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Comment by gdonelli | Hacker News Reader

I'm italian and I really think we don't use gesture more than other nationalities... truth is there is fascination about this, and americans in particular love the story... still don't get why

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It's not just about over-use, it's about codes: us Italians have a wide range of very well-defined nonverbal codes, which is why "others" notice them. Brits, for example, might be gesticulating wildly in some situations, but their hand-waving will be very generic (open-hand, numbers and little else).

I personally put it down to the historical problem of Italians not having an official language until late XIX-century, while being a melting pot of people coming and going from/to the whole of Europe/Africa/Asia for thousands of years. Nonverbal codes were clearly essential, it's not a surprise they're still around.

I come from a very large Italian American family (3 of my 4 grandparents were immigrants, I have cousins that spent significant time in Italy, etc.) and one of the first things my now wife noticed the first time we around a large family gathering (it just happened to be Easter dinner which is another story) was that everyone talked with their hands. She asked me if they always did that, but I had no idea what she was talking about until she pointed it out.

Well compared to the British, for example, it's hard to deny an average difference, at least in hand gestures, specifically.

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