A Journey Into La Bella Lingua

Writer’s note: This article is dedicated to those of you who believe that speaking a foreign language is beyond your capacity. My own history of linguistic folderol and triumph, revealed here, may convince you otherwise.

Of all the European languages you can study, Italian is among the least practical. You can use your knowledge of it, of course, in Rome and Venice and throughout ​“the boot,” or should your voice possess a three-octave range, accompany Andrea Bocelli on Spotify.

And for practical usage without having to cross the Atlantic, our own Italian-rich community offers its own opportunities: At Wooster Street’s cluster of restaurants, at P&M Market and Nica’s on Orange Street, or at the Liuzzi deli counter in North Haven, you can ask employees not only about what cuts of prosciutto are disponibile (available) but inquire, in the Italian tradition, into the welfare of la famiglia.

Though learning Spanish would be a more practical pursuit, a language that’s used across dozens of countries including ours, the language of Dante remains spiritually unparalleled for its beauty, inherent melody and the necessity of employing hand gestures to speak it with passion and authority, as illustrated by my own esperienza.

While telling una storia at a dinner party in the walled city of Lucca, I attained a new personal record — knocking over three full glasses of red wine. 

The fact that I could get to that point — a menace at the table — would have shocked my high school French teacher back in Ohio. 

After demonstrating tone deafness to that lovely language and cluelessness about its rules of grammar, I suddenly discovered a burst of insight. So, when the teacher handed back a late-semester vocabulary quiz, he looked at the paper on the top of the pile, saw my name and the 100 score next to it, and said to the class, ​“Oh, this test must have been too easy.” 

So, you may ask: How did I, a kid specializing in foreign language ineptitude, eventually become so conversive in la lingua del Italiano that recently, in Lucca, a shop owner was convinced I am a native of Tuscany? 

After all, the closest my family came to any connection with Italy was that my mother used to have her hair cut (and dyed) at the LaMarca salon in a Cleveland suburb and my father’s parents were natives of Lithuania, which, last I checked the world map, remains some distance from Milan.

For one thing, I benefited from gentle and enlightening instruction from Anna Sincavage, co-owner of Skappo (“Escape”), in Ninth Square.

Every Monday night, while the restaurant featuring Umbrian cuisine was closed, Anna hosted classes in beginning, intermediate and conversational Italian. 

Anna, a native of Assisi, was not at all like the piano teacher of my youth who blurted out ​“No” whenever I made a mistake. Instead, she is in her teaching the way she is acts in her night job, supportive and affectionate. 

(I ask you: What other restaurant owner comes out of the kitchen to hug guests and remembers the first names of customers after meeting them only once?)

Moreover, her classes were about more than language. A student could easily see she was transmitting cultural messages, too.

Anna taught us that respect is paramount in Italian interactions. This counsel goes counter, of course, to prevailing American attitudes and practices in an era of cheap insult and general disregard for the mental sanctity of others. 

No doubt there is historical contradiction here, considering the destructive stretch of fascist rule in Anna’s native country. But then she is espousing a deep-rooted standard of respect, not proclaiming a clean record of it. 

What Anna did for me and Suzanne was to expand on the introductions to la bella lingua and la cultura that we had already received in Lucca. In 2009, we first enrolled there at a school called Koine, and struggled in what I referred to as la stanza della tortura (“the room of torture”). 

Our teachers believe it is not enough to know proper grammar and vocabulary. We also, in effect, must sing each sentence. 

In some classes we listened to the operas of Giacomo Puccini, a Lucca native, or watched Italian movies, comedies that are over the top and tragedies set during and after World War II when the country and its people faced destitution. 

So, in the 1950s, when Domenico Madugno wrote and recorded his megahit, ​“Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu,” retitled ​“Volare” (to fly) in the U.S., it became an unofficial anthem, a release from despair and the restricted life, inspiration to explore new and freeing possibilities. 

The metaphor extends to human need for learning. When we invest in a new language, we go to deeper than our ears and mouth can take us; we begin to expand our sense of empathy, knowledge, commonality and hope. 

To wit: An international incident at London’s Heathrow Airport. 

An elderly Italian couple ahead of us in line got stuck at passport control, as they didn’t understand the questions. 

So the officer shouted out, ​“Does anyone in line speak Italian?” My hand went up involuntarily, and I stepped forward, spoke to the couple, and then assured the officer that the two were merely confused and non sono terroristi.

After their passports were stamped, the husband and wife turned toward me and said together, Grazie, signore.

This is not to say that I have always acquitted myself well. On a particularly notable occasion, I overplayed my hand and became a laughingstock. This was in a tiny restaurant in Spoleto where I was researching a biography of the artist Sol LeWitt.

It was one of those places where among the small group of clientele there was a good deal of chatter. So I took the opportunity to express my awe to the whole crowd of the magnificent meal that nonna in the kitchen had prepared, and doing it with skill, but foolishly didn’t stop there. 

I said that there had been so much great food served that afterwards I would be forced to take a nap, and that I love my naps. At least I thought I said that. But the laughter of everyone in the room seemed to be too bountiful in response to such mild revelation.

The manager of the restaurant, the son of nonna, came over to our table and revealed why. He said, ​“What you actually said was, ​“I love my penis.”

Well, a natural mistake, si? Even so, I saw no point in standing up and explaining my mistake. I simply sat there as my face turned a dark shade of rosso.

Back home in New Haven, I can tell a story like that to a small group of Anna Sincavage’s former students that meets regularly, and includes one ringer who speaks the language with great ease and expertise.

Paola Rubbo, of Andiamo Tours, several times a year leads travelers through regions of Italy, showing them historical sites and places of significance that many tourists miss.

Our most recent gathering was in mid-June, when we heard one of the group describe her recent trip to Venice and the Amalfi Coast. Her stories buoyed us, and underscored the satisfactions we all felt by developing, later in life, an unexpected skill.

We are all, in this group, in a stage of life when we know that taking chances and learning new things can help stave off some of the treacheries of growing old.

Expanding the mind, and pushing ourselves, on occasion, to the point of embarrassment, is a wise formula for staying alert. If we never quite reach la dolce vita, we can at least order un cappuccino properly, placing the accent on the second-last syllable, where it belongs. And sip it lentamente (slowly), savoring our virtuoso performance.