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Do most Irish-Americans speak Irish and german-Americans speak german? lol
Very few americans speak a second language.
GErman language and culture is far more different from British culture, than Italian is to spanish.
I suppose I mean Irish culture and German culture is far easier incorporated into American culture, than say, Italian culture is.
I wouldn't agree with that. Both English and German culture and language are Germanic, they're protestant, northern european, etc. It's a lot easier to be a German in the US than it is to be one in Argentina, culturally speaking. Hence why so many emigrated to the US.
Buenos Aires would get my vote. I think a major difference you'll find in Italian-Latin Americans and Italian-Americans is that Italian-Latin Americans actually speak the language. Since Spanish and Italian or Portuguese and Italian are sister languages it's pretty easy to pick up Italian if your mother tongue is Spanish or Portuguese. Moreover, because Argentina is a latin country culturally, there is more encouragement to embrace that. So being Italian in Argentina is like being Irish or German in the North America. It jives well with the de facto language and culture.
Bs As gets my vote but knowing the city fairly well the vast majority of people there who are of Italian origin don't speak Italian beyond salutations and the muddle through Spanish-Italian-Latin mix that Spaniards and Italians in Europe use to communicate. They don't speak Italian any more than Italian New Yorkers do.
That said Italian influence permeates Bs As more than NYC because they are much larger in population share. And because there is more in common between Spanish and Italian culture than between Italian and Anglo culture.
I just think a lot of people don't know the history of Sao Paulo. It's a huge city, but it's not exactly in the US sphere of knowledge unless you want it to be. I, for one, have always been very interested in all Latin cultures and languages, so I know quite a bit about Sao Paulo. Not an expert, but I know more than the general population of the US.
Anyway its a thread about the most italian city outside Europe. So the name should be "What's the most Italian city outside Europe, after São Paulo?" if they didnt include the biggest in the poll
Buenos Aires would get my vote. I think a major difference you'll find in Italian-Latin Americans and Italian-Americans is that Italian-Latin Americans actually speak the language. Since Spanish and Italian or Portuguese and Italian are sister languages it's pretty easy to pick up Italian if your mother tongue is Spanish or Portuguese.
Nope. Not even our ancestors did.
Today, almost all brazilians from italian ancestry speak Portuguese as their mother tongue. Most Italian immigrants who came to Brazil did not speak the cultured Italian. The Italian we know today is nothing more than the Tuscan dialect, which was elevated to official language status in Italy. This dialect was arbitrarily chosen as the primary language of the Kingdom of Italy, due to the cultural prestige of Tuscany and especially Florence (the same way that French is the language spoken in Paris) .
The majority of Italian immigrants came to Brazil in the second half of the nineteenth century, a time when illiteracy was dominant in Italy. Most Italians (with the obvious exception of Tuscan) spoke exclusively other languages and regional dialects. The Italian language only spread in Italy from the twentieth century with the mass literacy of the population, a relatively new process (until the 1950s, most of the Italian population still communicated in dialect) .
Today, almost all brazilians from italian ancestry speak Portuguese as their mother tongue. Most Italian immigrants who came to Brazil did not speak the cultured Italian. The Italian we know today is nothing more than the Tuscan dialect, which was elevated to official language status in Italy. This dialect was arbitrarily chosen as the primary language of the Kingdom of Italy, due to the cultural prestige of Tuscany and especially Florence (the same way that French is the language spoken in Paris) .
The majority of Italian immigrants came to Brazil in the second half of the nineteenth century, a time when illiteracy was dominant in Italy. Most Italians (with the obvious exception of Tuscan) spoke exclusively other languages and regional dialects. The Italian language only spread in Italy from the twentieth century with the mass literacy of the population, a relatively new process (until the 1950s, most of the Italian population still communicated in dialect) .
They did not speak the language we know as Italian today, but they spoke Italian languages.
At least in Brazil, most Italians and descendants used to speak Portuguese and have a great knowledge of Italian(or their dialect) until the 1940's. In that decade, Brazil joined the Allies side of the WW2 and everything related to Japanese, German and Italian cultures was banned. That's why few Brazilians speak Italian today, that's also why the football team I mentioned(Palmeiras), which was called Palestra Italia at that time, had to change its name etc. I don't think this happened in Argentina though, since Argentina was neutral during almost the whole war.
Now speaking about the German culture, US is for sure the country with more descendants of Germans outside Europe. But Germany immigration was pretty big in South America too, especially in Brazil and Argentina.
The German immigrants to BA mainly just retained their last names though and nothing else, right? That's my understanding of it. And a lot of the Germans there are either Jews or Nazis and their children, right?
I know the last post here is from 2013 but I'd like to contribute. I've never been to Buenos Aires but I agree it's one of the most italian cities outside Italy. Most parts of Argentina are heavily influenced by Italians, especially the capital(BA), of course. Just taking a look at their most famous association football players and other personalities we may find out how big that influence is - Javier Mascherano, Javier Zanetti, Emanuel Ginóbili, and for sure the current Pope Francis and the football legends Alfredo Di Stéfano and Lionel Messi.
However, I also noticed one city was kind of underrated here - São Paulo, Brasil. In my opinion, São Paulo should be placed either as 1st position in this poll tied with BA or as 2nd after the city from Argentina. Just like Buenos Aires, the language(Portuguese in this case) spoken in São Paulo has a full Italian accent(pretty close to the accent from Napoli), something like 55%-65% of the population have Italian ascendants, Palmeiras - one of the most succesful Brazilian football clubs was founded by Italians and even today Palmeiras has a very close "relationship" with the Italian culture and language, there are lots of Italian neighborhoods, many of the traditional literature/songs from 19th and 20th centuries include histories of Italians arriving in São Paulo with the feeling of still being in Italy(due to the high number of Italians in SP) and this is funny - São Paulo is the city that sells more pizzas in the world(this is actually funny and a really curious number hehe) etc.
Before I forget Ayrton Senna, Felipe Massa, José Serra(this one isn't famous internationally but he ran for Brazilian presidency a few years back), Rubens Barrichello, José Altafini(aka Mazzola) and a lot of other people are some of the Italian-Brazilians people from São Paulo.
So my list would be like this:
1. Buenos Aires/São Paulo
2. São Paulo/Buenos Aires
3. New York
Interesting, didn't know SP had so many Italians...I do also know it has a lot of Japanese Brazilians.
No Melbourne is undeniably the Italian hub of Australia, though Sydney has quite a few too. Adelaide and Perth too. It's less Italian than in the past, though. More Asian. But still has a strong Italian feel in parts.
I went to toronto last year and I still find melbourne to have a stronger Italian vibe.
I think what seperates Melbourne from nyc and toronto is that it's smaller and the Italian population stands out more, every suburb in melbourne the Italians are almost at the top of the list in terms of population, and our little Italy is so vibrant, also you won't find many 5th and 6th generation Italians here, massive wave came here post ww2. Up until the 1990s melbourne in general had a very euro vibe. I remember when Italy won the soccer World Cup in 2006 10s of thousands went to the little Italy precinct to watch the game on the big screen out in the cold in the early hours of the morning, you would never see this in ny, toronto or anywhere else at 4.30am!
I'm not surprised. For some reason, I don't see Toronto associated with Italians the same way Melbourne is, though Melbourne is getting more Asian and less 'European.' I would hardly say every suburb, though...Italians are actually still more concentrated than Greeks: especially in the northern, and some western and northeastern suburbs. You don't find that many Italians directly west or in most of the eastern suburbs of Melbourne.
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