Category talk:American Italian
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Fairly new user here, been adding some Italian English/American terms to the wiki and found out a few additions in that the category was named American Italian which is why I couldn't find it. Which term should we use, and can we pick one so we can put them all in one place? (Also, on the topic, what's a good way to categorize things when we know we're from one of four dialects but aren't sure...which?)
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:American_Italian I have the American Italian category here; I've managed to move gabbadost and jamoke there, but https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Italian_English will have to be renamed I think, depending on which is a more accurate name; additionally, I don't know what the correct syntax relationship between "definition of the dialect, dialect category, etc." is.
- American Italian is the Italian language as spoken in America. Italian English is the English language as spoken by Italians. Since the US is the main place with English-speaking Italians, there tends to be overlap, especially with code-switching.
- That said, they aren't the same thing. Most-English-speaking Italians in the US don't really speak Italian, but their usage has enough differences from mainstream English for the "Italian English" label and category to be useful. Likewise, Italian as spoken in the US has enough differences from Italian as a whole that the label and category "American Italian" are useful.
- The same people may often be speaking both, but the important distinction is: are they speaking Italian, or are they speaking English? Chuck Entz (talk) 21:40, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
I'm not sure about that? Andrew Longo categorizes American Italian as the pidgin language that comes from using both Italian and English together so I'm not sure how to answer "are they speaking Italian or English" when the answer frequently seems to be "both" and "neither". And part of the issue re: American Italian in particular is that they are speaking Italian - it's just dialect/Neapolitan or Sicilian, which is why it doesn't register as 'Italian' to Italians. Elliott Dunstan (talk) 16:34, 14 March 2021 (UTC)