Italians are speaking Italian more than ever before but at the same time they are refusing to abandon their dialects and over half the population continues to speak them in the home.
A new study shows that Italy's regional tongues, which have deep historical roots and are often unintelligible to outsiders, are refusing to succumb to state education and the levelling effect of the media.
In fact Italians who use only and exclusively their national language when with the family are still in a minority of 45%.
The rest of the population uses dialect some or most of the time, according to the latest research by national statistics bureau Istat. A quarter of Italians still use dialect even when they are speaking to outsiders.
"I use dialect with my family and friends from the village where I grew up. I expect I always will," said Elena Labagnara, a 40-year-old civil servant who was born in Campania but works in Rome. "I like having this link with my roots. It's part of who I am," she added.
Istat researcher Adolfo Morrone, who carried out the study based on 24,000 families all over the country, said the reasons why people use dialect are changing. "In the past lots of people spoke dialect because it was the only way they could express themselves. That's no longer the case. Now it's becoming a matter of choice," he said.
Young Italians are better educated than their grandparents, they are immersed in national TV and media and they travel around the country. So there is no question about their command of their native language.
But while they speak Italian much of the time in their professional lives, they often also keep their local dialect and use it with childhood friends and family.
"I don't think dialect will ever disappear completely," Morrone said. Since 1988, the number of Italians who communicate prevalently in dialect has fallen from 32% to 16%. This is mainly because people in the oldest age groups, who statistically speak more dialect, have died.
But the Istat figures suggest that the downward trend, which has been going on for many decades, is slowing and it could even bottom out in a few years.
EDUCATION KEY FACTOR.
In the long term, the future of dialects is uncertain. Experts believe much will depend on how keen people are on preserving local traditions and identities.
Istat's report confirms that, even today education is the most crucial factor affecting whether people use Italian or dialect the most. The figures for the 25-44 age group show that, of those with university degrees, some 73% of people speak Italian most of the time, while for those who left school at 14 the figure was 18%.
Where Italians live also makes a huge difference. In Tuscany, the land of Dante and Petrarch, 83% of people speak Italian practically all the time. In Calabria only 20% of people do.
