Best Italian Restaurant in NYC (inspired by the "Italian Deli" thread)

F

franca

<color=pink>Silver</color>
#141
#141
Il Pagliacco said:
"Mooliyan" is the pronunciacion in the neapolitan dialect. Not Italian. All the regions of Italy have dialects which are very different from each other. The word for work in Italian is lavoro, in neapolitan its fatiga, in sicilian is travagio. Most of the Italian immigrants were not educated and did not speak proper Italian. They spoke there dialect.
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Yeah, but the shit "Italian" you hear in New York now isn't any of those dialects. It's filtered through their lazy English-speaking children and grandchildren who can't be bothered to learn how to speak it right, until it's corrupted into this gawdawful American-accented speak that doesn't even resemble what you'd hear in Italy.
 
S

stevana

#142
#142
You are so right! But, the "now" you refer to isn't just now - 50 years ago I heard "brushoot", "moolinyan", "jewdrool", "bafanabluh", "lambagool", "fatchadugotz", "mamaducama", and on and on. It took me awhile, and some interest and effort, to learn what was really behind the sounds I heard.
 
O

Ozzy

#144
#144
All things equal I'm willing to bet that Italians in Philly speak a more proper Italian than those in NY. We already know they speak a more proper english than NY'ers. Funny thing is what little Italian I know, I actually speak better than the 100% Italian friends I have. I attribute that to the fact that I got it from my mom who grew up in Philly while my friends parents grew up in NY. That and my moms meatballs is why I was so accepted into the gindaloon community.

Speaking of jumbled Italian, dago food and hoping Artie gets well soon.......

[youtube]El62UnrGlC4[/youtube]
 
O

Ozzy

#145
#145
stevana said:
You are so right! But, the "now" you refer to isn't just now - 50 years ago I heard "brushoot", "moolinyan", "jewdrool", "bafanabluh", "lambagool", "fatchadugotz", "mamaducama", and on and on. It took me awhile, and some interest and effort, to learn what was really behind the sounds I heard.
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But 50 years ago there were only a handful of jewdrools who spoke fucked up Italian. Today there's only a handful who speak it properly.
 
F

franca

<color=pink>Silver</color>
#146
#146
"Mootsuhrel" balls???

Imagine if couple from rural Mississippi immigrated to Buenos Aires, and their children and grandchildren butchered the language with a gawdawful Argentinian accent*. You'd wince hearing it, and laugh at them for being proud to speak the language of the "mother country".

*I'm not knocking Argentinian Spanish. The way they speak is fine for Spanish, just as the the way New Yorkers speak English is perfectly OK.
 
F

franca

<color=pink>Silver</color>
#147
#147
And the funny thing is, Italian really isn't that hard. The pronunciations are pretty straightforward, and vowels are pure and simple, much the same as Spanish.
 
S

stevana

#149
#149
Ozzy said:
But 50 years ago there were only a handful of jewdrools who spoke fucked up Italian. Today there's only a handful who speak it properly.
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Your point #1: You can't be serious! You must not have known very many.

Your point # 2: So why don't you follow their example at least as to specific terms?
 
J

justme

homo economicus
#150
#150
I remember hearing about a theory that posited that 19th century Irish literature was so damned good because pure English wasn't a first language to the authors.

As I get older, I find it less important to defend language as my grandparents knew it. I mean, who does give a fuck about an Oxford comma?
 
J

justme

homo economicus
#153
#153
justlooking said:
I was with you until you started derogating the Oxford comma.
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I mean, I give a fuck about the Oxford comma (I dedicate this to my parents, Aretha Franklin and God) but I've just gotten to the point where I've run out of any kind of evangelical zeal. Like many disillusioned missionaries, I suppose a lot of theological arguments seem like so many spinning wheels now.

I really think the breaking point was when the battle on disinterested was lost.
 
M

marcinny

#157
#157
stevana said:
"fatchadugotz"
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This is so funny.

Honestly, the way they butcher the language entertains me. I'd wish someone would transcribe it for me though as I would never understand what they say.

...

Of course, NYC is full of people hailing from Napoli and Sicilia. Most of them or their families moved to this country from the pre-TV era. Their dialects are very different from the mainstream Italian There are movies made in Napoli in the 50s and 60s accompanied with captions in Italian.

Italy has always been a concert of dialects and the delay in creating their unified state, certainly didn't help. Things are changing rapidly since the introduction of TV and the reforms that improved and standardized mass education.
 
M

marcinny

#159
#159
Interesting how a discussion about food ended up in one about language. It is revealing in a certain sense. Without the myths of the Italian food, art and mafia and without the Italian-American pride, inclination to showmanship and of course marketing reasons, the butchered Italian would have not been an issue.

Original ethnic languages have been butchered for centuries in this country, but few would fly in your face the way the NYC/Brooklyn/Bronx Italian does.
 
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