On their way out of a mountain hut, a couple of Slovene boys shout goodbye to one of the girls working there: “Adio!” “Adio!” she shouts back happily. Adopted from Italian, this is a standard thing to say in Slovenia when people are parting, even if they will see each other again soon afterwards. A couple of Italians sitting next to me are scandalized: “Che brutto!” In Italian, this expression is reserved only for situations when people are parting for ever, or at least for an indefinite period of time. It is reserved for ports, train or bus stations, airports. Otherwise, they say “ciao.” Chances are the meaning of the expression that is now considered ugly, or even uncouth, has changed over time, and that the Slovenes are using it in a way in which the Italians used it until quite recently, when they parted with it for ever, or at least for an indefinite period of time.

Addendum (January 1, 2001)

Roberto Pietroforte reminds me that the correct spelling of this word in Italian is addio, not adio. He concedes that Slovenes may actually use the latter spelling. Indeed they do, but the reason for this is interesting in its own right. This parting word has come to Slovenia from Veneto via Friuli and Istria. Double letters, which must be of Tuscan origin, are virtually unknown there, both in pronunciation and in writing. You can indeed hear them in Tuscany. Now that the “correct” Italian is a bit less popular than it was some fifty years ago, many people in Italy are reverting to their vernacular languages. They are coming back even in literature. Some people I know in Veneto, Friuli, and Istria do not bother about double letters any longer. At any rate, when the parting word came to Slovenia so many years ago, it was probably neither pronounced nor written in lingua, the way standard Italian is typically referred at the borders of north-eastern Italy. In short, the Slovenian spelling is fine as it is.