Re: Lexeme-lumping in REW 878, baf(f)a

--- dgkilday57 <dgkilday57@...> wrote:

...

> > There is a Southern Italian word bafa, baffa
> > "mustache" --I've heard it from Italian Americans
> so I
> > don't know which or if it's Sicilian or
> Neapolitan.
> > Some claim that Va fangù, generally seen as va
> fa(re)
> > in culo "go take it up the ass" is really "baffa
> in
> > cu(lo) "(your) mustache on (my) ass".
> >
> M.-L. mentions an Italian <baffi> 'mustache' under
> his #878(1)
> <bafa>, qualified by a question mark, and referring
> to his own paper
> in _Zs. für röm. Phil._ 10:71. On the other hand he
> also mentions a
> North Campanian and Abruzzese <fraffe.> 'mucus',
> citing Rohlfs, ZRPh
> 46:157 (again qualified by a question mark) to the
> effect that it is
> derived from Oscan *farfa 'beard' (#944(2); the
> correct Osc. nom. sg.
> is *farfo:). Now, Naples is where we expect
> Oscanisms (and indeed we
> have <Ottufre> 'October', very important in that it
> indicates that P-
> Italic made -fr- from inherited *-sr- where Latin
> has

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The Wikipedia article on Sicilian implies that
Sicilian did not form until after the Arabs were
defeated, at which time, Romance speakers entered the
island in large numbers. It implies that before then,
everyone, or most everyone, spoke Greek. It says that
there seems to be no evidence Sicilian was spoken
there before then, that the earliest substrate seems
to be Greek and Arabic but beside that, everything
before that seems to be the same as on the mainland.
What do you know about that?
Curiously while I can understand Neapolitan, I can't
understand Sicilian --or not much. I can understand
American Italian but it's usually a mish-mash of
Standard Italian, Neapolitan and Sicilian.