"Masmari": ricostruzione di un microtoponimo siculoalbanese

Abstract

Sometimes local administrators, even when well intentioned, contribute to the destruction of some monuments tied to the collective memory of a community. This happens when they decide to cover streams or remove boulders and with them the names by which they have been known to the community. In this way they cancel significant references for local toponymy. This essay takes as an example a microtoponym of the Albanian community of Piana degli Albanesi ("Guri i masmarit"), whose referent - a large boulder placed in an important town location - was supposed to be removed in 1975. The essay is focused on the toponym whose official interpretation ('Pietra di Maria') is linked to a local legend and does not match phonetically and morphologically its oral / popular form. Some interpretative paths have also been considered, but they seem unlikely from a linguistic and cultural point of view. Finally, we reach the conclusion that the second part of the toponym "(masmari") may reflect an ancient Sicilian form (*"mazzamara" or *"mazzamaru" not registered in lexicographic works, but wide spread with the demonstrative " mazzamareddu" / "mazzamaredda") formed with the Germanism *"mare" 'nightmare'.