Colourful Italian
2 viewsLike most languages, Italian boasts quite a variety of bad language, and Italians, as I have mentioned somewhere elsewhere in this blog, are not too shy about resorting to it. If you would like to know more (Sorry, but there are bare-breasted women on this site, and some of the language is highly obscene) the ’swearsaurus’ section of Insultmonger.com has an enormous selection of language that would not be acceptable to your mother, depending where you are from. I don’t know who put together this naughty site, but I believe it could be quite useful, in that it can help you to understand when someone is saying nasty things about you, or your actions, and it can help you avoid making a few faux pas.
Here you will find general Italian bad language.
And here you will find naughty words from the dialect used around Brescia.
Then there are the Sicilian obscenities here, not to mention words and expressions that will ensure you offend those from the Venice region, which you can find here.
It would be true to say that quite a few of the Sicilian expressions are commonly used throughout Italy - a clear sign of the South to North migration. And it has to be said that some expressions are considerably more offensive than others, but, just because the same expression is not strong in your own language does not necessarily mean that it will not be offensive in Italy.
As for the pronunciation, well, I could help you with some, not many, of these words and expressions, but, as to the Brescian dialect expressions, you would need to find someone from Brescia and ask them to show you how to pronounce their particular brand of colourful expressions, for I don’t have much idea.
I rather liked this insult: ‘Aricchi Du Porcu’, which means ‘you resemble the hair on a pig’s ear’, which I suppose can be interpreted as being ‘you are useless’, but I could be wrong.
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Ummm grazie for this extra language course
Er, prego Di. I was not sure how such a post would be received! Still, if the subject is good enough for Swan, it’s good enough for me.
And I’m sure you will hear plenty of practical examples in Rome….
Although, with these words, the old saying ‘when in Rome etc’, may not be all that appropriate…