12 Jan
Will the Italian language adopt the ‘ə’?
Inclusion and equality are two very important concerns in Italy right now.
These concepts have included discussions over whether the Italian language is sufficiently inclusive, and gender balanced. Various recommendations have been made, with the usage of the Schwa (ə) being one of them.
The origin of the ə
The vowel ə finds its origin in the Hebrew alphabet, to describe an unstressed phonetic sound. However, in 1821, it was first used as a symbol in the Bavarian German language, to indicate a specific type of pronunciation.
Up to these days in the Italian language, the symbol ə has only been recognised as part of the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) to represent a very neutral sound.
The debate about ə in the Italian language
In contrast to English, Italian is a language that differentiates genders; thus, it makes a distinction between male and female, singular and plural. Based on the suffix of the word the interlocutors can identify the subject of a conversation.
With the expansion and more recognition of the LGBTQIA+ community and the feminist movement, it has been presented the necessity of rendering the Italian language more inclusive.
There have been multiple proposals to avoid genderisation in Italian, such as the *, or the @. However, these symbols were not ‘good enough’ as they could not be related to any sounds. The vowel ‘u’ was also considered as a possible non-binary ending. However, it was discarded as in some dialects, this vowel may indicate the masculine determinative article. Thus, the schwa became a possible valid option, due to its neutral sound and its intermediate position among the vowels in the phonetic alphabet.
The ə proposal in Italy
The first tangible proposal for the implementation of the schwa in Italy, is dated back to 2015 when Luca Boschetto published an article for the use of a more neutral and inclusive language. The Italian literate proposed two types of schwa: a short ə for the singular, and a long ɜ for the plural form.
The reason behind this proposal is not limited to the neutrality and inclusivity of the LGBTQIA+ members, but it also finds its conflict with the overextended use of the masculine voice in the Italian language. Due to cultural and historical reasons, Italy has developed the language based on a male society. For example, for the description of a multitude, Italian adopts a masculine suffix, even though most members of the group may be female individuals. This has led members of different feminist movements to support the implementation of the ə, not as a replacement of a masculine ending with a female one, but to avoid overuse of the masculine form.
What can go wrong?
Some Italian literates consider this revolutionary idea, pure madness. They state that this metamorphosis of the language might bear damage to dyslexic or neuro-diverse people. Others fight the proposal by explaining the centuries of struggle to finally gain the female form of certain nouns, such as job positions.
Who knows what the future holds?
We could say that we are facing a crossroad; but which one is the right solution?
The ə case is an ongoing debate that sees literates and different parties of the society confronting each other based on different personal beliefs. It is still a topic open for discussion. Surely, if the ə will be the future of the Italian language, the change won’t be radical. It will be difficult to change the grammatical morphology of a language that has been highly impacted by a society with such strong roots.
