Everyone is a little bit Italian

My offspring, mi figli, tease me about my ability to speak Italian.

"Just because you move your hands and speak a little more animated than others, or toss an O at the end of your wordsO, doesn't mean you can speakO the language,'' according to my daughter.

She, a woman of many language fluencies, a degree in International Studies and a longing to work in the foreign service, doesn't understand my passion for the Italian language.

I have always wanted to speak another language with some proficiency. Learning Latin in high school might have helped a little. Using the Spanish I learned instead more frequently might have helped a lot more.

Last year, in an attempt to stave off early onset Alzheimer's disease, I enrolled with my friend Julia at our community college for Italian I and Italian II. I dropped before Italian III because of the impending winter weather and the fear of being exposed as a language fraud. Julia went on to converse her way through Italy and speaks beautifully.
I am now content to order off the menu in an Italian restaurant clearly pronouncing each syllable as I have been taught. I've had a few bruschetta battles with "more knowledgeable wait staff" over pronunciation. But I am sure after working on my most recent linguistics degree, the tasty bread treats -- with the tomato, basil, garlic and olive oil dollop -- are pronounced bru'sket ta, not brus chet ta.
It reminds me of my first trip to Italy (BC, before children) when the New Jersey folks on the trip kept calling the country "It Lee," making me feel even more empowered.
Why am I in an Italian group at Bontà Italian Market and Cafe, a small family-run eatery, in Lincolnshire, IL, on Saturday mornings? I think in another life I might have been Italian. I will never get bored with visiting the country, the history, the art, the music, the people, the food.

Mostly I drop into Bontà because I have found a nice group of people who share the same love, and I love to hear them speak this language. Some are native born, like Nunzio who owns this delizioso deli gem, with his wife Antonella. Some of the Saturday morning classmates have lived the life in Italy. And others bring their rich heritage to the table (il tavolo) each Saturday morning.

We have shared our vacations, discussions over Italian politics, Il Papa, how to properly stack eggplant parmigiana and even the recent controversy surrounding Barilla pasta (Google it!). And we have shared sadly and happily a few life cycle events now and then.

Besides camaraderie and cappuccino, the nucleus of the group wants to make a presence on the North Shore and create an Italian-American Cultural Center full of activities and identity, similar to others in Chicagoland. Bontà opened its doors to the Contemporary Italian Cultural Society -- Chicago Chapter to be part of the new epicenter, while building its business.
Besides conversation and breakfasting we kick in contribution$ each week to build the dream or at least offset the cena e cinema (dinner and movie) nights that have become very popular at Bontà a couple of times a year.

Truthfully, I am after almost two years still intimidated when I have to read or say anything after buono giorno. But I could listen and learn from the majority of the group all day. 

This is not my first frustrating attempt to master another language. Thanks to an adult literacy course I can read Hebrew sans gusto, but understand very little of what I am saying. After my daughter's beautiful Torah reading during the Jewish High Holidays I congratulated her and told her how proud I am that she too can read Torah. She almost burst a bladder when I she reminded me that I don't speak Torah. I don't read it either. It doesn't have any vowels.

One of the obstacles I found in learning Italian was that I would stop to think of what the word was in Spanish before figuring out what was being said in English. My daughter, who is not as mean spirited as I paint her here, frequently reminds me that my Spanish is also limited.

Okay, so I once ordered a pair of shoes (dos zapatos) for breakfast instead of eggs (huevos) in Mexico City and got into a loud argument over the price of a bottle of Kahlua not being (verde) green instead of verdad (the truth) in Puerto Vallarta.

And when my Spanish exchange student daughter and I were left at home without my children, who speak and understand the language with ease, there was a lot of dictionary page flipping and arm flailing. But Noey and I got along and still love each other.
I remind my daughter/IT gal that I have travelled Italy, Spain, Chile, Argentina and Uruguay without international incident. She reminds me she has always been at my side for communication purposes.
I was aware in Italy that she was telling people "my mother is a little bit crazy"  in Italian to get us help when we got a little bit lost.
 My son, who has been known to mock me in Spanish, sounds like John Wayne when he speaks, but he does speak and understand the language without problem. He still rolls on the floor with laughter from the time I professed that I spoke Swiss.
Back to my daughter, who has an ear for many languages. She even took an Arabic class while in college and was one of a few students who realized that they should be reading Arabic from right to left. Hebrew school again paid off.
Recently I reminded her that I was left in Buenos Aires on my own for 12 hours and still managed to eat, navigate the city and get on a flight home to the US without calling John Kerry's staff. She reminded me how the Argentinians spoke English beautifully in the tourist areas and were not too proud to get help from someone when necessario.
Now I am wondering if there might have been some miscommunication when I booked my daughter, my sister and I on an adventure tour to the waterfalls in Iguazu. I refer to that part of our vacation as "Survivor Iguazu." Stay tuned for a future blog.
Where did our children, who make fun of their father's dusting off his high school French, get the knack for all these languages?
Today I was looking through a continuing education listing from our neighborhood high school. There were still openings for an 8-week American Sign Language course. My daughter signed me a few phrases she has already committed to memory and hand.
Then she said she would rather take beginning Japanese. Was I interested? You never know.