La Bella Lingua: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language

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Overview

“Italians say that someone who acquires a new language ‘possesses’ it. In my case, Italian possesses me. With Italian racing like blood through my veins, I do indeed see with different eyes, hear with different ears, and drink in the world with all my senses…”

A celebration of the language and culture of Italy, La Bella Lingua is the story of how a language shaped a nation, told against the backdrop of one woman’s personal quest to speak fluent Italian.

For anyone who has been to Italy, the fantasy of living the Italian life is powerfully seductive. But to truly become Italian, one must learn the language. This is how Dianne Hales began her journey. In La Bella Lingua, she brings the story of her decades-long experience with the “the world’s most loved and lovable language” together with explorations of Italy’s history, literature, art, music, movies, lifestyle, and food in a true opera amorosa—a labor of her love of Italy.

Throughout her first excursion in Italy—with “non parlo Italiano” as her only Italian phrase—Dianne delighted in the beauty of what she saw but craved comprehension of what she heard. And so she chose to inhabit the language. Over more than twenty-five years she has studied Italian in every way possible: through Berlitz, books, CDs, podcasts, private tutorials and conversation groups, and, most importantly, large blocks of time in Italy. In the process she found that Italian became not just a passion and a pleasure, but a passport into Italy’s storia and its very soul. She offers charming insights into what makes Italian the most emotionally expressive of languages, from how the “pronto” (“Ready!”) Italians say when they answer the telephone conveys a sense of something coming alive, to how even ordinary things such as a towel (asciugamano) or handkerchief (fazzoletto) sound better in Italian.

She invites readers to join her as she traces the evolution of Italian in the zesty graffiti on the walls of Pompeii, in Dante’s incandescent cantos, and in Boccaccio’s bawdy Decameron. She portrays how social graces remain woven into the fabric of Italian: even the chipper “ciao,” which does double duty as “hi” and “bye,” reflects centuries of bella figura. And she exalts the glories of Italy’s food and its rich and often uproarious gastronomic language: Italians deftly describe someone uptight as a baccala (dried cod), a busybody who noses into everything as a prezzemolo (parsley), a worthless or banal movie as a polpettone (large meatball).

Like Dianne, readers of La Bella Lingua will find themselves innamorata, enchanted, by Italian, fascinated by its saga, tantalized by its adventures, addicted to its sound, and ever eager to spend more time in its company.

  • Dianne Hales
    Dianne Hales

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

In this charming love letter to the language and culture of Italy, journalist Hales recounts her inebriation with Italian's sounds and her lovesickness over its phrases. Enamored of this lovely and lovable language, Hales immerses herself in Italian culture on numerous trips to Italy in her attempt to "live Italian." She comes to think of Italian as "a lovable rascal, a clever, twinkle-eyed scamp that you can't resist even when it plays you for a fool." Hales regales us with the mysteries of the language, such as when a color becomes more than hue. She tells us that yellow, for example, refers to a mystery "because thrillers traditionally had yellow covers." In her rapture over the language, she also swoons over Italian literature (from Dante to Manzoni), opera (Verdi and Puccini) and cinema (Marcello Mastroianni and Fellini) as she rehearses the many ways in which the language has seductively slipped into Western culture and consciousness. (May)

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From The Critics

By interspersing interviews and anecdotes from her life in Italy, Hales, an American journalist and health writer (An Invitation to Health), interweaves her story of learning to speak Italian with highlights of the language's development. Hales explores political history, biographies of powerful artistic contributors, the widespread and continued use of local dialects, and, of course, food. Likewise, readers are treated to interviews with the likes of the president of the revered L'Accademia della Crusca, where Hales touched the society's first dictionary, nearly 400 years old. She portrays riveting performances of Dante and Verdi in Rome and Milan, and she describes how she could consistently hear from the mouths of ordinary Italians Dante's or Verdi's beautiful lyrics specifically crafted to be read aloud or sung. A word lover yet not a linguist, Hales offers helpful but not in-depth or technical linguistic background, so the bibliography is valuable. An enthusiastic cultural tour guide and introduction to Italian, this is recommended for public libraries.
—Marianne Orme

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780767927697
  • Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
  • Publication date: 5/12/2009
  • Pages: 320
  • Sales rank: 528,532
  • Product dimensions: 5.80 (w) x 8.30 (h) x 1.10 (d)

Meet the Author

Dianne Hales is a widely published journalist and health writer. She lives with her family in Marin County, California. You can find out more about Dianne at her Web site (www.becomingitalian.com or labellalingua.org) and on Facebook.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xv

Introduction: My Italian Brain and How It Grew 1

Confessions of an Innamorata 13

The Unlikely Rise of a Vulgar Tongue 35

To Hell and Back with Dante Alighieri 59

Italian's Literary Lions 79

The Baking of a Masterpiece 102

How Italian Civilized the West 122

La Storia dell'Arte 142

On Golden Wings 164

Eating Italian 190

So Many Ways to Say "I Love You" 211

Marcello and Me 235

Irreverent Italian 256

Mother Tongue 274

Glossary 291

Bibliography 301

Reader's Guide 312

Customer Reviews
Average Rating 4
( 28 )

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  • Posted May 12, 2009

    more from this reviewer

    A must for Italian language lovers

    For anyone who has been enchanted by the always beautiful, often frustrating Italian language and tried to grasp its basics as well as its intricacies, Dianne's tales will not only ring true but also comfort you.

    From obscure word etymologies to entertaining anecdotes, La Bella Lingua will keep you turning pages, nodding along in agreement, laughing, and even learning-I picked up quite a few new words myself.

    And Dianne's writing? A sheer pleasure. Truly.

    La Bella Lingua is a *must* for any lover of the Italian language; it assolutamente warrants five espresso cups out of five.

    ~ Michelle of Bleeding Espresso
    http://bleedingespresso.com

    4 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted July 4, 2009

    Bellissimo!

    I loved Dianne Hales book "La bella lingua"! It is a great read for anybody in love with Italian language and culture.
    Her witty writing style and thorough observer of human nature added to the fun of reading this book.
    I highly recommend it for anybody taking an Italian class, I'm going to pass it around in my own.
    I was sad when I finished it and I'm now re-reading some chapters.

    3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted November 26, 2011

    Good

    Good

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  • Posted July 19, 2011

    A terrific read!

    Dianne Hales book "La Bella Lingua" is a delightful work for those who just KNOW they were Italian in previous life!

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  • Anonymous

    Posted May 20, 2011

    Love Letter to Dante

    While the introduction to this book is lovely and witty the following chapters spend far more time eulogizing and fawning over Dante than they discuss the Italian language or Italians themselves. This is a great read if you're a linguist anthropologist but not if you wish simply to be entertained.

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