‘Sopra corna bastonate' e altri pseudoitalianismi e pseudosicilianismi nel maltese

Abstract

Maltese is replete with Italianisms and Sicilianisms, some of which are quite easily recognisable by native speakers of Italo-Romance languages and/or dialects. Intelligibility, however, becomes more obscure when these forms are integrated morphologically into Maltese or when they are attested historically in standard Italian or in an Italo-Romance variety but are currently used very sparsely in these languages, if at all. In this contribution I discuss some pseudoitalianisms and pseudosicilianisms by attempting to trace their origin and the pathway which led them into Maltese. I include some isolated lexical items, compound words and idiomatic expressions which have been subject to semantic shifts, through which their meaning/s in the receiving language has distanced itself from the one/s originally attested in corresponding Italian and/or Sicilian forms.