The popularity of the Italian Language: “How is Italian Doing?”

On November 15, Montclair State University held a conference on the Italian language, entitled “Come Sta L’Italiano? –  How’s Italian Doing?“. The meeting, promoted by Inserra chair in Italian & Italian American Studies, aimed at analyzing the current situation of the Italian language in the United States.

The event was attended by Dennis Looney and David Ward, the Italian consul general in New York, Francis Genuardi, and the coordinator of the promotion of the Italian language abroad Ministry, Lucia Pasquini.

Dennis Looney, Director of Programs and ADFL Department and the Modern Language Association, addressed the situation of languages in the world today. After the Sixties the world language has suffered a serious decline. Although the Italian is not among the most affected language, the world of modern languages is indeed in crisis. On the search for new methods to teach Italian Daniela Bartalesi, a colleague of Ward, has managed to create a solid offering of online Italian courses which was a resounding success: subscribers can access the course from any device, thus making it the most comfortable learning.

In the United States, the culture and the Italian language have an important weight and distance learning could be a good way to secure the future of this language.

This article was excerpted from La voce di New York.

-Francesca Procopio