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I've heard this is an old Italian saying meaning "Love can't exist without trust". What is the literal translation? "Mi amore" is easy enough, and "vole" is probably from "volere", but what is "fe yah"? I'd guess it's from a dialect.

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  • Could it be L'amore vuole fedeltà (Love needs trust)? Do you have a written reference?
    – Denis Nardin ♦
    Feb 7, 2017 at 18:25
  • Actually on second thought, fedeltà (if that is the word you mean) means more fidelity than trust. Maybe you mean fiducia (trust) instead?
    – Denis Nardin ♦
    Feb 7, 2017 at 18:35
  • In other words: what you wrote, Matthew, is not Italian. It is either some dialect I don't know about or Italian severely misheard.
    – DaG
    Feb 7, 2017 at 20:27
  • Googling this phrase gets many hits, most prominently a lyric from Lady Gaga's "Born This Way".
    – Matthew Simoneau
    Feb 7, 2017 at 20:46
  • @MatthewSimoneau This yahoo answer claims that it is an ancient southern variant, that in modern Italian would be Il mio amore vuole fede (My love needs/wants faith). Not being from the south I cannot confirm it, but I strongly suspect Lady Gaga made it up.
    – Denis Nardin ♦
    Feb 7, 2017 at 20:59

3 Answers 3

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It's Southern Italian dialect: "mi amore vole fe'", yah is not a real word, it is like to say in English "do you understand me huh?"."Yah" is like "huh".

Translations

In italian: IL MIO AMORE VUOLE FEDE

In English: MY LOVE NEEDS FAITH

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I heard this in Lady Gaga's song "Born This Way". Given that the meaning of the song is all about loving yourself, in context: "I love my life, I love this record and my love needs faith" it doesn't really make any sense to the rest of the song. Saying "wants to have sex" is a very Lady Gaga thing to imply, so I think she's using the phrase "Mi amore vole fe" to say "I want to have sex with myself" in a "I love myself" kind of way. Which fits the song. "I love my life, I love this record and, I love myself."

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I don't want to be rude but, but in dialect "vole" means "want" and "fe" "to do", "vole fe" means "wants to do", and when it'is not specified what, it means "wants to have sex". Example of dialect use of word "vole".

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    “in dialect”: in which dialect? Here in Italy we have several of them, you know.
    – DaG
    Mar 6, 2017 at 13:19
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    An overwhelming majority of the so-called “dialect use” at the link provided are mistypings where onorevole (“honourable”, often used as the title for members of the Italian parliament) is written onore vole.
    – DaG
    Mar 6, 2017 at 17:05
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    This is vaguely plausible (although still less than fe'=fede) but you will need better sources than that to justify it.
    – Denis Nardin ♦
    Mar 7, 2017 at 13:42
  • Guys, for me the expression is quite clear, because it's quite an usual expression used in south of Italy. The intepration "wants faith" for me looks weird, not usual and unlikely.
    – Antonio Matarrese
    Mar 7, 2017 at 14:17

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