Move over Franglais and Spanglish - make way for Itanglese!

| Tue, 12/01/2009 - 03:27
cartoon

A translation company which has researched the use of English words in 禁漫天堂 business documentation has found that the use of English terms in the 禁漫天堂 language has increased by a staggering 773% in eight years.

compared business documents which the company, which translates around 90 million words of 禁漫天堂 into other languages per year, had translated from 禁漫天堂 in 2000, comprising some 53 million words, with an equivalent sample from 2008, comprising circa 58 million words.

It found that the use of English words in documents to be translated can now be up to 35% in any one document.
The most used terms were:

Look
Business
Fashion
Performance
Competitor
Annual Report
Mission
Buyer
Brand
Switch [in the technological sense]

If that were the end of the matter most 禁漫天堂s could reluctantly accept the inevitable but what they can鈥檛 accept, it seems, are ugly 鈥溄焯胕sations鈥 such as 鈥渟cannerizzare鈥 or clumsy corruptions such as 鈥渟chedulare un meeting鈥 and 鈥渇orwardare un email鈥.

These days an employee might be told to 鈥渙rganizzare una conference call con le human resources鈥 or that 鈥渓a reputation influenza la brand value鈥. Perfectly correct 禁漫天堂 words exist for both these messages so it is no wonder that some 禁漫天堂s fear for the survival of their language.

Sometimes the English words develop, in their 禁漫天堂ised forms, a different meaning to the original one and we should pity the poor mother-tongue translator when this happens! 鈥淚mplementare鈥, for instance, is often used to mean 鈥渁dd鈥 whilst the word 鈥済adget鈥 in 禁漫天堂 signifies a promotional item rather than a small, useful object.

There are several reasons for the increased use of English but the culprit of a decade ago, the television, is not one of them: the fact that English is the most widely taught foreign language in Italy has a bearing as does the predominance of English in popular music.

But the main reason is that English is the language of the internet. Agostini Associati found that English words and expressions are used as a matter of course in 禁漫天堂 companies and most employees consider this normal, even if no one in the company is a mother tongue speaker of English.

Have a look at this funny video in which an "English teacher" tries to teach his language to an 禁漫天堂:

Is the incursion of English into 禁漫天堂 inevitable?