Glossary of New Mexican Spanish (1934) (part one)

[Laurence Horn]

At 8:54 PM +0100 3/23/03, Jan Ivarsson TransEdit wrote:
>For Italian loan words in English, I do not think that etymologist
>would agree with you. Not talking about terms from music or the
>arts, I can quote some:
>
>Alarm   From the Italian, "All'arme" -- "To arms!"
>Ballot  Italian term for "small ball or pebble" used for voting

Yup, Yup.

>Bankrupt   Italian "banca rotto" - the bankers broke their table
>when they were ruined.

Or had them broken by creditors.  Here's the OED:

[According to Johnson 'it is said' that when an Italian money-changer
became insolvent, 'his bench was broke.' But rotto, rotta is also
'wrecked' (used of a ship); and fig. 'discomfited, defeated,
interrupted, stopped.' Cf. the familiar use of break = become
insolvent, broken insolvent; also med.L. ruptura failure, ruptus
broken man, bankrupt, 'creditorum fraudator, aut decoctor, qui
dissolvit argentariam et foro cedit' in Du Cange, who has an example
dated 1334.]

It would appear that the -rupt half involves deliberate re-creation
of the Latin form (participial "ruptus" > Ital. "rotto"), so it ends
up being a sort of quasi-Latin semi-calque of the Italian.

>Cantelope   From "singing wolf." It seems the melon was first grown
>in a town in Italy called Cantaluppi

for some reason, not in the OED at all (as far as I can tell); it
appears to be from a place name, but it's not clear which.  Is the
"singing wolf" widely accepted?

>Carnival   Literal meaning: "Flesh, farewell." The "val" ending does
>not derive from Latin "vale". Modern Italian "carnevale" comes from
>Old Italian "carnelevare"; levare = raise, put away, remove.

i.e. removal of meat for Lent

>Chapel   From the Italian "Capella," Italian for "Cape," because the
>the original Chapel was where the cape ("capella") of St. Martin of
>Tour was kept.

My sources derive this from Medieval Latin via French.  Now, "a
cappella" is from the Italian, but that's from the excepted "music"
category...

How about pizza?  rigatoni?  calimari?  marinara?  etc.-- maybe
within Jan's "arts" category.

larry