Tag: Italian

Intelligenza Artificiale in Italia

Posted on by Claude Potts

artificial intelligence in Italy

Judging by the explosion of new books on artificial intelligence, or AI, being published in Italy,  you might think this Mediterranean country is the the editorial epicenter for one of the hottest interdisciplinary topics. Whether you are in the humanities, social sciences, human sciences,  computer science, or STEM fields, “intelligenza artificiale” as it’s called in Italian will eventually find its way into your coursework or research. Here are just a few of the books on AI to recently reach bookstores in Italy and that have not automatically been sent to the UC Berkeley Library. However, if you are inclined just let your friendly Romance languages librarian know and he’ll be happy to push the first button to initiate this demand-driven order.*

 

*Demand-driven acquisition (DDA), is a model of library collection development in which a library only purchases materials when it is clear that a patron has demonstrated the need for a resource. If implemented correctly, DDA can make it possible to purchase only what is needed, allowing libraries to spend the same amount of money as they previously spent on monographs, but with a higher rate of use.

 

 

Mapping the Italian Language(s) — The Atlante Linguistico Italiano

Posted on by Claude Potts

With its tenth volume recently added to the UC Berkeley Library, the Atlante Linguistico Italiano is a unique piece of the Library’s map collections. Each entry in the atlas begins with a single concept, notion or phrase in standard Italian such as cuore, heart. Accompanying this is a map of the Italian peninsula (along with Sicily and Sardinia) that contains the equivalent term, rendered in IPA, as heard in communes all across the country. The lexical and phonetic variations of a single word play out in gradients across the landscape with small changes from one commune to the next that give way to seismic ones from one region to another. The result is a condensed roadmap of the immense linguistic diversity of Italy.

Bambino
Entry for the world “bambino”, showing variants across Tuscany, Emilia-Romagna and Liguria.

As of now, the ten available volumes cover lexical items in the following spheres: the human body, clothing, the home, food, family, and society, with many other spheres such as fauna, commerce, and agriculture yet to be published. While this work is comprehensive in its treatment of geographic variants, it says unfortunately very little about diastratic variation or the relative social capital of the varieties it contains. With its data now over 30 years old, and many of its constituent dialects likely under the threat of extinction, the Atlante may soon start to take on historic and diachronic intrigue as well.

 

Oggi
Entry for the word “oggi” showing showing variants Lombardy, Liguria, Piedmont, and the Aosta Valley.

And if you’re thinking of taking these volumes home with you, think twice. They won’t fit in your backpack. They are big and heavy, measuring 49 x 71 centimeters each, and best consulted in the comfort of the Main Stacks.

 

Pellis, Ugo, and L. (Lorenzo) Massobrio. Atlante linguistico italiano  / materiali raccolti da U. Pellis [and others] ; redatto da L. Massobrio [and others]. Roma: Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato, Libreria dello Stato, 1995.
Main (Gardner) Stacks fff PC1711 .A89 1995 v.1-10

AOQU (Achilles Orlando Quixote Ulysses). Rivista di epica

Posted on by Claude Potts
Achilles Orlando Quixote Ulysses Rivista di Epica
Cover art for AOQU III, 2 (2022) by Antonio Possenti.
As serials costs continue to soar and academic library budgets continue to decline, Open Access (OA) remains a viable path for knowledge sharing in different disciplines. In the wake of the $850k serials cancellation project currently underway, here’s one online journal that will emerge unscathed. AOQU (Achilles Orlando Quixote Ulysses). Rivista di epica is published at the Università degli Studi di Milano (University of Milan) and is now in its fourth year.
This biannual peer-reviewed journal aims to be a forum for scholars from multiple disciplines to discuss epics beyond linguistic, cultural and chronological boundaries. Epic poetry will be seen as a cultural, moral and ideological model, defining self-perception in history and society, in relationship with other cultures, ideologies as well as the collective imagination.
AOQU is one of about 50 OA journals published by Milano University Press, transforming scholarly communication models as we know it. Other journals of interest discoverable through UC Library Search include Altre Modernità, Cinéma & Cie, Carte Romanze, Concorso. Arti e lettere, Interfaces: A Journal of Medieval European Literatures, ItalianoLinguadue, Schermi. Storie e culture del cinema e dei media in Italia, Studi di storia medioevale e di diplomatica – Nuova Serie, and translation. a transdisciplinary journal.