WIKITONGUES: Simon speaking Piedmontese

Piedmontese is spoken by about 1.5 million people, primarily in the Piedmont region of northwestern Italy. Though it has been a written language since at least the 12th century, it was not until the 17th and 18th centuries that Piedmontese speakers developed a robust literary culture, which continues to this day and includes works of poetry, prose, theater, and science. Nonetheless, like all regional Italian languages, Piedmontese faces the challenge of an ambivalent government: it is recognized only regionally, and taught minimally in schools.

ENGLISH TRANSCRIPT: Hello, my name is Simon, I'm 21, I'm from the Turin Province and the language that I speak is called Piedmontese, which is spoken in north-western Italy, in a region which is called Piedmont. You will (nd that this language is quite di*erent from Italian, even ifin Italy it is preferred to call it a "dialect", because, as you can easily guess, when a language is di*erent from another you call it a "dialect". Well, we decided that in Italy things do not need to be understood, so words are very confused, and people can't understand anything… so we reached what we wanted to reach, and these languages and the variety is quitted, because the Italian State thinks it is too much, and so we donot need so much original variety, with each town having its own speech. So it has been decided to give up and speak Italian.I live here in the (rst suburb of Turin and if I go out I (nd it very di/cult to speak Piedmontese, because very few people are used at hearing a young person speaking Piedmontese. Nowadays some people really cannot understand it, they (nd it di/culties at undestanding what on earth you are saying. If you use the right Piedmontese word they don't understand you, so you have to use an Italian-like word instead of Piedmontese ones, so you have a little bit more hope to be easily undestood, and also a little bit more hope they will accept your need to speak Piedmontese, I dunno…By the way what we've got at the moment is that in North-Western Italy the local languages are nearly no longer spoken, meanwhile if you got in other places in Italy the local languages may be somehow stronger, but in all cases they are being gradually forgotten, particularly because they are really mixing up with Italian loans, and the result is that they're turning in Italian dialects, even if they weren't.Nowadays good things could be done, rightful things, but it would be necessary some help. None receives any help, and that's because nobody wants it to be. And there is always something more beautiful and rightful and good than rescuing the linguistic diversity proper of Italy.And then most of people says: Yes, let's speak Italian! Let's speak English! Let's speak Chinese! And then only if someone is really into it, we can remember the accent, get it? The accent and the style. The Piedmontese style, meaning the features of the people who inhabited this place, who had its way of life, and we can remember it in comedies, we can bring it back alive… but not in real life, that's the agreement. Because it's old, rusty, decrepit stu* and we no longer need to keep it alive, get it?And then other things that we have to say is the Piedmontese isn't a crappy language at all, because it also has its writing, its literature, and it keeps the features of a language which tries to give itself a structure, an tries to survive, to be there in the world! Isn't it? And yet nobody remembers that, and if nobody knows that we'll be cold… we'll be cold. Nontheless we shouldn't feel beaten, we have to speak it shamelessly and try to see what happens then.I thought to take part to the Wikitongues project in order to let you hear the sound of this language, which may be not very common to hear around. Well, bye bye and have a nice day, be happy and speak you tongue.

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