As mentioned in a past blog post entitled “The Complicated World of Gestures”, there are 2 types of gestures: speech illustrators and emblems.
Emblems are gestures that convey specific verbal meaning that can exist without the use of words. Other gestures (that are not emblems) co-occur with words.
Gestures have been a part of Italian culture for some time and many Italians claim that talking with their hands is “in their blood”.
Take a look at the interesting video below featured in a recent NY Times article entitled “When Italians Chat, Hands and Fingers Do the Talking”.