Al telefono con Tommaso — On the Phone with Tommaso

Triestine, and what to bring to a patient

Triestino, the everyday dialect of Trieste, belongs to the Venetian family: it spread with the growth of the port in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when it served as a common language for merchants and workers of many origins. Unlike many Italian dialects, it is still widely spoken in Trieste across generations and social classes, and it has borrowed words from German and Slovene. Things said in dialect often carry an intimacy that standard Italian loses — which is why Maja won't pass on Ada's message over the phone. Visiting a patient in Italy has its own customs. Flowers are a common gift, but not chrysanthemums, which in Italy are associated with funerals and with the Day of the Dead. Many cardiology wards discourage cut flowers, and sweets are usually a poor choice for a heart patient — hence Tommaso's order. The grammar of this lesson is reported speech: dire di + infinitive, chiedere che + congiuntivo imperfetto, chiedere se, and the shifts of person and direction that happen when one person's words travel through another's mouth.