Grande Guerra, dialetti e "parole di soldati" in Gadda, Jahier, Mussolini

The Great War fostered new ways of communication between Italian officers and soldiers, and among the soldiers themselves. The soldiers, who in many cases only spoke the regional and local dialects, improved their communicative skills in Italian. At the beginning of the war, the use of dialects was either criticized or forbidden. However, after the defeat of Caporetto, dialects and soldier lingo played a distinct role in propaganda aimed at reinforcing the resistance of the Italian troops. Within this framework, the essay considers the war diaries and/or other writings of Lussu, Gadda, Jahier and Mussolini. Communications with their comrades in arms and the linguistic choices of the authors (three officers and a private, respectively) are investigated. The paper also shows how these diaries depict the Italian dialects and how they make use or take record of soldier lingo. The article eventually focuses on trench newspapers. It demonstrates how much space Jahier’s L’Astico provided for dialectical poems along with soldier lingo and the songs of the soldiers. Jahier similarly utilizes language in Il nuovo contadino, a paper addressed to soldiers who had returned home from the trenches.