Hi Diego,

That sounds interesting. I understand that (northern) Italy was
ruled by the Langobards during some centuries of the early middle
ages. I have always wondered how much of the Italian vocabulary
can be attributed to Langobard influence.

I know that French uses several words of (probably) Franksih
origin, "Gare du Nord" for example. In Latin North was called
"septemtrio". The other 3 directions, Sud, Ouest and Est must
also be Germanic. In Latin it was meridies, oriens and occidens.
I believe a similar development took place in Italy,
but I have never seen a list of the most imprtant Italian
words of that type. I have no idea how long it would be.
Hope you will supply us with some nice tidbits, and possibly
also clear up misunderstandings.

Vale,
Xigung.





--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, diego ferioli
<diego.ferioli@...> wrote:

> dear Freydis and Sarah,
> I'll definitely do that with pleasure! I'm going to write a page or

two about

> that topic, and I could also write, if you're interested, something

about old-

> germanic influences on early medieval roman-barbarian Italian, so

that all the

> course members can benefit from the discussion. I'm going to post it

soon!

>
> Cheers,
> Diego