▷S4E3 The Heart of a Language: William Cisilino talks Friulano

0:00 — Welcome to Modo di Bere

RTB: Welcome to Modo di Bere, the podcast about local drinks and local sayings. I'm your host, Rose Thomas Bannister. Today I'm really excited to be interviewing Dr. William Cisilino, the director of the regional agency for the Friulano language in the city of Udine, in the northern Italian region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia. Welcome to the show, Dr. Cisilino.

WC: Thank you. Thank you very much.

RTB: So I was recently, at the time of this recording, I was recently traveling along the Italian and Slovenian border, filming a documentary about the wine regions and the local language. And Dr. Cisilino, everyone told me that I needed to speak to you. So I'm —

WC: Everyone is a big word.

1:11 — What is Friulano?

RTB: Okay. Two, three people, perhaps. Okay. I noticed when I was traveling in Friuli-Venezia Giulia some road signs with three languages. So Italian, Slovenian, and Friulano. Tell us what — what is Friulano?

WC: Friulano, which is a name also in English, which is Friulian. Friulano is the name of the language in Italian. And the local word for Friulian is furlan. It became from Friuli, which is the name of the region, the big part of that region. The name Friuli came from Latin and from the ancient name of Cividale del Friuli, which was Forum Iuli, the forum of — Julius Caesar, no? Oh, yes. This city was founded by Julius Caesar, which was the capital of Friuli in the Longobardian period. And then the name of the city formally became the name of all the region, Friuli, under the Longobards, because the founders of Friuli were the Longobards. We are talking about 1,500 years ago. No. Wow. A lot of years, now. So we have a very long, long, long history.

RTB: Who were the Longobards?

WC: The Longobards were Germanic people, which came here around the final part of the fifth century. They decided to put Forum Iuli, now Cividale del Friuli, as the capital. I don't know if at the time it was a duke of Friuli — this was very important, because before the main city was Aquileia, and then Cividale del Friuli became the main city. And the role of these people to promote the regional identity was very strong. And so the name of the city became the name of all the region, so Forum Iuli, Friuli, and then Friulian, which is the name of the language.

Friulian is a romance language, and continues the lineage of the Aquileia region — it has a pre-Roman substrate, Celtic, more or less. It received a lot of contribution from the languages of populations which briefly shared moments in its history: Germanic, Gothic, Lombard, Slavic languages. So it's a romance language with a lot of inserts of these parts of these languages of people who came here in the years. Wonderful.

RTB: So I ask this question of people a lot. What is the difference between a language and a dialect?

4:48 — A language is a dialect with an army and navy

WC: How much time do you have? I have an answer about this. I don't know if you know the answer — the very famous answer of Professor Weinreich about this question.

RTB: Something about the Navy.

WC: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. A language is a dialect with a Navy and Army. The languages are a club, no? And to become a member of this club, you need that some of these languages want you in this club. So this is the regulation. So we are a language because the Italian state in 1999, so very recently, decided to recognize us as a language. For example, we have dialects or languages in Italy, but they are not recognized by the state as languages. So it's only a formal affair, a formal business. And I have to say also that the languages usually have some characteristics. For example, they have literature. They have standard language, now.

They have regulations about spelling, now. And they have usually entities, public bodies, as ARLeF, my public body, the regional agency for Friulian language of the region. The region is a sort of little state, no, as in America, with a lot of differences. There are some characteristics. But finally, the last word is on the hands of the states. If the states recognize you, you are a language. If not, no.

8:01 — Pasolini and Friulian literature

RTB: So I have a long cherished dream to have some sort of a panel where I have a linguist like yourself and a geneticist who studies grape varieties, because, you know, my background is in wine. I have become a researcher in linguistic idioms, per caso, by accident. But it always reminds me when you say the language is recognized by the state — the question is, how many different wine grape varieties are there in Italy? Well, we can talk about the main variety. Is this a clone? Is it a family? Like a taxonomy, you know, a language family, and then the cousins of the language. I definitely have heard from a lot of people in Italy that the presence of a long history of written literature is often an example that people tell me. So tell me about Friulano literature a little bit.

WC: Yeah, Friulano or Friulian has a very long history about the literature. And I also have to say that a lot of dialects in Italy have a long history about, you know, the use in literature. So, for example, before to speak about Friulian and Neapolitan — no, dialect or language, I don't know — you have very famous songs, poems, and so on, in the language of Napoli. So of course, we have a very old literature. You have to consider that the first literary documents in Friulian date back to the middle of the 13th century. Wow. So very many, many years. We have a lot of very good writers.

First of all, in the 15th century, as Morlupino, Sini, Strassoldo, Biancone, and Donato, a lot of people. The most important is in the 17th century, and his name is Ermes di Colloredo. Ermes is our Dante Alighieri, because he used the form of Friulian. And the other writers at the time started to use to write the same as Dante Alighieri. And a lot of languages also — I don't know, for example, in the languages of Germany — No, or with Martin Luther, no — he wrote the translation of the Bible, and the writers started to use that form of language after him.

We have a lot, a lot of authors, and I want to say an important thing. We had a lot of authors, but only in the 19th century, as the other languages — The writers started to think about the form, the correct form of Friulian, as spelling, letters, grammatic, and so on. In this was very, very important a woman prose writer, Caterina Percoto, who was very important to establish the grammatic, the forms, and the spelling of the language, and she was a very, very, very good writer. Last but not least, Pier Paolo Pasolini, which is, I think, the most famous, with Carlo Sgorlon, for Friulian literature, as well.

He is one of the most important writers in Italy and in Europe, and a lot of critics say that the most important poems are the Friulian ones.

RTB: Lovely. Oh, I would love to one day have time to learn Friulano and read the poetry. That sounds like a dream. I hope —

WC: I know that Pasolini has a lot of translations. So you find poems of Pasolini, and I think that is one of the most important writers in Europe, not only in Friuli or Italy.

12:28 — Friuli-Venezia Giulia: a young region

RTB: Fantastic. I will absolutely check that out. I love poetry. The region Friuli-Venezia Giulia is a fairly recent creation. I was trying to just say Friuli because it's shorter, and an Italian will correct me and say, no, it is Friuli-Venezia Giulia.

WC: And it's very dangerous if you say only Friuli when you are in Venezia Giulia, for example, in Trieste. And this is also correct, no.

RTB: So these regions were put together into one in the 60s. Is that —

WC: Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The decision to create this strange region was decided in 1948, but the region started to be a formal body in 1963. It's very recent. It's formed by two areas very, very different about language, about culture, about history. And we tried to live together. And I think that we will live together a lot of time in the next years, and I think it's a good example to live with other peoples, not with different peoples. And to manage to find the way to put together the good things and not the critics' things.

13:52 — Life on the borderland

RTB: Let's speak more about the history of this border, along this geographic place where you are. I've learned it has such an interesting history of different cultural influences, different political influences. Can we talk a little bit about the history of this borderland?

WC: In terms of linguistics, you have to consider that only 100 years ago here, you find people that in the normal life spoke three, four, five languages. And also now you can find this situation. For example, you visited Collio. In Collio, a lot of people usually speak at least three languages. Italian, Friulian — 100 years ago, also German was very spoken. This situation was created because here is the only place in Europe where the three big cultures and languages — Slavic, Germanic, Latin — meet and live together. And this has been more than 1,500 years. So we are very open to other cultures and to be part of something of a sort of multicultural thing.

Now, these four official languages — Italian, Friulian, Slovenian, German — if you go in our regional council, you will find councilors who speak Friulian, or Italians, or Slovenian, or German, and you have interpretation for those who don't understand. For example, you find signs, as you know, in these languages. If you go to Tarvisio, you will find four languages, because Tarvisio has four languages. So we think we are very rich. But we have to consider that more than 100 years ago now, during the first — the World War, before and during — nationalism spread a lot of blood for the idea that different identities and cultures and languages can't live together.

And now we have this situation that we love, and this is the normal situation of this region, because also in the middle age, we live in peace as languages, identities, culture. Our problem was and is the states. The big entities. But this is another — can I say — argument, no.

17:19 — Inside ARLeF

RTB: And a very important one, I think. I would love to hear a little more about your work with ARLeF.

WC: ARLeF, as I told you, is a regional agency of the autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, which is one of the 20 regions of Italy. But of this 20 regions, five are special — Sicily. And Sicily was founded before the Italian state. So Sicily recognized the Italian state, and not the opposite. And it's true — this, and Sardinia, Valle d'Aosta, Trentino-Alto Adige, and Friuli-Venezia — Giulia. So we have four languages. And for the Friulian language, the region decided to create the agency to promote our languages, more or less 20 — not really 30 — years ago. And so we work to promote the language, to perform actions to promote, to develop the language in more or less all the fields of the social life, such as family, school, mass media, working environment, show business, scientific research, public administration, technologies — more or less all.

18:57 — How many people speak Friulano?

RTB: That's fantastic. I'm interested in how many speakers — what is the state of Friulano today? Is it doing well as a language? What are your goals in terms of preservation and creating more speakers of the language?

WC: In this moment, the speakers here in Friuli are more or less 500,000. The situation of the language is fine about the recognition, by not only the institution, but also by the people. The people here know that we have a language, we have to promote this language, now we have to preserve, and — how can I say — the people wants to save these languages. Not only the speakers, but also the others. The others means the others — 300,000 people who live near the people who speak the language. And in this moment, so Friulian is spoken by at least one person in two, but one in four could reactivate their competence in this language.

We want to encourage its use, and we hope that also the parents speak Friulian to their children. This is very important. The problem here is that the people — I don't know if this is correct to say — make children. No, I —

RTB: Have.

WC: Have children. I have children, okay. Because here in Italian we say make children — no, if you don't have children, then you don't have the people who speak the language. You don't have the people who make a lot of things. The problem now in Friuli is that the region in Italy with Liguria, which has the worst rate about —

RTB: A low birth rate.

WC: Yeah, okay. The situation is very dangerous for this reason.

21:25 — Passing language to the next generation

RTB: I want to know more from you in general about the importance of intergenerational transmission with the health. The life of a language is fundamental.

WC: And now we know that 50% of parents transmit the language. We want to have a 100% rate — that is not so bad, because 50% in a minority context is not so bad. But we are working a lot to persuade the parents that this is important — know more languages, Friulian. And also, it's important to learn other languages. Because if you are bilingual, when you are a child, it's easier for you to learn another language. We are working a lot to transmit this idea. For example, we have, since five, six years, a project with the hospitals.

When there is a new baby in the family, by the hospitals — when the newborn comes, we give to the parents some presents, a little book where we explain these things about multilingualism. And we are very proud, because the parents appreciate a lot this, and also the parents from other regions and other countries.

23:12 — A parallel in Texas German

RTB: That's great. This makes me think of — I was in Texas speaking to some people who speak the Texas German variant of German, as documented by the researcher Hans Boas. It's really interesting that the researcher's conclusions were that the language is going to die, because the speakers are all in their 80s, and there isn't a lot of energy to preserve and promote. And I observed, over a game of dominoes, the grandparents could speak the language. Their children could understand but not speak. And then the grandchildren, they just said, what are you saying about me? I don't understand at all. I observed an interesting exchange between someone from the oldest generation and the middle generation.

The middle generation, the dad, was saying the problem is they're not teaching it in the schools. And the grandma said, no, the problem is they're not speaking it at home. And that seemed to me that we should listen to her. What I mean, I'm sure both are important. I'm curious about your thoughts on this.

WC: I think that we need both, because in your home, you can transmit the heart of language. And in the school, you transmit the culture, the literature, the history, and the tradition. So are different levels. And this is the same with English in your country and Italian in — and here now, you learn at home the language. At the school, you can read the literature and the history of the country. So, different levels.

RTB: In terms of media. I have an interesting example from my travels in your region, or near your region. In Slovenia, I was told — speaking of intergenerational transmission — I was told that many people in their 40s, 50s, learned Italian because they were in Slovenia, or all the different countries that has been, and they were close enough to the Italian border to be able to pick up on their television the Italian cartoons. And now my Slovenian friends are saying that their children don't speak as well Italian, because now there's so many things to watch other than just the Italian cartoons. So I don't know what you think about that, but I would love to hear in terms of media about your work.

26:02 — Friulano in the media

WC: Media are very important, of course. We have here in Friuli some media in Friulian. For example, we have a weekly, we have also some — we have a monthly, a historical monthly, and some periodicals in Friulian. And we have two radios — one, Radio Onde Furlane, which broadcasts almost all in Friulian, and another one, Radio Spazio 103, which broadcasts 55% in Friulian. And you can find it in the web if you want. And also we have the Radio Televisione Italiana, RAI, which broadcasts programs in radio and in television, in Friulian.

In television, we also have a private media, Telefriuli, which has programs in Friulian, which you can find also online in the website, and also, of course, we have also social media — Facebook, Instagram, TikTok. And so we have a presence of the language in all this media. It's clear that it's very difficult for a language with not so many speakers to not be very present in this media, but they are very important.

RTB: I think. [music]

WC: Mhm.

27:56 — A Friulian moon idiom

RTB: I'd love to get a sense of the flavor or the sound, the words of Friulian. Let's do it through modo di dire, through idioms. Do you have some modo di dire to teach me?

WC: I don't know if you already know: "Ogni dì si fâs la lune, ogni dì si impare une."

RTB: Oh, I can almost understand that — something about the moon and —

WC: Every day — I don't know — si fâs la lune, the moon — no, make something in the orbit — and every day you learn something.

RTB: Oh, I love that. I love that. That is beautiful.

WC: Fâs la lune is a phase of the moon — one of the phases, one of a lot of the phases of the moon, now. So every day the moon moves a little more, in the new phase, and every day you learn something, at the same time.

29:18 — Never drink water

RTB: That's beautiful. In English, it's not so poetic — we say, "Learn something new every day." Oh, that's very beautiful. I like that one a lot. I learned one, although I think it might sound different from region to region, but I learned — I have a collection of drinking sayings about how you should never drink water, right, because you should drink wine. So I learned "L'aghe je buine pae crotz."

WC: Yeah, very good pronunciation.

RTB: Oh, thank you. Yeah.

WC: The water is good for frogs. Okay.

RTB: I love this, I love this. It's so funny. That is actually one of my favorites of that whole collection. Just for comparison, I learned from Venice: "l'acqua marsise i pai."

WC: So, yeah.

RTB: So the water rots the boat poles. Yeah. So, so my linguistics question for you, because my expertise is in wine, right? But then wine has given me — my work in wine has given me an excuse to indulge my passion for language study. And as I began to encounter the vast linguistic diversity in Italy, I noticed that when people would talk to me about their regional languages or their dialect, however they call them, I was being taught a lot of modo di dire and a lot of idioms, and I have found — I guess I want to know what you, as a real linguist, think of my theory.

31:16 — Why idioms matter

I think that it is a really wonderful microcosm of a language to learn these sayings. I think they're funny, I think they're colorful, and I think they're a good bridge to connect people, like an idiom exchange. And I think they're funny and sweet and kind of bring a smile to your face. And I think it's maybe a better way to start than, "Please —" "Thank you. Where is the train station?" For me, it's — I don't know, what do you think? What is the place of the idiom in linguistics? Am I onto something?

WC: The place is that, you know that you have learned a language when you start to understand idioms. And this is very, very important. Sometimes idioms are a sort of little sentences about the people. For example, if you read the most important idioms of Friuli, these sentences are very important to understand what are Friulians. It's very strange, as you noted, that from region to region, or from area to area, in Italy, you have different wines, different dishes, different idioms, different languages or dialects. So we have a lot of dishes, a lot of wines, because we have a lot of cultures, and a lot of dialects and a lot of languages.

I was very impressed some years ago in Sardinia, because I was in a little village, during the period of carnival. And the people from there, they told me that every little village, also of 100 inhabitants, has a cake for carnival. Every, every, every — a thousand kinds of cakes for carnival. And this is culture. This is why we have a lot of cheeses, or French people — but we have more than French. No. So I —

RTB: Think it's wonderful. It's a cause of great delight. This whole thing started for me because I got a job bartending at an Italian restaurant with Italians from various regions, and they made, for me, a caprese cake. And I said, I thought that was a salad. And they said, well, they have a cake there as well. And that was kind of the beginning of learning the real richness of variety here. And to me, it's like collecting baseball cards, you know — there's just, yeah, there's always more. It's so rich, I need several lifetimes to taste every cheese. So now this is on my list — to taste every cake, every cake.

Yeah, I'm — oh, I have a big desire to go to Sardinia. That sounds amazing. I want to ask you about Friulians around the world, in terms of linguistic diversity in Italy. A lot of people have told me about a period of time where the local dialect was suppressed. People were told, don't speak that way, speak Italian, depending on what region you were from. And I'm curious, this thing that you just told me about the autonomous regions, these five autonomous regions — did that make a difference in terms of continued transmission and continued value of the local language?

WC: This is a problem of all the little languages in the world. You have to consider that in the world now we have 7,000 languages, and two thirds of this are in danger. Okay. And so language, dialect — it's the same, it's the same in the different regions of Italy and of Europe. You can find different situations, because the people of, or the institution of the people and institution of these regions, consider or don't consider it important to preserve the language. So for example, in our region it's very important, and I can say that every opinion leader, every politician, knows that it is important.

The question for them is how to preserve — how important is the school, how important are the books — and they argue about this, but they are very sensitive about the problem. But the situation, for example, 50 years ago here was very, very different, because we have here the Iron Curtain, and now — here to Trieste, 13, no — 30 kilometers, and it's zero kilometers. And so the problem at the time was to preserve not only the state, but NATO, the Occident. So the problem was there, this. And now we have other problems.

But in this moment in Europe — but the main problem is not to defend from that situation, because the Cold War now is very different. So I think also that if you have a trip in various regions of the Europe of the world, you find the situation that you find in that moment. So in that moment, for us it's a good moment for languages and dialects. So I don't know the real situation in the other regions of Italy. I imagine that in other regions, institutions and opinion leaders are not so close to these themes. But in our region it's a very important issue.

RTB: How many Friulano speakers are there outside of Italy, and what were some of the migration patterns?

37:59 — Fogolars: Friuli's diaspora

WC: The experts estimate that the Friulian speakers out of Friuli are more or less 1 million — more than the speakers here, 1 million, because we have a big story of emigration in the USA, in Canada, in South America, also in Australia, and recently in China, Japan, in Europe. In Europe too. So we have a big community spread around the world who speak Friulian.

RTB: Well, in New York as well.

WC: Yeah, in New York we have — we have also — a fogolar. Fogolar means the local organization of the immigrants. And we have a very old fogolar, and we have also a big fogolar in Canada, Famee Furlane, which is very well organized. We have also many, many people of the recent emigration. So young people who found everywhere these fogolars, and it's very curious, because we collaborate with the bodies — we have some bodies, local and private. We have not public bodies, we have only private entities, associations who work for Friulian emigration and the immigrants. The most important, because it's the oldest, is Ente Friuli nel Mondo. And it started to work in 1953. It has a long, long history. I think they have more than 100 fogolars spread around the world, also in Africa.

RTB: That's so interesting.

WC: Yeah.

40:11 — Friulians in Argentina

RTB: Yeah, I did learn from your colleague Marco about the influence of Friulians in the winemaking history in Argentina. So tell me about Friulians in Argentina.

WC: I'm not an expert about this, but I know that in Argentina you can find a lot of Friulians, but also a lot of different immigrants from regions of Italy. So in Argentina, you find more or less the same situation of Italy. So you have an Italian community, but they are very divided, from the region where their families come. So they transmit this culture, not only of Friulian, but also of the other regions of Italy, in the culture of Argentina, and also in the dishes and the wines. You have a lot of wines in Argentina influenced by the Italian tradition. But I'm not so expert to tell you which ones and the names. But I know that this is real.

RTB: And Fernet Branca as well, right?

WC: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. And also, it is not a wine, but the Pope — he has an Italian name because his family came from Piemonte, you know? Right?

RTB: Oh, interesting.

WC: Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Pope is of Italian origins, also if he is from Argentina.

RTB: Italians are everywhere. I love it. I want to ask you — I'm always excited when I get to speak to a linguist. So one of the questions I have for you is, you know, my interest in linguistic diversity was influenced by my interest in biodiversity and studying the indigenous grape varieties of Italy — their preservation, their valorization. But like I said, I was working without any real academic background in linguistics or in linguistic preservation.

43:14 — Biodiversity, linguistics, and Chomsky

And I wondered initially if I was doing something romantic, or making something up, saying, well, I like these two things — I like dialects and I like rare grapes, and I'm going to make a project and talk about them in the same project. And as I have gone forward with this and learned more about linguistics through talking to people like yourself, I'm learning that the environmentalists who want to prevent plants and animals from going extinct have actually been an influence on linguistics. So I'm really fascinated by this, and I try to ask everybody about the connection between biodiversity and linguistic diversity. So I want to know if you have some thoughts on this.

WC: Yeah, we have a sort of master about this thematic, these issues — with a very famous linguist, I think also philosopher, American, Noam Chomsky. Noam Chomsky, who wrote a lot about the connection between biodiversity and diversity in general, and linguistics. So what we know is that the world is based on diversity. And when there is not diversity, there is a problem. And also, for example, for the generations — now, if you don't have diversity, you have problems in the genes. For example, this is very clear. You need a variation, you need a variation also. For example, the evolution theory is based on diversity.

The evolution theory explains that we are based on diversity, and life is possible because there is diversity and diversification. And so we can find it also in the languages, which is the problem that we find in languages — not only in languages, also, for example, in the food. Many people who, for example, lost, here in Friuli, all the knowledge about the use of some varieties, now, of — I don't know what to eat, I mean.

And I think that the people who work about these things, for example, like you, about diversity in wines, or diversity in the plants we want to use for cultivation and so on, and also to discover which was the knowledge of our grandfathers and grandfathers, and so on — for example, the work we do about languages is very close, very close, because we are working for — for diversity, to preserve diversity, now — and other entities. I don't want to say which ones — work for homogenization. Globalization is also a term of globalization, now, to have something that is the same all over the world.

I think that is good that you find some marks all over the world. Okay, this is good, because I go in that place and I'm more relaxed, because I find this same — Mark. But I think also that it's important that when I go to the city, to the villages, to meet people, I want to find something different. Why do we go around the world for tourism — to find something different. This means that we want and we appreciate differences. And the first thing we have to do is to preserve our different things in our culture and in ourselves.

RTB: Wonderful, wonderful answer. To take pride in your local character is something that I find so inspiring from all over Italy, and it shines a light for me to see the same process all over the world. Thank you. Thank you for your work.

WC: Thank you to you.

RTB: Please let me know how I can help. Okay, perhaps as in closing — we learned this one saying, but could you speak a few sentences in Friulian for us, or teach us a few more words? I just want to get a little more taste, a little more flavor of this language that we're discussing in English.

48:00 — The oldest poem in Friulian

WC: If you want, I can tell you the first phrases of the most ancient poem in Friulian. Please: "Piruç myo doç inculurit," Which is very — is very nice, because "Piruç," is the — the pear, no, not the apple, but the pear. I don't know if the pronunciation is right — "quant yo chi vyot, dut stoy ardit." And you have a very good color, and when I see you, I'm so — I don't know — excited.

RTB: Oh, that's so —

WC: Why pear? Why pear? Because pear means "Piera." "Piera," which is a name. It's a joke with a name and this word, no. And so it has seven centuries, this poem.

49:06 — Mandi: a Friulian goodbye

RTB: Oh, that's beautiful. Thank you so much for teaching that to me. I also learned, while I was there, "Mandi."

WC: Okay, "Mandi." Yeah.

RTB: Okay. Can you explain that to us?

WC: "Mandi" is our goodbye, but also our hello — it's difficult to explain what it means, because it means "mi raccomando" — it's very difficult also to explain in Italian, but it's something like, take care of you. When we are here in Friuli, we like to use this "mandi" when we meet. But first of all, when we leave someone.

RTB: Kind of like ciao.

WC: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

RTB: Yeah, like — yeah, I also, it's coming to my mind now, I know one more, about leaving — saying it's time to go, now. I love this because I felt like it taught me something about the warmth and the welcome of the local culture. There I was taught "Lassini come cjans." How's my pronunciation?

WC: Yeah, it's very — is very good. "Lassini come cjans."

RTB: So when I heard this, I thought something interesting, because usually in Italian languages, dog is not a good thing. It's a bad word — or you say, Fret come un cane, it's as cold as a dog, you know. So I thought, okay, dog is a bad thing — that means, let's leave each other like dogs, like I'm going to do you wrong in a business deal, you know, like, right. Like I'm going to do bad by you. Yeah. And they said, no, no, it means let's kiss each other a lot. Let's — we say goodbye like friendly dogs sniffing. Is that correct?

WC: Yeah, yeah. My dog is — so it's a kiss, a kisser. Kiss.

RTB: Yes, yes. Let's — you know, like, kind of like dogs sniffing each other, like kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss. Like, let's leave each other with many kisses. I thought that was really lovely and quite a surprise — a linguistic surprise for me. I have to ask you one more question, because behind you I see on your bulletin board it says, "I'm a drink." What is this?

51:42 — "I am a drink": a translation mishap

WC: Oh, it's very complicated. But it's a joke of a friend of mine, because, months ago, or one year ago, a journalist interviewed the former president of Sicily, and — he lied about, I don't know what — and it's very famous, this guy, now, but it's true. And this politician, to the journalist, has said — I don't know the name — has said, Martin Luther King, "I am a dream." And he wants to say, "I have a dream." No, no — has Martin Luther King said, "I am a dream"? [laughs] So a friend of mine, for joking —

RTB: This is right up there with JFK and the donuts, Berlin example, right? You know what I'm talking about. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What was that story? Do you remember the phrase? He was trying to say, "I'm a Berliner," and he said, "I'm a donut." Yeah, I'm a —

WC: Donut. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Is this thing the same? "I'm a dream, I drink."

RTB: "I am a drink." Listen, language is hard. I credit that person for trying. I make mistakes like that every day. So let's not apologize. Let's continue to make each other laugh. I think it was important for me to learn Italian, because I did meet a lot of recent immigrants to New York who were learning English, and they would make mistakes that I thought were so funny. You know, the way that a child is funny, you know? But when you're laughing at a child who is making a mistake with language, it's because it's poetic. It's a new perspective, and you think, oh, I never thought about it that way.

53:55 — Find ARLeF online

And I just encourage people to not be embarrassed about your mistakes. This helps me as well to say, because I make many. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Tell us your website, your social media, how people can follow you and learn more about your work.

WC: The website is arlef.it, so you can find all the information, and also the links to the other medias.

RTB: Arlef.it, and then we can follow you from there, on social media and everywhere.

WC: [crosstalk] With the links to Facebook, YouTube. We have two channels. Yeah, we have a lot of things.

RTB: Well, maybe one day we can make a video together. Yeah, yeah. Let me know. Really, let me know how I can help. I care a lot about —

WC: Linguistic —

RTB: Preservation. And it's been an absolute pleasure to talk with you.

WC: Perfect. Thank you very much.

RTB: Mandi. Mandi, tell us again the saying about the moon, because it reminds me of the motto of the show.

WC: Actually — Ogni month, the moon changes. And every day you learn something.

RTB: All right, so the motto of the show is wherever you go and whatever you like to drink, always remember to enjoy yourself and to never stop learning. Support us on Patreon.

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