Italian speaking members

I have asked this a few times, so apologies for repeating myself.

I keep seeing how these cosa nostra guys are proud to be Italian, but how many can even speak Italian?

Not many, Especially the younger guys. Your lucky if these Guys graduated High School, let alone speak another Language.

There was a rift between the ethnic Italians and the more assimilated Italian-Americans from the start. "Mustache Petes" vs. "The Young Turks". Going back to the beginning you had made guys trying to look and sound as American as possible. Many changing their names to Irish or Protestant sounding. Frank Costello, Frankie Yale, etc. Paul Kelly, leader of the 5 Points, was Italian (surname Vaccarelli).

Paul Kelly & The Five Point Gang, from the sounds of it he was a Camorra member that helped form Cosa Nostra.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQ7DUfUY_i8&list=PLQhDH_WZbs1Pt-u5h1DHGJpEGPmmJH5Pr&index=32

I know allot of people don't share there real names or surnames our family's last name is Calamera, we had problems when our family left New York to Pennsylvania and they changed it to Carr and moved to Phoenix. My dad changed it back when he turned 18 in 1969.

Noticed that a lot seemed to have changed their surnames.

I guess at some stage making ceremonies would have been in Italian, so that's stopped now?

The younger guys probably know a few Italian cursewords and expressions to make themselves sound tough, but probably nothing more.

While it would be beneficial, most italiani speak better English than the IA guy speaks Italian.

Older people in my family who visited Italy in the 70s and 80s said that the language in Italy is much different than when my great grandfather was born there. There were all different dialects for different regions of the country. Then after WW2 most people learned proper Italian in school from textbooks. Even in the early days of Italian immigration to America, Napolitans spoke of version of the language, Sicilians another, and so on. So as the next generation learned English, that was the common language for them to communicate, regardless of where in Italy their family came from.

Proud to be Italian but don't speak Italian.Today they are Americans with italian surnames.

Vito Rizzuto was fluent in Italian, English, French and Spanish.

Canada is different. Vito was a first generation mobster,plus in Quebec you must speak french and english,I dont know that he spoke spanish.

He probably spoke Sicilian as well. Didn’t he live in Venezuela for a bit? Could explain the Spanish, could his father speak the same languages?

I dont know if Vito followed his father in Venezuela,he was sentenced for arson in 1972.

I don't know how he learned spanish although many Italian speakers can understand Spanish which is very handy when you deal with Latin-Americans.