1.5 MLN-EURO ITALIAN LANGUAGE PROGRAMME IN WAKE OF
EU BLOW Rome
(ANSA) - Rome, February 22 - Italy's National Research Council
(CNR) today said it was launching a þ1.5 million programme
to promote the study of the Italian language. The announcement
comes only days after the European Commission decided to drop
Italian as one of the languages which Commissioners' press conferences
are translated into. That move caused an outcry here and prompted
Italy's permanent representative in Brussels, Ambassador Rocco
Cangelosi , to write a letter of complaint to Commission Chief
Manuel Durao Barroso. In the letter Cangelosi said the Commission
had relegated Italian to "a wholly secondary position"
The CNR programme will finance 139 Italian language research
projects. The initiatives will include conferences and courses
aimed at raising interest in the language of Dante abroad. The
CNR said it will also open a special Italian cultural identity
department this year. "Until today an effective linguistic
policy was lacking at both the national and European level.
The CNR is committed to the task of conserving and promoting
the Italian linguistic and cultural identity," said CNR
Vice-President Roberto de Mattei. "The process of globalization
threatens to kill cultural and linguistic variety, with English's
development as the universal languageþ "If there's
any truth in the slogan 'unity in diversity' it's in the field
of culture. Europe's wealth is in its variety of identities."
On Sunday Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini said Italian language
learning should be boosted across the world. But Fini played
down the EC problem, saying that each member state had the right
to its own translators for ministerial meetings. He also disclosed
that Italian was not an official EC language - alongside French,
English and German - during the previous commission led by Italy's
Romano Prodi. There are 6,000 Italian cultural and language
institutes around the world, but the foreign ministry intends
to reinforce the network to teach Italian.
