A fascinating documentary on fascist Italy's attempts to banish minority languages and dialects, prohibit the use of foreign words, oblige Italians to use the personal pronoun Voi rather than Lei. Footage produced by the Luce Institute [L'Unione Cinematografica Educativa, (The Educational Film Union)] includes propaganda films and chilling speeches delivered by Mussolini.
Difficulty:
Adv-Intermediate
Italy
This segment opens with a sort of poem, demonstrating how kids growing up in fascist Italy were expected to behave. Minority groups had a pretty hard time, too.
Difficulty:
Adv-Intermediate
Italy
Mussolini inveighs against the middle class, saying that it is the enemy of fascism. Much of the footage in this segment features EUR, the Rome district that was built in the 30s and 40s.
Difficulty:
Adv-Intermediate
Italy
The segment looks at the Royal Academy of Italy's dictionary of Italian, which was filled with quotes from Mussolini. By the end of World War II, the dictionary had gotten to the letter “C.”
Difficulty:
Adv-Intermediate
Italy
After the war came TV. It changed everything, and provided a new way to unify the Italian language and teach people reading and writing.
Difficulty:
Adv-Intermediate
Italy
The narrator goes over the vanishingly small number of expressions coined during Mussolini's time that are still in use today. The song that gives the series its name is provided in full.
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