VAle wrote:
> I'm also searching for a more "authoritative" source, a paper... a document with all definitions of "official Italian", but I haven't found anything yet.
You must have an "Academia" for the language. It's a tradition in all countries where a Romance language is spoken. It may, though, not say anything about proper pronunciation, since they're generally more related to vocabulary and grammar issues. In Brazil, we have the "Cultured" Norms Institute, at the Universidade de São Paulo, and the "Academia" ( which is composed by famous linguists and writers ). The first one in more scientific, while the second one is more traditionalist. I don't exactly know how they relate to each other.
> Does in US exist some sort of a paper (of "official English")?
No. Western countries where 'barbarian' :-) languages are spoken are barbarously more democratic in terms of language usage. Their rights and wrongs in terms of language is socially determined, not officially. A grammar book may be recognized as authoritative, and then NATURALLY become a reference ( exactly like Richard Miller in singing. But, as Randy said in one of his posts, even Miller may be questioned ). There's no such thing like 'official' English there.
In the past, they used to imitate our grammarians ( probably French ones ) and say things like '...but in Latin...', but it's been a long time since they've come to the conclusion that they don't speak Latin ( it's our time now, hehe ). The way they treat their language is much more 'laissez-faire' than ours. It's a cultural difference ( that's one of the reasons they had to import 'coup-d'é-tat' from French :-) ).
In Italian, you have OFFICIALLY decided not to use the graphic sign for stress on the third syllable ( counting from the end back ). If we want to do that, it must pass in all congresses of all countries where Portuguese is spoken! An American newspaper would have a hard time trying to spell 'resume' with no, one, or two graphic signs in our countries. Folha de São Paulo, a big daily newspaper here, decided to extinguish the 'umlauts' by itself and is still criticized for 'attacking' the language with such an americanism! The same ( and much stronger ) reaction happens in France.
Bye,
Caio Rossi
|
| |