian language exposure in the Italian school systems of the early 20th century cause many people do not fully know, or fully appreciate, the history of the standard in Italy. Yes, it's been pushed since the mid 19th century, but it wasn't really until modern mass media and technology that it really exploded and began to take over in the last 50-75 years or so. Your...and...my parents/grandparent came from an age of transition when Italy still preferred to use more of the regional dialects and languages than the usage of the standard. For example, my family is a wonderful example of this. My mother was Greek, she came to Sicilia as a girl and grew up speaking Greek, Sicilianu, and Trapanese. They learned standard Italian in school but never spoke or used it, it was just something she was forced to learn in school. She moved to Napoli and learned to speak Napulitano. Then she moved to Roma and had to learn Romanesco. My father was from Torino and he also learned the standard in school but never spoke it. He spoke Torinese and Piedmontese. When he moved to Roma he also learned Romanesco. They moved back to Sicilia shortly before I was born. I grew up in a home that spoke all these languages and dialects depending on who was speaking, when they were speaking, and what mindset they were in when speaking. My parents actually communicated in Romanesco most of the time. However, my parents were very strict that I speak the standard and I was forced to go study "proper Italian diction" so much that I am an Italian, who spent the majority of his life in Italy...but when I speak I have virtually no accent and most Italians don't think I'm Italian because of my lack of accent when I speak. ;o) Now going back to "dirty Italian." This could have a different meaning also. I would love to have asked your nonna about this because there is also another thing we need to consider. "Dirty Italian," could be a reference to a negative perception of the language. As I said, the racism and anti-Italian sentiments of the early 20th century were very powerful to Italians. So it might have been this type of thing. But there is another thing it might have been a reference to....the south of Italy has a stereotype of being rural, uneducated, backwards......blah blah blah. One of the negative terms used to describe people from southern Italy is "terrone" which basically describes a person as dirty, soiled, rough / unsophisticated, of the Earth.....basically the proverbial country bumpkin. Terrone can also sometimes be used to describe something as "southern." In a colorful but not always negative way. So she might have been saying in a tongue in cheek way that her Italian was a southern variety also. ;o) I would love to have asked her what she meant.
I try to pronounce things correctly if the people who work at the restaurant are Italian. But if you go to Fazoli's and ask for baked Lasagne and pronounce like you do, those American high schoolers wont know what you are talking about. I seldom eat at Italian restaurants because they really aren't. They're just pasta restaurants. And Italian cooking is so much more than pasta.
Fettucine Alfredo originated in Rome, with that same name, in the first part of the 20th century.. I don't know if they still use that name in Rome, but the fact is that it comes from Italy. In Argentina we call them fettucine with butter and parmigiano, but the original name is Alfredo.
Yep, though the stuff you get in modern American restaurants is a cheesy white sauce (of vastly varying cheese content) that has little in common with the butter+cheese+noodles original.
Actually the guy Alfredo took the poorest and cheapest dish that had existed for probably centuries trough the whole of Italy, known as “pasta a cacio e burro” or similar names. The thing is that he presented it to rich and famous people and among them several american Hollywood actors and the rest is history. Or legend, perhaps.
We Italian Americans have a unique mix and localization of old dishes and adaptations. I know that one big reason dishes are different was because of the cheaper cost of meat in the US compared to italy in the old days. Regardless, I just hope all sides can understand that we are a localized group, unlike Italy but still close in cultural connections. Viva L’Italia!
I’m cool with Italian Americans preserving their unique culture within the USA. But I get annoyed when they declare themselves to be “Italian” as though their culture and identity is that of or the same as that on the actual Italian peninsula. Yes Italian-Americans have retained many of the culture and identity of their Italian ancestors, but they are still Americans and very different to bonafide Italians.
@@koschmx Well you must be an exception to the norm then. Because every Italian-American I have encountered in person was unmistakably American and the only chance they would ever be mistaken for a bonafide Italian from Italy would be if they suddenly completely changed their wardrobe and learned some dialect of Italian fluently. They might also need to visit an Italian hair stylist. Beyond their accents; their attire, tastes, demeanour, opinion’s & outlooks were unmistakably American. Because… …they were Americans from somewhere in America. Sure; they still had a few bits of cultural baggage from their Italian ancestors (which are becoming increasingly distant) and they always looked a bit Italian in the face, complexion, and body shape (albeit usually with a lot more podge on them), but they would never be mistaken for any actual Italian. I have mistaken a few Argentines and one Uruguayan I met for bonafide Italians (they all had Italian heritage) but never any of the Italian-Americans I have encountered. Literally the week before last; my company hosted an offsite and flew our American colleagues over, and about half of them were Italian-Americans, and they would never be mistaken for from the same nation as my bonafide Italian colleagues. I also have to say that you have an odd expectation of Italians somehow not preserving their own culture… …in their own country LOL. Italy has always been among the world leaders in food production, technology and export, even in the late 19th century when they had only recently unified. Not quite sure what the rest of your rant is all about other than to suggest that you seem to resent Italians for some odd reason. But actually nobody in Italy speaks Greek, a few pockets of people in Calabria speak a language called “Griko” which is in the Hellenic branch and derived from older forms of Greek, but they eat their own local food like the rest of the Italians do. There’s no sudden boundary shift of cuisine across borders in Europe, yes the food of the Italians in the Alps is very close to that of Austria because… ….they live in the same environment. And yes some people in the Italian Trent speak German, most do not. Italy has a spectrum of different local cultures and linguistic dialects (or even different languages) and differences in cuisine, architecture, etc. This is nothing odd in Europe (Germany, France, and Spain at the very least also all do) and is hardly surprising given that Italy only united as one nation in the 1860s and previously spent many centuries fractured into several different states & puppets of outside empires all with their own economies, histories, local identities, etc. So yes Corn polenta, Risotto, fresh pasta and butter are more common in the north and dried pasta & olive oil is more common in the south. If anything; that only makes Americans thinking they are Italian because of their ancestry even more silly. If it makes you feel better; those declared “Irish-Americans”, “Polish-Americans”, etc are no less silly. P.S. What’s strange about me referring to Italy as a peninsular?
@@koschmx LOL well there is a massive geographic feature that the republic of Italy is situated on called the Italian peninsular, so I can’t see your logic in declaring that I don’t understand Italian-Americans by using that geographic reference. And no I never mentioned the many Italian-Americans having a fair amount of non-Italian ancestry (*cough* Irish). But anyhoo: Yes if your grandfather was from Italy; he was Italian. He grew up in Italy during his formative years and no matter how naturalised an American he may have later became; that would have never been gone from him. But if you grew up in the USA; you’re an American, and you are not your grandfather. You may later live in Italy and become naturalised, in which case you might also become an Italian with dual nationality. But the vast majority of Italian-Americans have never lived beyond the USA (a good many have never even ventured beyond) and many of their most recent Italian-born ancestors immigrated to the USA well over a century ago, and were dead before they were born. With the generations between; little to none of their ancestor’s Italian culture had been maintained, so how on earth are they bonafide Italian??!
@@danieleyre8913 Absolutely, but that is just part of the local way to differentiate Americans. All ethnic groups do this to identify each other. One big reason being the ethnic tensions that used to exist between the groups, this being a remnant of that past. But I agree with you that the way they act isn’t at all related to Italy anymore. If anything most “Italian-Americans” dont even have the cultural traits of the Italian part of them anymore.
From what I’ve read, Alfredo sauce supposedly originated from the personal recipe of an Italian immigrant to America. His name, presumably, was Alfredo.
It's strange how many Americans pronounce Italian words or even famous Italian names. However, I find it even more strange (and I see it in some videos here on UA-cam) when it is the Italians themselves in America who pronounce these words as Americans do. Instead of being an example, they do the same thing as Americans.
@@Astavyastataa But on the contrary, Americans in Italy pronounce English words in an original way and not in the strange way that many of my compatriots pronounce them. I live here in Germany and when I speak to Germans, I always pronounce Italian words in an original way and never in the way that Germans often pronounce them. Because if an Italian word doesn't pronounce it well not even an Italian, after we shouldn't be surprised if foreigners pronounce them in a strange way. PS: among other things, in addition to being Italian, I am also an Italian teacher. So, if I don't give an example, as an Italian teacher, who will give an example ?
Correction: Came *to America* from Jewish immigrants to New York. It came to Eastern Europe first from the Ottoman Empire. It’s popular across all former Ottoman realms, and in Turkish is _pastirma_
There is such a thing as Alfredo pasta in Italy! It's in Rome, in a ristorante Alfredo (or something like that). Other Italians just call it pasta all burro (pasta, butter, parmigiano).
Well, the Romans call it “pasta dei cornuti” which translates “cuckold pasta” as it is a pasta with a sauce ready in no time, because the wife was busy seeing someone else instead of cooking…
I'm waiting for you to drop a video on Soprano-speak (see the series _The Sopranos_ originally on HBO) with "breshoot" for "prosciutto," "manigott" for "manicotti," "gabagool" for "capicola," "gavón" for "cafone," "Nabledon" for "Napolitano," etc. I had read somewhere that the tendency to voice consonants that had originally been voiceless and to drop vowels at the end of words had been a tendency of people from near Naples, but how true that is I know not.
Thank the Lord you finally have access to real Italian food (Olive Garden). Real question: why are Italians so emotional about peasant food? Pizza and spaghetti are popular in the USA, because the poorest people in Italy moved here and that’s what they ate. Every time I talk to an Italian about American pizza, I can’t help but think to myself, “I’d never get this worked up about how burgers are made.”
A properly made burger can be elevated to a complete work of art. It’s all about what is put into it. Same with pizza or [insert traditional comfort food here].
Side note but when my Nonna visited America, she came back to Italy and was fascinated that “Americans put meatballs in between bread”. Turns out, she was describing hamburgers, and it was the sweetest for her to be excited.
Turns out that if you bastardize or mess up food from a certain country people from that country are gonna get mad, especially if it's an iconic or national food
Hello Metatron. I saw this before, but the text said 5h? Despite growing up with Italian neighbours, I say "spag bol", like any English northerner. I pronounce calzone correctly, but I have to admit my favourite is doner meat special with extra chilli sauce. At least US nearly say "pizza" right, but why put "pie" on the end? They cannot make it like Italians though, with nice and thin crust. Who am I to say though, if not drinking instant coffee, I buy it ready ground at Costco in a big tin. One back for US.
Metatron I think you are living in the Midwest. In middle America they are clueless about these things. I’m not saying you wouldn’t most likely push back as well visiting the east coast like New Jersey where I’m from, if you were to visit here, but at least your experience dining at an Italian restaurant will be much more authentic in New York or New Jersey since we obviously have a long and storied Italian American community here. Just don’t get too fired up when we shorten many words since our pronunciation is heavily influenced by napoletano and siciliano as that’s predominantly where our roots are when it comes to linguistics.
I find videos like this entertaining, which I think is the spirit in which it was made. But a serious linguistic question: at what point does an adopted foreign word become a part of the new language, at which point it no longer makes sense to speak about how the word is pronounced in the original language? Obviously English has thousands of loan words from various sources and most don't seem jarring when they're pronounced with Anglophone phonemes because they were adopted long ago and the words have changed in the meantime anyway. Are there any "rules" about how this adoption happens, why English speakers still try to pronounce hors d'oeuvres similar to the french but karaoke is very different? I'd be interested in a discussion of this phenomenon as it relates to English or Anglicisms in other languages. (In the meantime I'll continue ordering my calzone without a final e).
In the US, we don't Anglicize words the same way as the British do. We attempt (to varying degrees of success) to retain some of the spelling and pronunciation rules (as we perceive them) of the originating language when borrowing words from other languages. The Brits tend to normalize the spelling and pronunciation using British English conventions. It's a generalization, but it does explain some of the divergence between American and British English.
@@MichaelScheele Not always - the number of immigrants that got their names 'anglicised' upon entry is countless - though admittedly there are somewhat extenuating circumstances. There are also funny linguistic fossils, such as 'Illinois' or 'Arkansas' which were French attempts to reproduce the (perceived) pronunciation of the native names, but have ended up being pronounced 'the English way' from reading French maps.
Don't stress too much about the pronunciation at Italian restaurants in the US.Outside maybe New York it's probably owned by a Chinese family who also owns the local Chinese joint and the cooks are probably all Mexican.I had some red clam sauce that was hot enough to take the enamel off your teeth and told the waitress to tell the cooks to be careful because some of the customers might be Gringos.Nice attempts at Murican,BTW.
Oh yes, the United States, the only place that will look you in the eye and say an "authentic Italian restaurant" is one owned by an German who serves you BBQ Pork Rigatoni that was cooked by a Mexican. But hey, at least you can listen to the latest Taylor Swift song in the background as you sit back and enjoy your Bahama Mama....just like they do back in the old country. ;o)
Since you are now living in America, can you do an episode about Italian-American words such as capeesh, agita, fratu, fugazi, goomba? And also why Italian-Americans tendnto drop the final vowel of the original italian words? Why is Corleone pronounced as Cor-le-own? Why is prosciutto pronounced as proshoot?
Because English started dropping final vowels during its evolution, which is why we have so many silent Es (the vowel can be any vowel historically, its just spelled E today). We just extended that to lonewords that we read but not heard like "calzone". "Time" used to be "tima" /tiːmɑ/, "name" used to be "nama" /nɑmɑ/, "love" used to be "lufu" /luvu/, and so on.
In the Italian Tossed Salad you didn't notice "pepperoncini" written with too "p" instead of one! When I hear Italian words used in the US, I always don't know if I am more amused or frustrated. LOL And it's true that you can understand why or how a lot of words are mispronounced, but the pronunciation of "Bologna" has always been a mistery to me.
Hey Metatron, why are some Italians especially sensitive to pronunciation? Most other countries seem to not mind & understand that different people say things differently, but Italy seems especially prideful in their language. It's such a known thing that it even became an internet meme. It would be an interesting cultural phenomenon to explore.
SOME italians? I would say the very largest part of us! The reason why is very simple; one is that especially american speakers sound ridiculous: to say “l’d like one panini” is the same as to say “ l own one dogs/a cars/a houses/l have one children”. It makes us laugh. The other reason is that we do not understand what you are saying; we know “ricotta”, but we don’t know what “uigada” is; we may guess what you mean when you say “spgedi”, but we can’t be sure; and you may admit that “laaaade” is something completely different than “caffellatte”.
@@giannapple I mean, I'm Russian, and Americans mispronounce Moscow as "mos-cow" in stead of correctly "mos-kva", but Russians aren't known for caring that much about people mispronouncing Russian. Doesn't bother us.
@@xxswamplordxx2079 I am of the opinion to let foreign languages approximate as much as they want. Moskva is written as Moscow and is pronounced accordingly, Sofia in Bulgarian has the stress on the O , while in English it is Sou-fia with the stress at the end and that's fine. You can't expect foreigners (in this case specifically) that have never in their life used phonetic spelling to say a more phonetic language's vocabulary perfectly.
On the matter "versace" and "versaci" at the end, the first is a regional variety. In Rome you say "versace da bere" while in standard Italian it becomes "versaci da bere". As in "pour us some drink".
Funny thing is my Mother always made Spaghetti and Meatballs seperarate because a family friend of hers was from Italy who was the one who first made Spaghetti and Meatballs for them so she always made em separate.
Speaking of spaghetti with meatballs, I am of the knowledge that there exists that dish in Abruzzo. But not the giant ones, instead there are tiny cute meatballs in the sauce
The authentic fettuccine Alfredo are named after Italian chef Alfredo Di Lelio who, in early 20th century, rediscovered a XV century recipe. The recipe is very simple: pasta, butter, parmesan cheese. The dish arrived to the US thanks to the travelers, not necessarily Italian immigrants. In Italy we don't call this dish fettuccine Alfredo, we simply call it pasta al burro (pasta with butter), and it's generally not served in restaurants (except the original Alfredo restaurant which still exists in Rome). because it's considered too simple.
Why is it ALWAYS espresso in Italy? I heard it was because 1 century ago, coffee was too expensive for Italians, so you invented the espresso machines to extract more coffee flavor from less coffee powder. Here in Brazil, being largest coffee producer for the past 200 years (and Italian immigrants helped a lot with that, both as cheap labor AND coffee barons), if you wanted stronger coffee you just added more grounded coffee
A lot of mischief was done to both Italians and their language when they came to the US. I have a friend who last name was 'Italiano', some real family name was lost. I worked with a man whose last name was Palermo, I doubt that was the family name in Italy.
A bit like in the film The Godfather (or “Il Padrino”, as it's called here in Italy), where Don Vito Corleone in America gave him the surname “Corleone” (the name of the small village in Sicily where he came from).
Those last names are actually quite common in Italy. When people moved from one city to another they were often called by their place of origin. Other extremely common last names are "Romano" and "Padovana" (from Padova, which is a northern Italian city), for instance
One thing that really _really_ disgusts me is when there's some cool epic music with a choir singing in Latin... but their pronunciation is all extremely Anglophone (edit: "really really disgusts me" is an exaggeration, but it's at the very least kind of annoying lol)
I'm thinking the American pronunciation of Bolognese comes from a mispronunciation of the word in the Bolognese dialect (Bulgnais).. You should do a video of whether or not you can understand the Bolognese dialect.
But in these cases the dialect has nothing to do with it. The problem is that abroad they don't know how to pronounce Italian words with “GN” (bolognese, gnocchi) or even ‘GLI” (famiglia) well. Here in Germany it's the same thing with the Germans.
@@Astavyastataa This has nothing to do with it ! I also speak my language, which would be Italian, but vice versa when I have to pronounce English words, I try to pronounce them in an original way as much as possible. While instead I often have the impression that English-speaking people close themselves in their own language and are not very open to other languages and other pronunciations.
Ok I'm Italian and I'm here wondering what on earth is bologna? It's obviously cured meat but what exactly? I guess some American bastardization of mortadella or something?
In Brazil we make some of these sins, however a big difference is that in Portuguese we often turn common words into Portuguese. So Lasanha Bolonhesa Espaguete Etc Ps: you talked about Firenze being called Florence in English. In Portuguese is Florença. Both words seem related to FLOR And the city main club is called FIORENTINA And the old historical football game players there in the middle ages was calcio fiorentino. All that clearly is related to flower, just like the name of the city in English and portuguese. Also, the symbol of Fiorentina is a Fleur de Lis. Again, a flower. Can you clarify that, please? How it became Firenze?
Like the Spanish, they also pass everything in their local language. All over the world, for example, people say….Spaghetti. The Spanish instead say.....”Espaguete”.
@@Astavyastataa As an Italian, I have lived here in Germany all my life and the Germans have always said “Spaghetti” (they don't know another word, because that type of pasta was born with that name), just like when I traveled to other countries, and I am obviously talking about the period before the Internet. The Spaniards on the other hand, with or without the Internet, have said and always say “Espaguete”, because, I repeat, they have to pass everything into their local language, even the word “Computer” ! Today everyone says computer, but the Spaniards say differently.
@@aris1956 the German language has noun clusters that begins with S natively (Stimme, Stühl, stauben) while Spanish does not because of centuries of development from Vulgar Latin to middle romance to old Spanish and modern Spanish, where -es ending changed to -o for masculine nouns, f-initial words changed to h- initial words with silent h marking the place of the former f, Celtic influence from the Celtíberos, Iberian influence from the Basque and other non-IE Iberian cultures, Germanic influence in lexicon from the Vandals, Suebi, and Visigoths (whose own words were changed to suit romance phonemes), and Arabic influence in lexicon (same as above). Hindi dialects commonly add the sound “i-“ in front of s cluster initial words just like the Spanish do because if ease is pronunciation. They’re not speaking Italian or Sanskrit but Spanish and Hindi respectively.
Isle of Tenerife, Spain, Africa. Another great video, and I literally laughed out loud, but I hope everybody (including yourself, good sir) realises that it is for humour only, and that people do NOT start trying to introduce foreign grammar systems into English. The system of pluralisation English has is one of the most efficient and easy to use (and learn) of all languages. Therefore it's perfectly normal and desirable that we take on ANY, but JUST ONE, variant of any foreign word (as it turns out it's "panini", no longer plural when used in English, unless we put a final S on it), and then simply singularise and pluralise it as we do any standard word ("paninis"). In Italian how do most people say "computer"? How is it pluralised? I don't care, because I don't speak Italian, but my brother does, so he told me, and like him I'd expect Italian to please feel free to integrate that borrowing as a normal word, and not import foreign grammar with it, causing lexical infection. Please let's not expect us, while speaking English, or whichever language, to treat borrowings as debts. Keep up the great work. Best wishes, patchy.
Totally agree that there is little point in introducing foreign grammar into a language. However, it would have been nicer if English had imported the correct singular variant. I don't mind 'paninis' and I wouldn't mind 'paninos'; 'panini' for a single sandwich is annoying - as I guess 'sandwiches' would be. Raffaello's objection (and mine) is not about the plural formation; it's about the borrowing of a plural term for a singular object. In Italian, how do you say "computer"? 'Calcolatore' or 'elaboratore' - if you want the _Italian_ terms. Both forming regular plurals as 'calcolatori' or 'elaboratori'. Italian has more normative grammar than English, and there is a rule that says that foreign terms do not decline for gender or number, so the correct plural of 'computer' in an Italian sentence is 'computer'. Q.v. above...
@@dlevi67no one imported the word formally. It just attached itself to English organically just like the Norse words from the Danelaw in ways that didn’t match the original grammar for ease of understanding.
@@Astavyastataa I'm not sure that I buy the "ease of understanding" argument. Mental laziness and 'can't give a rat's ar$e', more like. Again - nobody is saying that the word was imported formally or asking that it is formally corrected. I'm simply saying that a) it grates to the ear of someone who speaks the other language (as may Norse words, even 1000 years later) and b) it would have been better if it had been imported correctly.
@@dlevi67 no one cares. No one “imported” it and even if they did still wouldn’t matter. The purpose of speaking English is to speak English and the purpose of borrowing words (or having them be absorbed into another language) is to describe something formerly unknown with as much ease as possible. Being a pedantic prescriptivist with no comprehension of real life language development (especially in a pre internet age) is not doing you my favors except among people who hate Americans or Anglos.
@@Astavyastataa "No one cares" - not true. There are plenty of Italian speakers that do, because, as I said, it grates. As to being a 'pedantic prescriptivist' - projecting much mate? I'm not prescribing anything; I'm regretting the intellectual laziness of people like you. BTW - if you think that sandwiches were 'formerly unknown' to the English speaking world until somebody came up with the brilliant idea of borrowing 'panini', you have another thought coming.
Why do Americans say "Eye-talian?" There is no nation called "Eye-taly." Also, as an Italian I want to know how "Italian" became that flavor for salad dressings? How many Italians did you Americans have to eat before you decided we tasted that way..........I noticed there's no "American" flavored dressing over there.
@@servantofaeie1569 I will be honest, I don't think this is a regional thing because I heard it said this way all over the place when I was there. I've been there a few times now; and I heard it said this way in New York, Trenton, Miami, Orlando, Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, Omaha, Denver, Las Vegas, and San Diego. This is just crazy to me. Any other Italians notice this on your visits to America? And they don't just say "eye-talian" they sort of stress the "eye" part. I understand, this is how they say it, I'm not judging their English as bad or good. It's just odd to me that they specifically say "eye-talian" when they don't give this "eye" sound to other Italian, Spanish, or Latin words....this is a unique sound specifically use for the word Italian.
I know this rant wasn't real but sarcastic. How could you expect Americans to use Italian words as if they spoke Italian natively when they barely speak English to begin with.
@@koschmx This definitely helps... in as much as your comment now makes sense - and it is quite comical. I have to say that I have never seen this behaviour among my Italian friends, relatives or acquaintances. Unless the sandwich you ordered was a pastrami sandwich? 😁 Seen from my point of view - blessed YT comments - there was an original post complaining that Raffaello (Metatron) did not mention 'panini' or 'biscotti' - which are typical English "incorrect" loans (Italian plurals used as a singular). To which I replied that 'panini' is mentioned in the video enough times to make up for the fact that 'biscotti' isn't. You then replied to my comment... which made me think you were somehow objecting to it.
To play the devil's advocate in defense of the lady calling her dog Canoli... did you think that maybe it's the feet of the dog that reminded her of canoli, not the overall animal? Then, it makes sense that she calls him after all of its feet... Canoli, and not Canolo.
I guess Italian in the US is a mix of actual Italian, Romanian and French 🤣 Real talk though, this is just restaurant marketing, I'm sure language courses in the US teach Italian correctly.
I don't hold out much hope for Americans to use endonyms for European countries and cities any time soon. Only China and India have convinced us to replace the exonyms for their cities with the endonyms.
Hahahaha. Expecting English speakers to correctly pronounce the "gn", or "ñ" or "nh" is an uphill battle. Most of them are just never getting there. Their mouths just refuse to do it.
My surname is Haynes and my Italian colleague Andrea once pronounced it 'Anus' by mistake and I've never lived it down.
Classic 😂. Knew a guy from the US who was traveling in Argentina. His surname was Rector. Once it was announced in a way that sounded a lot like “recto” (rectum). He never lived it down. It didn’t help that a nickname for his first name when read phonetically was local slang for a blowjob either.
@@brawndothethirstmutilator9848 Don't tell me...his name was Pete!
@TheJamieRamone, You guessed correctly.
@@brawndothethirstmutilator9848 It could also be "wrecked her"...that would be even funnier.
A lot of Italian words we pronounce differently are mainly from back in the late 1800s/early 1900s when English speakers saw Italian words written down and had never heard them before so they just guessed pronunciation and we just kept whatever their guess happened to be.
its not my fault the italians have a city named pizza
@@Blox117LMAO IT's PISA you USA NOOORMIEEEESS MRRRMRMRMRMMRMRMR...
I am going to visit NY for the first time in my life, this year. I am so excited.
Love from Italy.
@@wolvenedvard3049I called it the leaning tower of pizza when I was a kid
@@servantofaeie1569 AHAHAHAH That is so precious
Sometimes Americans seem like they come from another universe
There's a story behind "pasta Alfredo". It actually originated in Rome, where there are still two restaurants with the name Afredo. Alfredo sold his first restaurant and later opened another. There's a video about it. But in the end it is basically "pasta al burro" with pecorino on top.
“Fettuccine Alfredo” they are simply fettuccine with butter and parmigiano reggiano (not Pecorino !) and it is a dish that was born in the Alfredo restaurant in Rome. The Americans then made an entirely "American style” version of this dish, adding things that do not exist in the original dish. So, as he says here in the video, saying “Alfredo doesn't exist”, is completely wrong ! It must simply be said that that version that the Americans make does not exist here in Italy.
PS: In our homes in Italy we simply call this dish “pasta al burro” or “pasta burro e parmigiano” (butter and parmesan).
@@aris1956 Sorry, you're riught. I automatically wrote pecorino, because it's a Roman cheese.
You're right but Alfredo is still not a thing in Italy...
I'd like to see you do a reaction on how New Yorkers pronounce Italian words, some of them are pretty wild. I remember watching a video of some guy insisting that ricotta is properly pronounced 'rigada' or something like that.
“Rigot”. “Manigot”. “Gabagool”. “Moozadell” (or just “mootz”). East coast Italian Americans are funny to me that way 😂
It's written "ricotta" because it's pronounced "ricotta".
New yorkers don’t exist, they’re just a projection of our minds
They pronounce it that way because their ancestors which came from Napoli, Calabria, Sicilia (generally the south) spoke dialect at home and not standard Italian. Therefore things like Ricotta becomes Ricot‘ Prosciutto becomes Prosciut‘. Nontherless over the years the pronounciation just became worse and worse and I myself sometimes cringe when I watch the Sopranos 🤣
As a Pole I feel your pain every time someone says "pierogis".
Pastrami is Romanian Yiddish, originally spelled pastrame. American English is a grab bag of loan words, usually keeping the original spelling for languages using Roman alphabet. So we have the fun of knowing or guessing which language’s rules apply.
My surname is something most English speakers will guess the correct pronunciation of about half the time, being a German loanword in Bohemian Czech. What Spanish speakers do is something I would not recognize the first time I heard that pronunciation.
Try my full family last name of Bernadzikowski.
Pastrami is not a Yiddish word. It is a Romanian word. Air cured pastirma meats are popular across all the former Ottoman realms.
But yes it (the most common beef version) became a popular part of American cuisine mostly thanks to Jewish immigrants, because it meets Kosher laws.
Pastrami comes from Turkish pastırma.
@@danieleyre8913 What I meant was that pastrami entered English through Romanian Jews. Much of southeastern Europe was part of the Ottoman Empire, so a Turkish origin seems reasonable.
@@tomhalla426 That’s all very true. But in the opening sentence of your post you claim that Pastrami is a Yiddish language word. That is a factual falsehood.
Pastrami is a Romanian food, but the word comes from Turkish: 'The name pastrami comes from the Turkish pastırma, derived from the Turkish and Azerbaijan verb bastırma meaning "to press".' (Wikipedia)
I feel your pain, Metatron, but hey we're speaking English! I'm sure that if you use an English word in Italian, it may very well mutate to some version of Italian pronunciation.
I knew a guy at my last job who loved to talk about foreign places using the original language words. München for Munich as an example. I called him on it that many, many English speakers frankly wouldn't know what he was talking about. Syang Gang for Hong Kong? Moskva for Moscow? Nürnberg for Nuremberg?
We English speakers mutate words for whatever reason. Speakers of other languages are welcome to do the same!
Oh boy, this one brings me so many personal memories! Ok, so I grew up surrounded by Italians, so naturally I became a fluent speaker of Italian at a young age. When I came back to Argentina, I used to get secretly angry whenever I saw badly labeled/pronounced Italian foods... It's been quite a few years and I have learned to live with the feeling.
Here are a few examples: ñoqui instead of gnocco (singular ñoqui is a derogatory term for government employees), and ñoquis instead gnocchi (traditionally prepared on the 28th of each month), almost nowhere you find spaghetti but usually espagueti (or just fideos, umbrella term for pasta), lasaña instead of lasagna (always singular), pizza is most commonly pronounced [pisa] or sometimes **gasp** [piksa], and speaking of pizza, we have our own versions where dough is usually much taller and crusty instead of the original thin dough found in Italy, our two most popular pizzas are Muzza (of course pronounced [Musa]) which has only tomato sauce and cheese (which isn't always mozzarella, which in turn never is made with latte di bufala), and Napolitana which is heavy on garlic and tomato slices (tastes great), cappuccino always seems to be missing either a p or a c when they try writing the original Italian word (instead I prefer the Hispanized word "capuchino"). I'm sure there are more which I'm forgetting at the moment.
Metatron, do more videos about Italian-Argentinian stuff! Ciaooo, a presto!
When it comes to city names, just you wait until you hear that we turned Livorno into Leghorn! ;-D
4:28 as a mexican I felt this sooo bad. in the US its the norm to say "want a tamale?" but the correct way to say it is "want a tamal?" tamale(s) is the plural and tamal is the singular
I think the way we say it is more like "temali" 😅
Dude, in all honesty, have ever seen an American eat just one?
The Piedmont region of South Carolina bears the Italian name “Piedmont”. I find that interesting, given how South Carolina was mostly settled by Scottish and English peoples.
Oddly, there are multiple places in the US called Piedmont that appear to be in places with little to no Italian immigration.
I suppose it’s being used in a more geographical context. At least in the case of South Carolina, it is being used aptly. For if I recall, “Piedmont” in Italian means something akin to “lowlands” or “foothills” in English, which quite accurately describes most parts of upstate South Carolina.
We also have a Florence in SC for whatever reason.
Actually the italian word is “Piemonte”, Piedmont is french l believe. It means “at the feet of the mountain” in both languages.
The term Piedmont is actually derived from older French for "foothill".
French: le pied de mont
Italian: piemonte or pedemontana/o
Now, imagine being born of Sicilian parents, raised in an Italian neighborhood in South Philadelphia, and going to a Preparatory School where you are the only Italian (Sicilian)!
I believe that bologna (also spelled baloney for the meat) is pronounced as such because Latin words that end in -ia have a pattern of turning into -y in english. Italia -> italy
The Latin name for bologna was actually Bolonia, so this entered english, lost the a and the i turned into a y. But in Italian the ni became the similar gn, obscuring the pronunciation shift.
Grazie mille for your little declaration of Italian word's.
In Germany they also pronounce some word's not so good. For example ,una Pizza "quattro stazioni". They mean a "quattro stagioni"
Four season's. But they say four busstops. 😂
LOL in spanish Cuatro estaciones, i would be confused too
Buona domenica. I don't know if, where you live in the US, they serve supposedly Italian-style black coffee with a slice of lemon. This is unknown in Northern Italy, but I read that it was originally an old Sicilian custom that I think has died out in Sicily itself, but has remained alive in America. Other Italian cities with names in English: Turin (Torino), Genoa (Genova), Mantua (Mantova), Padua (Padova) and Leghorn (Livorno).
This most probably comes from the Argelian mazagran, that became a fashion in Paris and from there it spread to Europe and the Americas.
Italian city: Genova
Same city in English: Do you know her?
Mi hai fatto morire dal ridere!🤣
My Nonna was from Calabria, born sometime in the early 1900s. I'm not entirely sure of the exact year. She was mostly raised in the US. So, she had no formal italian education. I remember her saying she spoke dirt italian and didn't want her children or grandchildren to learn from her. I imagine she wasn't alone in her experience. I think italian Americans speak bizarrely because of reasons like the ones I've mentioned. It may be worth your time to find out.
Well, even if she had been raised back in Calabria in the early 1900s she wouldn't really have been given a formal "Italian education." Southern Italy in general in the late 19th and early 20th century was a very different place than it is today. Unless she came from a more urban center (and avoided the Wars) she would have had very shall we say "traditional" life for women in this region. The history of Italian migration into the USA is very interesting and sad. Your nonna came in a very dark time for Italian migrants. Her reception probably altered her opinions of fully expressing her Italian pride. The short version: from 1890-1940 Italians (especially Southern Italians and Sicilians) were the largest migration group in the USA. And just like today there was extreme racism and ant-immigrant feelings in the USA. And...since southern Italians tended to be poor, uneducated, and lacked trade skills they were extremely easy targets and victims. When WWI and WWII started things just got worse. It was very common for Italians to change their name, hide their Italian heritage, and quickly replace their Italian with English. It's a very sad event that took a long time in the USA to begin to change, and I hate to say it....but it seems they didn't really change. They just switched from attacking Italians to attacking Latin Americans the same why they did the Italians.
@@unarealtaragionevole. Today instead (but not only today) they attack black people. Unfortunately they always find someone to attack. Let's say that things haven't changed over the years.
@user-hu4nf1lh5i as far as I understand things you're spot on. The only thing I'd question is the formal education that she may have received in Calabria. Maybe she would've attended some sort of basic education either from a poorly funded primary school, a local parish, or maybe just exposure from her village of origin.
More to the point, i think, th is must have repeated itself in a number of different ways. I imagine from each province speaking their own language, meeting in the US, and trying to speak in a way they could understand each other. Their children, like my father, wouldn't necessarily have known or understood that Italy had so many different languages that may have been mixed and match in the US. I don't really know, I really am guessing.
@@anthonyfrontera4495 Hello again, hmm....maybe "formal education" was not the best choice of wording. I apologize. Yes, they had schools in the south; and many at least had an opportunity to receive a primary education. But we are talking about a very different time period. The world in general, but specifically southern Italy at this time (assuming she came from a more rural region of course) had a very different mentality. When I said "formal education" I was actually talking about her Italian language exposure in the Italian school systems of the early 20th century cause many people do not fully know, or fully appreciate, the history of the standard in Italy. Yes, it's been pushed since the mid 19th century, but it wasn't really until modern mass media and technology that it really exploded and began to take over in the last 50-75 years or so. Your...and...my parents/grandparent came from an age of transition when Italy still preferred to use more of the regional dialects and languages than the usage of the standard.
For example, my family is a wonderful example of this. My mother was Greek, she came to Sicilia as a girl and grew up speaking Greek, Sicilianu, and Trapanese. They learned standard Italian in school but never spoke or used it, it was just something she was forced to learn in school. She moved to Napoli and learned to speak Napulitano. Then she moved to Roma and had to learn Romanesco. My father was from Torino and he also learned the standard in school but never spoke it. He spoke Torinese and Piedmontese. When he moved to Roma he also learned Romanesco. They moved back to Sicilia shortly before I was born. I grew up in a home that spoke all these languages and dialects depending on who was speaking, when they were speaking, and what mindset they were in when speaking. My parents actually communicated in Romanesco most of the time. However, my parents were very strict that I speak the standard and I was forced to go study "proper Italian diction" so much that I am an Italian, who spent the majority of his life in Italy...but when I speak I have virtually no accent and most Italians don't think I'm Italian because of my lack of accent when I speak. ;o)
Now going back to "dirty Italian." This could have a different meaning also. I would love to have asked your nonna about this because there is also another thing we need to consider. "Dirty Italian," could be a reference to a negative perception of the language. As I said, the racism and anti-Italian sentiments of the early 20th century were very powerful to Italians. So it might have been this type of thing. But there is another thing it might have been a reference to....the south of Italy has a stereotype of being rural, uneducated, backwards......blah blah blah. One of the negative terms used to describe people from southern Italy is "terrone" which basically describes a person as dirty, soiled, rough / unsophisticated, of the Earth.....basically the proverbial country bumpkin. Terrone can also sometimes be used to describe something as "southern." In a colorful but not always negative way. So she might have been saying in a tongue in cheek way that her Italian was a southern variety also. ;o) I would love to have asked her what she meant.
I love the rants! 😂 I'm learning a lot.
I try to pronounce things correctly if the people who work at the restaurant are Italian. But if you go to Fazoli's and ask for baked Lasagne and pronounce like you do, those American high schoolers wont know what you are talking about. I seldom eat at Italian restaurants because they really aren't. They're just pasta restaurants. And Italian cooking is so much more than pasta.
They are mostly flour glue restaurants, given how much they overcook the 'pasta', from my limited experience.
@dlevi67 oh my gosh yes! They need to be coached in al dente
Thank You very much for this video ) 😊
Thanks for the funny and educational video on some Italian pronunciation of foods/beverages. Good tidings to you and everybody.
Fettucine Alfredo originated in Rome, with that same name, in the first part of the 20th century..
I don't know if they still use that name in Rome, but the fact is that it comes from Italy.
In Argentina we call them fettucine with butter and parmigiano, but the original name is Alfredo.
Cliffnotes explanation: ua-cam.com/video/BivfxrSpy54/v-deo.html. 😁
Yep, though the stuff you get in modern American restaurants is a cheesy white sauce (of vastly varying cheese content) that has little in common with the butter+cheese+noodles original.
Actually the guy Alfredo took the poorest and cheapest dish that had existed for probably centuries trough the whole of Italy, known as “pasta a cacio e burro” or similar names. The thing is that he presented it to rich and famous people and among them several american Hollywood actors and the rest is history. Or legend, perhaps.
It isnt, it's just pasta al burro con formaggio
I’d love to see a version of this but with English loan words in Japanese because those always make me laugh
I like those, too. With no Ls, no Vs, no Si sound, and replacing some Rs with long vowels, they get very creative.
My favorite one is Eggu
English words in anime ☠️☠️
We Italian Americans have a unique mix and localization of old dishes and adaptations. I know that one big reason dishes are different was because of the cheaper cost of meat in the US compared to italy in the old days. Regardless, I just hope all sides can understand that we are a localized group, unlike Italy but still close in cultural connections. Viva L’Italia!
I’m cool with Italian Americans preserving their unique culture within the USA.
But I get annoyed when they declare themselves to be “Italian” as though their culture and identity is that of or the same as that on the actual Italian peninsula. Yes Italian-Americans have retained many of the culture and identity of their Italian ancestors, but they are still Americans and very different to bonafide Italians.
@@koschmx Well you must be an exception to the norm then.
Because every Italian-American I have encountered in person was unmistakably American and the only chance they would ever be mistaken for a bonafide Italian from Italy would be if they suddenly completely changed their wardrobe and learned some dialect of Italian fluently. They might also need to visit an Italian hair stylist.
Beyond their accents; their attire, tastes, demeanour, opinion’s & outlooks were unmistakably American. Because… …they were Americans from somewhere in America. Sure; they still had a few bits of cultural baggage from their Italian ancestors (which are becoming increasingly distant) and they always looked a bit Italian in the face, complexion, and body shape (albeit usually with a lot more podge on them), but they would never be mistaken for any actual Italian.
I have mistaken a few Argentines and one Uruguayan I met for bonafide Italians (they all had Italian heritage) but never any of the Italian-Americans I have encountered. Literally the week before last; my company hosted an offsite and flew our American colleagues over, and about half of them were Italian-Americans, and they would never be mistaken for from the same nation as my bonafide Italian colleagues.
I also have to say that you have an odd expectation of Italians somehow not preserving their own culture… …in their own country LOL. Italy has always been among the world leaders in food production, technology and export, even in the late 19th century when they had only recently unified. Not quite sure what the rest of your rant is all about other than to suggest that you seem to resent Italians for some odd reason. But actually nobody in Italy speaks Greek, a few pockets of people in Calabria speak a language called “Griko” which is in the Hellenic branch and derived from older forms of Greek, but they eat their own local food like the rest of the Italians do. There’s no sudden boundary shift of cuisine across borders in Europe, yes the food of the Italians in the Alps is very close to that of Austria because… ….they live in the same environment. And yes some people in the Italian Trent speak German, most do not. Italy has a spectrum of different local cultures and linguistic dialects (or even different languages) and differences in cuisine, architecture, etc. This is nothing odd in Europe (Germany, France, and Spain at the very least also all do) and is hardly surprising given that Italy only united as one nation in the 1860s and previously spent many centuries fractured into several different states & puppets of outside empires all with their own economies, histories, local identities, etc. So yes Corn polenta, Risotto, fresh pasta and butter are more common in the north and dried pasta & olive oil is more common in the south. If anything; that only makes Americans thinking they are Italian because of their ancestry even more silly.
If it makes you feel better; those declared “Irish-Americans”, “Polish-Americans”, etc are no less silly.
P.S. What’s strange about me referring to Italy as a peninsular?
@@koschmx LOL well there is a massive geographic feature that the republic of Italy is situated on called the Italian peninsular, so I can’t see your logic in declaring that I don’t understand Italian-Americans by using that geographic reference.
And no I never mentioned the many Italian-Americans having a fair amount of non-Italian ancestry (*cough* Irish).
But anyhoo: Yes if your grandfather was from Italy; he was Italian. He grew up in Italy during his formative years and no matter how naturalised an American he may have later became; that would have never been gone from him. But if you grew up in the USA; you’re an American, and you are not your grandfather. You may later live in Italy and become naturalised, in which case you might also become an Italian with dual nationality. But the vast majority of Italian-Americans have never lived beyond the USA (a good many have never even ventured beyond) and many of their most recent Italian-born ancestors immigrated to the USA well over a century ago, and were dead before they were born. With the generations between; little to none of their ancestor’s Italian culture had been maintained, so how on earth are they bonafide Italian??!
@@koschmx I'm starting to wonder if you're just bullshitting me and have really never been beyond the USA.
@@danieleyre8913 Absolutely, but that is just part of the local way to differentiate Americans. All ethnic groups do this to identify each other. One big reason being the ethnic tensions that used to exist between the groups, this being a remnant of that past. But I agree with you that the way they act isn’t at all related to Italy anymore. If anything most “Italian-Americans” dont even have the cultural traits of the Italian part of them anymore.
One thing I find hilarious is how Syracuse is pronounced Circus in English
If you ever go to New York City you have to get a pastrami sandwich from Katz's Jewish delicatessen.
From what I’ve read, Alfredo sauce supposedly originated from the personal recipe of an Italian immigrant to America. His name, presumably, was Alfredo.
Correct
Ironic that his name was actually Germanic, specifically English. Ælfræd. Literally Elf-read.
@@servantofaeie1569Italians had Germanic admixture as did the Spaniards.
It's strange how many Americans pronounce Italian words or even famous Italian names. However, I find it even more strange (and I see it in some videos here on UA-cam) when it is the Italians themselves in America who pronounce these words as Americans do. Instead of being an example, they do the same thing as Americans.
Probably because it helps their audience understand them better
@@Astavyastataa But on the contrary, Americans in Italy pronounce English words in an original way and not in the strange way that many of my compatriots pronounce them. I live here in Germany and when I speak to Germans, I always pronounce Italian words in an original way and never in the way that Germans often pronounce them. Because if an Italian word doesn't pronounce it well not even an Italian, after we shouldn't be surprised if foreigners pronounce them in a strange way.
PS: among other things, in addition to being Italian, I am also an Italian teacher. So, if I don't give an example, as an Italian teacher, who will give an example ?
Pastrami came from Romanian and Hungarian Jewish immigrants who came to New York.
Correction: Came *to America* from Jewish immigrants to New York.
It came to Eastern Europe first from the Ottoman Empire. It’s popular across all former Ottoman realms, and in Turkish is _pastirma_
Are you Turkish??@@danieleyre8913
There is such a thing as Alfredo pasta in Italy! It's in Rome, in a ristorante Alfredo (or something like that). Other Italians just call it pasta all burro (pasta, butter, parmigiano).
Well, the Romans call it “pasta dei cornuti” which translates “cuckold pasta” as it is a pasta with a sauce ready in no time, because the wife was busy seeing someone else instead of cooking…
I'm waiting for you to drop a video on Soprano-speak (see the series _The Sopranos_ originally on HBO) with "breshoot" for "prosciutto," "manigott" for "manicotti," "gabagool" for "capicola," "gavón" for "cafone," "Nabledon" for "Napolitano," etc. I had read somewhere that the tendency to voice consonants that had originally been voiceless and to drop vowels at the end of words had been a tendency of people from near Naples, but how true that is I know not.
We definitely need a video on "soprano-ese".
Thank the Lord you finally have access to real Italian food (Olive Garden). Real question: why are Italians so emotional about peasant food? Pizza and spaghetti are popular in the USA, because the poorest people in Italy moved here and that’s what they ate. Every time I talk to an Italian about American pizza, I can’t help but think to myself, “I’d never get this worked up about how burgers are made.”
A properly made burger can be elevated to a complete work of art. It’s all about what is put into it. Same with pizza or [insert traditional comfort food here].
Side note but when my Nonna visited America, she came back to Italy and was fascinated that “Americans put meatballs in between bread”.
Turns out, she was describing hamburgers, and it was the sweetest for her to be excited.
I would if someone tried to make me eat at In N Out.
You should see what's on an Aussie Burger and don't even ask what they do to pizza Down Under
Turns out that if you bastardize or mess up food from a certain country people from that country are gonna get mad, especially if it's an iconic or national food
Hello Metatron. I saw this before, but the text said 5h?
Despite growing up with Italian neighbours, I say "spag bol", like any English northerner. I pronounce calzone correctly, but I have to admit my favourite is doner meat special with extra chilli sauce.
At least US nearly say "pizza" right, but why put "pie" on the end? They cannot make it like Italians though, with nice and thin crust. Who am I to say though, if not drinking instant coffee, I buy it ready ground at Costco in a big tin. One back for US.
He should do one on southern Italian American slang. I bet het be amused by how we pronounce capicola
Metatron I think you are living in the Midwest. In middle America they are clueless about these things. I’m not saying you wouldn’t most likely push back as well visiting the east coast like New Jersey where I’m from, if you were to visit here, but at least your experience dining at an Italian restaurant will be much more authentic in New York or New Jersey since we obviously have a long and storied Italian American community here. Just don’t get too fired up when we shorten many words since our pronunciation is heavily influenced by napoletano and siciliano as that’s predominantly where our roots are when it comes to linguistics.
I find videos like this entertaining, which I think is the spirit in which it was made. But a serious linguistic question: at what point does an adopted foreign word become a part of the new language, at which point it no longer makes sense to speak about how the word is pronounced in the original language? Obviously English has thousands of loan words from various sources and most don't seem jarring when they're pronounced with Anglophone phonemes because they were adopted long ago and the words have changed in the meantime anyway. Are there any "rules" about how this adoption happens, why English speakers still try to pronounce hors d'oeuvres similar to the french but karaoke is very different? I'd be interested in a discussion of this phenomenon as it relates to English or Anglicisms in other languages. (In the meantime I'll continue ordering my calzone without a final e).
In the US, we don't Anglicize words the same way as the British do. We attempt (to varying degrees of success) to retain some of the spelling and pronunciation rules (as we perceive them) of the originating language when borrowing words from other languages. The Brits tend to normalize the spelling and pronunciation using British English conventions. It's a generalization, but it does explain some of the divergence between American and British English.
@@MichaelScheele Not always - the number of immigrants that got their names 'anglicised' upon entry is countless - though admittedly there are somewhat extenuating circumstances.
There are also funny linguistic fossils, such as 'Illinois' or 'Arkansas' which were French attempts to reproduce the (perceived) pronunciation of the native names, but have ended up being pronounced 'the English way' from reading French maps.
Don't stress too much about the pronunciation at Italian restaurants in the US.Outside maybe New York it's probably owned by a Chinese family who also owns the local Chinese joint and the cooks are probably all Mexican.I had some red clam sauce that was hot enough to take the enamel off your teeth and told the waitress to tell the cooks to be careful because some of the customers might be Gringos.Nice attempts at Murican,BTW.
Oh yes, the United States, the only place that will look you in the eye and say an "authentic Italian restaurant" is one owned by an German who serves you BBQ Pork Rigatoni that was cooked by a Mexican. But hey, at least you can listen to the latest Taylor Swift song in the background as you sit back and enjoy your Bahama Mama....just like they do back in the old country. ;o)
can you do a vid on corsican
Great idea, about “pastrami” Next time I go to a restaurant I’ll ask for, pastrama de pui 🐥😂 I’m Romanian living in the US.
Since you are now living in America, can you do an episode about Italian-American words such as capeesh, agita, fratu, fugazi, goomba? And also why Italian-Americans tendnto drop the final vowel of the original italian words? Why is Corleone pronounced as Cor-le-own? Why is prosciutto pronounced as proshoot?
Because English started dropping final vowels during its evolution, which is why we have so many silent Es (the vowel can be any vowel historically, its just spelled E today). We just extended that to lonewords that we read but not heard like "calzone".
"Time" used to be "tima" /tiːmɑ/, "name" used to be "nama" /nɑmɑ/, "love" used to be "lufu" /luvu/, and so on.
In the Italian Tossed Salad you didn't notice "pepperoncini" written with too "p" instead of one! When I hear Italian words used in the US, I always don't know if I am more amused or frustrated. LOL
And it's true that you can understand why or how a lot of words are mispronounced, but the pronunciation of "Bologna" has always been a mistery to me.
Hey Metatron, why are some Italians especially sensitive to pronunciation? Most other countries seem to not mind & understand that different people say things differently, but Italy seems especially prideful in their language. It's such a known thing that it even became an internet meme. It would be an interesting cultural phenomenon to explore.
SOME italians? I would say the very largest part of us!
The reason why is very simple; one is that especially american speakers sound ridiculous: to say “l’d like one panini” is the same as to say “ l own one dogs/a cars/a houses/l have one children”. It makes us laugh.
The other reason is that we do not understand what you are saying; we know “ricotta”, but we don’t know what “uigada” is; we may guess what you mean when you say “spgedi”, but we can’t be sure; and you may admit that “laaaade” is something completely different than “caffellatte”.
The French are equally offended by mispronunciation.
@@giannapple I mean, I'm Russian, and Americans mispronounce Moscow as "mos-cow" in stead of correctly "mos-kva", but Russians aren't known for caring that much about people mispronouncing Russian. Doesn't bother us.
Ehm... French people as well.
@@xxswamplordxx2079 I am of the opinion to let foreign languages approximate as much as they want. Moskva is written as Moscow and is pronounced accordingly, Sofia in Bulgarian has the stress on the O , while in English it is Sou-fia with the stress at the end and that's fine. You can't expect foreigners (in this case specifically) that have never in their life used phonetic spelling to say a more phonetic language's vocabulary perfectly.
You went full Italian with the hands on this video. Lol 😂
On the matter "versace" and "versaci" at the end, the first is a regional variety.
In Rome you say "versace da bere" while in standard Italian it becomes "versaci da bere".
As in "pour us some drink".
😉
I've been saying "Versass" as if it were French...
I recalled my neighbor's cat, who named her Miss Truffles.❤😂
Funny thing is my Mother always made Spaghetti and Meatballs seperarate because a family friend of hers was from Italy who was the one who first made Spaghetti and Meatballs for them so she always made em separate.
bologna/ Baloney was the brand who bring it to the U.S. people adopted the word Baloney
Livorno… Leghorn…I say uh I say… pay attention boweye, I’m talkin to ya.
I cannot roll my rrrrrrr’s. I need a class on how. 😢😢😂😂
How funny is him getting mad! 😆😆😆
Speaking of spaghetti with meatballs, I am of the knowledge that there exists that dish in Abruzzo. But not the giant ones, instead there are tiny cute meatballs in the sauce
Just google 'Spaghetti con le polpettine" and you will find an Italian webpage with the recipe and pics.
Word to the wise, it's tradition here to say "Olive Garden" with the timbre and raspiness of a 67 year old smoker lady.
Alfredo sauce was technically invented by an Italian immigrant to the US.
The authentic fettuccine Alfredo are named after Italian chef Alfredo Di Lelio who, in early 20th century, rediscovered a XV century recipe. The recipe is very simple: pasta, butter, parmesan cheese. The dish arrived to the US thanks to the travelers, not necessarily Italian immigrants. In Italy we don't call this dish fettuccine Alfredo, we simply call it pasta al burro (pasta with butter), and it's generally not served in restaurants (except the original Alfredo restaurant which still exists in Rome). because it's considered too simple.
Why is it ALWAYS espresso in Italy? I heard it was because 1 century ago, coffee was too expensive for Italians, so you invented the espresso machines to extract more coffee flavor from less coffee powder.
Here in Brazil, being largest coffee producer for the past 200 years (and Italian immigrants helped a lot with that, both as cheap labor AND coffee barons), if you wanted stronger coffee you just added more grounded coffee
Metatron! What about "pasta fagioli" pronounced as "pasta fazool" or the biggest scratch your head pronunciation, "capicola" as "gabagool". HUH?
A lot of mischief was done to both Italians and their language when they came to the US. I have a friend who last name was 'Italiano', some real family name was lost. I worked with a man whose last name was Palermo, I doubt that was the family name in Italy.
A bit like in the film The Godfather (or “Il Padrino”, as it's called here in Italy), where Don Vito Corleone in America gave him the surname “Corleone” (the name of the small village in Sicily where he came from).
Those last names are actually quite common in Italy. When people moved from one city to another they were often called by their place of origin. Other extremely common last names are "Romano" and "Padovana" (from Padova, which is a northern Italian city), for instance
What do you think of Italian American’s “gabba ga gool”?
Well consider that São Paulo in Brazil is often changed to San Paolo in English publications, which seems to be the Italian translation. Wtf
But hey man the Judge in the Rittenhouse trial said "CALZONES!"
Hilarious 😂
One thing that really _really_ disgusts me is when there's some cool epic music with a choir singing in Latin... but their pronunciation is all extremely Anglophone
(edit: "really really disgusts me" is an exaggeration, but it's at the very least kind of annoying lol)
As a Dutchman, I experience the same surge of indignation when Americans talk about Gouda cheese
Italians: macchiato
Americans: mOcKy aUtO
6:22 Carthage must be destroyed.
You're into Italian words ? That's what comes up when I click the link.
But Alfredo was invented in Rome? It's just buttered noddles with parmesan, what isn't to like?
Mi aspettavo "grazi" alla fine, per restare in tema. 😂
Like Jordan Schlansky already explained to Conan. It's one biscotto and several biscotti...
I'm thinking the American pronunciation of Bolognese comes from a mispronunciation of the word in the Bolognese dialect (Bulgnais)..
You should do a video of whether or not you can understand the Bolognese dialect.
But in these cases the dialect has nothing to do with it. The problem is that abroad they don't know how to pronounce Italian words with “GN” (bolognese, gnocchi) or even ‘GLI” (famiglia) well. Here in Germany it's the same thing with the Germans.
@@aris1956yeah because we speak English not Italian.
@@Astavyastataa This has nothing to do with it ! I also speak my language, which would be Italian, but vice versa when I have to pronounce English words, I try to pronounce them in an original way as much as possible. While instead I often have the impression that English-speaking people close themselves in their own language and are not very open to other languages and other pronunciations.
Could you talk Aramaic language besides Latin and Greek in Christianity?
Calzone ticks off and I'm not even Italian.
No idea how to say it but I like to eat them.
Come on, Metatron! With calzone is simple - just split mass kalzone!
As for Pastrami, the Romanians probably said it was from Romania and Americans cause "Rome? So Italian uh?"
Well, all part of the Roman Empire, right?
😂😂😂👏👏👏👏
Dove sei negli stati?
Ok I'm Italian and I'm here wondering what on earth is bologna? It's obviously cured meat but what exactly? I guess some American bastardization of mortadella or something?
In Brazil we make some of these sins, however a big difference is that in Portuguese we often turn common words into Portuguese.
So
Lasanha
Bolonhesa
Espaguete
Etc
Ps: you talked about Firenze being called Florence in English.
In Portuguese is Florença.
Both words seem related to FLOR
And the city main club is called FIORENTINA
And the old historical football game players there in the middle ages was calcio fiorentino.
All that clearly is related to flower, just like the name of the city in English and portuguese.
Also, the symbol of Fiorentina is a Fleur de Lis. Again, a flower.
Can you clarify that, please? How it became Firenze?
Like the Spanish, they also pass everything in their local language. All over the world, for example, people say….Spaghetti. The Spanish instead say.....”Espaguete”.
@@aris1956no. Everyone in the world did this before the internet.
@@Astavyastataa As an Italian, I have lived here in Germany all my life and the Germans have always said “Spaghetti” (they don't know another word, because that type of pasta was born with that name), just like when I traveled to other countries, and I am obviously talking about the period before the Internet. The Spaniards on the other hand, with or without the Internet, have said and always say “Espaguete”, because, I repeat, they have to pass everything into their local language, even the word “Computer” ! Today everyone says computer, but the Spaniards say differently.
@@aris1956 the German language has noun clusters that begins with S natively (Stimme, Stühl, stauben) while Spanish does not because of centuries of development from Vulgar Latin to middle romance to old Spanish and modern Spanish, where -es ending changed to -o for masculine nouns, f-initial words changed to h- initial words with silent h marking the place of the former f, Celtic influence from the Celtíberos, Iberian influence from the Basque and other non-IE Iberian cultures, Germanic influence in lexicon from the Vandals, Suebi, and Visigoths (whose own words were changed to suit romance phonemes), and Arabic influence in lexicon (same as above). Hindi dialects commonly add the sound “i-“ in front of s cluster initial words just like the Spanish do because if ease is pronunciation. They’re not speaking Italian or Sanskrit but Spanish and Hindi respectively.
I not "zucchini " but " courgette " hahaha
Caesar salad was invented by Italian immigrant living in Mexico in the 1920s
I always thought "bologna" was such full of bologna.
But the "X" makes it sound cool!
It brings it closer to Latin. Expressum.
bolo nya
lasa nya
no wonder Garfield loves lasagna.
Geeohvaahnee!
Please do a video on English words that Italians mispronounce. It's only fair!
Isle of Tenerife,
Spain,
Africa.
Another great video, and I literally laughed out loud, but I hope everybody (including yourself, good sir) realises that it is for humour only, and that people do NOT start trying to introduce foreign grammar systems into English.
The system of pluralisation English has is one of the most efficient and easy to use (and learn) of all languages.
Therefore it's perfectly normal and desirable that we take on ANY, but JUST ONE, variant of any foreign word (as it turns out it's "panini", no longer plural when used in English, unless we put a final S on it), and then simply singularise and pluralise it as we do any standard word ("paninis").
In Italian how do most people say "computer"?
How is it pluralised?
I don't care, because I don't speak Italian, but my brother does, so he told me, and like him I'd expect Italian to please feel free to integrate that borrowing as a normal word, and not import foreign grammar with it, causing lexical infection.
Please let's not expect us, while speaking English, or whichever language, to treat borrowings as debts.
Keep up the great work.
Best wishes,
patchy.
Totally agree that there is little point in introducing foreign grammar into a language. However, it would have been nicer if English had imported the correct singular variant. I don't mind 'paninis' and I wouldn't mind 'paninos'; 'panini' for a single sandwich is annoying - as I guess 'sandwiches' would be. Raffaello's objection (and mine) is not about the plural formation; it's about the borrowing of a plural term for a singular object.
In Italian, how do you say "computer"? 'Calcolatore' or 'elaboratore' - if you want the _Italian_ terms. Both forming regular plurals as 'calcolatori' or 'elaboratori'. Italian has more normative grammar than English, and there is a rule that says that foreign terms do not decline for gender or number, so the correct plural of 'computer' in an Italian sentence is 'computer'. Q.v. above...
@@dlevi67no one imported the word formally. It just attached itself to English organically just like the Norse words from the Danelaw in ways that didn’t match the original grammar for ease of understanding.
@@Astavyastataa I'm not sure that I buy the "ease of understanding" argument. Mental laziness and 'can't give a rat's ar$e', more like. Again - nobody is saying that the word was imported formally or asking that it is formally corrected.
I'm simply saying that a) it grates to the ear of someone who speaks the other language (as may Norse words, even 1000 years later) and b) it would have been better if it had been imported correctly.
@@dlevi67 no one cares. No one “imported” it and even if they did still wouldn’t matter. The purpose of speaking English is to speak English and the purpose of borrowing words (or having them be absorbed into another language) is to describe something formerly unknown with as much ease as possible. Being a pedantic prescriptivist with no comprehension of real life language development (especially in a pre internet age) is not doing you my favors except among people who hate Americans or Anglos.
@@Astavyastataa "No one cares" - not true. There are plenty of Italian speakers that do, because, as I said, it grates. As to being a 'pedantic prescriptivist' - projecting much mate? I'm not prescribing anything; I'm regretting the intellectual laziness of people like you.
BTW - if you think that sandwiches were 'formerly unknown' to the English speaking world until somebody came up with the brilliant idea of borrowing 'panini', you have another thought coming.
Galamad 😂
Alfredo doesn´t exist because Michael killed him . :)
Why do Americans say "Eye-talian?" There is no nation called "Eye-taly." Also, as an Italian I want to know how "Italian" became that flavor for salad dressings? How many Italians did you Americans have to eat before you decided we tasted that way..........I noticed there's no "American" flavored dressing over there.
That pronunciation is from the northeast, most Americans don't say it like that.
@@servantofaeie1569 I will be honest, I don't think this is a regional thing because I heard it said this way all over the place when I was there. I've been there a few times now; and I heard it said this way in New York, Trenton, Miami, Orlando, Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, Omaha, Denver, Las Vegas, and San Diego. This is just crazy to me. Any other Italians notice this on your visits to America? And they don't just say "eye-talian" they sort of stress the "eye" part. I understand, this is how they say it, I'm not judging their English as bad or good. It's just odd to me that they specifically say "eye-talian" when they don't give this "eye" sound to other Italian, Spanish, or Latin words....this is a unique sound specifically use for the word Italian.
Fancy some *Fruhit* ?
I know this rant wasn't real but sarcastic. How could you expect Americans to use Italian words as if they spoke Italian natively when they barely speak English to begin with.
Havent watched the video yet but im making a prediction that biscotti and panini are in here
Edit: Noooo you didnt mention them! We need a part 2!
There are enough panini mentioned in the video to make up for the missing biscotti.
@@koschmx E cosa c'entra?
@@koschmx Alcuni si - non capisco perché te la prendi col mio, che fa solo presente che Raffaello ha menzionato "panini" ma non "biscotti"
@@koschmx This definitely helps... in as much as your comment now makes sense - and it is quite comical. I have to say that I have never seen this behaviour among my Italian friends, relatives or acquaintances. Unless the sandwich you ordered was a pastrami sandwich? 😁
Seen from my point of view - blessed YT comments - there was an original post complaining that Raffaello (Metatron) did not mention 'panini' or 'biscotti' - which are typical English "incorrect" loans (Italian plurals used as a singular). To which I replied that 'panini' is mentioned in the video enough times to make up for the fact that 'biscotti' isn't. You then replied to my comment... which made me think you were somehow objecting to it.
@@koschmx That is a long time. Hope you both will enjoy another visit soon!
Gabagool.
“Capocollo” here in Italy.
Now do one on how they butcher English words in Italy
To play the devil's advocate in defense of the lady calling her dog Canoli... did you think that maybe it's the feet of the dog that reminded her of canoli, not the overall animal? Then, it makes sense that she calls him after all of its feet... Canoli, and not Canolo.
🦊👍👍
I guess Italian in the US is a mix of actual Italian, Romanian and French 🤣 Real talk though, this is just restaurant marketing, I'm sure language courses in the US teach Italian correctly.
Oops - you said 'vinegArette#!!!
I don't hold out much hope for Americans to use endonyms for European countries and cities any time soon.
Only China and India have convinced us to replace the exonyms for their cities with the endonyms.
Hahahaha. Expecting English speakers to correctly pronounce the "gn", or "ñ" or "nh" is an uphill battle. Most of them are just never getting there. Their mouths just refuse to do it.
The best way to teach an American is to take the G in "argue" and turn it into a nasal sound. Like how M is nasal B, N is nasal D, and NG is nasal G.
No. We pronounce canyon just fine.