Elton Prifti, Italoamericano. Italiano e inglese in contatto negli USA. Analisi diacronica variazionale e migrazionale. Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie 375. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, 2013. Pp. 447. ISBN: 9783110297584

Abstract

Compared to many other studies that are more or less based on particular situations of contact between the Italo-​Romance of immigrants and the dominant American English, Prifti’s study is something new and motivates us to pay attention to conserving a sense of wholeness, of completeness, across time and space. In this perspective, Italian-American is seen not as a unique variety, but rather as a diachronic succession and a synchronic coexistence of different varieties, in which a set of varieties can be identified. An analysis of this set, portions of which speakers are aware of in varying degrees, reveals a certain internal order: it appears to be an articulated set of varieties related to each other within a hierarchical structure. Indeed, the entire set gives evidence of dynamism, graduality in its internal succession, and the coexistence of distinct varieties within migrant communities.