The Role of the Debates on the Definition of the Italian Oral Language and on the Means of Its Propagation after the Italian State Declaration

Abstract

The article examines the role of debates on the definition of a national oral language in Italy, where the divergence between the written, literary language and oral dialects has historically been very significant. The decisive contribution to the definition of the oral language, by choosing the Florentine language as the model of the oral Italian language was made by Alessandro Manzoni along with Graziadio Isaiah Ascoli, who suggested that the adoption of the Florentine language would lead to a formal cult of “popular purity” instead of the ideal of “classical purity”, and that the linguistic would be the result of a deeper action with the aim of spreading culture and bridging the gap, separating a small circle of intellectuals from the rest of the population. In conclusion, the author considers that the convergence of written and spoken Italian has led to the fact that, today, the proficiency in written language among Italians is lower than the average in European countries, and Italians still perceive the spoken language as an unnatural language.