Italian-Americanisms? or regionalisms?

[Susan Tamasi]

My family from Princeton also has the /rih GAWT/, /man ih GAWT/
pronunciation.  However, they are not from southern Italy.  Many of the
Italian immigrants in Princeton are from Petronella, Molaise which is
about 2 hours southeast of Rome and 2 hours northeast of Naples.  (In
fact, Petronella and Princeton are sister cities).  I've asked about the
Italian-American population in Trenton (in the 50s and 60s), but my
father only replied that they were "from all over."  I do remember my
family referring to "pizza pie," but it was infrequent (and usually done
with a put-on Italian accent).  The regular term was just "pizza."  I
didn't hear "gravy" until recently, and that was by a woman of southern
Italian heritage who lives in Yonkers.

-Susan Tamasi
University of Georgia



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>Date: Sun, 7 Jul 2002 20:59:34 -0400
>From: "Laurence Horn" <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>Reply-To: "American Dialect Society" <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Subject: Re: Italian-Americanisms? or regionalisms?
>
>>Dale Coye said:
>>>My summer class was instructing me on some of the finer points of
Italian
>>>cuisine--they were mostly from the Trenton area.  Don't know if these
are
>>>regionalisms or Italian-Americanisms.
>>>
>>>Gravy 'tomato sauce for pasta'-- DARE has a meaning =sweet sauces,
but this
>>>meaning isn't there.   I asked them what they'd call gravy for
turkey, or
>>>meat, and some said 'brown gravy'
>>>
>>>Pie  'a pizza'.  When you say, "We had a pie last night"  you mean a
pizza.
>>>
>>>Ricotta-  pronounced /rih GAWT/-- with open o (cot/caught distinction
is
>>>maintained almost universally by students here).
>>>
>>>Manicotti-- same thing /man ih GAWT/
>>
>>The latter two sound familiar for New Haven also. I'm not sure of the
vowel
>>quality (/a/ vs /ao/)--perhaps it's back unrounded?--but the <c> as
/g/
>>(voiceless unaspirated) and the loss of the final /i/ is the norm
here.
>>
>
>Right, and the crucial feature is the part of Italy emigrants came
>from.  Around here, it's Campania, but not specifically Naples--there
>are villages that can be named (at least by a former student who went
>there to research his senior essay on the origins of the English
>spoken by New Haven Italian-Americans) that provided much of the
>impetus for what is sometimes thought of as the Wooster Street
>dialect--e.g. (inter alia) "apizza", pronounced a-BEETS, as
>previously discussed here (which now designates the list, rather than
>New Haven).  Does anyone know whether the "maniGAWT", "riGAWT"would
>be widespread throughout Campania or (even more generally) southern
>Italy (or, for that matter, Sicily, where a larger proportion of NYC
>Italian speakers would have come from, I believe)?  And does anyone
>know where the majority of Trenton Italian-Americans would trace
>their origins from?
>
>larry
>
>
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