(30 August 2016) Contaminated by English, threatened by Whatsapp emoticons, ‘offended’ by SMS abbreviations and chats, the Italian language is in danger. Since the first documents of the Italian language, such as the Placiti Cassinesi, the grammars of the sixteenth century and the ‘Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca’ (Crusca Academy) of 1612 to the almost incomprehensible jargon of technological communications: where does Italian language come from and where is it headed? One often hears of ‘the decadence of the Italian language’ between a return to illiteracy and the ‘invasion’ of English loanwords. However, how true is this statement? This will be the topic of a conference titled: “And yet it moves: The history of the Italian language over the centuries” held by Professor Vera Gheno at the Italian Cultural Institute in Oslo on September 5. This event was announced by the Dante Alighieri Society.
