Italian companies and signpainters, as well as government officials, may soon face fines as high as €100,000 for using English words in their Italian documents.
The Brothers of Italy party, led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, is supporting legislation that would ban the use of English or other foreign words in official communication and requiring foreign companies doing business in Italy or with Italian companies to use Italian in internal documents. The legislation would also ban teaching in a foreign language except for the purpose of learning the language.
The bill was introduced by Fabio Rampelli, a member of Parliament, who says that ‘Anglomania’ is a danger to Italian language and culture, saying that in the past 23 years, the number of English loan words in Italian has increased by 773%.
It may be difficult to enforce the law if it passes, since a large portion of the new loan words are technology and internet vocabulary for which Italian doesn’t—at least yet—have words of its own. Others have become common for other reasons, so much so that Meloni herself has called herself an ‘underdog.’
