I suspect it’s like this when learning any language on the hoof, but Italian requires a whole lot more than memorizing words and complicated grammar. Meaning is attached to all kinds of non-verbal elements too: tonal structures, gestures, expectations,
social status, the color of your sweater, educational achievements, and a host of other barely perceivable signals, none of which are written down so you can study them.
When signals are awkwardly employed by the eager-to-please outsider, they often carry wholly different meanings from what the outsider intended, ones that could put said outsider into some serious trouble. It’s not just what you say that counts, it’s when, how, where, to whom, and within which context.
Here’s a handy example. I was waiting to order cheese. There were two elderly ladies behind me who I could not convince to step in front of me, so when the gentleman with the cheese knife nodded in my direction, I leapt. “Si! Vorrei un peccorino… blah, blah, blah.”
Terrible mistake.
In my country, as I wait in line for service I often rehearse ways of taking as little time as possible to conduct the business at hand. When my turn comes, I leap. It’s meant as a courtesy. The people behind me in line advance more quickly. The person taking care of my business, who is assumed to be wishing she were somewhere else, needs to spend less energy on me. It is a civilized if not exactly pleasant way of doing things. Thus I have been trained, and such is my belief.
There are adjustments to be made in Orvieto. (What follows is my conjecture based on semi-informed observation.) Say you’re thinking of buying a jacket at the haberdasher down the street, you may just find it convenient to ask someone behind a counter for their opinion. That’s okay. Maybe he wants to know about your experience at a certain hotel in Prague. Fill him in, all the details, find it on your phone so he has the web address. If anyone else in line feels the need to be served, they will interrupt and tell you as much. It’s all very sensible. But whatever you do, show good form. To be polite is more than manners, it’s patrimony. To be unnecessarily efficient may come off as maleducato, that is, rude.
Every encounter, commercial or otherwise, begins with buon giorno up until a mysterious point mid-afternoon when everyone somehow knows to change to buona sera, which means good afternoon, good evening, good night, and if it’s still dark (and the parties in question have not yet b
een asleep) maybe even good morning. If you are not greeted by the cheese man, or by whomever it is you’re doing business with, it does not matter. Greet anyway. A reciprocal greeting will almost certainly follow.
I failed in this, and the nice cheese man never forgave me. I immediately caught what I had omitted, and did everything linguistically possible to make up for it – except of course to apologize. I gave him per favore, perfetto, prego and esato as often as I could fit them in, even when they were not really called for. When I left, I wished him buona giornata AND arrivaderci. He replied, buon giorno just to make sure I understood that saying goodbye was of no use when I had not yet said hello.
Underlying the ceremony, there is a serious point to this. The proprietor and the client are equals. There should be nothing in either the trade of goods or of words to suggest otherwise. The money is exchanged for a product, yes, but the more significant exchange is one of comfort, information, inclusion, communication, and approval. The greeting expresses both parties’ readiness to enter into the dance, and to leave the greeting out puts everything out of balance.
Another thing I find interesting is that it has been mostly people under the age of thirty-five or so who have been upset when I forget to greet. I find it hopeful that younger people seem to care so much. The guy at the outdoor market with the creased face and calloused hands nods when I greet him and waits for me to make a choice so he can get on with his day. (I suspect this is especially true when serving outsiders who have no useful information to share, anyway.) But the line between the cares and the care-nots is vague. Greet. It don’t cost nothin’, and the avenues it opens up can be quite pleasant.
Until about a week ago – or in other words, for the first five or six weeks of this stay – going into centro to shop or seek information was always tinged with terror. Invisible rules are in effect, and not only am I ignorant, but I unknowingly break them more or less without pause. Then something changed. My purpose on this journey (or in life, as far as that goes) is not to prove that I know stuff. I’m going to make mistakes. So long as I say buon giorno or buona sera at the top of an interaction, no one really seems to care about the rest. They’re too busy making their own mistakes. This language and this culture are built on such ancient foundations, that nobody can navigate them perfectly.
So, hey! I wanna know what it’s like to live here? I’m living it just like an Italian, only my grammar really, really sucks. Buona serata!