Influenze linguistiche nel dialetto calabrese

Calabria is a region in Southern Italy which came in touch with a lot of foreign people (from Greek

people to Spanish people) because of its strategic position on the Mediterranean Sea.

This is why nowadays this language has many contaminations from other languages.

The primary roots of the (“Southern and Central”) Calabrian Dialect is Latin. Southern and Central

Calabrian dialect (parrati calabbrisi) is strongly influenced by Greek Language because of the

Magna Graecia period (VIII century B.C), when Greek settlers travelled from Greece to Southern

Italy to build new colonies due to the big amount of people in ancient Greek cities (which were

called “poleis”).

But this dialect also have a rich and varied influence from other languages, thanks to the domination

and influx of different cultures. As a result French, and Spanish have left a strong imprint.

French contaminated this dialect when in 1789, during the the French Revolution (1789-1799), the

French Army spread all over Europe the ideals of Freedom and Equality. The government tried to

fight them, but people preferred French people because of their ideals and this led to the

introduction of new words and concepts.

But French vocabulary also entered this region via the kingdoms of the Normans and the Angevins,

too (=Normanni e Angioini).

Spanish influenced Calabrian Dialect from XVI century A.D. to XVIII century A.D. when Spain

took control of Italy with the Cateau-Cambrèsis peace (april 1559) wich stopped wars in Italy and

the conflict between France and the Habsburgs.

This was a hard time for Italian people, especially for people like Calabrians: they lived in awful

conditions and they were also forced to work for hours and hours in fields.

But, anyway, the most important imprint was left by Greek people and language, which influenced

our whole country, from Northern Italy to Southern Italy.

Here are some examples of contaminations in Calabrian Dialect. These tables compare Calabrian

dialect with ancient languages and modern languages, so we can see the similarity to our language

and other foreing languages which are spoken in Europe:

Calabrian Greek Italian English

batràci vátrakhos ranocchio frog

zinnapòtamu kynopotamus lontra otter

lampurìdda lampurida lucciola firefly

purtuàallu portocâli arancia orange

'nnàca nàke culla cradle

tuppitiàri typto battere to hit

Calabrian French Italian English

'ccattàri acheter comprare to buy

'nduja andouille salsicciotto type of sausage

buccirìa boucherie macelleria butcher's

arrocculàri reculer rotolare to recoil

ràggia Rage Rabbia anger

sciarabàallu Carriole (char à bancs) Veicolo sbatacchiato charabanc

travagghiàri travailler lavorare to work