Piedmontese culture: instructions for a proper use

When you are raised in a culture, no matter which one, you end up being shaped by it. It's not a matter of blood, and no stupid racist theory can apply. It's more a matter of imprinting, as Lorenz would put it. The imprinting you get shapes your vision of the world, your relational map and the way you relate to people. Since you develop your maps for you to interpret reality and to send out signals from within a culture, you naturally "become" a member of that culture. Easy and fascinating, isn't it?

Now when it comes to reality, it also means that you receive and send out tons of "false friends" to people, in your everyday communication. Some tribes of the Amazons consider spitting at your feet an act of salute and respect, eastern people mostly laugh to express their feeling uneasy. Hardly any western guy would get them right (even when properly informed about it). So I decided to dedicate an entry to map the usual misunderstandings that generate when communicating with Piedmontese natives.

Rule 1: no compliments

When we raise children, we never tell them how clever, nice, cute or whatever they are. This will spoil children, in our perception. It's okay for external people to make compliments to your children, but parents react to that by saying He/she only fulfilled his/her duty. That is, being perfect is a social duty. Anything under that mark is a failure, and success is nothing to be praised for.

You might think that this can be frustrating for children, but it's actually the opposite. Parents' eyes shine out pride while they deny that anything worth mentioning has happened. So children learn to read body language, instead of reading words. I have often observed that natives from other cultures end up being hypnotised by their own words. They actually believe in what they say... how funny, for a Piedmontese.

Besides, the usual result is that you should never tell a Piedmontese that he is good, clever or whatever else. We will immediately notice any minimal difference between your body language and your words, and... if there is none we will decide that you are mad or at least over-excited (see following rules).

Rule 2: no love

Our language is probably the only romance language that doesn't include the verb to love. It really doesn't, just as it includes very few words for feelings. Once again, here is where body talk is supposed to happen. Acts count, words do not. We will build our idea of your feelings based on what you DO, not based on what you say. Similarly, we express feelings in everyday behaviour, not in love letters or songs.

The few expressions that mark our use of feelings are:

• vorej-je bin a cheidun (to wish well to someone)

• vorej-je mal a cheidun (to wish evil to someone)

Funnily for us, English Aboriginals will wish us well only when we go away. That's a total mystery for us. Our care is expressed in acts, now, what on earth can you do with an absent person? Does it mean that English speakers care for you only if you leave them?

Same applies to the elaborated love expressions our Italian and French cousins like to fill their mouths with. What does it mean you love someone? You can pretty much say so, then get drunk, come home and beat your children and your wife to death. Many of them do (and we have such people, too). The final impression is that this love of theirs only means they want to possess/control something at any price, no matter the consequences for the beloved object. But then why on earth don't they say so!? Why can't they plainly say I want X? This planet is a mystery, isn't it?

Anyway, this is a major clash. Basically all my non-Piedmontese girlfriends always lamented that I am unable to express love. Hell, I wake up half an hour before you do to give you breakfast in bed, I'm there any time there is problem, and I'm away any time I perceive you'd rather be alone. I share everything I have with you... and you still tell me you miss stuff!?

Also, a number of my early girlfriends from other tribes had this funny habit of repeating all over how much they loved me, to kiss me and embrace me almost continuously, but... oops, no, they cannot go out and buy food while you work, sorry. You know, TV was soooo interesting. For a person used to judge based on acts only... that's a real killer.

Probably the same happened to them, when I mechanically pronounced I love you just as you'd say abracadabra, while asking myself how mad one must be, in order to need that. But I really feel like a bad actor in a stupid soap opera, when I do it, and I'm sure it shows.

Rule 3: easy is good, difficult is evil

We miss words for easy and difficult, too. Instead, we use two moral expressions:

• belfé (the nice doing)

• malfé (the hard/evil doing)

So everything complicated is utterly wrong for us. And it's also aesthetically revolting. Things must be simple. If it's not simple, then it's bad. Full stop. We can work for ages, and fear no amount of needed labour, but make sure what you request is absolutely simple, economic and somewhat elegant, unless you want to be turned down. For us, complication is the worst kind of moral perversion.

Rule 4: order and metaorder

We miss lots of concepts, true, but you are in no better shape. Deuit is something basically no language can translate (well, maybe the Japanese will understand it well). Don't try to use policy here. Policies are social and made of explicit agreements. Deuits are... sort of mysteriously uncanny revelations.There is no democracy in a deuit, it's simply made by the fact that someone is

• visionary enough to find it
• strong enough to assert it
• clever enough to make it work.

Deuit means at the very same time: way of acting, style, manner, due order of things. We do not order things in Piedmont, we give them a deuit. Chaos is absolutely out, a deuit must be present, no matter which one. Kids are always ordered to give deuit to things. One thing we clearly know from childhood is that deuit is not natural, it's given by us, and no thing can be allowed to exist without a deuit. Not giving a deuit to something doesn't mean allowing for freedom, it means you don't give a damn about it.

So a Piedmontese kid is grown up a ruler. Not as a dictator, since any order has an implied higher order, but he/she clearly knows that humans came to earth to give it deuit, and they are expected to do their part. Our ultimate higher order used to be Royal Family (God wasn't available for the function, since the Religious Wars proved He wasn't going to work well and... see deuit about complication and unefficiency). Later on we have been struggling to find a new Higher Order, not sure one has clearly emerged, thus far.

Deuit are also obviously expected to rule social life. So you have the expression bon deuit (manners, bon ton) that defines what deuit is socially relevant. You are an object to it, just like your toys are an object to you.The opposite disdeuit means a negation of deuit, an act of rebellion against the Sacred Implied Order. Very few things will raise that many eyebrows within our tribal borders...

These are the very roots of the seemingly totally obedient personality of our tribe. Actually this has nothing to do with liking the rules or not. We may hate them rules, and often do, but we are perfectly aware that our opinion is not requested. If it was, someone would have asked us to produce a deuit on our own. And this, obviously, would have happened according to some deuit of the deuit.

If you think that we spend lots of time discussing what deuit is better than another... than you are absolutely right. Here is where we can actually pay less attention to plain facts than we will pay to the way in which they are performed.

It also explains the likings we have for Baroque architecture. We totally ignored and refused the Renaissance (it never happened within our borders), we jumped straight from Gothic to Baroque. Why? Just think of the impact such endlessly repeating structures had on our minds... We never built so much as we did when we found out that you can apply some proper deuit way down to microscopical entities, by fractal replication of some basic set of simple criteria.

This concept has magic powers in Piedmont. We had the longest and probably bloodiest religious war in Europe, since our Protestants started straight from the 13th century heretics. The war magically ended the day in which on the front side of a church in the Susa Valley someone graved this deuit: "Let everyone prey as they wish". It was published. It was a deuit. It still works. Yet it took almost 600 years to formulate it, and God only knows how much blood and destruction. So you are welcome to laugh about our deuit mania, but please appreciate that we learned the hard way what a massive amount of social disdeuit may mean for everybody's life and properties.

The implication for you?  If you deal with a Piedmontese, make sure your rules are clearly published. He/she will not discuss them, but they must obey to the rule of simplicity and must be extremely clear, with no grey area whatsoever. You don't mean you are unable to write a clear rule AND you also want it respected, do you?

Rule 5: no fatal attractions

People around the world have fatal loves. This is weird for us. We cannot have fatal women or fatal men, for the simple reason that each and everyone of us bears the full responsibility for what he/she does.

So we don't have fatal attractions at all. Instead, the language is quite clear: we have people who turn something/one into sickness (fene na maladìa). Yet it's them doing it, and obviously no compassion is expected to be delivered to people who simply made their own choice. When they'll get tired of it they'll change it, and that's it.

This is another major clash with surrounding cultures. Many people expect to be helped when they feel bad. They don't get much help in Piedmont, once it gets assessed that it's them making a sickness of something. Instead, they get what we consider respect. It's on their side of the fence, so... if they want to feel bad, let them have it.

The result is often an endless exchange of accusations. They think we are heartless, we think they are emotional blackmailers. Both sides simply interpret reality according to their maps, or, if you allow me to have it our way, their deuit is different, only they are mostly not aware of it.

Rule 6: the first charity is the one you give yourself

Literally this sounds La prima carità a l'é cola dl'uss ëd cà (the first charity is at your home door). Anyway, the DIY concept is deep in our roots. Sometimes this is good, sometimes it is bad. It certainly posed limits to our capability in trusting alliances. It also made it so that we rarely required help, and basically have a very bad time in accepting foreign help in principle.

This is also the by-product of being the outcome of a poor rural society. It's hard for us to believe that a foreign offer can have no strings attached. Why on earth would they do it? That's always the first question that comes to our minds. Remember that, if you are to offer help and co-operation. Start stating what YOU need. It will turn the whole thing into a deal, something we can appreciate and are often willing to sign. And remember to avoid ideals, love, etc. unless you want to be marked as a liar since the very start. It will take you ages to get the scarlet letter off your bosom, once our people managed to label you like that.

Rule 7: sex and the Piedmontese

We miss a word for flirt, too. We use the expression fé 'l fòl (to be stupid/mad) instead. Being mad is a pleasant activity, we tend to indulge in it quite often. It's good to relax, it can lead to actual sex or not, but it never has any serious implication whatsoever.

Instead, we have a clear map of how relations are built. Two singles do not flirt. They speak to each other. There is an appropriate body language to express the difference between just speaking and that way of speaking. Anyway, in everyday language you'd hardly use to speak if not for a very serious matter. When we do not do it seriously we exchange words (cambié paròla), which is something extremely nice, and it's done for the sake of it, just like chatting.

Speaking implies commitment, and you are supposed to do it only if you mean business. You may feel that describing the start of a relationship as an agreement to be reached will spoil romanticism, and maybe from your POV you are right. Yet a whole lifetime is a long while, and sooner or later all moons quit shining... Yes, we obviously have bad marriages as anyone else. Wanting to write a good agreement and being actually able to do it aren't necessarily the same thing.

The end process, once again, has no formal definition, or better, it's defined very clearly. A person becomes yours. So we don't have any useless word like husband and wife. All we have is my man (mè òmo), my woman (mia fomna) and make sure it's enough for you (fa ch'it n'abie), as we always say to state that nothing more can be requested.

We obviously have no fiancées, either. Just a term that parents use to tease boys and girls, saying that they have found a morosa/moros, which is a hint that they act stupidly, like characters of street theatre (the amoroso, of the Commedia dell'Arte).

Rule 8: commerce is noise

Yes... the actual word we use for noise is... commerce. Be in a street market and you'll immediately guess why. The first command a baby learns is "fa nen comersi!" (don't be noisy!). This has never kept people from becoming merchants when they grow up, probably it had the opposite effect of preparing them to make just any noise, in order to sell.

Rule 9: making things shine

Romance languages usually see things. We don't. We use the verb s-ciairé (to make clear, to make it shine). There is a root deep awareness in the Piedmontese language about the fact that Reality is in the eye of the seer. When people see things their way, it's them turning the lamps to make some objects more shining than others. Seeing is a choice. It means imposing a deuit on a chaos of coloured pixels from outside there, and turning them into recognizeable shapes. It's the operation of imposing a subjective meaning to something that is external to us. We do this with a torch light called attention. It's mostly us deciding what shines and what doesn't. So once again we have no easy excuse for what we think:each everyone of us is responsible for the way he/she sees the world.

Things may use a reflexive form, though, thus deciding to shine by themselves. This is the mechanism of revelations, pretty much the way in which a good deuit will appear on earth. It will shine before your eyes. Yes, we may sound awfully orderly, but in the end we also are a very superstitious rural community, somewhat dwelling right on the border of the most archaic forms of animism :) As always... there cannot be any infinite power. No matter how subjective you can get, external reality has the power of changing your judgement, by using its own lights.

......

So that's it, for some basics. Maybe later on I'll publish stuff on the relational map in the family. All I can say this far is that we are mostly a matriarchal society. Women generally lived much longer than men, and this had effects, in the long run.

I'm sure we look pretty weird to you. So please try and remember that you look just as weird to us :) BTW, we are but an European culture. Try and imagine a language that will not use to have and to be. When you speak, you, as an English speaker, always define things based on who is what or has what. Well... russian doesn't. And it's still pretty much Europe.

The medium is the message, remember.