Italian and Arabic

Abstract

This article focuses on Italian and Arabic language contact in the Mediterranean until early modern times. Particular emphasis will be placed on lexical exchange with Italian as the recipient language. The most important contact zone between Arabic and Italian was southern Italy. Numerous Arabic elements also appear in texts and documents of pilgrims, merchants and diplomats who traveled to Arabia as well as in translations from Arabic. Special features of those contacts are dealt with in separate chapters: Arabic as the intermediate language for borrowings with a different remote etymology (Greek, Persian), the various channels of transmission of genuine Arabic elements, the number and status of the borrowings, the degree of familiarity of the travelers with Arabic, basic patterns of formal adaptation and corrupt spellings, and finally, in a brief excursus, Italian elements in Arabic. Additional chapters deal with the strengths and weaknesses of editorial philology, the lexicological and lexicographical treatment of Arabisms and remaining desiderata.