Lift Up Your Hearts!

When I was young, it was more acceptable than it is today to mimic the speech of people who speak English with a recognizable accent. I remember that the stereotype of an Italian accent ended practically every-a word-a with the schwa sound-a. It's funny that I never questioned why, because none of the Italians I knew spoke like that.

Now I'm wondering if what the mimics were copying was not a generalized Italian accent, but specifically a Sicilian accent. That way of speaking was startlingly prevalent in our recent, and admittedly narrow, experience of Sicily. It marked the speech of our tour guide so strongly that a non-native speaking as she did would be accused of mockery.

I wrote the above when I documented our travel experiences; finally, my curiosity got the better of me and I decided to ask Claude about it. I'll skip the technical aspects of Claude's response, but the upshot is that I was right, though it's a feature not just of Sicily but of southern Italy in general. Italians from the more northern parts of Italy do not speak that way. Here's what Claude had to say about how it came to typify the "Italian" accent in America.

The overwhelming majority of Italian immigrants to the US between the 1880s and 1920s came from the Mezzogiorno — Sicily, Naples, Calabria, Campania — not from Tuscany or the north. The "Italian accent" that got absorbed into American pop culture (vaudeville, early film, later Chef Boyardee commercials and mob movies) was really a caricature built on Southern Italian and Sicilian-inflected English, filtered through immigrant communities in New York and elsewhere. It got flattened into "the" Italian accent in the popular imagination, even though it's specifically a regional feature.

It is as if all Americans were portrayed in foreign movies, commercials, and comedy shows as being from the Deep South, or maybe Brooklyn.

In the spirit of Trust but Verify, before posting I ran this through Gemini, which caught one typo and a couple of awkward sentences. (I reworded the latter, though not with Gemini's suggestions.) It also suggested the nuance that the "Italian accent" is present even in northern Italy, because the Italian language "favors...words ending in vowels. When native Italian speakers speak English, they naturally append a schwa to words ending in consonants to fit their native speech patterns." That makes sense, although I would say it is very much less marked in northern Italians.

On our last day in Florence, Italy, we visted the Museo Galileo, a museum of the history of science.  So many amazing ancient scientific instruments, both serious and playful!

One that lands on the playful scale is an optical toy from 1642, designed and built by Jean-François Nicéron, a French mathematician and friar.  (The intersection of Faith and Science showed up again and again during our time in Florence.)  Looking through the instrument at an apparently jumbled and nonsensical painting reveals an image of a portrait of Grand Duke Ferdinando II de' Medici.

On the more serious side, I was delighted to find a 17th century calculator (for addition) with dials turned by a hand-held stylus.  It looked and functioned remarkably like the addition machine I remember my parents using when calculating their income tax in the 1950's (most likely a Sterling Dial-a-Matic).

And there I also saw my first Faraday Net.  Looking remarkably as if you would use it to catch butterflies, it's actually the device Faraday used to demonstrate that an electric charge resides entirely on the outside of a charged conductor.   It's a predecessor to the Faraday Cage, and explains why your cell phone stops working in elevators and why some people like to wear tin-foil caps.

The following gets a little technical, but if like me you have a particular interest in American Sign Language, you might enjoy it.

Sign Language in the Museum

There was one feature of the museum itself that puzzled me.  Throughout, there were video screens displaying an image or video, along with text in both English and Italian, and a sign language interpreter (for what version of sign language I could not tell).  At first I was just thrilled that they thought to include Deaf people—but then I thought, Why? Anyone old enough to be interested in the material would also be old enough to read the text.

The question intrigued me sufficiently that I posed it to Gemini, and received a detailed answer, which I've edited slightly for compactness.  It simultaneously opened my eyes and left me with more questions.

[This] touches on a really fascinating aspect of how language, literacy, and accessibility work for the Deaf community.

To answer your first question: the version of sign language being used here is LIS (Lingua dei Segni Italiana), which is Italian Sign Language.

As for why the museum includes an LIS interpreter when written text is already available on the screen, there are a few very important reasons that usually surprise hearing visitors:

For many profoundly Deaf people, a sign language like LIS is their native, first language, while the written language of their country (like Italian or English) is actually a second language. Because sign languages have completely distinct grammar, syntax, and structure that don't match spoken or written languages, reading a dense paragraph of text can feel like reading a foreign language. Having a sign language interpreter allows them to receive the information in their natural, native language.

I knew this, but had not thought of it in a museum context.  What it brings to mind immediately is the German-speaking Swiss.  Their native language is the many dialects of Swiss German.  High German is their written language, generally acquired when they enter school, and thus a second language.  As far as native vs. acquired language is concerned, how is this different?

[A] hearing person can look at [a moving 3D object] while simultaneously listening to an audio track. A Deaf person cannot look at the text and look at the changing details of the historical instrument at the exact same time without constantly fracturing their attention. A sign language video allows for a much more fluid, visual processing of information that matches the natural rhythm of how Deaf individuals absorb visual content.

That's also a point I hadn't considered, perhaps because as a hearing person I had a similar problem.  I'm certain there was audio available somehow for these displays, but they were silent as far as I was concerned, and I, also, had to "look at the text and look at the changing details…at the exact same time."  I don't know enough to guess how watching both the changing details and the interpreter simultaneously fractures the attention less.

Many European museums receive funding or accessibility mandates to follow Universal Design principles. This means creating an environment that doesn't just provide a workaround (like text), but actively treats different language communities equally. By providing LIS, the Museo Galileo ensures that Deaf visitors get the same depth of engagement, tone, and emphasis that a hearing person gets from an audio guide.

It is a subtle layer of cultural and linguistic accessibility that hearing people rarely have to think about, but it makes a world of difference for the Deaf community.

The question of whether or not there are enough native speakers of Italian Sign Language to justify privileging them over others who also miss that depth of engagement—Deaf speakers of American Sign Language, for example, or visitors who speak neither Italian nor English—is an issue I can't effectively address.  But as a former resident of Rochester, New York, which has a sizeable Deaf community, and having a daughter who took a college minor in American Sign Language, I enjoyed diving deeper into the reasons for the existence of these displays.

I'm coming to think of Artificial Intelligence as a Swiss Army knife:  not one tool but many, our job being to discern the one best suited to each particular task.  That applies not only to the multitude of tasks a particular Large Language Model can handle, but also to the different LLMs themselves, and the various AI Assistants (such as Copilot and Leo) that they lurk behind.  I initially thought I'd pick one particular system and stick with it, but I'm finding that although Claude is now my go-to LLM (and the only one I'm paying for), it's also very handy to be able to get multiple answers from the same prompt, and to draw on the strength of "many counsellors" with different skill sets.

Currently Google's Gemini has moved into position as my second-best sword.

I've already had success working with both Copilot and Claude at the same time in order to harness the particular strengths of each.  For my latest project, writing the story of our recent travels, I'm refining the text in Claude, where my preferences are well-known and where we have already established a good working relationship when it comes to proofreading, editing, and writing style.  Gemini, having the power of Google's vast image library and search capabilities, has also become a powerful collaborator, helping me to remember the events as told by the photographs we took.  Gemini not only identifies locations, buildings, and works of art, but adds much more—so much information about the scene and its history that it functions as a highly intelligent and experienced tour guide.

Without this collaboration—and Claude's gentle nagging, which got me started and keeps me on task—the story of this trip would in all likelihood have joined the many other events in our lives which are languishing in photo files and manila envelopes filled with memorabilia.  Our trip to Venice, for example, got as far as to have its own category here, but ground to a halt after a single entry.  There's a glimmer of hope that the new collaboration might breathe new life into those dry bones.  If I live long enough.

Although we occasionally checked in with the home front while we were overseas, for three weeks we had very little exposure to news headlines and social media.  I'm not saying that was a bad thing, but it meant we were met with some surprises when we returned home.  One very encouraging surprise was that the Internet had been flooded with reports and stories from international visitors who had come to the United States on the occasion of the World Cup and had had their stereotypes of America and Americans overwhelmed by reality.

For the last 20 years or so I have experienced a lot more foreign travel than I ever imagined, and one thing I have noticed is that very few people have any idea of how vast and how diverse America is.  Looking at a map of Texas alone, superimposed on a map of Europe, I see that it covers all or part of Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Switzerland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Hungary, Slovakia, Czechia, and Poland!  That kind of vastness is hard for many Europeans to imagine.

As for culture, even Americans get their impressions of our country from Hollywood and whatever highly-curated news filters their way—how much more so those who don't live here?  I've learned the futility of trying to convince Europeans that their conception of America does not reflect the reality of America, but where I failed, the World Cup succeeded.  Visitor after visitor reported, with amazement, "Everything I was told about the United States was wrong!"  They were astounded by what they found, so different from what they had expected, everything from the flavor of ranch dressing to the kindness and warm welcome they experienced in the Deep South—from the people they had been taught to hate.  (Indeed, I had to unlearn that low opinion of the American South myself, having grown up in the Northeast.)  Americans, trapped in self-flagellation because we allow our flaws to mask our strengths, need to see our country through such eyes!

Why is this relevant to our trip?  Because these happy stories mirror ours, both on this trip and indeed on all the trips we've taken to foreign parts.  "Everyone said" that the French, especially Parisians, are rude and hate Americans, but our experience was exactly the opposite.  We met one, just one rude cab driver in Paris; everyone else was friendly and kind and patient with my very broken French.  In our experience—which can't be the same as someone else's but is the only experience by which we can truly judge—people in Europe, and Japan, and Brazil, and The Gambia are as kind and friendly as people anywhere, and do not universally hate Americans.  My greatest surprise on this trip was the respect and even admiration we heard expressed for American leadership; I had expected dismay and contempt.  Fear-mongering reports flow both ways across the Atlantic!

But we rarely talked politics, at least not directly; ordinary stories about our own lives and all that we have in common were what everyone delighted in sharing.  We spoke with people from all over the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Norway, Sweden, France, Portugal, Zimbabwe, South Africa, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Germany, Turkey, and more—and found nearly everyone to be interesting, friendly, polite, kind, and sometimes above-and-beyond helpful.

Not everyone can, or should, take a Mediterranean cruise or travel far to see World Cup soccer in person, but surely the world would be better off if we spent less time listening to stories that make us angry and more time experiencing the humanity of our neighbors.

Now that we're back from three weeks in the Mediterranean region, people are wondering how we survived Europe's heat wave. The answer is simple: the same way we survive Florida's summers. Nowhere that we went did the temperatures exceed Florida's numbers: high 80's to low 90's were the worst we experienced. That's actual temperature. Having lived more than seven decades with that as my measure of ambient temperature, my brain rebels against the modern "feels like" idea, which always makes me feel more miserable than I am. For what it's worth, the UV Index at its highest in a day was generally 8—like a normal Connecticut summer. In Florida at this time of year that number is routinely 12. I was barely aware of the UV Index until I acquired the dminder app for my phone to help me keep track of the vitamin D my body is making. If I'm wearing shorts and a t-shirt, a 15-minute walk in the midday sun at UVI 12 easily gets me 1500 IUs (and a warning that it's time to go inside). On the UV Index scale, 1-2 is considered Low, 3-5 Moderate, 6-7 High, 8-10 Very High, and 11+ Extreme.

Our first four days were in Florence, and were undeniably hot, because we wanted to make the most of our short time there. Our hotel was convenient to everything we wanted to see, so we walked everywhere and were on the go most of the time the sun was up. (Sane Floridians avoid the midday hours outside if possible. "Mad dogs and Englishmen," you know.) The Mediterranean sun was intense, the humidity was high, the cobbled sidewalks a challenge to walk on, and Florence's many staircases a trial for legs accustomed to flat surfaces. What made this only a minor inconvenience?

• This was early in our trip, when we were fresh and eager.
• Hats and sunglasses. Generally I hate wearing a hat, but keeping the sun off my face was a necessity.
• A Floridian's practiced eye for finding shade. Walk on the shady side of the street. Rest in a shady spot. It makes a significant difference, even when the humidity is high.
• Air-conditioned respites. This is huge. As with cold in the winter, one can stand a much greater intensity and duration of heat if one can occasionally retreat to a more comfortable situation. In our case, we spent much of our time walking from one museum to another, and generally recognize that great art survives better in a hospitable climate. So do people, but art refuses to be bullied. The museums were comfortably air conditioned—not the frigid situation one finds in Florida restaurants, for example, which is why I keep a sweatshirt in the car at all times and occasionally pull it out even during the hottest summer days.
• We didn't hesitate to adjust our schedule to accommodate our physical needs.
• Frequent gelato stops. Never underestimate the importance of this Italian staple.

For the remainder of our trip, we were on a Princess cruise, visiting Italy, Greece, Turkey, and Montenegro. The ship itself was over-airconditioned, but an occasional trip to the blistering sun of the top decks took care of that nicely. And the otherwise-excessive A/C was admittedly glorious upon returning from a long, midday excursion of hiking, under a cloudless sky, through ancient ruins.

Overall, to those who asked us how we managed in Europe's "terrible heat wave," my first thought was always, "What heat wave?"

But I do understand unrelenting heat, as I'll explain in my next post.