I sometimes think of a universal language, and by that I don’t mean an artificial language aimed to facilitate human communication, but rather a language which compiles the best bits of all the others. A sort of ‘Now! That’s what I call language’ of tongues. The structures of this language would be up for grabs, as I think it’s hard to argue that there’s one particular grammar or other which humans relate to above others. Grammar is the water language users swim in. Whereas when it comes to vocabulary it appears clearer that there are certain words, certain combinations of sounds, that humans everywhere love to say; ‘Kaput’, ‘happy’, ‘Salsa’, ‘baby’, ‘OK’.
One such global word would almost certainly be ‘Ciao’. There’s barely a language which doesn’t make use of this salutation one way or another. The Italians say ‘Ciao’ at least twice a conversation, the French say ‘Tchao’, the Germans say ‘Ciao ciao’ (spelling it with ‘Tschao’), which my Dad found exceptionally poncey when I visited having picked it up in Germany. Heck, even the British say ‘Ciao’, though it is a bit Ab Fab-coded.
What explains the success of this little word? What drives its intrepid nature? It has positive connotations, of course, of Italy, of summer, of Marcello Mastroianni and una passeggiata through the village en famille. As for the sound of the word, it too has a certain charge, that ‘ch’ (an unvoiced postalveolar affricative, as you might know) moving through to the open vowel ‘ow’. It’s a fun word, always up for a good time, impossible to say miserably. Try saying it aloud now; it’s the vocabulary equivalent of the Mighty Boosh joke about it being impossible to be sad in a poncho.
The etymology of the word reveals slightly heavier connotations. The word originally stems from Venetian dialect’s s-ciào vostro, meaning ‘I am your slave’, though apparently it did not attach itself solely to slave-master dynamics for long; the more common meaning soon ending up more as ‘I am at your service’. Fans of Bavarian dialect will know that ‘Servus’, that ubiquitous southeast German greeting, has much the same meeting via Latin. To go further back still, both Servus and that Venetian s-ciào derive from the Latin sklavus, or slave, referring to the Eastern European origin of most slaves in the Ancient World.
Simplified from s-ciào to ciao, the word has been spread first across Italy and then over the Americas and the New World by Italian immigrants. In Cuba, for example, ciao has apparently replaced adiós with all its religious connotations. Seeing the word’s spread, it strikes me once again as odd that Italian is not a world language, given its speakers willingness to speak their language in all situations. An Italian friend has a pithy explanation for this: ‘We lost the war.’
As for ‘ciao’s’ entrance into English, Ernest Hemingway’s 1929 novel ‘A Farewell to Arms’ is credited with bringing the word into the language, which explains its working title of ‘Ciao, arms’. Hemingway spells the word ‘Ciaou’ in said book, but nonetheless earns through its promotion another credit mark to his name along with his one about the old bloke and the ocean, being nice about Henry James and that funny thing he almost said to F Scott Fitzgerald about rich people.
In recent years the word has received a further boost of life via the operatic Tarantino-esque serial ‘La Casa del Papel’ (‘Money Heist’) and its persistent use of the chorus of the wartime partisan song ‘Bella ciao’, whose chorus could be read as tribute to the virtues of this swashbuckling word.
One of the features of ciao is of course that, like Hebrew shalom, Hawaiian aloha or Korean anneyong, it is a word used as both greeting and goodbye. Ahoj, that calling card of the Czech navy, is another. This doubling has a certain efficiency, tho it must make translating ‘Hello Goodbye’ into those languages a pain – the song is presumably known in Hawaiian as ‘Aloha Aloha’, as is the 1980s’ wartime sitcom ‘Hello Hello’. We use ‘Ciao’ just to say goodbye in English, as in Macedonian and oddly enough in Dutch. Not like the Dutch to refuse a two-for-one.
It’s amusing how we go through phases of saying things. I’m quite keen on ‘growth mindset’ at the moment, and I resolved at the start of the year to drop in the odd use of ‘Don’t get it twisted’. I never fail to enjoy saying ‘It takes all sorts to make a world’ and a few years back I had a brief affair with the phrase ‘Not worth the candle’. And for someone with little lived experience of tinkers, I sure do love describing things as not being worth a ‘tinker’s cuss’. In short, I’m fussy about language, which might be one definition of a writer.
Yet even as my speech cycles through fads ol’ ‘ciao’ remains an evergreen. It’s a word which never fails to get the job done. ‘Ciao’ is like a band who you don’t listen too often but are always great when you do, the Yo La Tengo of words. I am sure that in our universal language of the most-loved words ‘Ciao’ will take up a place of honour.
For now then, Ciao, and welcome all to this, the fourth season of ‘Stiff Upper Quip’. This is how I want to greet you, my hands outstretched, delight on my face, my lips forming a big happy ‘Ciao! Ciao, amici, ciao!’ I look out on you all as I wait for you to take up your seats for another series. I am not ready to ‘ciao’ you all out again for a good while yet.
Molto bene. Welcome back!