The Meaning of "Novecento" in Italian

[grammatim]

On Jun 4, 11:34*pm, Harlan Messinger
<hmessinger.removet...@************> wrote:
> grammatim wrote:
> > On Jun 4, 10:25 pm, Harlan Messinger
> > <hmessinger.removet...@************> wrote:
> >> qqu...@***********m wrote:
> >>> Dear Everyone:
> >>> What is the original meaning of the word, "novecento", in Italian?
> >>> I know that "Novecento" is the original title of a 1976 film directed
> >>> by Bernardo Bertolucci, and in the English language, the film is known
> >>> as "1900".
> >>> My first guess of its original meaning was "new hundred", or "new
> >>> century", but The Babel Fish translates it into "The 1900's". Is the
> >>> word used only to refer to the 20th century?
> >> Yes, that's a way they refer to the centuries from 1200 to 2000 in
> >> Italian. Il cinquecento = the 16th century, etc.
>
> > The cinquecento is the 1500s,
>
> (That's what I said, give or take a year.)
>
> > ottocento = 1800s, etc. They match the
> > number to the hundreds-number, so novecento is the "900s," not "new
> > hundred."
>
> 1900s.-

No, there's no "teen" or "1" in that form of nomenclature.

[Adam Funk]

On 2009-06-05, Harlan Messinger wrote:

> Adam Funk wrote:

>> AIUI, there's a slight difference in the precise meanings:
>>
>> "il cinquecento" = 1500--1599
>> "16th century" = 1501--1600
>>
> As we learned when 2000 rolled around, many English-speaking people
> think that the 20th century was 1900-1999. So for their Italian
> counterparts it's all the same.

Well, I did say "precise"!

Besides, around 2000, we also heard a lot of people explaining the
correct way to count centuries and millennia. I imagine people who
are interested in foreign films and art history are probably not so
resistant to education.

--
I don't know what they have to say
It makes no difference anyway;
Whatever it is, I'm against it! [Prof. Wagstaff]

[António Marques]

Harlan Messinger wrote:

> As we learned when 2000 rolled around, many English-speaking people
> think that the 20th century was 1900-1999.

One might ask why don't they think that was the *19*th century!
--
António Marques

[Piero]

ALAN HARRISON ha scritto:

> Incidentally, using the alternative "secolo" nomenclature, one of the
> strange newspaper names in which Italy abounds is "Il Secolo XIX". Probably
> conatins rather old news. :-)

....Is a newspaper from the 19' century...
A sttrange thing is that in this exact case you read in both way:
'Secolo decimonono' and 'Secolo diciannovesimo'.
'Decimonono' is not used in common language....

Ciao, Piero.

[Piero]

qquito@***********m ha scritto:

> Good question! I just tried it again. It turned out that "Novecento"--
> with upper-case of N--is translated into "The 1900's", but the lower-
> case version ("novecento") is translated into "nine hundred".

'Novecento' is a noun ('Il Novecento'), 'novecento' is only a number
(900)...

Ciao, Piero.