When Italians chat, hands and fingers do the talking | Hacker News Reader

When Italians chat, hands and fingers do the talking

nytimes.com

38 pointsmaxwell25 comments

As an Italian who was born and raised in Rome, I can attest the veracity of the article. It is in fact an habit so entrenched in our culture that when I first saw some movie joking about this, I couldn't understand what the fuss was about. Does not everyone gesticulate when he speaks? Yeah, but up to a point. Now I recognize that when it comes to talking we are unique in that it seems like words aren't enough to convey a message, hence the numerous gestures. Since when I became aware of this I also learned that it's actually pretty easy to educate oneself no to resort to gestures to speak his mind, even though they're so part of the language that cannot be completely eliminated. I guess that if one were to quickly spot an Italian his or her hands would be the telltale sign.

Thanks very much for adding your perspective. The article itself is very intriguing and points out things I just would not have understood, even from 'watching' spoken Italian, as an intrinsic part of the language as it is actually used in its native culture. Having the extra nudge from someone who's part of the culture makes it even more educational.

A warning: this traditional, over-the-top gesturing is particularly common in certain cities and segments of population. (The kind of colourful things that short tourism&culture articles like to talk about.) Elsewhere? Not so much. If you were so careless as to extend this stereotype to —say— the modern urban youth or the well-educated expat, you would likely be mocked as a clueless American tourist, and asked about how many guns you keep at home. :)

For perspective: I was born in northern Italy. Very few people within my social circles ever used any of the traditional gestures; when they did, they deliberately exaggerated the movements for comical effect, or put on a southern accent. Indeed, I have only recently discovered that gesturing is considered to be such a prominent, common feature of Italian culture... by reading English articles about it.

Ha, thanks. Guess this is me falling for anecdotes; how embarrassing. :)

Well, those "segments" include most of the (disgraceful) Italian élite, so uhm. Just watch a political debate: you'll never find one without the making-a-point "vertical-OK" or the please-dont-talk-idiocy "join-hands-in-prayer", be it from Northern or Southern politicians, journalists, pundits, scholars or whatnot.

TBH, one of the effects of living abroad for more than a decade has been, for me, the loss of that smug Northern superiority complex. With all due respect to Giorgio Gaber, any pretence of Northern non-Italian-ness died with the first Berlusconi government.

Andrea de Jorio(Niapoli priest)'s

La Mimica degli antichi investigata nel gestire napoletano (1832)

.... Barzini offered a little sample.... Upon reading [it], you felt that if you could not get hold of de Jorio's book immediately, you would bite your elbows....

(Clive, wasn't that you in Rome when that politician got shot?)

Yep, it was me :P

I grew up in greater NYC in an area with many immigrants, and I am myself the grandson of Italian immigrants. A teacher in high school jokingly challenged us to sit on our hands while we talked. Without thinking about it, I found myself lifting my butt to free my hand in order to make a conversational point and then sticking my hand back under. Repeatedly.

Much laughter ensued.

Anyway, it seems that the habit transferred to the new world without anyone really trying.

The definitive resource for Italian's hand gesture is "Supplement to the italian dictionary" [1] by the great designer Bruno Munari.

It is a semi-serious dictionary of gestures: how to perform them, what they mean, how common they are, when not to use them. It is mostly a work of art, and art for the sake of art, nevertheless I found it very complete and reliable.

[1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22Supplement+to+the+italian+dicti...

I'm italian and I really think we don't use gesture more than other nationalities... truth is there is fascination about this, and americans in particular love the story... still don't get why

Well compared to the British, for example, it's hard to deny an average difference, at least in hand gestures, specifically.

I come from a very large Italian American family (3 of my 4 grandparents were immigrants, I have cousins that spent significant time in Italy, etc.) and one of the first things my now wife noticed the first time we around a large family gathering (it just happened to be Easter dinner which is another story) was that everyone talked with their hands. She asked me if they always did that, but I had no idea what she was talking about until she pointed it out.

It's not just about over-use, it's about codes: us Italians have a wide range of very well-defined nonverbal codes, which is why "others" notice them. Brits, for example, might be gesticulating wildly in some situations, but their hand-waving will be very generic (open-hand, numbers and little else).

I personally put it down to the historical problem of Italians not having an official language until late XIX-century, while being a melting pot of people coming and going from/to the whole of Europe/Africa/Asia for thousands of years. Nonverbal codes were clearly essential, it's not a surprise they're still around.

In Italy there is not just a culture. If you move of 50km you actually call stuff with differents names here in Italy.

As Example:

Ciaccino -> Siena

Schiacciata -> Firenze

Siena and Firenze actually are 1 hour away.

It is clear that every sub-italian-culture have different words and gesture.

I want to add that we use the same gesture in an extraordinary range of expression. The same "Fk you" can be a joke or a serious one and we will use the same gesture.

Finally, only 20% of our communication is verbal, the rest is un-spoken communication. I can guess that here in Italy the 30% is verbal+gesture communication, the rest is all about the tone of the voice (very important), the position of the body and other stuff.

I also found that gesture is much more used in the center and south of Italy.

This page is a funny, but extremely accurate, Italian gesture guide.

http://www.amusingplanet.com/2010/11/illustrated-guide-to-it...

I'm used to show it to my foreign colleagues to help them to understand me :)

Yeah, Italians use gestures when talking; no kidding. In the video, they showed dozens of gestures, most which I had no idea what they meant. I would have found it much more informative and interesting if they explained what all those common gestures actually meant.

Well there you go then: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/07/01/world/europe/A...

Most of these are pretty easy to pick up even as a foreigner, although you've got to be careful - I once accidentally spilled a drink on my wife while gesticulating when I was telling a story.

My Italian girlfriend told me the "Where are you going?" gesture is inaccurate in this video. It's mostly used as a "What the fuck?!" hypothetical question.

yes, "where the f*ck are you going?" :)

Nice "classic" (2009-2010) English-captioned drawings by Alfredo Cassano about Italian Popular Gestures (click on images for bigger resolution):

http://www.alfredocassano.com/buyitaliangestures.html

We have a joke around here that Italians can never drown as long as they're speaking.

I'm italian and I want to point out that we use gestures without realizing it: we can't reproduce them with the same naturalness as before, and often we don't even know which gesture we made just before.

odd - I don't interpret the 'afraid' gesture as they do - I'd use it to indicate a place is full of people

Reply on news.ycombinator.com