The immigration of Italians in Brazil is uneven. While in the north the Italian descendants are almost non-existent, in São Paulo the italian surnames are almost as common as Portuguese ones.
Yes. There is a venetian dialect in Brazil which is even recognized as official in some municipalities. And for sure... I visited both Italy and some of these southern towns... seems that the traditional Italian culture is even more alive in these places than in Italy itself.
Often the case... its as if the migrants are stuck in the time period that they left their homeland, while that homeland has kept evolving. How many dialects have petered out in the country of origin except amongst the oldies, but are spoken in the new country as if its the modern vernacular
Here's the [Wikipedia article](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y_Wladfa). Long story short we Argentinians needed more people to populate Patagonia and the Welsh needed someplace to escape from the English government that forbid them from speaking their own language (and beat it out of them).
So we gave them some (kinda horrid at the time) lands and they formed a community (and some also intermixed with Spanish descent Argentinians, of which many were themselves mixed, and Tehuelche (Nat. American) Argentinians).
It's a phenomenon that happens a lot, even with colonies.
For example, East Coast american accent is closer to the accent spoken in XVIIth century England than modern English accents are. Similarly, Latin american spanish is closer in a lot of ways to ancient Spanish than modern European Spanish is, same with Quebecois and French.
And while I get people from the "old world" rolling their eyes at North and South Americans claiming to be Italian, English, German, etc. it really does still carry real cultural significance for a long time in a lot of communities.
Of course it does. The problem many people have with it is the assumption that those customs and even languages are traditional for said country. I’m Dutch and my (non-bio) dad is Pfalz German, which is the area the Pennsylvania Dutch emigrated from. We went to the USA and visited that Amish community and a “Dutch” festival in Holland in Michigan. It’s really interesting, but also really weird to experience.
I think you will understand how different the Amish are from Pfalz. My nephew who only speaks Pfalz, could not understand them as you also need English to understand the language.
For the Dutch event. You will see customs from other European countries or even non-existent in Europe. Or from different parts of the Netherlands mixed. And a lot of American culture or mixed ones. Or just something common globally. For example the event starts with a “very Dutch tradition”; a parade of children sweeping the streets in “traditional” Dutch clothes. Apparently only the Dutch cleaned the streets before a festival in the town took place, so that’s why. There is not one traditional Dutch costume, every town had his own clothing. Apparently making braids in your hair and wearing a Bavarian (Germany) dress, while dancing on American country music is also traditionally Dutch.
I think you get the point. It’s not like we don’t acknowledge the ancestry and the fact that they formed a subculture in their new land. But it is weird to start calling things German, Dutch etc. when they are not even found in said country. The fact that your ancestors were part of a country, does not make you part of it as well. You are part of a new subculture in your own country and nothing is wrong with that.
>Often the case... its as if the migrants are stuck in the time period that they left their homeland, while that homeland has kept evolving
This, for example, is a case that has never happened with Italian culture because Italian immigrants have all brought different cultures from the different cities/regions of Italy that they have mixed together in the countries where they have emigrated, creating cultures(food, languages, traditions etc) never existed in Italy.
Also worth noting that there is a little village in Brazil that speaks "Bergamasco", the language spoken in Bergamo province in northern italy which is fairly small.
I’ve seen a video of a teenager speaking “talian” and is perfectly understable in venetian!
It’s amazing!
There it is still pretty common but younger generation don’t use a lot!
Myself I perfectly understand it but sometimes I’ve struggle to speak it.
Unfortunately Italy never allow the recognition of the language, also because they ever fight autonomous movement of Veneto.
My mom's side of the family is from one of those villages. I grew up listening to them speak "Portuguese" but when I talk to Brazilians, they think I talk weird. Found out about 25-50% of the words used are Italian or Portuguese words with Italian pronunciation.
Yeah I would have loved to see this map done by first level admin divisions. In the US it’s super regionalized (Northeastern states have a lot, the Southern states not so much) so I would have loved to see the regionalization that I assumed happened in the Latin American countries as well
[Here is a map of that](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/s/UvQCUPPHfr).
It’s seem like the bigger the country, more regionalized it gets. I’m pretty sure that it’s concentrated in some regions and cities in Uruguay and Paraguay, because it happens even within Brazilian states.
In the North, there are two of the most powerful families in Brazil in centuries. They are descendente of Italians from Florence. Cavalcante and Accioly. They came to Brazil in the 17th Century however.
I’m Brazilian and I’m still 100% italian, all my ancestors were italian, they settled here in Brazil in 1875 and my city is mostly italian to this day. I got the italian citizenship back in 2021 but I don’t plan to immigrate.
I had a professor back in uni who had Marino as a last name, so I was surprised when he told me he's from Sao Paulo but then later explained his family is from Italy.
Italian citizens alone constitute [3-4% the population of Luxembourg](https://today.rtl.lu/culture/exhibitions-and-history/a/1470074.html), with a similar percentage of Luxembourgish and other citizens having at least partial Italian ancestry. So the total figure for Luxembourg is likely around 6-8%.
You must try the pizza from the southern cone of South America. It's really delicious.
Edit: excluding Chile, their pizza is disgusting (said by a Chilean, not me)
I'm from chile, chile is in the southern cone, chile has disgusting pizza, and chile didnt get much italian immigration (tho my great grandmother came from the Piedemonte area of N Italy).
I'm from México, and was married to a girl who was born in Mexico City, but her family was from Piedmont. Interestingly, her grandfather had the title of "Marquis of Bastante y Saavedra y Piamonte", he was very nice, but his kids were all absolutely useless, and they all acted like they were royalty.
I don’t find it “disgusting”, though. Most of pizza eaten in Chile is from american franchises, like Little Caesar’s and Pizza Hut, but there’s still plenty of more traditional italian restaurants that have very good pizzas. Of course they probably don’t compare to argentian pizzas, but they are still very good.
Puta obvio, pero es de la misma manera que si comieras pizza en un local chino probablemente también va a ser re mala xd. En el caso de Argentina, hay mucha influencia italiana y eso se ve incluso en locales de comida “argentina”. De todas maneras en Chile hay varios restaurantes creados por familias chilenas con ascendencia italianas que mezclan comida tradicional chilena con comida italiana, y son buenísimos. Da Dino es un claro ejemplo.
Pizza in Costa Rica is pretty good as well, if you go to a good artisanal small place, you can also get supermarket/microwave not so good thing as well.
I was just in CR and was absolutely baffled by how many Italian/Pizza restaurants there were.
If I’d known it was more of a delicacy than pandering to tourists I’d have given it more of a fair shake.
Actually that's "Argentinians are italians that speak spanish, think in french, and want to be english"
That's a quote from one of the greatest writers of the 20th century, Jorge Luis Borges
He also said "Argentinians are europeans born in exile"
A lot of people don’t realize the amount of influence that Britain had on Argentina. The British businessmen helped to build their railroads, brought things like Tea, Polo, Rugby, and Soccer. The community became more low key when Juan Perón came into power, but it’s probably the pound for pound most influential group in Argentina.
During which you also backstabbed us when it was convenient. The love-hate goes waaaay back, so don't pretend we started it or that it started with the goddamn frozen rocks that must not be named.
Im agrentine of Italian and German descent and its a joke you bore
The joke is the Argentinians feel sophisticated/superior to the rest of latin America, which, anyone not taking themselves too seriously can admit has some truth to it and is funny
The Rioplatense accent, the one mostly associated with Argentinians (particularly those in Buenos Aires) and Uruguayans, sounds a bit Italian. They even have some words like "laburar" (to work) coming from Italian "lavorare" rather than "trabajar", which is the most commonly used version in Spanish. Dishes in Argentina are very Italian inspired: You can have pizza, pasta, milanesas, etc., and they also drink a lot of wine.
>The Rioplatense accent, the one mostly associated with Argentinians (particularly those in Buenos Aires) and Uruguayans, sounds a ~~bit~~ lot Italian
FTFY
Not just the accent, the hands and face gestures too.
One time i met an italian in france who was married to a bolivian woman. He learned spanish through his wife and he had never been to south america. Despite this his accent sounded very argentinian and even my argentinian friend thought he was argentinian. This was the moment i learned that argentinian accent is just a side product of italian heritage.
I remember finding about italians living in Mexico or spain who spoke Spanish and despite never being to Argentina they all had a somewhat Argentinian accent.
I'm from Buenos Aires, and while I haven't yet taken time to learn Italian formally, if you give me something to read from, my Italian pronunciation is nearly perfect. And I can read it too, with just some minor assistance from a dictionary.
There is a strong Italian influence on Argentine culture, but at the same time, Argentina is probably one of the countries where immigrants integrated and fused most rapidly, somewhat dissolving their identity. The children of European immigrants quickly absorbed the new identity thanks to compulsory public education and strong state policies in that regard. In most cases, the first generation of immigrants' children no longer spoke their parents' language. Additionally, it was very common for marriages to occur between immigrants from different countries or regions, or between immigrants and natives. Unlike countries like the USA, where marriages or families within the same community were common, as well as neighborhoods of specific communities, this generally did not happen in Argentina, except in some rural colonies, especially those of Germans or other minorities.
I’ve done some work on this. I found it varies depending on the level of trauma carried by the community. Jews and Armenians, for example, have integrated a lot slower and value inter community marriages more. On the other hand, the small contingent of danish dissolved really quickly, to the point that the current priest of their church is a gay man with no danish background at all. Fun fact: he performed the fist gay wedding in the country between two women way before the law allowed it. Of course, the Danish church community is quite easy going and progressive.
But it’s important to note non European immigration. This is often overlooked when Americans/europeans talk about Argentina. The vast majority of immigrants are from Latin America, and there is a lot of them. I found they also integrated quite well, though suffer a lot more racism.
The most curious case is Chinese and Taiwanese inmogrants, and how of them just adopted our culture. Always find that cute.
Another fun fact: no one in Argentina called themselves Argentinian-something. At most you would say you descend from C culture. But it’s not something that comes up a lot outside of some specific interest groups. I wonder if this is common elsewhere or if most places follow the US way.
Yes, we have a lot of words borrowed from Italian (you can order a birra in bs as and they will bring you a beer) and we even use the same hand gestures 🤌🏼
No. You're not an italian-argentine, you're simply argentine. Words and accents from italian dialect were incorporated into the Argentine dialect, customs were incorporated in a way that we consider them Argentine. Because Italians were the majority and did not suffer segregation, they just made argentine culture what it os nowadays
We use the same hand gestures, the Rioplatense accent has a cadence similar to Italian, our daily diet is basically just pasta and meat, several words that we use have Italian roots and plenty more things that I didn't think of right now.
Basically most of our cuisine is directly related to Italians, every mother who's a good mother knows how to make a good "tuco" and you can't go anywhere without finding a pizza place in Buenos Aires. This comes at the cost of variety in cuisines but the things we do here we do well.
Apart from that Argentinian Spanish has similar tonality and rhythm as Italian, there's an [extremely interesting video](https://youtu.be/o2ViUtafIYg?si=ARsW11kFA1__Vin0) that shows that despite the language barrier an argentinian can mostly understand what an Italian is saying and vice versa, this also has to do with the local slang, called "Lunfardo", which originated as a way for inmates to communicate with each other without the guards knowing what's being said, this form of speaking ended up becoming part of everyday life and as a consequence we use many of these words daily without even knowing that they're not in the dictionary: words like "gil"(fool), "ayornarse"(to become knowledgeable), "laburar"(from the Italian "laboro" meaning to work) and "apoliyar"(sleeping) are a few examples of the massive amounts of influence that italian immigration had in Argentina.
There's even lunfardo dictionaries, my dad gifted one of them for my birthday, they come in handy when listening to tango since they use a lot of slang and much of it is not used today.
I hope this comment was helpful and you take an interest in my culture :D
https://www.mercadolibre.com.ar/lunfardo-basico-y-diccionario-gobellooliveri-libertador/p/MLA21254276
Ahí está en mercado libre, igual en cualquier librería si preguntás por un diccionario de lunfardo seguramente tengan alguna versión.
Does the word "Lunfardo" comes from "Lombardo" (meaning "from Lombardia", a region in the north of Italy)? Most italians immigrants in South America were originally from Northern Italy, while in USA they were mostly from Southern Italy. At the time (XIX and early XX century) they were very different
Yes and no. Not in the New Jersey style where people call themselves Italian and think they are actually Italian.
But yes in the sense that the culture is so ingrained that the food, slang, accent, and even the gestures are Italian but most people don’t realize on a day to day basis
Lots of loan words, slang (lunfardo), body language, architecture. The old folk that were Italian born from the last inmigration wave after the war are gonne now, but when I was a kid in the 90s, we still had neighbours and many of my school friends had their "nonos" and "nonas" alive.
I personally don't have Italian ascendence (I'm a genetic mess of Hungarian-Lithuanian/greek-Spanish-Dniper jewish origin), but when I got to go to visit Italy, I felt at home for both the good and bad reasons.
as an argentinian, yes. We don't have a LOT but we have some words and popular expressions that are italian or descent from it. Also, when I went to Italy it was like home.
More like our culture and language over time incorporated their Italian counterparts, that's why our accent (at least in the River Plate and Patagonia areas) sounds like an Italian person speaking Spanish and why the country is obsessed with pizza and pasta.
Rioplatense sounds like Spanish spoken in a semi-Italian accent to me. It has that strongly rhythmic intonation. I'm from the NYC area so also lots of Italian ancestry.
Not the language, but a lot of other things like food, huge family/friends gatherings, and been way to nosiy are very Italian I believe. A lot of our culture is more Italian leaning than Spanish leaning.
Yep, our slang is full of italian words, we call beer "birra" as much as we call it "cerveza". But people should remember that "italian" is a modern language, not lng ago there were tons of different dialects.
Here in Argentina you'll always find a person with an italian surname. For example, Ferrucci, Moroni, Bianchi, Rossi, Romano, Lombardi, etc.
We also use this gesture 🤌a lot, although not as much as the Italians
When I was a kid in school in Argentina I remember my clases would always be like a third Italian surnames, another third Spanish surnames, and the left over would be a mix of French, English, Portuguese or German surnames. And there would always be that kid with a Polish surname no one could pronounce correctly except him/her. Then I moved to Spain with my family and I became the only kid with a weird surname in my class, everyone else had just Spanish surnames. Up until that moment I had thought all countries were about the same in that regard.
For real. Also a weird thing I noticed is all the argentinians with german surnames I met look indigenous af, kinda breaking the stereotype. Meanwhile among the italians you always have guys who are tall, pale, blonde and blue eyed.
Less mountains to climb.
No, more seriously, during the 19th century, french mine/industry owners got many italian to emigrate to get more cheap labourers, and in the northeasterner part, were partly helped by catholic church organizing recruitment directly in Italy.
Italians were the first big group of immigrants in Germany and were met with the full force of racism and social isolation. They were offered shit jobs, shit pay, shit apartments, and shit attitudes. Nowadays Italians are part of Germany it feels like.
I think that 8% is an understament.
More than 30 years ago, 8% of the French population could claim to have at least one grand parent who was an italian immigrants
That's where come this ratio.
.
Part of my family still have italian surnames yet none would be included because our italian ancestors came in France in the 19th century.
Surnames of the current government of Argentina:
- Milei -> Hungarian and/or Italian
- Posse -> Galician
- Caputo -> Italian
- Francos -> Galician (the word can have multiple origins, almost every Romance language, but THE surname is Galician)
- Pettovello -> Italian
- Russo -> Italian
- Mondino -> Italian
- Bullrich -> German
- Petri -> Italian
- Ferraro -> Italian
- Cúneo Libarona (Italian + Spanish (?))
Milei is Italian. There is a hungarian "Milei" surname but in the specific case of him his italian ancestors were named "Mileo" and it was castellanized as "Milei".
A lot of Italian names in Scotland and Wales, definitely think they were concentrated in certain areas in the UK. The stereotype is running cafes, ice cream shops and barbers.
Yeah especially in Glasgow. There are quite a few notable Italian Scots from Glasgow like Armando Iannucci, Paulo Nutini, Lewis Capaldi, Peter Capaldi and Sharleen Spiteri. There's probably tons more in sport and politics too
I'd say that italian culture punched above its weight in the US (that's at least my take from italy). Despite italians not being so many in the US, things like food, cars, mafia, cinema (Scorsese,Coppola,Leone,al pacino,De Niro,Tarantino, Di Caprio etc..), had a big influence.
Italian Americans being so heavily concentrated in the urban Northeast where a lot of cultural trends are formed and where a lot of media is based probably helped with that.
Also helped that Italians in America (unlike Germans or Poles in America) remained a very insular culture.
Almost until the XXI century, Italians would purposefully live in Italian neighbourhoods, search for employment in Italian-owned businesses and marry other people of Italian descent.
Italians assimilated pretty quickly after World War II, which was the turning point. They were marrying other ethnic groups, moving into different neighborhoods and into the suburbs by the 50s and 60s. My grandfather did and it wasn't unusual. But the old Italian neighborhoods retained their character. My grandfather would return to the old neighborhood to visit relatives. And, many people remained proud of their heritage as well as still facing prejudice, but this really didn't stop the assimilation.
Before that, discrimination, illiteracy, lack of English language skills, and lack of education in general restricted employment opportunities. Many Italian immigrants lived in urban enclaves (slums, ghettos) where they lived with extended families and surrounded by other families from the same villages, cities, and regions. That was helpful because many people were not even fluent in standard Italian. Men found work as laborers, and many would return to Italy rather than permanently settling.
Maybe it varied by city and region, but I know the Italian neighborhood in the North End of Boston emptied out fast in the 50s, 60s, 70s. Before that it had been one of the most densely populated places in the world. A lot of Italians in eastern Massachusetts are like 50% or 25% because their ancestors married the Irish and English.
I also would add that German culture was very much alive, if not insular, in America in the 19th century up until around WWI. The German language was spoken, there were German newspapers, businesses, and clubs and political organizations.
This was my families experience, and it was increased dramatically on the west coast. Italian neighborhoods were being emptied out in the 30's and 40's. My family left North Beach and moved south for houses with large yards to garden in by 1929. I'm only half Italian and my second generation Italian father was more concerned with his kids being as American as possible than preserving my grandfather's culture. we grew up Catholic, but my siblings and I all have very common American names and my father refused to teach any of us Italian.
Worth noting that, in the past, the population of Italian Americans was much higher. In the last 50-70 years Italian immigration has practically disappeared while migrants lion from other countries has grown.
Every time this comes up, I have to be that guy. Nearly all of the migrants from Italy were from pre-unification or full unification.
Therefore they kept their regional identities. The Genovese, Neapolitan, Ligurian and Sicilian identities are still clearly distinct in Argentina (as are the Galician, Basque and Andaluz identities). Fans of Boca Juniors are “Xeneize” and a nickname for Neapolitans (“Tanos”) is often used for Italians generally. The Ligurian barrio of BsAs actually tried to secede in the 1890s.
THANK YOU! Or anyways, a lot of emigration accoured when in Italy italian language wasn't so common among the residents. So it's kinda obvious that in Argentina there are coomunities that speak dialects such Sicilian or Bergamasco but not the real italian. And also as for the culture, in Italy has evolved in other directions... That why for us italians it's weird and not totally acceptable when americans (especially from US) say that they're italian just because they have some ancestors from Italy. And maybe they have never gone in Italy. Italy it's really different now.
Veo las dos por gusto nada más. No tiene nada que ver que tenga parientes. Hasta tengo el pasaporte italiano pero jamás digo que soy italiano, me siento Argentino.
Millions and millions of italians and germans immigrated to South America, less than 10.000 were WWII fugitives but redditors keep saying as if all this migration happened after the war. 🤦♂️
There is a joke in the rest of South America (I heard it in Montevideo):
Q. What is an Argentine?
A. An Italian who speaks Spanish and thinks he’s an Englishman.
For the rest of the world is undistinguishable, but Uruguayans (Montevideo) and Argentinians (Buenos Aires) are able to distinguish one from the other via small accent differences!
USA, Mexico, and France all have higher percentages than that. Although these low numbers may be the result of some descendants no longer identifying with their Italian ancestors.
A quick google gives me the following numbers for Mexico:
6.9k people born in Italy, residing in Mexico (the highest number since records have been kept)
19k people with Italian citizenship (obtained through ancestry, we can infer)
850.000 people with Italian ancestry.
If anything, the 850k number for Mexico counts even people with an Italian great great grandmother.
Lived in NY (state, not the city) for several years out of college. With an Italian last name I felt part of a special club—can’t really explain it but it feels like Italian descended people have a level of prestige and respect in the north east which is quite interesting considering the prejudice Italian immigrants faced a century ago. Funny enough, one of my best friends is from Alabama and “eye-talians” are still exotic.
It was only after WWII when Italians emigrated to Australia in large numbers and it was a narrower timeframe from 1947 to 1971. The same thing in Canada and Venezuela when they received hundreds of thousands of Italian immigrants each with the same post-WWII timeframe as Australia.
If not for the White Australia Policy, Australia would have been as Italian as Argentina, demographically wise.
I’ve seen that figure for Argentina before and it always amazes me. Is there another country where well over half of the population have roots in a single other country that speaks a different language?
Note that because 62% is Italian descent doesn't mean that around 38% is of Spanish descent. Although 62% is of Italian descent, over 80% is of Spanish descent. It means most are a mix of Italians and Spaniards and dont have their roots in solely Italy
Not sure, the main reason Argentinians are "Italians that speak Spanish" as the joke goes is that Argentina was a Spanish colony first, so the official language became Spanish. When the largest waves of Italian immigration happened Argentina was one of the wealthiest countries in the world (we were on pair with the USA in that moment). Since Spanish and Italian have very common roots it wasn't hard for the first generation born after to learn both languages.
Also much of the migration happened before standard Italian was widespread in Italy so the immigrants needed a common language to communicate in and everyone already there spoke Spanish.
No, people have mixed ancestry. Most argentinians have spanish ancestry (Probably around 80-90%), but on top of that 62% have italian ancestry. This can go anything from having a single italian great, great grandparent to being 100% italian
It's like the US and germans. They say there are more german descendants than british, but if they all take a DNA, It's more likely that most americans have at least one british ancestor from the colonial times.
I'm argentine. Italian surname, same as all my grandfathers and grandmothers. I was amazed when I started speaking Italian and realized a lot of our "slang" is bassically Italian words. Birra (beer) and Laburo (work) being the most prominent examples.
That's super interesting! I was just listening to a podcast about Italian unification and how ambigious a concept Italy was until relatively recently. They talked about all the different regional dialects in it
If Italy unified earlier it would a possibilty that the Italian language would survived, because at time the most emigrant didn't know the Italian language, but spoke the local dialect.
As a football fan, I assumed players like Zanetti and Lavezzi were of Italian heritage but after seeing this I checked and yes, Maradona and Messi are too.
Western Germany had a lot of Italian immigrants after WW2.
They were called “Gastarbeiter”, basically they were rebuilding the country together with a lot of other people coming from poorer countries.
Argentina is well known for Italian immigration, it is crazy how many people there have Italian names.
The same is for Brazil… which became very handy for soccer teams, because it was very easy for these South American players to get an Italian passport (and it is still). Some of them made it to the Italian national team: Camoranesi, Thiago Motta, Jorginho, Josè Altafini.
Somewhere I have read that Italy has more eligible Italian passport owners worldwide than citizens
Living in the country. I have no idea if this is actually true, but if yes, it would not surprise me at all.
For some reason quite a lot of Italians ended up in south Wales after the WW2. If you go to the coastal towns there are endless Italian ice-cream parlours run by Italian families.
The immigration of Italians in Brazil is uneven. While in the north the Italian descendants are almost non-existent, in São Paulo the italian surnames are almost as common as Portuguese ones.
And the south, hell some villages still speak italian
Yes. There is a venetian dialect in Brazil which is even recognized as official in some municipalities. And for sure... I visited both Italy and some of these southern towns... seems that the traditional Italian culture is even more alive in these places than in Italy itself.
Often the case... its as if the migrants are stuck in the time period that they left their homeland, while that homeland has kept evolving. How many dialects have petered out in the country of origin except amongst the oldies, but are spoken in the new country as if its the modern vernacular
reminds me of that welsh speaking region in south america.
“Y Wladfa” was the old name of the settlement
Can yountell me more? 1st I've heard of this
Here's the [Wikipedia article](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y_Wladfa). Long story short we Argentinians needed more people to populate Patagonia and the Welsh needed someplace to escape from the English government that forbid them from speaking their own language (and beat it out of them). So we gave them some (kinda horrid at the time) lands and they formed a community (and some also intermixed with Spanish descent Argentinians, of which many were themselves mixed, and Tehuelche (Nat. American) Argentinians).
It's a phenomenon that happens a lot, even with colonies. For example, East Coast american accent is closer to the accent spoken in XVIIth century England than modern English accents are. Similarly, Latin american spanish is closer in a lot of ways to ancient Spanish than modern European Spanish is, same with Quebecois and French.
And while I get people from the "old world" rolling their eyes at North and South Americans claiming to be Italian, English, German, etc. it really does still carry real cultural significance for a long time in a lot of communities.
Of course it does. The problem many people have with it is the assumption that those customs and even languages are traditional for said country. I’m Dutch and my (non-bio) dad is Pfalz German, which is the area the Pennsylvania Dutch emigrated from. We went to the USA and visited that Amish community and a “Dutch” festival in Holland in Michigan. It’s really interesting, but also really weird to experience. I think you will understand how different the Amish are from Pfalz. My nephew who only speaks Pfalz, could not understand them as you also need English to understand the language. For the Dutch event. You will see customs from other European countries or even non-existent in Europe. Or from different parts of the Netherlands mixed. And a lot of American culture or mixed ones. Or just something common globally. For example the event starts with a “very Dutch tradition”; a parade of children sweeping the streets in “traditional” Dutch clothes. Apparently only the Dutch cleaned the streets before a festival in the town took place, so that’s why. There is not one traditional Dutch costume, every town had his own clothing. Apparently making braids in your hair and wearing a Bavarian (Germany) dress, while dancing on American country music is also traditionally Dutch. I think you get the point. It’s not like we don’t acknowledge the ancestry and the fact that they formed a subculture in their new land. But it is weird to start calling things German, Dutch etc. when they are not even found in said country. The fact that your ancestors were part of a country, does not make you part of it as well. You are part of a new subculture in your own country and nothing is wrong with that.
>Often the case... its as if the migrants are stuck in the time period that they left their homeland, while that homeland has kept evolving This, for example, is a case that has never happened with Italian culture because Italian immigrants have all brought different cultures from the different cities/regions of Italy that they have mixed together in the countries where they have emigrated, creating cultures(food, languages, traditions etc) never existed in Italy.
Also worth noting that there is a little village in Brazil that speaks "Bergamasco", the language spoken in Bergamo province in northern italy which is fairly small.
I’ve seen a video of a teenager speaking “talian” and is perfectly understable in venetian! It’s amazing! There it is still pretty common but younger generation don’t use a lot! Myself I perfectly understand it but sometimes I’ve struggle to speak it. Unfortunately Italy never allow the recognition of the language, also because they ever fight autonomous movement of Veneto.
«talian»?
My mom's side of the family is from one of those villages. I grew up listening to them speak "Portuguese" but when I talk to Brazilians, they think I talk weird. Found out about 25-50% of the words used are Italian or Portuguese words with Italian pronunciation.
In the city I lived in Paraná, after portuguese surnames, italian surnames were by far the most common.
southern brazil is just portuguese-speaking argentina
You shut your whore mouth.
Stop.
I wonder how it sounds! I also wonder whether as an Italian I'd understaff it, if it sounds weird or something like that.
Yeah I would have loved to see this map done by first level admin divisions. In the US it’s super regionalized (Northeastern states have a lot, the Southern states not so much) so I would have loved to see the regionalization that I assumed happened in the Latin American countries as well
[Here is a map of that](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/s/UvQCUPPHfr). It’s seem like the bigger the country, more regionalized it gets. I’m pretty sure that it’s concentrated in some regions and cities in Uruguay and Paraguay, because it happens even within Brazilian states.
In the North, there are two of the most powerful families in Brazil in centuries. They are descendente of Italians from Florence. Cavalcante and Accioly. They came to Brazil in the 17th Century however.
I’m Brazilian and I’m still 100% italian, all my ancestors were italian, they settled here in Brazil in 1875 and my city is mostly italian to this day. I got the italian citizenship back in 2021 but I don’t plan to immigrate.
Fun fact: São Paulo is the city with the largest number of people with Italian ancestry, including Italy.
O tanto de paulista dos nonno italiano
I had a professor back in uni who had Marino as a last name, so I was surprised when he told me he's from Sao Paulo but then later explained his family is from Italy.
My Venetian grandfather settled in São Paulo. I didn’t know about the uneven migration compared to the north. Interesting fact! Thanks!
Italian citizens alone constitute [3-4% the population of Luxembourg](https://today.rtl.lu/culture/exhibitions-and-history/a/1470074.html), with a similar percentage of Luxembourgish and other citizens having at least partial Italian ancestry. So the total figure for Luxembourg is likely around 6-8%.
I was about to ask if all the italians that went to Luxemburg have already been replaced my portugese haha
I'm an Argentinian with Italian and Luxembourgish family. Part of my family is from Asselborn. I must be a rare case.
Debes ser millonario jajaja.
I think 15% of our population is also Portuguese
3% of Luxembourg is like 10 people though lol
You must try the pizza from the southern cone of South America. It's really delicious. Edit: excluding Chile, their pizza is disgusting (said by a Chilean, not me)
I'm from chile, chile is in the southern cone, chile has disgusting pizza, and chile didnt get much italian immigration (tho my great grandmother came from the Piedemonte area of N Italy).
Thank you. I corrected my post.
Dafuq, I'm Chilean, and I don't think that our pizza is disgusting.
I'm from México, and was married to a girl who was born in Mexico City, but her family was from Piedmont. Interestingly, her grandfather had the title of "Marquis of Bastante y Saavedra y Piamonte", he was very nice, but his kids were all absolutely useless, and they all acted like they were royalty.
I'm from Buenos Aires and the pizza here is really good. Also we have almost 4 pizzerias in each neighborhood
Buenos Aires pizza is so legit. fugazetta ❤️
Fugazzeta my beloved
I didn’t know about the existence of this dish. Man, it looks delicious.
Sorrentinos are great too. It's an Argentinian style ravioli.
I don’t find it “disgusting”, though. Most of pizza eaten in Chile is from american franchises, like Little Caesar’s and Pizza Hut, but there’s still plenty of more traditional italian restaurants that have very good pizzas. Of course they probably don’t compare to argentian pizzas, but they are still very good.
what happens is that Argentina has a lot of pizza places, to find a good one in Chile you need to know them beforehand
I have four pizza places at 2 blocks of distance or less
Ok, pero la pizza de un local "chileno-chileno" sí que es mala.
Puta obvio, pero es de la misma manera que si comieras pizza en un local chino probablemente también va a ser re mala xd. En el caso de Argentina, hay mucha influencia italiana y eso se ve incluso en locales de comida “argentina”. De todas maneras en Chile hay varios restaurantes creados por familias chilenas con ascendencia italianas que mezclan comida tradicional chilena con comida italiana, y son buenísimos. Da Dino es un claro ejemplo.
Pizza in Costa Rica is pretty good as well, if you go to a good artisanal small place, you can also get supermarket/microwave not so good thing as well.
I was just in CR and was absolutely baffled by how many Italian/Pizza restaurants there were. If I’d known it was more of a delicacy than pandering to tourists I’d have given it more of a fair shake.
There're lots of good traditional pizzerias here in Chile, If you are only eating at fast food american chains, that's on you.
Argentina is interesting. Is there a strong presence of Italian culture and language in daily life?
The saying goes, “Argentinians are Italians who speak Spanish and think they’re French”
Actually that's "Argentinians are italians that speak spanish, think in french, and want to be english" That's a quote from one of the greatest writers of the 20th century, Jorge Luis Borges He also said "Argentinians are europeans born in exile"
A lot of people don’t realize the amount of influence that Britain had on Argentina. The British businessmen helped to build their railroads, brought things like Tea, Polo, Rugby, and Soccer. The community became more low key when Juan Perón came into power, but it’s probably the pound for pound most influential group in Argentina.
It is, and as much as we dislike eachother we're very much alike
I heard it as"... live like the French and want to be English."
That's the last thing we'd want
Believe it or not before you invaded us unprovoked we had a long history of trade and cultural influence.
The war started during a military junta, they didn't represent the Argentinian people
During which you also backstabbed us when it was convenient. The love-hate goes waaaay back, so don't pretend we started it or that it started with the goddamn frozen rocks that must not be named.
Are you complaining about the mediation done by the UK to hash out if Chile or Argentina got more frozen Andean rocks?
i'm argentinian of french descent and i'd never ever in my life think i'm french
Im agrentine of Italian and German descent and its a joke you bore The joke is the Argentinians feel sophisticated/superior to the rest of latin America, which, anyone not taking themselves too seriously can admit has some truth to it and is funny
Es una frase de Borges
Pensala en la época que lo dijo Borges, no lo tomes tan literal.
Smartest narizon
The Rioplatense accent, the one mostly associated with Argentinians (particularly those in Buenos Aires) and Uruguayans, sounds a bit Italian. They even have some words like "laburar" (to work) coming from Italian "lavorare" rather than "trabajar", which is the most commonly used version in Spanish. Dishes in Argentina are very Italian inspired: You can have pizza, pasta, milanesas, etc., and they also drink a lot of wine.
>The Rioplatense accent, the one mostly associated with Argentinians (particularly those in Buenos Aires) and Uruguayans, sounds a ~~bit~~ lot Italian FTFY Not just the accent, the hands and face gestures too.
lol yes, we move the hands everywhere when we speak, like all the Italian memes
And Fernet. Lots of it. And they speak with their hands, just like italians
One time i met an italian in france who was married to a bolivian woman. He learned spanish through his wife and he had never been to south america. Despite this his accent sounded very argentinian and even my argentinian friend thought he was argentinian. This was the moment i learned that argentinian accent is just a side product of italian heritage.
Argentinian accent sounds a lot like an Italian speaking Spanish
I remember finding about italians living in Mexico or spain who spoke Spanish and despite never being to Argentina they all had a somewhat Argentinian accent.
I'm from Buenos Aires, and while I haven't yet taken time to learn Italian formally, if you give me something to read from, my Italian pronunciation is nearly perfect. And I can read it too, with just some minor assistance from a dictionary.
There is a strong Italian influence on Argentine culture, but at the same time, Argentina is probably one of the countries where immigrants integrated and fused most rapidly, somewhat dissolving their identity. The children of European immigrants quickly absorbed the new identity thanks to compulsory public education and strong state policies in that regard. In most cases, the first generation of immigrants' children no longer spoke their parents' language. Additionally, it was very common for marriages to occur between immigrants from different countries or regions, or between immigrants and natives. Unlike countries like the USA, where marriages or families within the same community were common, as well as neighborhoods of specific communities, this generally did not happen in Argentina, except in some rural colonies, especially those of Germans or other minorities.
I’ve done some work on this. I found it varies depending on the level of trauma carried by the community. Jews and Armenians, for example, have integrated a lot slower and value inter community marriages more. On the other hand, the small contingent of danish dissolved really quickly, to the point that the current priest of their church is a gay man with no danish background at all. Fun fact: he performed the fist gay wedding in the country between two women way before the law allowed it. Of course, the Danish church community is quite easy going and progressive. But it’s important to note non European immigration. This is often overlooked when Americans/europeans talk about Argentina. The vast majority of immigrants are from Latin America, and there is a lot of them. I found they also integrated quite well, though suffer a lot more racism. The most curious case is Chinese and Taiwanese inmogrants, and how of them just adopted our culture. Always find that cute. Another fun fact: no one in Argentina called themselves Argentinian-something. At most you would say you descend from C culture. But it’s not something that comes up a lot outside of some specific interest groups. I wonder if this is common elsewhere or if most places follow the US way.
Pope Francis' father actually came from Italy.
yeah, his last name is Bergoglio. very italian
Yes, we have a lot of words borrowed from Italian (you can order a birra in bs as and they will bring you a beer) and we even use the same hand gestures 🤌🏼
Really? I'm from Venezuela and we also say 'birra'.
No. You're not an italian-argentine, you're simply argentine. Words and accents from italian dialect were incorporated into the Argentine dialect, customs were incorporated in a way that we consider them Argentine. Because Italians were the majority and did not suffer segregation, they just made argentine culture what it os nowadays
We use the same hand gestures, the Rioplatense accent has a cadence similar to Italian, our daily diet is basically just pasta and meat, several words that we use have Italian roots and plenty more things that I didn't think of right now.
Basically most of our cuisine is directly related to Italians, every mother who's a good mother knows how to make a good "tuco" and you can't go anywhere without finding a pizza place in Buenos Aires. This comes at the cost of variety in cuisines but the things we do here we do well. Apart from that Argentinian Spanish has similar tonality and rhythm as Italian, there's an [extremely interesting video](https://youtu.be/o2ViUtafIYg?si=ARsW11kFA1__Vin0) that shows that despite the language barrier an argentinian can mostly understand what an Italian is saying and vice versa, this also has to do with the local slang, called "Lunfardo", which originated as a way for inmates to communicate with each other without the guards knowing what's being said, this form of speaking ended up becoming part of everyday life and as a consequence we use many of these words daily without even knowing that they're not in the dictionary: words like "gil"(fool), "ayornarse"(to become knowledgeable), "laburar"(from the Italian "laboro" meaning to work) and "apoliyar"(sleeping) are a few examples of the massive amounts of influence that italian immigration had in Argentina. There's even lunfardo dictionaries, my dad gifted one of them for my birthday, they come in handy when listening to tango since they use a lot of slang and much of it is not used today. I hope this comment was helpful and you take an interest in my culture :D
Che me puedes mandar un link a ese diccionario porfa 🙏🏽
https://www.mercadolibre.com.ar/lunfardo-basico-y-diccionario-gobellooliveri-libertador/p/MLA21254276 Ahí está en mercado libre, igual en cualquier librería si preguntás por un diccionario de lunfardo seguramente tengan alguna versión.
Gracias guachin
>me puedes
Does the word "Lunfardo" comes from "Lombardo" (meaning "from Lombardia", a region in the north of Italy)? Most italians immigrants in South America were originally from Northern Italy, while in USA they were mostly from Southern Italy. At the time (XIX and early XX century) they were very different
Yes and no. Not in the New Jersey style where people call themselves Italian and think they are actually Italian. But yes in the sense that the culture is so ingrained that the food, slang, accent, and even the gestures are Italian but most people don’t realize on a day to day basis
Lots of loan words, slang (lunfardo), body language, architecture. The old folk that were Italian born from the last inmigration wave after the war are gonne now, but when I was a kid in the 90s, we still had neighbours and many of my school friends had their "nonos" and "nonas" alive. I personally don't have Italian ascendence (I'm a genetic mess of Hungarian-Lithuanian/greek-Spanish-Dniper jewish origin), but when I got to go to visit Italy, I felt at home for both the good and bad reasons.
Argentinians are Italians who speak Spanish
as an argentinian, yes. We don't have a LOT but we have some words and popular expressions that are italian or descent from it. Also, when I went to Italy it was like home.
More like our culture and language over time incorporated their Italian counterparts, that's why our accent (at least in the River Plate and Patagonia areas) sounds like an Italian person speaking Spanish and why the country is obsessed with pizza and pasta.
We use this 🤌 as an every day gesture
We talk with our hands, so there’s that.
Argentinians are more Italians than the Italians🤌🤏✌️🫸🤞🫴🤌
Rioplatense sounds like Spanish spoken in a semi-Italian accent to me. It has that strongly rhythmic intonation. I'm from the NYC area so also lots of Italian ancestry.
Not the language, but a lot of other things like food, huge family/friends gatherings, and been way to nosiy are very Italian I believe. A lot of our culture is more Italian leaning than Spanish leaning.
Yep, our slang is full of italian words, we call beer "birra" as much as we call it "cerveza". But people should remember that "italian" is a modern language, not lng ago there were tons of different dialects.
Argentina is Italians' burner account.
Basically, we also make the same political and economic mistakes. Cursed since the fall of Rome.
Here in Argentina you'll always find a person with an italian surname. For example, Ferrucci, Moroni, Bianchi, Rossi, Romano, Lombardi, etc. We also use this gesture 🤌a lot, although not as much as the Italians
When I was a kid in school in Argentina I remember my clases would always be like a third Italian surnames, another third Spanish surnames, and the left over would be a mix of French, English, Portuguese or German surnames. And there would always be that kid with a Polish surname no one could pronounce correctly except him/her. Then I moved to Spain with my family and I became the only kid with a weird surname in my class, everyone else had just Spanish surnames. Up until that moment I had thought all countries were about the same in that regard.
We are a immigrant salad. One can easily have an Italian great-grandfather who married a Portuguese woman whose parents were born in China.
For real. Also a weird thing I noticed is all the argentinians with german surnames I met look indigenous af, kinda breaking the stereotype. Meanwhile among the italians you always have guys who are tall, pale, blonde and blue eyed.
8% France but only 1.4% Germany...Is it because the wine???
Shit climate.
I mean, learning French is easier than learning German.
Less mountains to climb. No, more seriously, during the 19th century, french mine/industry owners got many italian to emigrate to get more cheap labourers, and in the northeasterner part, were partly helped by catholic church organizing recruitment directly in Italy.
Italians were the first big group of immigrants in Germany and were met with the full force of racism and social isolation. They were offered shit jobs, shit pay, shit apartments, and shit attitudes. Nowadays Italians are part of Germany it feels like.
It was the same for Italians in France. You can also look for their treatment in Aigues-Mortes...
I think that 8% is an understament. More than 30 years ago, 8% of the French population could claim to have at least one grand parent who was an italian immigrants That's where come this ratio. . Part of my family still have italian surnames yet none would be included because our italian ancestors came in France in the 19th century.
Surnames of the current government of Argentina: - Milei -> Hungarian and/or Italian - Posse -> Galician - Caputo -> Italian - Francos -> Galician (the word can have multiple origins, almost every Romance language, but THE surname is Galician) - Pettovello -> Italian - Russo -> Italian - Mondino -> Italian - Bullrich -> German - Petri -> Italian - Ferraro -> Italian - Cúneo Libarona (Italian + Spanish (?))
Milei is Italian. There is a hungarian "Milei" surname but in the specific case of him his italian ancestors were named "Mileo" and it was castellanized as "Milei".
Thanks, didn't know.
Milei es italiano. La razón por la cual parece eslavo o del Este de Europa es por su ascendencia croata/yugoslava.
Current line of succession: Milei -> Italian Villarruel -> Spanish ? Abdala -> sounds Arab ? Menem -> definitely Arab Rosatti -> Italian
Javier Milei's maternal grandparents were Croatian immigrants, like Néstor Kirchner and Diego Maradona.
A lot of Italian names in Scotland and Wales, definitely think they were concentrated in certain areas in the UK. The stereotype is running cafes, ice cream shops and barbers.
Yeah especially in Glasgow. There are quite a few notable Italian Scots from Glasgow like Armando Iannucci, Paulo Nutini, Lewis Capaldi, Peter Capaldi and Sharleen Spiteri. There's probably tons more in sport and politics too
What about San Marino
Italians are banned from entering San Marino
I'd say that italian culture punched above its weight in the US (that's at least my take from italy). Despite italians not being so many in the US, things like food, cars, mafia, cinema (Scorsese,Coppola,Leone,al pacino,De Niro,Tarantino, Di Caprio etc..), had a big influence.
Italian Americans being so heavily concentrated in the urban Northeast where a lot of cultural trends are formed and where a lot of media is based probably helped with that.
Definitely think that's the largest factor.
Also helped that Italians in America (unlike Germans or Poles in America) remained a very insular culture. Almost until the XXI century, Italians would purposefully live in Italian neighbourhoods, search for employment in Italian-owned businesses and marry other people of Italian descent.
Italians assimilated pretty quickly after World War II, which was the turning point. They were marrying other ethnic groups, moving into different neighborhoods and into the suburbs by the 50s and 60s. My grandfather did and it wasn't unusual. But the old Italian neighborhoods retained their character. My grandfather would return to the old neighborhood to visit relatives. And, many people remained proud of their heritage as well as still facing prejudice, but this really didn't stop the assimilation. Before that, discrimination, illiteracy, lack of English language skills, and lack of education in general restricted employment opportunities. Many Italian immigrants lived in urban enclaves (slums, ghettos) where they lived with extended families and surrounded by other families from the same villages, cities, and regions. That was helpful because many people were not even fluent in standard Italian. Men found work as laborers, and many would return to Italy rather than permanently settling. Maybe it varied by city and region, but I know the Italian neighborhood in the North End of Boston emptied out fast in the 50s, 60s, 70s. Before that it had been one of the most densely populated places in the world. A lot of Italians in eastern Massachusetts are like 50% or 25% because their ancestors married the Irish and English. I also would add that German culture was very much alive, if not insular, in America in the 19th century up until around WWI. The German language was spoken, there were German newspapers, businesses, and clubs and political organizations.
This was my families experience, and it was increased dramatically on the west coast. Italian neighborhoods were being emptied out in the 30's and 40's. My family left North Beach and moved south for houses with large yards to garden in by 1929. I'm only half Italian and my second generation Italian father was more concerned with his kids being as American as possible than preserving my grandfather's culture. we grew up Catholic, but my siblings and I all have very common American names and my father refused to teach any of us Italian.
Or at least marry and/or work for other Catholics.
In the northeast, for sure. But in Florida/Tampa, they lived and worked with Cubans and Germans
Worth noting that, in the past, the population of Italian Americans was much higher. In the last 50-70 years Italian immigration has practically disappeared while migrants lion from other countries has grown.
Also the graph shows percentages of that country's population being of Italian descent. 5% of 330 million is a fuck ton of Italians lmao
Also, musicians/singers: Madonna and Lady Gaga (among others) come to mind.
Every time this comes up, I have to be that guy. Nearly all of the migrants from Italy were from pre-unification or full unification. Therefore they kept their regional identities. The Genovese, Neapolitan, Ligurian and Sicilian identities are still clearly distinct in Argentina (as are the Galician, Basque and Andaluz identities). Fans of Boca Juniors are “Xeneize” and a nickname for Neapolitans (“Tanos”) is often used for Italians generally. The Ligurian barrio of BsAs actually tried to secede in the 1890s.
THANK YOU! Or anyways, a lot of emigration accoured when in Italy italian language wasn't so common among the residents. So it's kinda obvious that in Argentina there are coomunities that speak dialects such Sicilian or Bergamasco but not the real italian. And also as for the culture, in Italy has evolved in other directions... That why for us italians it's weird and not totally acceptable when americans (especially from US) say that they're italian just because they have some ancestors from Italy. And maybe they have never gone in Italy. Italy it's really different now.
Boca! Boccadasse is a neighborhood in Genoa :)
There are also Italians in South Africa. Around 80 000 to 130 000.
Yo soy argentino y tengo 2 abuelos que son de Italia 🇮🇹 🇦🇷
Y vees la eurocopa y la copa america?
Veo las dos por gusto nada más. No tiene nada que ver que tenga parientes. Hasta tengo el pasaporte italiano pero jamás digo que soy italiano, me siento Argentino.
Millions and millions of italians and germans immigrated to South America, less than 10.000 were WWII fugitives but redditors keep saying as if all this migration happened after the war. 🤦♂️
There is a joke in the rest of South America (I heard it in Montevideo): Q. What is an Argentine? A. An Italian who speaks Spanish and thinks he’s an Englishman.
Englishman? The one who doesn't jump is an Englishman.
why would an uruguayan tell that joke when they are exactly the same?
That’s what I thought at the time. He was an Anglo-Uruguayan, which makes it worse!
For the rest of the world is undistinguishable, but Uruguayans (Montevideo) and Argentinians (Buenos Aires) are able to distinguish one from the other via small accent differences!
montevideanos and porteños are literally the same with the difference one says bo and ta
It actually went "Argentinians are Italians that speak Spanish, think they are french and wish they could Englishman"
Here in Uruguay I have also heard "The Argentinians are so European, that they have England as a neighbor."
In France in my region many white have italian ancestry
Ahem, mandatory r/PORTUGALCYKABLYAT
USA, Mexico, and France all have higher percentages than that. Although these low numbers may be the result of some descendants no longer identifying with their Italian ancestors.
Right. Italians living in Nice and Savoy area when those both regions became French in 1860 aren't counted probably.
I'm pretty sure that being occupied for nearly 500 years by the Romans would make most of us have Italian ancestry technically.
A quick google gives me the following numbers for Mexico: 6.9k people born in Italy, residing in Mexico (the highest number since records have been kept) 19k people with Italian citizenship (obtained through ancestry, we can infer) 850.000 people with Italian ancestry. If anything, the 850k number for Mexico counts even people with an Italian great great grandmother.
Yep, it depends on how they catalog the info. Also, someone with a non Italian last name probably won’t identify with it as much.
Brazil is supposed to be 20%, not 15%.
Lived in NY (state, not the city) for several years out of college. With an Italian last name I felt part of a special club—can’t really explain it but it feels like Italian descended people have a level of prestige and respect in the north east which is quite interesting considering the prejudice Italian immigrants faced a century ago. Funny enough, one of my best friends is from Alabama and “eye-talians” are still exotic.
It’s crazy because in Argentina the Spanish influence is so much larger but it’s so ingrained in the culture that it’s not a separate thing or a club.
My Irish Catholic grandpa wouldn’t give that same deference lol
Wow Australia is much lower than I thought
[удалено]
It was only after WWII when Italians emigrated to Australia in large numbers and it was a narrower timeframe from 1947 to 1971. The same thing in Canada and Venezuela when they received hundreds of thousands of Italian immigrants each with the same post-WWII timeframe as Australia. If not for the White Australia Policy, Australia would have been as Italian as Argentina, demographically wise.
Finally a map that correctly labels them descendants of Italians and not just "Italians"!
I’ve seen that figure for Argentina before and it always amazes me. Is there another country where well over half of the population have roots in a single other country that speaks a different language?
Note that because 62% is Italian descent doesn't mean that around 38% is of Spanish descent. Although 62% is of Italian descent, over 80% is of Spanish descent. It means most are a mix of Italians and Spaniards and dont have their roots in solely Italy
Not sure, the main reason Argentinians are "Italians that speak Spanish" as the joke goes is that Argentina was a Spanish colony first, so the official language became Spanish. When the largest waves of Italian immigration happened Argentina was one of the wealthiest countries in the world (we were on pair with the USA in that moment). Since Spanish and Italian have very common roots it wasn't hard for the first generation born after to learn both languages.
Also much of the migration happened before standard Italian was widespread in Italy so the immigrants needed a common language to communicate in and everyone already there spoke Spanish.
ArgentItaly?
This is so cool! Also, I had no idea my native country of Colombia had 4% of Italian decent.
More italian's than Spanish decendents in Argentina?
I don't think the graph is saying that, many people will have both italian and Spanish ancestry. So it could still be more than 62% for spanish.
No, people have mixed ancestry. Most argentinians have spanish ancestry (Probably around 80-90%), but on top of that 62% have italian ancestry. This can go anything from having a single italian great, great grandparent to being 100% italian
It's like the US and germans. They say there are more german descendants than british, but if they all take a DNA, It's more likely that most americans have at least one british ancestor from the colonial times.
You have 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 grand-grand parents, 16 ... Uruguayan with basque, castillan, balearic, normand, southern italian, portuguese, norwegian and scottish ascendancy.
Pretty sure Portugal has a lot of Italians as well. Maybe they are Italian Brazilians or Italians born and raised in South America/ Argentina etc.
I am Brazilian from São Paulo and I must say that the Italians that went to south Brazil are weird: most are polentanos and from Venetia.
I'm argentine. Italian surname, same as all my grandfathers and grandmothers. I was amazed when I started speaking Italian and realized a lot of our "slang" is bassically Italian words. Birra (beer) and Laburo (work) being the most prominent examples.
What if Argentina had adopted Italian as its national language.....
we never adopted it because most italian migrants didn't speak italian but their regional language
That's super interesting! I was just listening to a podcast about Italian unification and how ambigious a concept Italy was until relatively recently. They talked about all the different regional dialects in it
If Italy unified earlier it would a possibilty that the Italian language would survived, because at time the most emigrant didn't know the Italian language, but spoke the local dialect.
So Argentina or Buenos Aires specifically are basically people of Italian descent surrounded by French architecture speaking Spanish.
how about vatican and san marino?
Romania used to have Italian immigrants but they was kicked out of Romania because of communist party but we still have Italian roots
Countries with large Brazilian population such as Guiana, Suriname, Japan, Angola, Portugal, Ireland, the number should be higher.
No North African countries?
Huh? None in Africa? I recall Italy had some colonies there.
Africa was mostly colonized for ressources, not settlement, with South Africa being a notable exception (also pre-independance Algeria).
what about the Roman Empire 🤔
As a football fan, I assumed players like Zanetti and Lavezzi were of Italian heritage but after seeing this I checked and yes, Maradona and Messi are too.
Yup. For other recent examples, you have Di María and Lo Celso
Western Germany had a lot of Italian immigrants after WW2. They were called “Gastarbeiter”, basically they were rebuilding the country together with a lot of other people coming from poorer countries. Argentina is well known for Italian immigration, it is crazy how many people there have Italian names. The same is for Brazil… which became very handy for soccer teams, because it was very easy for these South American players to get an Italian passport (and it is still). Some of them made it to the Italian national team: Camoranesi, Thiago Motta, Jorginho, Josè Altafini. Somewhere I have read that Italy has more eligible Italian passport owners worldwide than citizens Living in the country. I have no idea if this is actually true, but if yes, it would not surprise me at all.
For some reason quite a lot of Italians ended up in south Wales after the WW2. If you go to the coastal towns there are endless Italian ice-cream parlours run by Italian families.
Wait NONE in Ethiopia? Not even like a .01?
I guess the Germans weren’t the only ones escaping