Being half English and half Italian, I thought life in globalized Milan should be getting simpler for me. Except, somehow, I don’t seem to understand any English here anymore—or Italian, for that matter.
The other day, I was asked to attend a briefing—the new Italian word for “meeting”—in which we’d be discussing hot spots (nothing to do with Wi-Fi, apparently, but, inexplicably, with welcome centers for migrants in the South of the country). “It’s schedulato,” the e-mail added—an Italianization of “scheduled” that would shake my Genoese father to his bones if he heard it. I was also advised to park my car in the office box, Italish for “garage,” on the day of the meeting.
The phenomenon of Anglicization is hardly new, yet in Europe it suddenly feels more inescapable than ever. In France, a hair blowout is now called a brushing, and table soccer is referred to as baby-foot. In Germany, where more than 60 percent of the population speaks English, a company may host an Open-End-Diskussion (Diskussion ohne festes Ende in German) about Performance (Leistung). And people are increasingly snubbing the longer words the language is known for, such as Empörungswelle (a wave of anger), in favor of shorter-form English alternatives, like ein shitstorm.
The data confirms this shift. The number of English words that have inserted themselves in the Italian language has grown by 773 percent since the early 2000s, according to the Florentine language academy Accademia della Crusca. In 2023, Germany’s Free Democratic Party went so far as to suggest that English should be introduced as an official second language in public administration. And in France, English words are “often distorted” to fit French syntax, according to a statement by the Académie Française, resulting in “the creation of hybrid forms that are neither English nor French.”
In Italy, fears of language bastardization date back to the early 20th century. In 1929, Mussolini banned the use of foreign words. International movies were dubbed, and even stars’ names were Italianized. (Fred Astaire, for instance, became known as “Federico Astorio.”)
The term “Franglais”—a mixture of Français and Anglais—was coined in 1964 by the novelist René Étiemble, who lamented the increased use of English words in books and by news outlets. It took another 30 years, but in 1994 the Toubon law, named after Jacques Toubon, the minister of culture at the time, officially mandated the use of the French language in official government publications, advertisements, and commercial contracts.
Similarly, the term “Denglisch”—a hybrid of Deutsche and Englisch—was introduced in Germany in 1965, and has since proliferated. In 2001, the German interior minister Eckart Werthebach began advocating for a language law that would impose fines on taxi drivers who advertised “evening rates” and on establishments that sold coffee “to-go,” though the law was never enacted.
In 2011, the German Language Association announced that German could become a “peripheral” language if steps were not taken to protect it. The rail operator Deutsche Bahn even issued a booklet which contained 2,200 German phrases, meant to replace Denglisch expressions used instead. There has been no further news on the measure since.
Last April, Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni drafted a law that introduced fines ranging from $5,000 to $105,000 for businesses that used English in official documents; it is still awaiting parliamentary debate. France, meanwhile, unveiled its International French Language Centre, a “language museum” dedicated to celebrating the language’s origins and evolution, which cost the government around $230 million.
These grand endeavors often end with disheartening results. “It may be the mark of failure,” said Jean Romain, a member of the European Parliament and French-language defender, in France24, that efforts to insert French substitutes for English words—such as déjeunette for “brunch” or mot-dièse for “hashtag”—lead to “ridiculous French terms that no one uses.”
Even reputable newspapers in France and Italy often favor English-language alternatives. This week, Le Monde published an article that discussed “le storytelling,” while Il Corriere della Sera reported on a “baby gang” (a group of young criminals) that was destroying cars and wreaking havoc in Tuscany.
In the meantime, Italian words like tremebondo (trembling), zufolare (to whistle), and abbindolare (to be taken for a ride/deceiving) are falling out of use, according to L’Accademia della Crusca. In France, une boum (a party) has befallen a similar fate, and in Germany, only baby-boomers use kassenschlager (box-office hit), which has since been replaced with the English term “blockbuster.”
In 1929, Mussolini banned the use of foreign words. International movies were dubbed, and even stars’ names were Italianized. (Fred Astaire, for instance, became known as “Federico Astorio.”)
It isn’t just words themselves that are the problem—Anglicization often alters the native language’s core syntax and grammar as well. In Germany, people have started incorrectly using apostrophes to indicate the possessive form (such as writing Karl’s Kneipe instead of the correct Karls Kneipe). Meanwhile, in Italy, Paolo D’Achille, the president of L’Accademia della Crusca, laments that there’s now a distinct “young people language,” which is structurally similar to English.
“We are heading towards a more meager Italian,” Claudio Marazzini, an Italian linguist, said in a lecture. “One of the clearest signs of Italy’s cultural decline is the diminishing understanding of the Italian language,” former John Cabot University professor Antonella Salvatore wrote in a blog post, “and, primarily, its grammar.” Many young Italians have stopped using the remote past tense altogether, and now use the simple past tense instead, like the English do.
Another major obstacle in the traditionalists’ movement to conserve their native languages is technology, which is developing and infiltrating workplaces the world over at lightning speeds. The tech tends to originate in Silicon Valley, and therefore comes with a wholly new, English-language vocabulary that’s outpacing foreign dictionaries’ ability to adapt—France only formally introduced feminine versions of typically masculine-associated professions, such as president/presidente, in 2019. There are no quick alternatives for words like “streaming,” “influencer,” “browser,” or “software,” in Italian, French, or German.
“A language is in danger when its speakers cease to use it,” a 2003 Unesco document titled “Language Vitality and Endangerment” reads, “or use it in an increasingly reduced number of communicative domains.”
Will European languages be able to keep up? Marazzini’s outlook is bleak. “Italian will vanish by 2300,” he said.
Elena Clavarino is a Senior Editor at AIR MAIL