Please say: Al-bah-neh-seh!

In 2019, a soon-to-be leader of the Australian Labor Party was asked by a 2GB journalist calling his electoral office to confirm how to pronounce his last name: Albanese.

Part of the reason for the confusion is that Mr Albanese has changed how he says his surname throughout the course of his own life. In his early parliamentary career, Anthony clearly pronounced his surname as though it rhymes with the word “ease”. (In the International Phonetic Alphabet used by linguists, it might look something like /aelbniz/).

In Italian, however, the last name of Australia’s new Prime Minister is properly pronounced ‘Al-bah-neh-seh’, with the problematic ‘e’ not as ‘y’ but as ‘eh’, like ‘echo’, not ‘ease’.

Albanese’s biographer, Karen Middleton, was also confronted with a pronunciation dilemma, noting that “in response to queries, here is what I wrote in the biography of @AlboMP re the pronunciation of his surname. In short, he answers to several variations & still uses at least 2 of them himself.”

Members of the public, even a few linguists among the Italian-Australian community, have not stopped complaining that Anthony Albanese is wrong about the pronunciation of his own surname. “Penny Wong and Tanya Plibersek say Albaneez,” writes one to the ABC Language inbox, “it’s either Albaneez or Albanayzee. NOT Albaneezee.”

The member for Grayndler and now Prime Minister often suggests to interviewers that people cut the name in half and go with the hypocoristic form: Albo. But, do you know what “Albo” means in Italian? 

An “albo” is essentially a “public register.” In ancient Rome, it was in the form of a plastered wooden board, which the Romans used for the publication of official documents, and also for other news that were to be made public: when the announcement was no longer needed, it was deleted with a new layer of plaster. 

Albanese, is a surname widespread mainly in southern Italy. According to a statistical survey carried out in 2000 by Seat Pagine Gialle, the Albanese surname with 6,271 occurrences was among the top 200 most frequent Italian surnames (192nd place).

It derives from the term “Albanian”, that is “originally from Albania”, but it can also derive from Italian localities that have as toponym “Albano,” from the Latin albus (“white”), plus the Latin suffix-ensis, which indicates belonging, with the meaning of “native or inhabitant of Albano”.

A number of Italian localities have the toponym “Albano”, such as Albano di Lucania in the province of Potenza, Albano Sant’Alessandro in the province of Bergamo, Albano Vercellese in the province of Vercelli and Albano Laziale in the province of Rome.

Some even argue that the surname Albanese was born as a nickname given to people of Albanian origin, or because they came directly from Albania or because they originated from the Albanian colonies of southern Italy. The surname spread during the period of the maritime republics, when, especially in Venice, soldiers were enlisted among the Albanians. 

Whatever the origin, don’t forget to pronounce Albo’s surname correctly: Al-bah-neh-seh!