# Does Pope Francis speak Italian with an accent? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 14, 2014, 9:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-pope-francis-speak-italian-with-an-accent/707195 "2014-12-14T09:06:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Donnerwetter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Donnerwetter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donnerwetter)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 9:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-pope-francis-speak-italian-with-an-accent/707195/1 "2014-12-14T09:06:16Z")
Pope Francis (Jorge Mario Bergoglio) was born in Argentina to an Italian father and a mother who was also a first generation immigrant from Italy. To the ears of native speakers, how does his Italian sound? Does he speak Italian with a Spanish accent? (I just listened to a clip of a speech the Pope gave in Italian which to me sounded as generically Italian as it gets, but since I don’t speak the language myself, there is no way of knowing for sure. By contrast, the Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI spoke Italian with a thick German accent even though he had been living and working in Italy for many years before he became Pope). ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2014, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-pope-francis-speak-italian-with-an-accent/707195/2 "2014-12-15T02:32:16Z")
People of Italian descent who spoke “Italian” as a child often not only have an accent, but also don’t speak Italian at all. They speak, for instance, Napolitan and are all surprised when nobody understand them in Venice. Local dialects are still very well alive in Italy and were even more so one or more generation ago. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2014, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-pope-francis-speak-italian-with-an-accent/707195/3 "2014-12-15T03:15:20Z")
True. But I’d hope it was Piemontese or something and not Neapolitan, which is on the opposite side of Italy! His father was from Portacomaro, Asti, Piedmont and his mother from Buenos Aires of Piedmontese origin. And of course the Spanish accent of that area is distinct from many other Spanish dialects. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2014, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-pope-francis-speak-italian-with-an-accent/707195/4 "2014-12-15T05:53:37Z")
I would imagine he even speaks Castillian Spanish with an accent – An a Argentinian one. If I were to become the Archbishop of Canterbury, I would speak English with an accent – an American one. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2014, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-pope-francis-speak-italian-with-an-accent/707195/5 "2014-12-15T16:11:53Z")
I can’t vouch that ti is true, but I’ve read that, when John Paul II first addressed the public in Italy, his Italian was much “better” than that of most of his Italian predecessors, because he’d learned textbook Italian and had no regional accent. Most of the Italian Popes of the 20th century had pronounced regional accents. It was, allegedly, easier for Italians of all regions to understand John Paul than to understand some Italian Popes from different regions. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2014, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-pope-francis-speak-italian-with-an-accent/707195/6 "2014-12-17T16:36:51Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > I would imagine he even speaks Castillian Spanish with an accent – An a > Argentinian one. If I were to become the Archbishop of Canterbury, I would speak English with an accent – an American one. … he doesn’t speak Castilian Spanish with an accent… Castilian Spanish is a Spanish dialect, which the Pope doesn’t speak. He speaks Argentinian Spanish. If you’re trying to use “Castilian Spanish” to mean “Spanish” then for Lope’s sake I beg you, just pick one of the two words! Using both means a dialect. What you said was equivalent to saying that “Jim Carrey speaks Manc with an American accent”. I/O error, ok? ---
**Author:** ![Steken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Steken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steken)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2014, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-pope-francis-speak-italian-with-an-accent/707195/7 "2014-12-17T17:16:44Z")
Well let’s see here. First off, [here’s a clip of Pope Francis speaking in Italian.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciPtgmPhEuQ) I think I hear some hints of Argentinian Spanish, most clearly at 00:40 - 00:45, but maybe that’s confirmation bias / just me? Also, as it turns out, Pope Francis did _not_ grow up speaking Italian - his father didn’t like to speak it, supposedly because it reminded him of the poverty he had left behind in the old country. (His grandparents, however, supposedly taught the lad some Piedmontese.) Since becoming Pope, Pope Francis has - in public - spoken almost exclusively in Italian. ---
**Author:** ![Steken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Steken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steken)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2014, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-pope-francis-speak-italian-with-an-accent/707195/8 "2014-12-17T17:25:28Z")
Missed the edit window, but there’s also this too-good-not-to-share nugget, from [here](http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1301486.htm): > [@](#): > > One of his uncles on his mother’s side was “a shameless old man who taught us obscene folk songs in Genovese dialect. That’s why none of the words of the little Genovese I know is repeatable,” he said. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2014, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-pope-francis-speak-italian-with-an-accent/707195/9 "2014-12-18T18:59:56Z")
I asked an Italian friend, and she told me the pope has a very distinct South-American accent. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2014, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-pope-francis-speak-italian-with-an-accent/707195/10 "2014-12-18T20:43:27Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > … he doesn’t speak Castilian Spanish with an accent… Castilian Spanish is a Spanish dialect, which the Pope doesn’t speak. He speaks Argentinian Spanish. If you’re trying to use “Castilian Spanish” to mean “Spanish” then for Lope’s sake I beg you, just pick one of the two words! Using both means a dialect. > > What you said was equivalent to saying that “Jim Carrey speaks Manc with an American accent”. I/O error, ok? Isn’t the word “castellano” or “castellano rioplatense” used locally to mean a Rioplatense accent (Argentina and Uruguay) as opposed to other accents including from Spain?