DOI: 10.3986/Traditio2021500208 TRADITIONES, 50/2, 2021, 141–164
In this paper authors1 we will highlight certain literary works 
belonging to different times and different genres, all revolving 
around the category of “Southern Italy”, dealing with the 
irreversibility of social changes and defining certain specific 
contexts by recalling sound-related expressions. We take into 
account the comedy Frischijamu by Domenico Mosca as an 
example of a representation of sound phenomena as perceived 
by the community in the semi-public environment of the 
ruga (gr. Pοῡγα ‘alley’).
Keywords: soundscape, perception, identities, music, travel 
literature, local literature, Calabrian dialect
V tem prispevku avtorci opozarjata na nekatera literarna 
dela, ki pripadajo različnim časom in različnim žanrom, 
vsa pa se vrtijo okrog kategorije »južna Italija«, obravnavajo 
ireverzibilnost družbenih sprememb in opredeljujejo določene 
specifične okoliščine z obujanjem nekaterih zvočnih izrazov. 
Komedijo Frischijamu Domenica Mosce avtorici upoštevata 
kot primer upodabljanja zvočnih pojavov, ki jih skupnost 
dojema v pojavnem okolju ruge (gr. Ροῡγα ‘ulica’).
Ključne besede: zvočna krajina, zaznavanje, identitete, 
glasba, potopisna literatura, lokalna književnost, kalabrijsko 
narečje
RECOVERING VANISHED SOUND-LANDSCAPES
SOUNDS, IDENTITIES AND MULTILINGUALITY
DELIA DATTILO AND CINZIA CITRARO
A PRELIMINARY SURVEY ON SOUND ATMOSPHERES AS FOUND IN 
LITERARY MODELS
In his article Tuning in to the Past, David Lowenthal begins by asking the reader:
What becomes of music, speech, and other sounds; natural and man-made, when 
they cease reverberating? How far do previous sounds differ from those of today? 
How much do we remember of what we hear? What meanings and emotions attach 
to sounds from the past? Why do familiar sounds often trigger nostalgic yearn-
ing? What sounds do we regard as antiquated, and why? (Lowenthal, 1976: 15)
The last question he poses follows the idea of the “past” as something that changes 
according to time and peoples; and spurs from the current perception of the past as some-
thing that includes, and refers to, a series of other debated concepts such as “tradition”, 
1 The attributions of the paragraphs are distributed as follows: Delia Dattilo: A preliminary survey on 
sound atmospheres as found in literary models; Fluctuating perceptions in literary records; Key figures 
and backgrounds sounds; A range of sounds: personifications, soundmarks, and common gestures; 
Cinzia Citraro: Frischjiamu by Domenico Mosca: some linguistic observations; The use of dialect: 
two sides of the same coin.
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“cultural heritage”, and “community” (cf. Lowenthal, 1985; Hobsbawn, Ranger, 1983; 
Hafstein, 2018), all of which lead to further interrogations about sounds and music in tra-
ditional contexts (Macchiarella, 2011). When referring to the sounds of past atmospheres 
and sceneries, things become more complex if we consider “antique” as something that 
is somehow linked to the present. As far as literature is concerned, the level of complex-
ity stems from the distance between the author and the contemporary reader (as well as 
between one author and another). This means that it depends on how we interpret the text 
in relation to the representations offered by the author to the readership, i.e. their use of 
personal knowledge to develop the spaces and characters inhabiting the world they narrate 
and describe. Given all this, the written traces recounting these sounds appear to be both 
fascinating and challenging at the same time.2
This paper intends to outline certain sound atmospheres and landscapes of Southern 
Italy, as they are portrayed in the literature of the Grand Tour and in some local models of 
the early 1900s, in order to investigate significant soundscapes which allow the inference of 
relevant performances and contexts. Some of these instances make it possible to broaden the 
analysis as to include other works and genres, such as the works of poetry and vernacular 
theatre published after the Second World War. Going into more detail, the works written 
in Calabrian vernacular (likewise the subject of this paper) have struggled to fit in the 
panorama of Italian vernacular literature, and it is so because of the choice of their authors 
to use dialect to address a narrower community. Nevertheless, it is precisely because of this 
choice that it is now possible to identify the nuances of the changes in social scenarios and, 
consequently, the relevant soundscapes. More specifically, I am here referring to the ruga 
as the space of a community, that is to say: that social setting portraying –and portrayed 
as– the “stage” of interpersonal relations and daily expression within small towns and vil-
lages. Indeed, the term ruga is still used today, as in the past, to define a semi-public space 
inhabited by different families (not always blood related) in which symbolic gestures and 
ritualised behaviours took place in the past times – i.e. the abduction of the bride amongst 
the Italian/Albanian communities of Calabria, to mention but one example of these gestures 
and behaviours. The ruga also saw the occurring of gestures involving music (see canti di la 
ruga, namely songs of the ruga, cf. Dattilo 2020) during courtships, weddings, partings and 
departures. The comedy Frischijamu –the main topic of this study– is written in the dialect 
of Stalettì, and it is one example of folk theatre intended for the ruga-specific audience of 
Stalettì, a small village in the province of Catanzaro. Indeed, Calabria is a mosaic of many 
dialects, and it is subjected to a “political” and literary Italian that appears fictitious and alien 
2 The interpretation must take into account the perspective of the various authors, and the way in which 
the world is categorised. In my opinion Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak sets forth an interesting view-
point for the analysis and interpretation of these texts around the concept of “worlding”: “a ‘reading’ 
of a handful of archival material, bits of ‘the unprocessed historical record’” (Spivak 1985: 248) in a 
perspective that is “equally knowledgeable about the specificity of the study of history and the study 
of literature as institutionalized disciplines.” (ibid.: 249).
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to its inhabitants (Costantino, 2004: 31). Though written in 1978, the style of the comedy 
tends towards verismo.3 Furthermore, the play highlights the enduring social, expressive 
and sound elements of those communities that, at the time, still attempted to resist just 
like many inhabited areas of Calabria (cities excluded). These attempts of resistance (even 
as far as language is concerned) explain why most works written in the Calabrian dialects 
did not make it into the wider Italian vernacular theatre – which, instead had managed to 
better adapt to the needs of the audience. Yet it is those very forms of cultural resistance that 
allow us to reconstruct the dynamics and expressive peculiarities of certain environments. 
The research of this and other sources began some years ago during the 8th International 
Symposium on Soundscape (2017) focusing on “Different Rhythms” (cf. Dattilo, 2019). 
During the occasion, discussed was the historical memory of the sound perception of earth-
quakes as it had emerged from the primary sources found in literature (1700s-1900s), and 
the linguistic links with organology concerning some Holy Week rituals as they occurred 
in certain Calabrian areas (Tucci, 1954, 2007). The analysis was later extended to the 
secondary sources, and this showed recurring coherent and significant descriptions of the 
soundscape and music as found in travel and regional literature (cf. Dattilo, 2018). During 
the International Year of Sound (2020-2021), the ISPC (Institute of Heritage Science) of 
the CNR (Italian National Research Council) introduced research proposals and results 
related to some projects of soundscape virtual reconstruction in certain cultural contexts. 
It aimed at blending philology research with literary sources (mainly ancient literature), 
technology, and creativity, in order to recreate the soundscapes of the past useful for the 
dissemination and understanding of these aspects from a historical perspective. Therefore, 
the analysis of such and other examples is partly intended from this viewpoint.
FLUCTUATING PERCEPTIONS IN LITERARY RECORDS
The atmospheres of most of the Italian peninsula –and more specifically of the rural and 
peripheral areas– were perceived by travellers as “antique”, “exotic” and in some cases 
“pagan” (cf. Douglas, 1915: 166). Those who travelled beyond Naples and towards the 
further south generally did so because of their desire to visit the sites of the Magna Grecia 
and re-invoke its splendour (Bevilacqua, 2005: 30).
The cosmopolitism and exoticism of isolated pioneers, the 1700s concept of the 
“noble savage”, and even the Romantic idealisation of the pure expression of the 
“folk” are all problematic efforts which, in the face of unusual sound events, have 
engaged a Eurocentric culture that has always been more careful to visual aspects 
3 In the comedies of Domenico Mosca it intertwines with realism. Perhaps this is attributable to his 
experience as an actor in the ‘neorealist’ cinema and his small appearances in Prima di sera (1953) 
and I tre ladri (1954).
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rather than sound ones. The widening of the historical horizon of sound did not 
necessarily correspond to a more ductile perceptive capability. (Sassu, 2011: 39–40)
Nevertheless, descriptions of collective expressions are not rare to find. Indeed, if on 
the one hand authors such as François Lenormant use the writing experience to talk about 
antiquities and enact potential and imaginative time-travels; on the other, many authors push 
their observations towards ethnography.4 The latter sources include two different types: those 
describing collective expressions and performances related to cults, rites and celebrations, 
or simply referring to certain performative practices observed (or heard) during occasional 
events; and those that implied listening to wider sound scenarios – often conveyed through 
literature expedients, such as complex elaborations of personal impressions, categorisations, 
judgments or feelings (Lear, 1852: 66–74; Gissing, 1905: 73, 228; Pigorini-Beri, 2000: 
172) that either transfigure reality or adapt to it. The traces of these literary models have 
helped forge a picture and a physiognomy of Southern Italy that somehow still persists in 
the rhetoric of the “horrors and magnificence without end” (Lear, 1852: 3; Meadow, 2017).
Furthermore, language and verbal expression ‒or else, the need to name something in 
order to bring it to life (Citraro, 2018: 128)– both stem from a listening process and from 
the transmission of such experience, as it is inferable from the highly specific and elaborate 
terminology used especially in poetry. By identifying the literary sublimation processes 
of the clearly distinct signals and soundmarks, it is possible to unveil and broaden these 
scenarios, while also favouring the implicit restoration of a narrative that simultaneously 
belongs to the individual and to the community.
KEY FIGURES AND BACKGROUNDS SOUNDS
The literature of the Grand Tour includes a series of works about journeys to Southern Italy. 
Recently, this has sparked interest as a transversal means in the narration about landscapes 
and specific areas and communities as perceived by the foreign traveller. In the specific case 
of Calabria, these writings cover about a century and a half, and in a way they represent 
a significant part of Calabrian narration; between the historiography of 1500s and 1600s 
by Calabrian authors such as Bernardino Bombini, Gabriele Barrio, Girolamo Marafioti, 
and Giovanni Fiore, and the following local literature of the early 1900s (Corrado Alvaro, 
Francesco Perri, Fortunato Seminara, Saverio Strati et al.). Together they provide a full 
and diachronic picture of the transformations undergone by the landscape and the social 
geography of Southern Italy. In the last two decades in particular, light has been shed on 
the works of George Gissing (By the Jonian Sea, 1901), Edward Lear (A Pedestrian Tour in 
4 In his Grand-Grèce, Lenormant himself devotes a long passage to the phenomenon of tarantism, 
covering it from its origins until its current state. More specifically, he mentions the carnevaletto delle 
donne, that is to say the carnival of women (Lenormant, 1881: 108–114).
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Calabria and Sicily, 1842), and Norman Douglas (Old Calabria, 1915). This also occurred 
given the matters related to landscape perception and, precisely, the debate on the depopu-
lation of villages. Furthermore, there has also been an important re-edition of many texts 
collected in series specifically dedicated to travel literature;5 yet, several authors still remain 
unknown to the wider public. Although the descriptive incursions connected to the visual 
landscape have been highlighted, the evident and significant elements concerning sound-
scapes have been disregarded.6 For instance, a peculiar description can already be found in 
A Tour through Sicily and Malta by Scottish traveller Patrick Brydone (1736-1818), published 
in 1773. Brydone is amongst the first who visited Malta and wrote about it. During his sea 
voyage towards Sicily, he describes the performance of a mysterious sailor song he manages 
to overhear clearly owing to the good weather conditions:
A little after nine we embarked. The night was delightful; but the wind had died 
away about sun-set, and we were obliged to ply our oars to get into the canal of 
Malta. The coast of Sicily began to recede; and in a short time, we found our-
selves in the ocean. There was a profound silence, except the noise of the waves 
breaking on the distant shore, which only served to render it more solemn. […] 
The scene had naturally sunk us into meditation; we had remained near an hour 
without speaking a word when our sailors began their midnight hymn to the 
virgin. The music was simple, solemn, and melancholy, in perfect harmony with 
the scene, and with all our feelings. They beat exact time with their oars and 
observed the harmony and the cadence with the utmost precision. We listened 
with infinite pleasure to this melancholy concert, and felt the vanity of operas 
and oratorios. – There is often a solemnity and a pathetic in the modulation of 
these simple productions that causes a much stronger effect than the composition 
of the greatest masters, assisted by all the boasted rules of counter-point. At last, 
they sang us asleep. (Brydone, 1773: 304–305)
Some years later, in 1783, Henry Swinburne (1743-1803) –an English traveller who, 
between 1775 and 1779, travelled much in Spain and Southern Italy– published his Travels 
in the two Sicilies. In it, he devoted a few pages to the musical ritual practices of tarantism 
he witnessed in the Apulian city of Brindisi (Swinburne, 1783: 400–403), recording also his 
5 We nevertheless cannot ignore that the first Calabrian work of historiography, De Antiquitate et Situ 
Calabriae by Gabriele Barrio (1571), still counts only one re-edition translated into Italian, edited by 
Erasmo A. Mancuso and published by Edizioni Brenner in 1979.
6 In this paper I have omitted many texts by authors who have travelled to Southern Italy, such as: 
Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s experience in Sicily, Justus Tommasini, Richard Keppel Craven, Charles 
Didier, Alexandre Dumas, and Arthur John Strutt’s visit to Calabria. An initial study (from an eth-
nomusicological perspective) on some of these authors, as well as on other local ones, can be found 
in Goffredo Plastino’s Suoni di carta: un’antologia sulla musica tradizionale in Calabria, 1571-1957, 
which covers a longer time span.
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personal observations about some bagpipers from Abruzzo and Calabria passing through Naples 
at Christmas time (ibid.: 92). He also described the scene of women performing the tarantella, 
and noted how their dance elucidated the male authority they are still subjected to (ibid.: 
60–62). In his narration, the city of Naples in particular appears to be one filled with sounds.
Several years later, while recounting his visit to Basilicata, Edward Lear offers a significant 
description of the celebrations in honour of Saint Michael Archangel held in Monticchio. He 
records that a group of farmers performed the spiritual songs about Saint Michael’s miracles in 
an earthly manner, and that their singing was often echoed by the brays of mules and donkeys, 
and by the musical accompaniment of four or five bagpipers (Lear, in Settembrino, Strazza, 
2004: 112, 113). In this extract, besides swiftly describing the (earthly) manner of singing, 
Lear references the Gargano cult of Saint Michael. As already noted by Bronzini, this cult is 
strongly connected with Brittany (Bronzini, 1988a: 316–317), and is traceable in many areas 
of Southern Italy, including Monticchio (ibid.: 308). Until the beginning of the 1980s, the 
cult preserved its fluctuation between sacred and secular.7 The narration indirectly depicts 
the relation and the compresence of humans and animals in shared spaces, even ceremonial 
ones: a reality that startles Lear and many other travellers after him.8 This compresence is 
used in the local literature of the early 1900s as a motif of setting transfiguration within a 
“sound” atmosphere. In the work Emigranti, for instance, Francesco Perri uses the zoophonies 
as opposed to “noisy” settings plagued by technological progress – a development viewed as a 
sign of unquestionable alienation,9 rather than as the end of aristocratic “feudal” oppression.
Even the reports of Italian geologists and geographers, who travelled towards the regions 
of Basilicata and Calabria around 1880 for important inspections, include few scattered 
news and vast descriptive passages. Indeed, during some research in the valley of Sinni in 
1875, the engineer Giovanni Battista Bruno (originally from Basilicata) delineates the sound 
7 For further information on the cult of Saint Michael and the sacred repertoire, see Bronzini, 1988a, 
1988b, and Telesca, 1998. Bronzini himself reports the song of Monticchio called “La cantata a 
Monticchio” (108) (Bronzini, 1984: 568–569): I monaci fratelli del silenzio / vennero ai due laghi occhi 
del cielo / che si sono posati sulla terra./ Occhi del cielo, occhi del cinghiale / aperti ai mille colori del sole, etc. 
(The monks, brothers of the silence / came to the two lakes, the eyes of the sky / laid down on earth. / 
Eyes of the sky, eyes of the boar / open to the thousand colours of the sun, etc.) in De Vita, 1984: 241, 
which refers to the pilgrimage in honour of Saint Michael Archangel recorded in the early 80s. There 
are two references: a first one about the “distinguishing presence” of the zampogna and ciaramella 
players (ibid.: 234); and a second about the practice of performing “improper” songs: L’amore è una 
rosella, Quel mazzolin di fiori, Viva l’amore, Quant’è bello lu primo ammore, Romagna mia, Marina, 
O campagnola bella, Volavo la lucardillo, and many folk songs of this sort (namely, stornelli).
8 “There was no time to be lost, and having persevered in obtaining a light in spite of this disagreeable 
interruption, I jumped off the bed, and with a stick thrust hastily and hardly below the bed, to put 
the intruder, ghostly or bodily, onto fair fighting ground, — Baa‒aa‒a! — Shade of Mrs. Radcliffe! 
It was the large dirty tame sheep! So I forthwith opened a door into the next room, and bolted out 
the domestic tormentor” Cf. Lear, 1852: 189.
9 Cf. Perri, 1945: 33, and Dattilo, 2018: 27–28, 34–35, 97–102, to deepen the features related to 
Francesco Perri’s spaces of narration, related to zoophonies, music and sound, and to the use of Italian 
language and dialects.
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panorama: “nel silenzio della maestosa ed imponente foresta […], rotto di tanto in tanto 
dal tintinnio di qualche campana di vacche e per una sol volta da un colpo di archibugio 
tirato contro un caprio” (Settembrino, Strazza, 2004: 168).10 Some lines later, his narration 
focuses on the significant act of lighting a bonfire11 within a ceremonial setting:
Sopraggiunta la notte, dormirono “all’aperto” dando fuoco ad “una immensa pira 
di tronchi di abete”, alimentata sino al mattino, tra balli e canti “nella spianata 
trasformata in una sala da ballo”. “Il morbidissimo tappeto venne in tutti i modi 
pestato e ripestato dai pastori che, al suono della cornamusa grottescamente 
contorcendosi e saltando mostravano di aver tenuto molto da conto la qualità 
[…] del vino” […].12 (Settembrino, Strazza, 2004: 169)
The description of such a type of scenarios can also be found in the first works of 
Corrado Alvaro. His narrative often uses grandeurs, coming on the one hand from his 
own perception of the natural soundscape; and on the other from his experience of and 
participation in performance moments linked with rituals and religious ceremonies in the 
mountains of the Aspromonte. More specifically, I am referring to performance related to the 
healing rituals held at the sanctuary of Polsi, where ordinary time seems to come at a halt:13
Per quella turba magna, non basta né il convento né le case della comunità, né le 
capanne, e si sceglie ognuno il suo posto sotto i boschi. […] C’è quello che spiega, 
su un cartello dipinto a quadri successivi, le gesta dei Paladini; c’è la frotta degli 
zingari, la sonnambula, i carabinieri che fanno paura ai vendicatori e agli inna-
morati respinti. E si vedono le mille facce delle Calabrie. La chiesa è spalancata, 
la gente vi si pigia a poco per volta; presso l’altare i muti vogliono parlare, i ciechi 
vedere, gl’infermi guarire. Le donne intorno dicono le parole più lusinghiere alla 
Madonna, perché si commuova. Arrivano gli animali infiocchettati che si donano 
per voto, e cadono sulle ginocchia perché sembra che capiscano anche loro. Viene 
il mulo carico di grano e di vino, le caprette coi loro campani, che suonano. […] 
Si sta là dentro come in una conchiglia piena del rombo della folla come d’un 
mare; la terra pestata dai balli che si intrecciano in ogni angolo di strada, su tutta 
10 Translation: “in the silence of the majestic and grandiose forest […], occasionally interrupted by the 
jingling of cowbells, and only once by a harquebus fired at a buck”.
11 For more information on bonfires in ritual ceremonies, see Buttitta, 2002.
12 Translation: “At night, they slept outdoors, lit an ‘immense pyre of spruce trunks’ and fed it until 
morning, while singing and dancing ‘on a clearing turned into a ballroom’. The extremely soft carpet 
was constantly trod upon by shepherds who, wriggling and jumping grotesquely at the sound of the 
bagpipe, showed much appreciation for the quality […] of the wine […]”.
13 For further information on the sound and cultural horizons of San Luca (RC) as it emerges from the 
works of Alvaro, see Plastino, 1991: 141–161.
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la piazza, sotto una porta, sotto un albero, fa un rumore come se vi si gramolasse 
tutto il lino della terra, si macinasse tutto il grano. Nuove turbe arrivano d’ora 
in ora, sparando e gridando, in quella terra promessa.14 (Alvaro, 1912)
Around the same time, Norman Douglas – who ventured in Southern Italy between 
1907 and 1911– devotes a chapter of his Old Calabria (1915) to the Mountain Festivals, and 
describes them as a relic of ancient paganism.15 More specifically, he narrates his witnessing of 
the celebrations in honour of the Madonna of the Pollino, held on a “spacious green meadow, 
at the foot of a precipice. […] now covered with encampments in anticipation of to-morrow’s 
festival, and the bacchanal is already in full swing. Very few foreigners, they say, have attended 
this annual feast, which takes place on the first Saturday and Sunday of July” (Douglas, 1915: 
151). These encampments persist in the pilgrimages in honour of Saint Michael Archangel 
that took place between Apulia, Basilicata and Calabria until the 1980s (De Vita, 1984).
In a narrative by Edward Lear –set in Southern Calabria, and precisely near the town 
of Palizzi– the reader often encounters a bagpiper who “accompanies” inhabitants returning 
home at nightfall.16 Some years later, those same scenarios reappear in the travel writings 
by the Italian traveller and ethnographer Caterina Pigorini-Beri (1845-1924), specifically in 
a work titled In Calabria. Passeggiate, published in 1883 in Nuova Antologia together with 
14 Translation: “Neither the convent nor the houses of the community suffice that great crowd; therefore, 
each choose their spot under the woods. […] There, one finds a man narrating the achievements of 
paladins, depicted on boards painted in sequence; one finds the swarm of gypsies, the sleepwalker, the 
guards scaring away avengers and rejected lovers. There, one also finds the thousand faces of Calabria. 
The church is wide open, people slowly cram into it; near the altar, the mutes long for words, the 
blind for vision, the ill for recovery. The women, enveloped around the Madonna, address her with 
the most pleasing words in order to move her [heart]. The embellished ex-voto animals arrive, and 
fall on their knees as if they too understand what is happening. Then, comes the mule loaded with 
wheat and wine, and the goats with their bells jingling. […] Everyone dwells in that space as if in a 
shell, a shell filled with the rumble of the crowd as if it were filled with the sea; the earth, trod upon 
by the dance intertwining at every corner of the streets, in the entire square, under a door, under a 
tree, (this earth) produces a noise, as if it hosts the kneading of all the flax in the world, the grinding 
of all the wheat. New crowds arrive by the hour, firing and shouting, in that promised land.”
15 This part highlights the differences in opinion between the locals “The same stern men […] declare 
that such nocturnal festivals are a disgrace to civilization […]” and the author: “Festivals like this are 
relics of paganism, and have my cordial approval. We English ought to have learnt by this time that 
the repression of pleasure is a dangerous error” (Douglas, 1915: 153).
16 Lear passes through Condofuri, and reaches Palizzi “a most singular town, built round an isolated 
rock commanding one of the many narrow valleys opening to the sea”. During his exploration of the 
lower part of the town (of which we still have some sketches published in Lear, 1852: 49), he proceeds 
towards the Calabrian Greek village of Pietrapennata, north of Palizzi, towered by Staiti: “above us on 
the opposite side of a deep dark gully, filled with wondrous groups of giant ilex”. In describing what he 
sees and hears, Lear strongly focuses on the elements that, in his opinion, represent the territory: “As 
we slowly toiled up to this most strange place, wholly Calabrese in aspect, with its houses jammed and 
crushed among extraordinary crevices, its churches growing out of solitary rocks, and (what forms the 
chief characters of these towns) all its dwellings standing singly—the Zampognari were playing, and 
all the peasant population thronging upwards to their evening rest” (ibid.: 50).
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other travel narratives about her surveys in Calabria. Near the city of Cosenza, and more 
precisely in the whereabouts of the Rovito’s Valley, she witnesses the performance of a song 
(voice and bagpipe), and so describes an Arcadian scene, giving the whole lyrics both in 
Italian and in the dialect of Cosenza.17 From holding a key role in celebration scenarios (or 
else, in a context where the group reaffirms its social belonging) to becoming a secluded and 
almost iconographic element left out of social turmoil (cf. Dattilo, 2018: 33), the bagpiper 
swifts from centre stage to the background: “Sul pendio ripido e roccioso dove il borgo era 
appollaiato […] nel buio si levavano delle voci umane lunghe, un po’ lugubri, come richiami 
di animali selvatici […] Veniva anche il suono di qualche zampogna”18 (Perri, 1945: 228). 
A RANGE OF SOUNDS: PERSONIFICATIONS, SOUNDMARKS, AND 
COMMON GESTURES
Texts dating from the 1900s still show an idealised contrast between the urban sound 
setting (ordinary, structured, organised and “noisy”) and the rural one (sublime, extraor-
dinary, indistinct, shapeless, and most certainly “sonorous”). Yet, in poetry and traditional 
songs, nature and its sounds are often expressed as if constituting a threat to life. Looking 
at dictionaries published in the past century we find a series of nouns, adjectives and verbs 
all referring to natural elements, which illustrate the depth of the daily practice of listen-
ing.19 “Soundful” catastrophic events can be recovered in the names of Calabrian musical 
17 Cf. Nuova antologia... 1883: 75: “E intanto sull’alto del colle un giovinetto calabrese sonava la zam-
pogna: vicino a lui pascolavano le capre affettuose e le pecorelle ingenue: egli era seduto sopra un 
tronco d’ulivo rovesciato e stendeva le sue gambe nude penzoloni sul vallo. Vicino a lui un altro cantava 
[…]. La melodia mesta e lunga giungeva a me con le parole incerte e confuse del dialetto: la zampogna 
rauca e nasale con il suo ventre pieno d’aria accompagnava il dolcissimo canto: Jancacchiu de la carta 
dilicata / Russa come lo milo de luvierno: / La mamma che ti fice fu na fata / E ti mantenne de buono 
cuvierno: / Ti fice sta vuccuccia aggraziata / Ché sette mele e manna astate o vierno / Si sta vuccuzza tua 
forrie vaciata / N’anima caccerie de intra lu ’nfierno”. Translation: “And in the meantime, on a hilltop, 
a young Calabrian boy played the bagpipe. Beside him the devoted goats and naive sheep grazed. 
He sat on an upside-down olive tree trunk, and he stretched out his bare legs leaving them to dangle 
upon the vale. Nearby, another boy sang. The long and melancholic melody reached me with unsure 
and confused dialect words: the rough and nasal bagpipe, its womb filled with air, accompanied the 
song: Whiter than the most delicate paper / Redder than the apple of winter / The mother who gave birth 
to you was a fairy / and she gave you a proper education: / She gave you such a graceful mouth / that it is 
seven apples of manna [in] summer or winter / If such a mouth would receive a kiss / it would free a soul 
from hell.”
18 Translation: “On the steep and rocky decline where the village was settled […] in the darkness [of 
the night], like the call of wild animals rose some stretched and slightly gloomy human voices […]. 
With them, also came the sound of bagpipes”.
19 At this point, I refer the reader to check some terms, most of which onomatopoeic and no longer in 
use, included in Marzano, 1928: 32, Aò!; 91, Catrìculu; 101, Cichiti; 108, Coclò; 118, Cu-cu; 119, 
Cuccuvèju (‘owl’, Gr. κουκουβαία or κουκουβαγία). A great range of terms was used to describe the 
type of winds (cf. Marzano, 1928: 295, 339, 353, in Dattilo, 2018: 25–26).
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instruments (rummu meaning roar, tirrimutu meaning earthquake, cf. Tucci, 1954–1955, 
2007; Dattilo, 2019), as well as in literature, in memory and in the stereotyped and mytho-
logical image related to these cataclysms (Pigorini-Beri, 2000: 141).
At a local level, literary critics find that, in the insurgency for a stylistic independ-
ence (Chiodo, 2014: 282),20 the presence and the personification of elements reappear in 
local poetry and in prose. The soundmark of the sirocco wind, named sbafagnu or vracali 
(Marzano, 1928: 353; Rohlfs, 1977: 903) makes an infernal music, as if produced by the 
instruments constituting an entire orchestra (Chiodo, 2014: 282); while in the Gargano 
area in Apulia, during the rough winters, the wind called Lucifer paves the way for tales 
of witches. (Alvaro, 1995: 214)21
According to Chiodo (2014: 17), the poet tends to use dialect in order to introduce 
the psychology of characters and delve into it, while simultaneously introducing the folds 
featured in the main characters of an “inner” town. This position could also apply to certain 
works of folk theatre. Indeed, in the comedy Frischijamu (1978) by Domenico Mosca and 
written in the dialect of Stalettì, the ruga is the common space for expression that dwells 
in the author’s memory:
the ruga directly or indirectly becomes part of solo songs as a spatial representation 
of the microcosm of social activities, bonds, relationships and communications. 
The ruga is inhabited by neighbours and not by relatives, that is by other family 
groups with which it is possible to share a certain level of intimacy despite the 
complete absence of blood relationships. In the ruga –and this was still the case 
not long ago– the elderly used to sit outside and tell stories in the shade during 
summer evenings, while the children played, under strict control of their own 
families, and got to know one another. In that physical space one could encoun-
ter a future wife or husband, and this explains why the songs of the ruga (canti 
di la ruga) were often love songs expressing the essence of this microcosm that, 
in turn, represented both the time and space of that same social group within a 
strong hierarchical context. (Dattilo, 2020: 66)
20 Carmine Chiodo is referring to Fortunato Seminara, but I believe this level of autonomy could be 
extended to many other Calabrian writers and poets; an autonomy that, in my opinion, should not 
be read as an exclusion from cultural and literary movements, but as a lyrical exclusiveness that, if 
anything, denotes a peculiar relation between the individual (who writes) and their environment 
(experienced and intimately perceived by authors).
21 The personification of natural elements and birds (particularly the eagle and the partridge), and the 
assignment of symbolic values, occurs in Pigorini-Beri’s descriptions of bridal abductions within the 
nuptial contexts of Calabria’s Albanian communities (Nuova antologia, 1883: 712–713). Furthermore, 
for Alvaro it represents a “call of love, like those of birds and wild beasts, a deaf whistle like that of 
the summer crickets” (Alvaro, 1995: 214); see also De Grazia, 1889: 56–59.
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Stalettì’s ruge are the spaces where the objects marking the surface of the community 
–and still indispensable for its subsistence– acquire the body of a human voice. It is the 
case of the talking fountain which, in this text, embodies the most basic infrastructural 
problems still afflicting Calabria at the end of the 1970s:22
Domenico: L’acqua. On bola u scinda. Aiu chidda funtana chi para n’orfanedda. 
L’addrujornu a guardai e para ca mi dicia: cchiù mi guardi e cchiù mi sentu rispet-
tusa.23 O no vidi caciangiu senza lacrimi; e avarissi e sapira quanti mi dispiacia e 
tia u ti viju girara u paisa paisa cu ssu coddareddu. Ma eu on ti pozzu fara nenta. 
Quandu vena u vernu ti dugnu acqua cchiù c’anda voi. Mo su ccà pe viduta; pè 
scornu meu e pe raggia tua. / Concetta: Dicia ca mò a liberannu nu jornu sì e 
unu no […].24 (Mosca, 1978: 9)
As it happens with Mosca, other authors choose to use dialect in order to fully express 
the daily relations and problems experienced by people of the same environment.25 Excluding 
a few instances where he resorts to some archaic words discovered by conversing with the 
elderly women of his birth-town, the language Mosca decides to use is that of the family 
and, therefore, the language of childhood (to quote Pier Paolo Pasolini). This choice is 
made either to generate sound insertions, by adapting to dialect some terms that result from 
conceptualisations (for instance, the Italian word for car horn clacson becomes craxi);26 or 
to highlight the topical moments marking a territory, such as: bell tolls that track the time 
22 Towards the end of the 1930s, before the introduction of aqueducts and fountains in residential areas, 
it was common for water peddlers in many Calabrian towns and County Seats to shout: cui voli varliri 
aò, (Ahoy! who wants a barrel of water?) (Marzano, 1928: 32). This clearly denotes that there were no 
public water supplies. See also L’acqua, in Alvaro, 1995: 3–7, a chapter of Itinerario italiano, and an 
actual ethnological fantasy about a town that had longed for water for over a century […] (Onofri, 
in Alvaro, 1995: XIV), and that –after obtaining the aqueduct– forgets how it used to overlook its 
thirst at the sound, carried about by the wind, of the waterfalls of mills and sawmills (ibid.: 7).
23 This form (rispettusa) is a printing error. The right word is dispettusa ‘spiteful’.
24 Translation: Domenico: “Water. It doesn’t want to come down. I’ve got that fountain that seems a 
little orphan. The other day, I looked at it and it seemed as if saying: the more you look at me, the 
more I feel spiteful. Don’t you see I cry without tears? And you should know how sad it makes me to 
see you walking around the town with this bucket. Alas, I can’t do anything for you. When winter 
comes, I’ll give you more water than you’ll ever need. Yet now, I’m only here for show; for my own 
mockery and for your anger”. / Concetta: “They say from now on they’d have freed her day on and 
day off […]”.
25 Vittorio Butera (1877-1955) stated that his attraction to dialect poetry arose because of his love for 
the first language he had learned from his mother; because it is a language filled with words, and 
because it allows to express thought in a sculptural way as its roughness makes it appear as an indi-
vidual that is male and agreeable. (cf. Chiodo, 2014: 7, footnotes 1 and 11). Furthermore, there are 
some manuscript pages by Mosca himself in which the author indistinctively and simultaneously uses 
Italian language and the Stalettì dialect.
26 Cf. footnote 47, infra.
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(Mosca, 1978: 22) or signal death with the so called u mortorio sound (ibid.: 11–12) that 
becomes soundmarks in a town moving towards strong depopulation:
GIUSEPPE: Li guai de la fortuna sugnu nenta, quantu no mmu sona la campana! 
(Si sente suonare un mortorio)
TERESA: Nu Mortorio!
CONCETTA: E veru! Cu sapa cu muriu.
DOMENICO: U matrimoniu meu.
[…]
GIUSEPPE: Pò essera puru ca moriu ncunu all’estaru; ntà Svizzera o ntà Germania, 
nte Stati Uniti o ntò Cannatà, all’Argentina o a lu Brasili o all’Australia. Nu paisa 
picciuli comu u nostru stravijau i figghi soi nte tuttu u mundu.
CONCETTA: Però è bellu. Dopu chi unu emigra e passa a vita sua all’estaru, 
quandu mora u li sonanu u mortoriu dova nesciu. È nu ricordu pe tutti i paisani. 
Poi nu scordamu e passa nto libru e l’Eternu.
[…]
DOMENICO: Si continuamu e stu passu nto paisa resta unu sulu: chiddu chi sona 
u mortoriu.27
And also peddlers working on the streets, in particular the ciciaredda (baby anchovies) 
street vendor crying off-stage (Mosca, 1978: 26),
Fuori scena: Ciciaredda! Ciciaredda! Arrivau a ciciaredda! On da voliti ciciaredda! 
Accattativi a ciciaredda o n’ indajamu!28
and funeral marches performed by bands (ibid.: 25) – all of which emerge as soundmark 
within a Mediterranean soundscape.29
27 Translation: “Giuseppe: Fate’s troubles are nothing, so long as the bell doesn’t toll! (Sound of a bell toll 
signalling death, the so-called mortorio) // Teresa: A Mortorio! // Concetta: True! Who knows who’s 
died? // Domenico: My matrimony […]. // Giuseppe: It could also be that someone has died abroad: in 
Switzerland or Germany, in the United States or Canada, in Argentina or Brasil or Australia. A town 
as small as ours has spread its own children all around the world. // Concetta: It’s wonderful, though. 
After people emigrate and live abroad for all their life, when they die, the bells toll the mortorio there 
where they were born. It’s a way for all those still living in the town to remember [them]. Then, we 
forget them and they move on towards the book of the Eternal. […] // Domenico: If we carry on like 
this, there will only be one person left in the town: the one that lets the bell toll the mortorio”.
28 Translation: Off-stage: “Baby Anchovies! Baby Anchovies! We bring baby anchovies! Do you want 
any baby anchovies? Buy some baby anchovies or we’ll leave.”
29 Henry Swinburne devotes an entire chapter to bells. In them, he examines their history and use (from 
their origins until modern times) in the pastoral and military settings (Swinburne, 1783: 98, 150). For 
further information on the use and values attributed to bells and cowbells, see Bonanzinga, 2000.
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DELIA DATTILO AND CINZIA CITRARO
FRISCHJIAMU BY DOMENICO MOSCA: SOME LINGUISTIC 
OBSERVATIONS
Published in 1978 and written in dialect, the comedy Frischjiamu bears a title that is evoca-
tive in itself: because of the Mediterranean setting and sense of community it portrays, and 
because of the first-person plural and choice of verb semantics.30 More than developing a 
well-defined plot, the comedy portrays a series of separate pictures that are, so to say, jux-
taposed by the author. The narrative cue is Giuseppe and Concetta’s attempt to combine a 
match between a widow and a widower: Teresa and Domenico. Around this topic –which, 
again, is merely a fictional pretext– Mosca sketches a series of scenes that are typical of the 
ruga: scenes that allow to recall personal experiences, village gossips, obscene jests, jokes 
and witticisms. Indeed, this is exactly what frischijare means: surrendering to chitchat, 
talking about this and that in order to try and forget the powerful heat affecting the body.
Resorting to the categorisation introduced by Trumper and Maddalon (1988) in their 
attempt to describe the linguistic situation in Calabria, then further developed in Trumper 
(1997) who divides the linguistic partition of the Calabrian territory into four groups, we 
could place the dialect used by Domenico Mosca within the third group of such a classifi-
cation.31 More specifically, it is the dialect of Stalettì, a town in the province of Catanzaro 
and right in the middle of the Gulf of Squillace.32 Unlike other Italian regions, Calabria 
does not enjoy a lengthy tradition of dialect-written texts: this, of course, is due the fact 
that Calabrian dialects have never been used for bureaucratic or institutional contexts; 
while, as far as literature is concerned, it is due to the lack of a driving force so strong as to 
impose a reference model (infra). Thus, when it comes to lettering, all authors wishing to 
write in any Calabrian dialect –no matter the topic– are confronted with a missing fixed 
reference-norm. In this regard, Maddalon (2017) stresses the difference between the dialects 
of Sicily and Calabria by referencing Camilleri’s words on Meli:
Da questo brano quello che emerge è, oltre la consapevolezza e la riflessione lin-
guistica di Camilleri, la possibilità per i siciliani di disquisire di modelli alti; non 
è questa la sede per ricordare il peso di Meli nella storia della lingua in Sicilia, 
ma va invece rimarcata la differenza con quella calabrese che, quando produce 
figure rilevanti, lo fa in ambiti circoscritti e non validi per tutta la regione. 
30 Indeed, in Nuovo Dizionario dialettale della Calabria, the term frischïare is defined as: “pigliare il 
fresco, porsiall’ ombra” (enjoying the cool shade, finding shelter in the shade), while the word frischía 
as “fa fresco” (‘ it is cool, chilly’) (Rohlfs, 19965: 279).
31 The dialect groups are established according to certain shared linguistic phenomena. If interested, 
the reader may check the referenced works which include a detailed description of the linguistic phe-
nomena from which the division stems, as well as the language maps tracing the physical limits of 
the identified groups. 
32 Trumper, Maddalon, 1988. See also: Trumper, 1997; Maddalon, 2009; Trumper, 2016.
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Localmente – pensiamo al Cenacolo apriglianese il cui membro più conosciuto 
è certamente Domenico Piro detto ‘Duonnu Pantu’– i personaggi, i prodotti e 
la natura delle riflessioni sono spesso di ottimo livello e importanti per le ‘storie’ 
linguistiche della Calabria. I tentativi dei membri del Cenacolo e di amici di 
altre ‘accademie’, ad esempio, di intraprendere una prima traduzione, o meglio 
un rifacimento, del Secondo Canto della Gerusalemme del Tasso in calabrese 
settentrionale (pre-silano), per ‘testare’ la bontà di ogni singola versione, sono di 
certo rilevanti.33 (Maddalon, 2017: 82)
This means that in Calabria, there is no propulsive centre capable of generating a 
model so strong as to impose itself as the norm. This absence is the reason why, when 
asked to transfer into writing what they master orally, dialect speakers are forced to resort 
to impromptu strategies (for specific references on this issue, and specifically as far as 
Calabrian dialects are concerned, see Chillà, Citraro, 2010: 204).34
Hence, it is no surprise that similar phenomena can also be found in Mosca’s text, 
alongside instances of: different ways to spell a same term, as it the case of35 a ricchi/i ricchi 
(21, ‘ears’), vidarissi/bidarissi (25, ‘you would see’), mfamu/mpami/mpamu (34, ‘scoundrel’), 
telefanu/talefanu (40, ‘telephone’); erroneous segmentation of the phonic chain as evident in 
33 Translation: “Besides Camilleri’s deep knowledge of language and his reflexion on it, this text shows 
that the discussion of high models is possible in Sicily. Though this is no right place to recall Meli’s 
role in the history of language in Sicily, it is important to stress a difference with the case of Calabria: 
indeed, when relevant writers develop in this last region, these are meaningful only to a restricted 
sphere and not to the entire region. At a local level –and we could recall, for instance, the Cenacle of 
Aprigliano, whose most renowned member is of course Domenico Piro called ‘Duonnu Pantu’– the 
characters, results and nature of the reflexions are often extremely valid, and they are relevant to the 
language ‘histories’ of Calabria. For instance, the efforts –by the members of the Cenacle and by 
friends belonging to other ‘academies’ who wished to ‘test’ the soundness of each single version– to 
translate, or else rewrite the Second Canto of Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered in northern Calabrian dia-
lect (more specifically, in the Presila area), all seem to be positively relevant attempts”. The analysis of 
the situation of Calabrian theatre, undertaken by Trumper and Maddalon (2003: 179) is particularly 
relevant to our work: “When thinking about Italian plays in dialect, one spontaneously thinks about 
the Neapolitan one, or the Venetian, the Ligurian, the Tuscan one; yet, nobody –besides those who 
inhabit the region itself– refers to the Calabrian one”.
34 While stressing the limitations of the dialect enquiries carried out via mail, Grassi, Sobrero, and 
Telmon (2005: 272) had already identified phonetic and phonological items as sore spots, since this 
type of research acquired data whose interpretation was left exclusively to the informants. Writing 
in dialect proved to be difficult not only for those who spoke it regularly, but also for professional 
authors: some instances can be found in the novels by Domenico Dara, as observed by Maddalon 
(2017: 75) in relation to use of two different spellings for the word for ‘woman’: fimmana/fimmina.
35 From this point onwards, the quotations taken from the texts will be written by signalling their page 
of appearance in brackets. Furthermore, the expressions in dialect are included here as they appear 
in the text, without any kind of addition or revision. Again, I would like to remark that this exami-
nation that does not intend to be neither systematic nor thorough: it merely wants to identify some 
linguistic phenomena included in Mosca’s text and highlight what makes them interesting.
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the use of l ’inda instead of li nda (8, ‘you have [talked to her] about it]’), q’ua instead of qua 
(28, ‘with the’), da Merica instead of d(a) America (14, ‘from America’), s’amanera instead 
of samanera (17, ‘this way’), s’ indajiu instead of sindajiu (41, ‘she went [to]’), m’ungessaru 
instead of mu ’ngessaru (41, ‘they’ve put in a plaster cast’), and l’ ha de vira instead of l’ ha 
d’evira (30, ‘she should have [it]’).
The text also includes instances where the actual production of a nasal consonant before a 
voiced bilabial plosive is expressed correctly in the case of a single word, but not so in terms of 
phonotaxis: see the instance of mbecia ‘instead’ compared to on bidi ‘don’t you see’ at page 14:
TERESA: A Micu, mbecia u cunti fissarii, pecchì on bidi si nc’ è ncunu ziteddu pe 
mmu vaci u m’accatta u sala.36
there is a further example of the phenomenon, also at page 14, in on bogghiu ‘I don’t 
want’ compared with mbidia, ‘envy’. Similar examples give rise to two remarks: the first 
is that speakers, when it comes to the phono-syntactic chain, tend not to be aware of their 
production; the second is the idea that, in such cases, lettering choices are strongly driven 
by standard-Italian norms. In addition, the text of comedy provides data sparking an inter-
est not only in terms of phonetics and phonology (and more specifically of their written 
representation), but also in terms of morphology, syntax, lexicon and semantics. Further 
instances include phenomena relating to level interfaces, as it is the case with vowel coa-
lescence: accattamu nu pocu instead of a accatumu nu pocu (26, ‘shall we buy a bit [of it]’), 
and su vippa instead of su u vippa (41, ‘she drank it’).37
As for morphological features, the items included in the text allow a deeper and more 
detailed definition of the situation of verbal morphology in Calabria. Certain types are 
quite renowned, like the conditional porria (25, ‘he could’).38 Others instead, being non-
macroscopic phenomena scarcely or by no means described in literature, are not as known. 
More specifically, it is the case of the -a suffix used to conjugate the first-person singular of 
36 Translation: “TERESA: Oh Domenico, why don’t you go have a look if there’s a child who can go 
buy the salt, instead of saying such silly things”.
37 Prantera-Mendicino (2013) analyse cases in which this phenomenon occurs in the presence of com-
plementisers. The syntactic strategies achieved through such complementisers, in the variety ana-
lysed here –namely, that which counterbalances the so-called “unpopularity of the infinite”– are well 
documented even in Frischijamu (for reference, see the interaction between the characters of Teresa 
and Concetta at page 7: “TERESA: A mia mi piacia u staiusula. CONCETTA: Sarria megghiu u 
v’accasati cu cumpara Micu. TERESA: Eu on vogghiu genti ammenzu i pedi. Genti c’aiu u mi lavu, u 
mi stiru e u mi rapezzu […].” Translation: “TERESA: I like being on my own. CONCETTA: It’d be 
best for you to marry Master Domenico. TERESA: I don’t want anyone in my way. People I’d have 
to wash, iron and mend for […]”. As previously stated, according to Trumper and Maddalon 1988, 
the absence of infinitival strategies is a defining feature for the third group of Calabrian dialects.
38 An innovative form compared to the common conditional tense ending in -erra/-era (Maddalon, 
2009: 8).
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the remote-past tense (passato remoto):39 (eu) vinna (7, ‘I arrived’), (eu) ntisa (19, ‘I heard’), or 
(eu) dezza (46, ‘I gave’). There are further elements that raise an interest in terms of syntax, 
like the repetition of the noun for ‘town’ to express what in Italian is called complemento 
di moto per luogo.40 Thus, the expression u paisa paisa (literally ‘the town town’; in 9, u ti 
viju girara u paisa paisa, ‘[the fact that] I see you walking around town’) wants to convey 
the idea of someone walking through/around town.
The comedy overflows with wordplays, allusions, impactful closing statements, sayings 
and idioms that, although still used, are not generally documented in lexicography. This 
abundance can easily be explained by resorting to the comical genre to which Frischjiamu 
belongs (one would say in the wake of Italic peoples’ best tradition, though not limited to 
it). There are instances of impactful closing statements achieved through phrasemes (infra) 
such as: e bona notta a li passari! (8, ‘what will be will be!’); or through adynata used in the 
contexts of fast interactions, as exemplified in the following extracts:
TERESA: Quandu u sula tramunta e matina.
GIUSEPPE: All ’ottavu jornu da settimana o u trentadui do misa chi trasa. (34)41
and:
NICOLA: Rimetti42 vor dira c’a mmu mi duni i centuliri.
CONCETTA: E mina, mina, cà nu jornu e chissi ti duna.
GIUSEPPE: Quandu u sula nescia e sira.
TERESA: Quandu Pasqua cada e marti.43 (46)
As for lexical analysis, the initial focus is on single words and specific meanings. Then, 
it moves on to units that include more words44 and distinguishes them in: multi-word units 
(which feature a certain level of fixation), sayings (which combine fixity with gnomic value), 
39 In Italian language, the “passato remoto” is a specific type of past tense.
40 In Italian language, the “complementi di luogo” are grammatical complements used to express move-
ment, or to state where something is taking place. In particular, the so-called “moto per luogo” is used 
to express movement through, along or around something.
41 Translation: “TERESA: When the sun will set in the morning. GIUSEPPE: On the eighth day of 
the week or on the thirty-second day of the month after this”.
42 The word Rimetti is a reference to the Catholic prayer Our Father. More specifically, it recalls the 
lines: “Rimetti a noi i nostri debiti, come noi li rimettiamo ai nostri debitori”, which are said in English 
as “And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us”. However, the verb 
rimettere also means ‘to restore something to its former condition’. Therefore, in this case, the char-
acter plays with word by inviting his interlocutor to give him back his money in order to put them 
back where they belong: with him. 
43 Translation: “NICOLA: “Condone” means you have to return my hundred lire to me. CONCETTA: 
Sure, you carry on insisting and he’ll definitely return them to you. GIUSEPPE: When the sun will 
rise in the evening. TERESA: When Easter will fall on a Tuesday”.
44 This paper shall not focus on the debated notion of “word” or on the analysis of unit in semantics; 
hence, I refer the interested reader to Ježek, 2011, to mention but one.
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DELIA DATTILO AND CINZIA CITRARO
apotropaic expressions (which feature a certain level of fixity alongside a magic value) and 
idiomatic expressions (which do not only feature fixity, but also a global non-compositional 
meaning).45 The text of the comedy includes some terms that now –that is to say forty years 
after its publishing– are no longer in use (for example 15, tata, ‘papà’):
PASQUALE: […] Eu, a mamma e u tata stacimu ncampagna e avimu a casedda 
vicinu a strata.46
It also contains words that are not included in the NDDC Dictionary (10, suparu), 
or that belong to an area that is not the one this study focuses on (it is the case of 14, 
strambottu, that Rohlfs exclusively relates to the area of Reggio Calabria).47 There are even 
words taken from other languages and adapted to Italian morphology (13, bisinissi; and 40, 
craxi; respectively meaning ‘business’ and ‘horn’);48 as well as terms imported and assimilated 
from Italian itself (42, attrosi instead of artrosi). Similarly, in some occasions, the text allows 
to infer a semantic sense that is not mentioned in the reference lexicography: it is the case 
of passiara (8, used transitively in the expression passiara i seggi or else, to carry the chairs 
back and forth), viduta (9, ‘just to be noticed/seen’), liberannu (9, ‘open the floodgates’), 
ossigianu addemuratu (16, ‘gone bad, rottened’):
PASQUALE: Ma chiddu è ossigianu de bumbuli, ossigianu addemuratu.49
The text of the comedy includes many instances of multi-word expressions. Here are 
some examples: a chi mundu arrivamma, figghjoli mei! (22, ‘oh my, what has it come to!’), è 
penzeri u meu! (26, ‘it is my business now!’ or else ‘leave it to me’), ccà sulu simu abbandunati 
e Diu e de Santi (31, ‘only this place has been forsaken by God and the Saints’), mi para 
mill ’anni (18, ‘it seems as if a thousand years must go by before […]’), quantu onora chi mi 
duni! (32, ‘what honours you grant me!’), comu quandu chi (39, ‘as if ’),50 a tenami ca caju 
(33, ‘grab hold of me ’cause I’m about to fall’, used when speaking of something so badly 
crafted, it hardly stands), ca chiddu è u guai […] (38, ‘that is exactly the problem’, usually 
45 For the features of idiomatic expressions, see Croft, Cruse, 2004: 230.
46 Translation: “PASQUALE: […] My mum, dad and I live in the country, and our little house is near 
the road.”
47 Rohlfs (19965: 691) quoting Malara, 1909.
48 Indeed in Italian the word clacson is referred to hooters. It is explained in Battisti C., Alessio G., 
Dizionario Etimologico Italiano (Vol. I, 972, col. B) as follows: “clàcson, m. XX sec.; apparecchio sonoro, 
avvisatore negli autoveicoli; ingl. klaxon (1914), cf. fr. klakson, klaxon (in origine nome di una marca 
di fabbrica)”. However, this loanword has been not successful in all languages (for example, the word 
horn is preferred to clacson in the English language).
49 Translation: “PASQUALE: But the oxygen in dolls is stale oxygen.”
50 DOMENICO: “No! A comu quandu chi non bolia dira a virgogna.” Translation: “No! As if he wouldn’t 
want to state the shame”.
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RECOVERING VANISHED SOUND-LANDSCAPES: SOUNDS, IDENTITIES AND MULTILINGUALITY
followed by an explanatory sentence), pe dispettu e cui non bola (36, ‘to spite those who don’t 
want […]’), A focumeu! A mammaredda mia! (36, ‘Oh gosh! Oh my!’). The reader also finds 
many sayings which, as a reflection of conventional wisdom, provide the text with a more 
sententious tone: si a mbidia nesciaria e fora tutti quanti avarivamu a guaddara (14, ‘if envy 
could show itself, many of us would have hernia’), duva cacci e non menti resta u vacanta 
(19, ‘if you take something without replacing it, there will be nothing left’), senza sordi non 
s’inda cantanu missi (19, ‘you can’t request a mass if you don’t pay for it’), pota sbagghiara 
u ciucciu c’ava a testa tanta randa, e non pozzu sbagghiara eu chi l’aiu cchiù picciula (20, ‘so 
a donkey, with its big head, is allowed to make mistakes and I –with my little head– am 
not allowed to?’). The use of the verbal form pota, included in the previously-mentioned 
sentence, sparks an interest since it is more conservative than other verbs still in use, espe-
cially with the connotation ‘to bear, to support’. Anyhow, to continue and conclude the 
previous list of instances, there are: ogni Spiratu leva in Domini! (34, ‘each Holy Spirit rises 
to God’, which means that the overall success of something depends on the contribution 
of each component), sta mpacia unu finu a chi bola n’addru (36, ‘one is alright only until 
the others allow it’). Among the apotropaic expressions, there are: cu saluta a nui (12, ‘to 
our good health’), or adduppricatu (21, ‘twice as much’, a formula used by a speaker who 
wants to reply to a received wish of good health by wishing twice as much of it in return). 
Finally, there are several instances of idioms: chi guasta l’acqui (19, “that muddies the 
waters”, guastara l’acqui means ‘to create troubles’), ti fai a crucia cu dui mani (20, “you 
make the sign of cross with both hands”, or else ‘to be grateful for a result that has exceeded 
all expectations’), nd’a paga nu litru (29, “she pays for a litre [of something]” or else ‘to not 
care about hurting other people’s feelings’), a terra mi mancava e sutta i pedi (35, “I lost the 
ground beneath me” or else ‘to feel lost’), si ti jetti a mara nesci qui taschi chini i pisci (39, 
“if you throw yourself at sea, you will end up with your pockets full of fish” or else ‘to be 
lucky’), si bola u mu llonga u coddu (25, “if he wants to stretch his neck”, or else ‘to want 
something badly, to crave it’), pagati, mastru, co furnu catta (42, “master craftsman take 
your payment, because the kiln you’ve made doesn’t even stand”51 or else ‘all is lost’), paru 
paru pigghia (42, ‘struck by [tragedy], hit by [a curse]’), and so on and so forth.
THE USE OF DIALECT: TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN
The text of Mosca’s comedy provides certain interesting linguistic data – which has been 
briefly discussed above. Some phenomena concern writing itself, fluctuating ways of spelling 
a term, and also mistakes in the phono-syntactic segmentation. Other interesting phenomena 
concern, instead, the use of verbal forms that are not retrievable in existing literature (such as 
51 This sentence refers to the final stage of building a kiln, when the builder had to carry out a last check 
to assess if it actually stood or not.
159
DELIA DATTILO AND CINZIA CITRARO
eu vinna), or the existence of scarcely-known syntax strategies (such as the repetition of the 
noun in order to convey the idea of pacing back and forth in a place). Lastly, as for the lexical 
aspects, the comedy includes: terms no longer in use (tata), or undocumented meanings related 
to documented words, wordplays, allusions, impactful closing statements, sayings, and idioms 
(the latter change from low-semantic-opacity expressions, as in the case of si ti jetti a mara nesci 
qui taschi chini i pisci, to high-semantic-opacity expressions, as in the case of nd’a paga nu litru).
The use of dialect in theatre must be read within the wider frame of the relation 
between dialect and literature – a relation that, although dependent on time and space, 
seems to find its raison d’ être in the need to fulfil functions unachievable through stand-
ard language. This complex issue cannot be understood if separated from its temporal 
dimension or from more strictly linguistic features. Thus, we must take into account the 
peculiar situation of Italy, the old and the new Language Question,52 the history of Italian 
dialects and, more specifically, if we wish to analyse the use of dialect in the Calabrian 
drama, we must bear in mind the previously mentioned lack of any kind of solid tradition. 
As for the issue of “Calabrianness” within dramaturgy, Trumper and Maddalon (2003: 
179) emphasize how, in Neapolitan seventeenth-century theatre for instance, the desire 
to portray a comic type prevailed over the criterion of likeliness to such a degree that the 
character of the Calabrian boorish was voiced in an extremely unlikely dialect. If, on the 
one hand, it is true that dialect is generally used in literature in order to fulfil the functions 
unachievable through standard language; on the other it is also true that this choice bears 
many linguistic and non-linguistic difficulties. In our case, a clear issue is represented by 
the above-mentioned uncertainties linked to writing in dialect. Yet there is more to it: 
the more the use of a certain dialect is restricted to a specific area, the harder it will be to 
understand the text (be it read or performed). Some authors, though not many, have come 
up with brilliant solutions to this widespread hindrance. Camilleri is one of these: indeed, 
recent studies (Maddalon, 2017) have highlighted that the dialect used by the Sicilian 
author is more fictional than real.53 Most likely, these choices could have been driven 
by practicality, since –overthrowing what has been so far said– the more a text becomes 
understandable, the more its (potential) audience increases. The observation of certain 
52 The Italian “Language Question” has experienced many phases before reaching the so-called “New 
Language Question”. The latter one was introduced by Pasolini’s “Nuove questioni linguistiche” (in 
Rinascita, 1964), and by Parlangéli’s collection of all works that addressed Pasolini’s stand on the 
matter and published between 1964 and 1967.
53 “Il lessico camilleriano, ad esempio, sembra in parte una sorta di corpus chiuso che gli innumer-
evoli lettori conoscono a memoria, fino a fare propri alcuni lemmi ormai pan-italiani”. Translation: 
“Camilleri’s lexicon, for instance, is like a sort of closed corpus known by heart by all his readers. They 
have made some terms their own to such a degree that [they transcend the Sicilian borders and] belong 
to all Italian speakers” (Maddalon, 2017: 63). Others, like Salvatore Niffoi, prefer to support some of 
their novels with a glossary of dialect terms (as it happens in “Il pane di Abele”, 2009). Ultimately, 
some others have decided to narrow down their use of dialect –which was conspicuous in their first 
works– to a limited range of fields (onomastics): it is the case of Domenico Dara and his latest novel, 
Malinverno (2020).
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RECOVERING VANISHED SOUND-LANDSCAPES: SOUNDS, IDENTITIES AND MULTILINGUALITY
drama mechanisms –which are themselves based on how linguistic mechanisms relevant 
to comedy work– supports such considerations. As many are aware, the ability to bend 
language in a pliable manner, even for the purpose of comedy, depends the author’s and 
the public’s command of that language. Indeed, the public must be able to “play/engage” 
with the author by completing any multi-word expressions left elliptically unfinished, or 
by knowing the meaning of the idioms included in the text.54 For instance, this could be 
the case of: l’avia trovata a santa (infra), a sentence that combines in itself both features 
since it is an idiom whose completion is left to the public;55 or musica maestru a stessa (13, 
or else: ‘Off we go! Let’s play the same one again’), which is also part of the wider expres-
sion Quala sonamu? Musica maestru a stessa (‘Which [song] shall we play? Off we go! Let’s 
play the same one again’).56 In other words: in those comedies that pursue a comic effect 
through verbal invention, sayings, idioms and other expedients, the author and the public 
must both have full command of their language.57
The difficulties caused by the use of dialect –which are only more so in the case of 
Calabria– have a strong impact particularly on comedy. Dialect use, in fact, shows the two 
sides of the same coin: on the one side, the choice of dialect ensures the author a greater 
effectiveness and allows a stronger attraction to the public because of the mechanisms of 
shared identities driven by language and setting; on the other, instead, this choice is a risky 
one since it limits the author’s possibility of “efficiently” addressing a wider public – or 
else, a public that does not share the values inherent to that specific linguistic material.
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OBNOVITEV IZZVENELIH ZVOČNIH POKRAJIN 
ZVOKI, IDENTITETE IN VEČJEZIČNOST
Če je res, da lahko o zvočni pokrajini govorimo šele, ko jo prepoznamo, je prav tako res, da 
zvočna pokrajina obstaja ne glede na to, ali jo znanstvenik morda prepozna ali ne. Ker daje 
trenutni družbeno-kulturni kontekst prednost podobi pred poslušanjem, ki je osrednji element 
znanja in razmerij, ta prispevek ponuja analizo akustičnih zaznav zvočne krajine z razlago 
literarnih besedil, ki pripadajo različnim žanrom in so predstavljeni diahrono (na zgodovinski 
in kronološki ravni). Na eni strani nam potopisna literatura ponuja osebne opise določenih 
okolij, kakor so jih avtorji zazanali in razumeli, po drugi strani pa je na lokalni ravni opazna 
rast literarnih prispevkov, od proznih del do dram, v katerih je zapisan zvok sredstvo za 
interpretacijo zelo svojevrstne in emsko definirane družbene dinamike. Zato ni presenetljivo, 
da gredo v to smer nekateri pomembni premisleki o pomenu zvoka v kulturni dediščini, ki jih 
v Mednarodnem letu zvoka (IYS 2020–2021) promovira Italijanski nacionalni raziskovalni 
svet (CNR). Te vrste refleksije nadalje utirajo pot zapletenim in zelo specifičnim raziskavam, 
ki jih je v 70. letih prejšnjega stoletja začel Murray R. Schafer. 
V prispevku avtorici najprej analizirata različna besedila, sledi podrobnejša analiza 
Frischijamu Domenica Mosce (1913–2003). Komedija, napisana v narečju stalttese (1960–1970), 
prikazuje vas kot gledališče. Frischijare v rugi (gr. Pοῡγα, uličica) se nanaša na izključno na 
preživljanje prostega časa ob poslušanju in pripovedovanju zgodb na pragu hiš, ko posameznik 
komunicira s skupnostjo in si ob vročih dneh privošči svež zrak (friscu, svež). 
V preteklih stoletjih so nekatera italijanska narečja (npr. beneško) postala jezik literarnih 
del, kar pa za kalabrijska narečja ni veljalo. Zaradi tega so za rekonstrukcijo prejšnjih razvojnih 
faz narečja najpomembnejši pisni viri. Z diahronega vidika komedija Frischijamu (natisnjena 
leta 1978) vključuje oblike, ki so zanimive z morfološkega, skladenjskega in leksikalnega vidika, 
konteksti, predstavljeni v komediji, pa lahko omogočijo rekonstrukcijo nesnovnega scenarija z 
jezikovne in zvočne perspektive.
Delia Dattilo, Università degli Studi di Caligari, dattilodelia@gmail.com 
Dr. Cinzia Citraro, Università della Calabria, Dipartimento di Studi umanistici,  
cinzia.citraro@unical.it