How do Italians greet each other?

In Italy, when you first meet someone, you usually exchange a handshake, especially in formal situations. On the other hand, when friends and relatives meet, Italians usually exchange two kisses on the cheek. But beware! Italians first kiss the left cheek and then the right; Americans do the opposite!

In everyday language, the standard-bearer of greetings is the friendly “CIAO”, which Italians use in informal situations, both at the beginning and at the end of an encounter. “BUON GIORNO/ BUONGIORNO” and “BUONA SERA/ BUONASERA” are more formal greetings than “CIAO”. While Italians use “BUON GIORNO/ BUONGIORNO” in the morning, the time of the day when they start using “BUONA SERA/ BUONASERA” varies from region to region (but generally after 2pm).  The use of “BUON POMERIGGIO” is definitely rare: you can hear it almost exclusively on television or at the airport. Finally, Italians say “BUONA NOTTE” only when they leave late in the evening or before they go to bed.

This reading is an adaptation and translation of the Italian article published in La Repubblica by Simonetta Losi. 

Think about the different kinds of greetings people use in the United States. Have you ever met a person and had an unusual experience when you had to greet them? During your travels abroad, what was your experience with greetings?

The issue of “gender” in Italian

In Italian, gender is almost always expressed grammatically. As we have seen, word endings usually carry information on the grammatical gender of nouns, adjectives, and articles. In many cases, it is assumed that the grammatical gender corresponds to the gender of the person designated by a given noun. For example, la studentessa is a feminine noun designating a female student, while lo studente is a masculine noun designating a male student. This binary is often problematic, and the Italian language has been evolving to be more inclusive.

Masculine nouns for professional women?

Many names designating professions (such as l’architetto, ‘architect’ and sindaco, ‘mayor’) used to exist only in the masculine form, even when they were applied to women. For example, we would say “Carla è un architetto.” In the past few years, things have been changing, and many people now use l’architetta, la sindaca, etc. to talk about professionals that identify as women.

Inclusive endings

Gendered endings make it difficult to address non-binary people or to talk about a group of people that identify with various genders. Traditionally, in this case Italian language uses the masculine form – for example, we would say “Gli studenti di Italiano a Bryn Mawr e Haverford sono curiosi e seri” even if we know that “students of Italian” are not all men. Italians, however, have also found ways to avoid privileging one gender (masculine) over the other. A few options are:

• Omitting gendered endings: e.g. “Car* student*, benvenut*!” This form can be read either as “Cari studenti, benvenuti!” or “Care studentesse, benvenute!”
• Using a symbol named schwa. Schwa is an “indefinite” vowel, a sound that is produced when the lips, tongue, and jaw are completely relaxed – and for this reason, it is the sound that we make when we are unsure of what to say. Since it is an indefinite vowel, it can be used to substitute gendered word endings such as -a, -o, -e, -i. This sound exists in many languages, including in many Italian dialects, and it is represented by this symbol: Ə.
• Schwa is not a letter of the Italian alphabet – rather, it comes from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). The name of this letter in the IPA derives from Hebrew (another language that has this sound).
• Schwa can also be used to create a non-binary pronoun, equivalent to the English “they/them” – lǝi.

For more information, please watch this video: