Per un approccio settoriale allo studio del mutamento lessicale nelle varietà italoalbanesi. Il campo semantico degli animali

Abstract

We have already had the opportunity to demonstrate to what extent the distinction between “common” and “specialised” lexicon is a crucial key to the evaluation of processes of lexical substitution within Sicilian-Albanian contexts. Unlike to what happens to the dynamics of contact among the varieties of Italo-Romance repertoires (where dialectal variants seem to be better preserved in some experiential fields that are typical of traditional activities), in the Sicilian-Albanian context, the original (Albanian) lexicon seems to be more preserved within the setting of specific experiencial fields of a greater community sharing (and, substantially, in the urban context). Instead, the concepts of reduced community circulation (more specifically embedded within the framework of highly isolated rural environments) are commonly affected by lexical innovations resulting, in this case, from the contacts established with the Italo-Romance varieties. This study, which examines the lexicon of the Piana degli Albanesi arbëreshe variety relating to the semantic field of ‘animals’, aims, not only to share a series of lexical information, somewhat prone to obsolescence, but also to additionally verify the heuristic value of a sectorial approach to the analysis of language contact in the Italo-Albanian context.