BowTiedMara@BowTiedMara
Italian 🇮🇹 almost became the second official language of Argentina 🇦🇷, but Hispanic influence prevented it four times.
1896: Italy founded the first Dante Alighieri Society in the world outside of Rome, in Buenos Aires. Carducci, its founder, was already an honorary professor at the University of Buenos Aires.
1900: The Argentine Senate voted to teach Italian in all secondary schools in the country. That same year, a Roman prince arrived with a formal proposal to make it the second national language.
1906: The Dante Society named Argentine President Figueroa Alcorta its honorary president.
1915: A minister abolished it. Yrigoyen reinstated it in 1917.
1930s: The Pro Schola operated five completely free schools in Buenos Aires, funded from Rome by the Italian government.
1940: Castillo abolished it again.
1941: The war closed the schools.
The interaction between Italian immigrants and the local population gave rise to cocoliche (a mixture of Italian and Spanish) and enriched Rioplatense Spanish with numerous words, idioms, and a particular musical intonation.
Italy invested, legislated, sent princes, founded institutions, and funded free education for its diaspora for more than a century.
Since the last changes in the citizenship by descent law in Italy, it will no longer recognize that diaspora.