Neapolitan, language of the interculturality.

The Accademia Napoletana presided by dr. Massimiliano Verde met the scholars of the State Institute of Higher Education for the Blind “Paolo Colosimo” on the theme “O Nnapulitano, a treasure to defend and promote, for young people and not only”.

The conference was organized by the lawyer Gennaro Danesi, President of the Alma Mundi Onlus Association as well as Consul of the Republic of Nicaragua, on the proposal of Dr. Massimiliano Verde. At the meeting spoke: first of all, Dr. Massimiliano Verde, President of the scientific group “Neapolitan Academy”, for the protection of the Neapolitan language and culture, then lawyer Stefano Bouché, Secretary of the Movimento Lupi del Sud, Eng. Diego Bouché, Past Director of the Regional School Offices of Campania and then of Calabria.

The meeting with students was about multilingualism, and the defense of cultural rights as civil rights, more widely human with a focus on the Neapolitan mother tongue in Italy.

The conference sparked an interesting exchange with students on the importance of the Neapolitan language, as the mother tongue of scholars since the Institute is located in an area, such as the historic center, a UNESCO World Heritage Site where people are mostly Neapolitan speakers.

After all, Dr. Verde urged to explain to the scholars the meaning of ‘o Nnapulitano, (Neapolitan language) with answers that, on the one hand, were interesting and comforting (especially from the girls present: a language of the heart, of poetry, and so on), on the other hand, it also testified to a total absence on the part of the City Cultural Institutions, to a significant interest about the teaching of the Neapolitan language.

Dr. Verde consciously wanted to carry out a debate almost entirely in Neapolitan, wishing that it was the scholars who were personally involved in the debate; asking them how Neapolitan speakers were represented in the media,  in Italy, and there are still today various prejudices about Neapolitan language. And on the contrary, so reaffirmed by Bouché the song in the Neapolitan language is celebrated as Italian heritage.

This contradiction appeared immediately evident to the children, to whom they were also underlined with examples taken from the mass media, and pseudo-cultural ones, as in the case of the so-called Lombroso Museum in Turin.

In particular, Dr. Verde always wanted to emphasize the enormous historical-phonetic-cultural substratum of the Neapolitan language, starting from the Oscan to pass through the Greeks to the interculturality of this idiom, quoting, for the necessary respect for the same, the device of the United Nations General Assembly Resolution of 16 May 2007 on multilingualism and referring to arts. 2, 3, 6, 9, 21, and 33 of the Italian Constitution, in art. 29 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 17 of the Istanbul Convention, as well as the Convention against all forms of racial discrimination.

The interview focused on the social and moral value of this enormous heritage, with an opening on the magnitude of the same, stigmatizing the current gap about its transmission and correct representation of its speakers, also due to certain “influencers”, Neapolitans or not.

The dialogue with the students touched on numerous social aspects of the issue including not only the cultural heritage of the Neapolitan, (from theater to poetry, to literature) on the Neapolitan as an official language (still XIX century).

Eng. Diego Bouché talked about the constitutional protection of linguistic minorities in Italy, from which the Neapolitan language is excluded. Verde argued also about the possible use of the Neapolitan language to promote tourist-commercial activities in Naples.

Dr. Verde then referred to the collaborations both with southern Italian emigrants and with academics, such as Dr. Del Carpio and prof. Sirvent Marisa in Mexico, to develop cultural activities directed to the UNESCO too.

Scholars showed a lot of interest and actively participated in the dialogue.

Accademia Napoletana proposed initiatives to some teachers of the Institute on the issues addressed to the scholars.