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Decoding Italian Hand Gestures

Like many foreigners, our first experience with Italian gestures was in the movies. It was only until after our first couple of visits that we realized that hand gestures were not only stereotypically popular among Italians in Hollywood movies but also somewhat of a cultural phenomenon in Italy. Indeed, Italians have hand gestures down to a science and are capable of communicating many thoughts with a simple flick of a finger or raising of a hand.

An example of some of the many Italian gestures is explicitly illustrated in the Illustrated Guide to Italian Popular Gestures by Alfredo Cassano. In total there are about 70 hand gestures that are commonly used throughout Italy.






****explicit language used in this picture so please enlarge at your own discretion****

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