Orfano Submerged Italian Tunis

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2014 John D. Calandra Italian American Institute

Notes and Documents

Submerged Italian in Tunis: Italian and Its Dialects as heritage languageALESSANDRO ORFANO

Introduction

Despiteor some might argue because ofItalys relative lack of political power during the period from the sixteenth century to the second half of the nineteenth century, the Italian language during this period was pres-tigious and thriving in the Levant and North Africa, spoken and written by colonial communities, and employed in diplomatic and bureaucratic affairs (Bruni 2000, 230). After going through major cultural and political-economic changes, these regions continued to be home to Italian speakers, though the language they spoke was a submerged Italian (Bruni 2000, 219); today, the future of this language as a spoken tongue depends on institutional education, media outlets, and the linguistic proficiency of emigrants who return to their motherlands from Italy.

This article will examine preliminary results from linguistic fieldwork carried out in 2012 among the last remaining descendants of the historic Italian community in Tunis, although this topic will no doubt be the subject of continued investigation and documentation. During the study, particular attention was paid to Sephardic Jewish groups from Livorno, the Tuscan free port city redeveloped by the Medici family at the end of the sixteenth century.1 Over the course of more than four centuries, Jewish groups from Livorno settled in Tunis, Djerba, and Soussa in Tunisia; Alexandria and Cairo in Egypt; Tripoli in Libya; Aleppo in Syria; Beirut in Lebanon; Thessaloniki in Greece; and Istanbul and Izmir in Turkey.

The Trail of the Grana of Tunis

While scholars have noted that merchants, sailors, doctors, laborers, as well as Italian and Corsican slaves lived in Tunis from at least the tenth century, the first significant interactions of the city with Livorno date back to the beginning of the seventeenth century (Frattarelli Fisher 2008, 143, 179; zlitni 2006, 349371). Tunis was the first North African port where Jews from Livorno and other Tuscan cities, as well as from Ancona and Genoa,

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126 Italian American Review 4.2 Summer 2014

managed commerce between the Muslim Maghreb and the Christian world. These Livorno natives, known by the Arabic name Grana,2 are char-acterized by a high level of mobility, as demonstrated by the existence of a permanent population of 300 Livornese in Tunis as early as 1685 (Frattarelli Fisher, 2008, 179).

After more than three centuries, the fieldwork findings on the last descendants of the Grana and their linguistic particularities will be well illustrated by the example3 of an italophone Tunisian merchant of Arab-Jewish origins, here designated by the initials JM: 4

JM: Allora, qui eh qui stato oosp ospitato, no?

I: S.JM: Ospitato Giuseppe Garibaldi. E

un ricordo magnifico perch . . .I: Certo.JM: Siamo i primi ad entrare qua,

penso, no? [ . . . ]JM: Si chiama in arabo la Medina.

Qui siamo davanti a una porta che esiste eh nel millenovecento, mille, ottocento [ . . . ]

JM: Vedi le altre case. Perch eh a un momento eh li ebrei e le arabi vivevano eeh . . .

I: Insieme!JM: Insieme tranquillamente, senza,

senza problemi. E ognuno faceva vedere le sue origine e ognuno stato fiero del sua apparte-nenza; e in questepoca non non avevano problemi di xenofobia o problemi di etnia.

JM: So, here we hosted . . . right? 5

I: Yes.JM: We hosted Giuseppe Garibaldi.

This is a wonderful memory because . . .

I: Sure.JM: We were the first to come here,

I think, no? [ . . . ]JM: Its called the Medina, in Arabic.

Here we are in front of a door that dates back to the twentieth, nineteenth century [ . . . ]

JM: See those other houses. There was a time in which Jews and Arabians lived . . .

I: Together!JM: Together, peacefully, without

conflicts. Every one used to display their origins, everyone was proud of their own belonging. At that time they did not have xenophobic or ethnic issues.

This interview was conducted inside the Tunis Medina, one of the largest in the Arab world. In this place, site of the principal and oldest mosque and the heart of trade, the old Grana community gained such importance that it was given its own souk, called Suk-el-Grana, that is, the Market of Livornesi.

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Submerged Italian in Tunis: Italian and Its Dialects as heritage language 127

The first migrants from Livorno were mainly Spanish and Portuguese Jews, members of highly placed Sephardic families; these newcomers mostly worked as autonomous professionals and were very proud of their origins and their language. These people called themselves the Portuguese Nation; having held a powerful grip on the government of the Jewish community in Livorno, when they eventually came to Tunis (where there was already an established Jewish community, the Twansa), the settle-ment took the official name of the Portuguese community as a result of this privileged status. From early on the bey, or lord of Tunis, selected his personal counselors and doctors from among this community.

The arrival of these new Jews caused friction with the North African Twansa Jews, mainly due to differences in social status: With few excep-tions, the majority of indigenous Jews lived in poverty in the ghetto of Hara, where they practiced traditional crafts (Petrucci 2008, 174), whereas the Jews from Livorno who settled nearby had more economic clout thanks to their close relations with their home port city (174). They represented the precursors of an international banking system founded on paper-based financial transactions (Sebag, 1998, 163) and were generally better-educated, enjoying privileges including permission to dress according to contempo-rary European style (Petrucci 2008, 175). In 1710, the two communities split and founded autonomous administrative and religious institutions, each with its own cemetery (175).

Eminent scholar Lionel Levy dates the abandonment of the Spanish language to the end of the eighteenth century, taking as evidence several contracts from 1780 between Tunisians and Livorno Jews written in Spanish (Levy 1996, 1999). The first Grana of Tunis continued to speak Spanish or Portuguese at home, but they probably chose to speak Italian with fellow Jews of Livorno and Arabic or Judeo-Arabic with other Tunisians (Boccara, 2000, 4043).

memories from the Nineteenth Century: The Second Wave of migrants from livorno

Starting around 1820 and continuing sporadically throughout the nine-teenth century, a second wave of migration from Livorno significantly changed the old community. The new migrants from Livorno had Iberian origins, as we understand by their surnames (Moreno, Soria, Cardoso, etc.), but they were complete italophones, and their culture and customs were wholly European. Compared to the local Arabic-Jewish community, they considered themselves an elite group because of their Hispanic or Portuguese lineage, and they had such a strong social and

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cultural influence that even the wealthy Tunisian Jews began to speak and write Italian correctly.

Piero Gozlan (PG in interview below), notwithstanding his Arabic-Jewish surname, is a Sephardic Italo-Tunisian whose family hailed originally from Livorno, and he speaks a clear Italian. His forefathers migration to Tunisia offers evidence of the cultural and political traits of subsequent genera-tions of Livornese Tunisians.6

PG: Il eeh nonno di mio padre, che era capitano deel italiano, si chiamava mmh Tulipano Cesare Giuseppe Disegni. [ . . . ] Quindi loro sono arrivati qui, su una barca, su un gommone, come stanno facendo i tunisini in senso opposto. [ . . . ] Eeh dunque loro avevano partecipato a una carbonara; non so se era . . .

I: Ah!PG: Prima del milleottocen-

tosessantuno o dopo il milleottocentosessantuno.

I: Alla Carboneria, eh?PG: No alla carboneria proprio

detto, per era mmh diciamo, un problema che politico co di lotta contro gli austriaci che erano, che avevano il dominio l a, in Toscana, no?

I: Esatto.PG: E qui, quindi, perseguitati

dai dai soldati austriaci, sono arrivati a Napoli e a Napoli l la comunit ebraica dice: No! Qui non va bene perch ci sono delle spie dellAustria un po dappertutto! Quindi sono scesi a Trapani, a Trapani i siciliani hanno detto: No! S!

PG: My great grandfather was an Italian captain, his name was Tulipano Cesare Giuseppe Disegni [ . . . ] So, they arrived here on a boat, a dinghy, as Tunisians do now, but in the opposite direction. [ . . . ] So, they were part of a Carbonara. I dont remember if it was . . .

I: Ah!PG: If this happened before 1861

or after 1861.I: In the Carboneria, right?PG: Not the Carboneria exactly,

but there was lets call it a political issue arising from the struggle against the Austrians, who ruled Tuscany, you know?

I: Exactly.PG: So, persecuted by Austrian

soldiers, they arrived in Naples and in Naples the Jewish community there told them, No, its not good here because there are Austrian spies all over! So they went down to Trapani, and at Trapani the Sicilians told them, No! Yes!

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Qui va bene perch eeh lAust eeh i sol soldati austriaci non hanno possibilit di raggi-ungervi, per qui non c lavoro. E dunque loro dicono ai siciliani: Ma come fate voi per mantenervi? Et donc ha eh noi andiamo in Tunisia sui gommoni destate e andiamo arriviamo l, e a quanto pare c un quartiere, il ghetto cattolico italiano eeh siciliano che era la Rue de lEglise adesso Rue moaa Jamaa Ezzitouna, no? Ecco. E andiamo l e cerchiamo di lavorare, magari anche in altri posti come Sousse, che era un grosso villaggio, non era neanche un citt in quel momento, e non so se sono sbarcati a Klibia o qualcosa del genere.

Its fine here because the Austrian soldiers wont be able to catch up with you, but here theres no work. So they asked the Sicilians, How do you support yourselves? [They answered:] In the summer we go to Tunisia on the dinghies, and we arrive there, and there seems to be a neighborhood, the catholic Italian . . . well, Sicilian, ghetto . . . that was in Rue de lEglise, which today is Rue Jamaa Ezzitouna, right? Right. We go there and we look for work. We also look in other places, like Sousse, for example, which at that time it was only a big village, not a city yet, and I dont know if they landed in Klibia, or something like that.

Recent studies of anti-Semitism in the literary works of Giovanni Guarducci have focused on the political and cultural interrelationships between the Jews of Livorno and some of the greatest figures of the Risorgimento (Franceschini 2013). The nineteenth century was a crucial time for the fate of the Nazione Ebrea di Livorno (Livornos Jews) and for the evolution (or perhaps something more like the involution) of the Bagtto,7 their local dialect. Starting in the second half of the century, emerging sectors of the enlightened Jewish bourgeoisie were given access to freemason lodges, the revolutionary societies of the Carboneria, and other democratic and progressive organizations that eventually opened to non-Christians. These Jews soon came to occupy leadership roles and to express radical political positions similar to those espoused by Giuseppe Mazzini and that clashed with the political ideas of the Risorgimentos Livornese leaders such as Domenico Guerrazzi and Giovanni Guarducci (Franceschini 2013, 212216). Many politically active Jews from Livorno were subject to repression (by the House of Bourbon andto a lesser extentby Lorena of Austria), forcing them to leave the peninsula and

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move to North Africa, especially to Tunisia, where they had long-standing bonds. These Livorno natives considered themselves Italian even before the birth of the Kingdom of Italy, and they all assumed Italian nationality with the unification of the country (Audenino, 2005, 265).

Italianness and Civil Commitment: The Finzis and Il Corriere di Tunisi

These new Italians were among the founders of the first Italian school in Tunis; they also helped establish hospitals. During the course of this research I met the patriarch of one of the most important of these notable Italian Jewish families, the Finzi. The following excerpt is from a long interview with Elia Finzi (EF), recorded a few months before his death in 2012. He talks about his cultural roots and the linguistic practices of his family.8

EF: Mah, io sono Elia Finzi, sono nato a Tunisi il ventitr dicembre millenovecentoventitr. La nostra famiglia qui da dal milleottocentoventinove, mio bisnonno venuto qui come profugo da Livorno come carbonaro, stato accolto qui e faceva parte dei gruppi mazziniani, e hanno fatto part seguito tutte le le vicende della del Risorgimento [ . . . ] e poi qui la nostra famiglia qui sempre rimasta eh e ha sempre lavorato nellambito della nella le legatoria una una una un primo hanno creato la prima tipografia privata in Tunisia con prima ancora del protettorato francese [ . . . ] eh stato eh mio padre e mio no hanno fondato il primo quotidiano italiano di Tunisiae c stato un intenso lavoro eh abbiamo, poi nel cinquanta, nel cinquantasei con lindipendenza

EF: Im Elia Finzi and I was born in Tunis the 23rd of December, 1923. My family has been here since 1829. My great- grandfather came here from Livorno as a political refugee. He was a member of the Carboneria and Mazzinis groups, and he was welcomed here. My family participated in all the principal events of the Risorgimento [ . . . ] They have lived here ever since then and have always worked in book binding, and we founded the first private typography business in Tunisia before the French protectorate period [ . . . ] My father and my grandfather founded the first Italian daily newspaper in Tunisia. After years of intensive activity, in 1956, the year of national independence,

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abbiamo uscito Il Corriere di Tunisi e ancora continua aad oggi a essere pubblicato regular regolarmente [ . . . ] in genere mio padre parlava un ottimo italiano ed era a dir la verit che con mia madre parlavo francese, con mio padre parlavo italiano. Io sono, poi ho fatto scuole italiane e scuole francesi, dunque siamo totalmente bilingui e abbiamo due madrilingui, di fatto litaliano e il francese. Larabo mio padre lo parlava perfettamente, mio nonno eccetera, e lo scriveva, ma io, come facevo parte de della generazione che nata nel periodo in cui i francesi impo-nevano lassimilazione totale, dunque, praticamente, larabo lo parlo piuttosto maluccio [ . . . ] E e in famiglia parlavano un dialetto eeh quando andavano alluniversit perch vo per capirsi [ . . . ] So che mio padre conosceva parecchi dialetti for e forse anche [ . . . ] per non essere capiti dagli altri [ . . . ] glielho detto la sola la sola locuzione che mi ricordo ai [hamorim] non piacciono i confetti [ . . . ] Noi non, soprattutto mio padre non accettava che si parlasse i dialetti, soprattutto qui in Tunisia dove i dialetti siciliani erano molto stretti e ognuno parlava il calabrese ecetera ognuno parlava il proprio dialetto molto stretto e pap non voleva assolutamente

the newspaper Il Corriere di Tunisi came out and it still continues to be published regularly now [ . . . ] Generally, my father spoke excellent Italian. But actually to tell the truth I spoke French with my mother and Italian with my father. I attended Italian and French schools, so my family and I are completely bilingual and we have two mother tongues: Italian and French. My father and my grandfa-ther spoke and wrote Arabic perfectly, but I belong to the generation that suffered the total assimilation imposed by French, and so I speak Arabic pretty badly [ . . . ] They spoke a common dialect among relatives and university classmates [ . . . ] Im sure that my father knew other different dialects; maybe he used them so others couldnt understand him, too [ . . . ] The only expression I remember is ai hamorim non piacciono i confetti [donkeys dont like candies] [ . . . ] My father in particular didnt allow us to speak dialects, especially here in Tunis where Sicilian dialects were really marked and people spoke Calabrese dialect, etc. Everyone spoke his own very marked dialect and my dad absolutely wanted

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Elia Finzi was the editor of Il Corriere di Tunisi, the only magazine on the entire continent of Africa written exclusively in Italian (Finzi was probably the most eminent figure in the old Livornese community and in the tradi-tional Italo-Tunisian community as a whole).9 His father, Giulio Finzi, who was affiliated with the Carboneria, founded the first typography business in Tunis (which is still in existence to this day) in 1829. For people like the Finzi family, speaking and teaching the Italian language held both ideolog-ical and political significance. The national language of the motherland was associated with the ideas of progress and civilization, whereas dialects and even Hebrew were considered signs of backwardness that represented the clumsy and shameful past, an era riddled with internal strife and saturated with superstition.

The bagto of Tunis: The last Traces

Nevertheless, in some situations Tuscan dialect was also an integral part of the language of the Grana (Lakhdar 2006, 381). Giacomo Nunez (GN), born in Tunis but currently living in Washington, D.C., is one of the few descen-dants of this ancient Sephardic group who retains as part of his linguistic memory Jewish-Italian expressions and terms from the vernacular variety Bagtto, which was widespread in Livorno until World War II. The following

che noi cadessimo in queste trappole, anche perch voleva assolutamente che, essendo noi profondamente agnostici, eh non voleva eh la regola che avevamo come mio padre mio nonno che avevano imposto in famiglia, se hai da fare con un un antisemita, un antiebreo diventi ebreo, un antimusulmano diventi musulmano, un anti-cristiano diventi cristiano, un antiateo diventi ateo, dunque dovevi sempre prendere la posizione di quello contro il quale si agiva.

to keep us from falling into these traps. Also because he absolutely wanted that, us being deeply agnostic, he didnt want, well the family rule imposed by my father and my grandfather was: If you are talking to an anti-Semite you must become a Jew; if you are talking to an anti-Islamic, you must become Muslim; if you are talking to an anti-Christian, you must become a Christian; if you are talking to an anti-atheist, you must become an atheist. Therefore you always had to take the position of those who were under attack.

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interview selections10 illustrate his Judeo-Italian repertoire, with many terms and expressions derived from the original Jewish dialect of Livorno.11

GN: [Bajo] si chiamava bagio, dunque il bagto la lingua che si parla a voce bassa [ . . . ] Noi parlavamo bagto, a casa. Tant vero, veda un po ehm mi ricordo trenta quaranta espres-sioni [ . . . ] Erano, non era una lingua veramente segreta, ma almeno era la lingua per ricon-oscersi: bisogna sapere a Tunisi se eravamo tunisini, francesi e quindi bastava dire: ma non fare lhafasciaio e immediata-mente si sapeva chi chi era fron di fronte [ . . . ] E poi anche una lingua di di piacere, la famiglia si era in famiglia [ . . . ]

GN: Nel nostro italiano erano inserite parole di bagto [ . . . ] rimasta, io io il mio italiano cambiato anche, la mia pronunzia da bambino cambiata, perch col tempo son ho studiato litaliano a scuola, quindi. Ho studiato sette anni litaliano a scuola. Questo son le parole che credo son pi son pi livornesi [ . . . ] Quando beevo quando facevo lo stupido mi chiamavan bbo o [ . . . ] non fare tante hanifut, non fare hafasciaio, senn ti mando una hizzata [ . . . ] non fare tante hacaranze! Stai tranquillo! Hola fre hola behor si frusta l hamor: quando la scuola comincia si frusta lasinello.

GN: We said bajo for baho, so Bagto is a language to be spoken softly [ . . . ] We spoke Bagto at home. In fact I still remember 3040 idiomatic expressions [ . . . ] It wasnt really a secret language, but a language we used to recognize each other: In Tunis we had to know if someone was Tunisian, French, etc., and therefore all you needed to say was: Dont be hafasciio and we knew immediately who the interlocutor was [ . . . ] And then it was also a language for pleasure, among the family. The language of living with the family [ . . . ]

GN: Words from Bagto were included in our Italian [ . . . ] It has remained, but over time my Italian and my childhood pronunciation have changed, because I studied Italian at school. I studied Italian at school for seven years. These are the main words from Livorno [ . . . ] When I acted silly, they called me bobo or [ . . . ] Dont flatter me so much, dont be pedantic or Ill tell you something unpleasant [ . . . ] dont stand on ceremony! Calm down! Hola fre hola behor si frusta l hamor: When the school starts, we whip the donkey.

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Poi ci sono ai hamorim non piacciono i confetti [ . . . ] E la l mangiare che andato a male [ . . . ] tutto inhighidito, tutto andato moscio [ . . . ] inhalamponito [ . . . ] che diventato piccino [ . . . ] poi c anche cazar ee donzellas [ . . . ] anche maritar donzellas con la zeta e laltro con la c [ . . . ]

GN: I Nunez erano i massari di Livorno [ . . . ] manzr vol diree figliastro insomma eem bastardo . . .

I: Figlio bastardo . . .GN: Ma da noi si, era utilizato per

dire a un ragazzo un birichino e per un adulto era utilizato per dire che sa fare, che sa sbrogliarsi [ . . . ]

GN: Hai paura: sei pahato. Un piccolo un piccola paura, mi viene la paharella eh eh! [ . . . ]

GN: Quelle come fare il nescio: far quello che non sa, ecco no sa. Fare finta di non sapere [ . . . ]

GN: Eh te sei picino ma non fare il chetanello [ . . . ]

GN: Ieri labbiamo mangiato il cuscus, fatto con salsa di pomodoro [ . . . ] la nostra specialit! Le roschette, dolci salate! [ . . . ] che son di Livorno. C c le scodelline [ . . . ] La prossima volta che viene le faccio il bollo [ . . . ] bacche rosse che si mangiano a kippr: giuleppe [ . . . ] basta far cos, guardi: le orecchi dAman basta far cos, e poi si fanno friggere.

And donkeys dont like candies [ . . . ] Referring to food gone bad [ . . . ] its very inhighidto! It means: Its very limp [ . . . ] Inhalamponto [ . . . ] It means: to become very small [ . . . ] There are casar donelas [ . . . ] and maritar donzelas with a z and the other with a [ . . . ]

GN: The Nunez were the Jewish community leaders of Livorno [ . . . ] Manzer means illegiti-mate child, a bastard . . .

I: Bastard child . . .GN: But we use it to refer to a

misbehaving boy or a smart, resourceful person [ . . . ]

GN: You are afraid, you are pahado. We use it for a mild fear: What a paharlla! [ . . . ]

GN: To do the nescio: act like you dont know anything about it [ . . . ]

GN: Youre a child, but dont be a baby! [ . . . ]

GN: Yesterday I ate cous cous, cooked with tomato sauce [ . . . ] Our specialty, the little donuts, sweet and salty! [ . . . ] They are from Livorno. There are the little bowls [ . . . ] Next time you come, Ill prepare cupcake for you [ . . . ] The red berries that we eat for Kippur: jujubes [ . . . ] Just do like this, look: Thats how you make Amans ears and then you have to fry them.

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The Nunez family, an ancient dynasty of Livornese Judeo-Iberian converted Christians, remained in Tunis for 150 years, until Tunisia gained independence in the 1950s. Following political and economic transforma-tions in North Africa after World War II, many Italian-Tunisian groups migrated to Europe, especially to France. Sometimes their destination was the United States, in particular New York City and Washington, D.C., as in the case of Nunezs family who moved to the United States after many years of living in Paris.

Giacomo Nunez is more than merely a member of this particular minority: He is an expert on this subject and author of two family biogra-phies (Nunez 2011, 2013). Some years ago he came back to Livorno on the occasion of his first book presentation, since it was published there. During the journey, he rediscovered the Bagtto heritage, which would become the subject of his second publication. The Judeo-Italian dialectal elements provided by Nunez constitute a tool of comparison for studying the language of Livorno Sephardim in Tunis. A statement from him will serve as an introduction to a complex scenario as yet unpacked: In Tunis, until World War II, the Jews from Livorno preserved not only Italian nationality, but also the Italian language, their everyday language (Nunez 2011, 108). This assertion is valid even for Tuscan dialects and Bagtto, to a certain degree and limited to the cases of some Italo-Tunisian Sephardic families.

The Sicilian-Tunisian Group and Their language: A Contribution by Fausto Giudice

In addition to the Grana, another historically relevant group among the Italian community in Tunis were the Sicilian-Tunisians. The example of Fausto Giudice (FG), a Sicilian born in Tunis, can be taken as representative. Some samples of the original dialect of this group surfaced during the interview:12

FG: Cio litaliano si parlava unicamente nella mia famiglia, famiglia siciliana [ . . . ]

FG: Quelli che non avevano fatto st studi parlavano il dialetto siculo arabo, no? Dunque io ho creduto fino allet di quindici anni che zbbola era una parola italiana. Che mi zia mi diceva:

FG: Italian was only spoken by my family, Sicilian family [ . . . ]

FG: Sicilian-Arabic was the dialect of those who lacked formal education, right? Until I was 15 years old I thought that zibbola was an Italian word, because my aunt used to say to me:

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After Italys unification, serious social and economic difficulties led many southern Italians to leave the country to find work. Coming mainly from Calabria, Sardinia, and Sicily, these poor and illiterate migrants swelled the ranks of the North African Italian community, which grew to 10,000 in 1860. By the end of the 1930s, there were almost 100,000 Italians there. In contrast to their earlier immigrant compatriots, the southern Italians who made up about 75 percent of this community at the beginning of the 1900s were a proletarian mass occupying the same socioeconomic positions as native Tunisians, with whom they created close relations of solidarity and sociality. The Sicilians among them, however, were mostly illiterate and did not know the national language because they left Italy at a time when compulsory public schooling lasted only two years. They thus

dai Faustino scendi la zbbola. La zbbola la pattumiera e larabo [zebla] e ehm i francesi hanno espulso quindici milioni di italiani nel dopoguerra [ . . . ]

FG: Dunque mio padre, uno dei suoi fratelli si son ritrovati espulsi e sono arrivati a Roma eeh loro due avevano studiato a scuola italiana, dunque sapevano litaliano nazionale ufficiale bene, no? Ma cera uno scherzo su sul siciliano di Tunisi che entrava da un tabaccaio per comprare i fiamiferi che diceva: attinni una butta de fiammiferi

FG: ma da quel che sappia, eh cio non ho mai visto trace di di di di scritti in siculo arabo. Ho scoperto negli Stati Uniti una rivista che si chiama Sicula, credo, che pubblica testi in siculo americano, no? Universitari o altro. Ma qui non non saprei.

Faustino, take out the zibbola! zibbola means garbage can, from the Arabic word zebla. The French expelled 15,000 Italians during the postwar period [ . . . ]

FG: My father and one of his brothers were expelled, and they took shelter in Rome. They studied in Rome, so they knew the real national official Italian language, right? There was a joke about Sicilian-Tunisian people: One of them steps into a tobacco shop to buy some matches and he asks, Attnni una butta di fiammiferi!

FG: As far as I know, Ive never seen any Sicilian-Arabic written documents here. But in the United States I discovered a magazine called Sicula, I think, that publishes texts in Sicilian-American dialect, right? Academic and non-academic. But Im not aware of anything similar here.

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spoke exclusively Sicilian dialects from their provinces of origin, particu-larly Trapani and Palermo.

The language of Tuniss Sicilians has undergone many changes compared to the language originally spoken by Sicilians at home. This confirms Marinette Pendolas hypothesis (2000a, 84) (repeated by Meriem zlitni [2006]) that le diffrents parlers locaux (de lEst et de lOust de lile) se seraient unifis pour donner naissance une varit dialectale commune ou koin (the different local dialects [from the east and the west of the island] merged to create a new variant or even a common dialectal koine [translation mine]) (zlitni 2006, 255). zlitni goes on to say that Tunisian was used to standardize the language of the Sicilian community: When two unique Sicilian terms indicated the same object, both were abandoned in favor of a single word from the Tunisian Arabic dialect (zlitni 2006, 355). The Sicilian-Tunisian mixed speech, therefore, is made up of code mixing among Sicilian, Italian, and Arabic dialects (as well as French).

The Italian-Tunisian Community through the Twentieth Century: lived experiences and historical and Demographic elements

After the occupation of Tunis in 1881, the country passed from Ottoman rule to French, and the two groups of Jews, the Italian and the native, supported the colonial government that was the first to grant full citizenship to Jews. In 1911 the Jewish community in Tunisia was estimated to number between 35,000 and 50,000 people. While the majority of the inhabitants of the Hara neighborhood remained in poverty, the old Italian bourgeoisie was joined by an emerging middle class that adopted a French style, as well as by an embryonic working class.

A descendant of this middle-class group, Adolfo Disegni (AD), is currently one of the oldest Livorno Sephardic Jews who still resides in Tunis. This interview extract offers multiple starting points for thinking about the political-cultural dynamics as well as the sociolinguistic traits I have described.13

AD: Io sono nato in gennaio milenovecentoventisei. A Tunisi, la quarta generazione [ . . . ] Il bisnonno si chiamava Lieto Disegni, il mio nonno Adolfo Disegni, mio padre Giorgio Disegni [ . . . ]

AD: I was born in January 1926 in Tunis. Im from the fourth generation of my family in the city [ . . . ] Lieto Disegni was my great-grandfather, Adolfo Disegni was my grandfather, and Giorgio Disegni was my father [ . . . ]

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I: E litaliano? Lha imparato a scuola?

AD: Lho imparato a scuola, poi in famiglia, lho imparato in famiglia [ . . . ]

AD: A casa di mio padre parlavamo francese, ma da mio nonno, quando eravamo in famiglia parlavamo soltanto in italiano [ . . . ] miei cugini hanno fatto gli studi a la allasilo italiano poi alla scuola italiana, invece io lho fatto alla scuola francese perch la mia madre era francese [ . . . ]

AD: I livornesi per la patria avevano una grande . . .

I: Senso di appartenenza?AD S. A lepoca mia famiglia era

anche fascista! [ . . . ] quando stata la guerra [ . . . ] il governo italiano [ . . . ] ha fatto le le leggi antiebraiche, in quel momento eeh c stata una rottura [ . . . ]

AD: Qui in Tunisia avevamo, come avevamo eeh de degli amici o delle dei clienti arabomusul-mani con loro parlavamo un po ooh larabo per farci capire ee con quelli chee parlavano francese [ . . . ] [protetorat] francese qua dunque bisognava parlare il francese [ . . . ] talvolta in una frase eeh parole italiane mescolate con le paro parole arabe o pa parole tunisine o le parole eeh francesi ma non mi ricordo propio dun, che ci sia stato un una lingua speciale, una un dialetto speciale [ . . . ]

I: And Italian? Did you learn it at school?

AD: I learned it at school, then at home, I learned with my family [ . . . ]

AD: At my fathers house we spoke French, but at my grandfathers when we were with family we spoke only Italian [ . . . ] My cousins attended the Italian kindergarten and the Italian school, while I went to the French school instead because my mother was French [ . . . ]

AD: People from Livorno for their homeland they had a strong . . .

I: Sense of belonging? AD: Yes. At that time my family

was even fascist! [ . . . ] They only changed their minds when the Italian government issued the racial laws against the Jews during the war [ . . . ]

AD: Here in Tunisia we had Arabic Muslim friends and clients with whom we spoke a bit of Arabic so we could understand one another. This was a French protectorate, so we had to speak French [ . . . ] Sometimes we mixed Italian, Arabic, Tunisian, and French words in a single sentence, but I really dont remember us having a special language or dialect [ . . . ]

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In 1941, the Italian Jews of Tunisia numbered slightly more than 3,000, almost all of whom lived in the capital city. They were employed in commerce, navigation, and as independent professionals, and many sent their children to study in Italy. A large number had fought in World War I, and some even enrolled in the National Fascist Party in an effort to reaffirm their Italianness, as Adolfo Disegni mentioned. However, sincere patriots saw the racial laws as an unthinkable betrayal. Tunis was one of the most active centers of anti-Fascism outside of Italy and was home to a large group of Communist Jews from Livorno who supported the struggle against Fascism, including Maurizio Valenzi, who became a senator (19531968) and later the mayor of Naples (19751983).

The Fascist regime, though officially anti-Semitic, for reasons of conve-nience implemented a policy of light protection regarding Italian Jews in Tunisia. Paradoxically, the situation worsened after the capitulation of the German-Italian front, when many Jews, who were citizens of a country that was still an enemy of France, were constrained to do forced labor and were even interned.

In 1944, this difficult situation effectively resulted in the dissolution of the Portuguese Jewish community. Within a few years, the number of remaining Italians was drastically reduced also, primarily by a rise in French naturalization. By the time Tunisia gained national indepen-dence in 1956, there were 66,500 Italians living in the country, although subsequently a major exodus to France and Italy occurred, due mostly to increased measures against foreign workers and the nationalization of agricultural land. By 1962, the community had been halved.

It is perhaps no surprise that the director of the La Fayette Synagogue, a Twansa, stated that, in his opinion, there are no more Grana living in Tunis today:14

AD: Chi aveva aa attorno gli amici ciciliani o altri ogni tanto buttavano una paroletta in siciliana ma no, non propio nel nella nel nel parlare, propio una de la una conversazione in famiglia o o tra amici.

AD: The people whose friends included some Sicilians, sometimes they tried to say a few words in the Sicilian dialect. This never happened during public conversations, though, only among relatives or friends.

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According to data from 2004, about 3,000 Italians currently live in Tunisia, 900 of whom live in the historical Jewish district. During the postwar period of migration, most Sicilian-Tunisians chose to move to France because of its greater employment opportunities; also their knowledge of Arabic and French put them in a privileged position to direct Algerian laborers. As a result, even the dialect of mixed Sicilian-Tunisian suddenly stopped evolving: Pendola considers it at this point a language of memory (Pendola 2000b, 16). In this regard, Lakhdar affirms: Le ultime testimonianze di questa variet mista cos complessa [ . . . ] soprav-vivono ancora nella parlata degli anziani (soprattutto in quelli residenti in Francia). Un lavoro di rilevazione e dinventario simpone urgentemente per questa parlata condannata a scomparire (The last evidence of this very complex mixed variety [ . . . ] still survives in the speech of the elderly people [especially those residing in France]. A program of survey and inventory becomes urgently necessary for this speech that is doomed to disappear [translation mine]) (Lakhdar 2006, 380).

However, spoken Italian is not associated just with minorities of Italian origins. Schools, newspapers, and associations founded and directed by Jewish Italians have had a great influence in Tunis. An example of this can be observed in notes from a conversation with this middle-aged Tunisian Arabic Jew from La Fayette. He reveals some partial skills in Italian, gained during his childhood in school, probably in the 1950s:15

SF: Le juifs italiens cst pas.I: Des juifs italiens dorigine italienne

que? SF: Dorigine italienne oui, les

livournais . . .I: Les Grana, les livournes . . .SF: Oui, je les ai pas connus . . .I: Ah!SF: a fait longtemps qui qui setait

en Tunisie a fait longtemps, mais dans ce moment il ny a plus personne. Il y plus personne en ce moment.

SF: There arent Italian Jews.I: Do you know any Jews of Italian

origins? SF: The Jews of Italian origin, the

Livornese, yes . . . I: The Grana, Jews from Livorno . . .SF: Yes, but Ive never met

them.I: Ah!SF: They lived in Tunisia for

a long time, but nobody lives here now, there are none of them now.

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Temporary Conclusions

By way of conclusion, I would like to break down the complicated linguistic repertoire of the traditional Italian community in Tunisia as follows: It consisted of two principal groups, the descendants of Italian Sephardic Jews, Grana, hailing mainly from Livorno, and the descendants of southern Italian migrant laborers, mainly from Sicily, known as Sicilian-Tunisians. The Sicilian-Tunisians speak (with varying levels of skill) French, Tunisian Arabic, Italian, and the Sicilian-Tunisian dialect formed out of their own original dialects combined with other Sicilian dialects and Tunisian Arabic.

The Grana group speaks standard Italian (with a perceptible French accent) and standard French. The majority of them show some skills in Arabic and Tunisian dialects and, in rare cases, some lexical remnants of a Judeo-Italian vernacular from Livorno. This is particularly significant because the examined sources never mention Bagtto or Judeo-Italian as a linguistic variety of the repertoire of Italian-Tunisian from Livorno.16 It is linguistic fieldwork that has thus far made it possible to record original oral data that testify to the trajectory of this particular Judaic Italo-Romance dialect.

This collection of life stories comes directly from the last living witnesses of this peculiar linguistic circumstance and exceeds the bound-aries of linguistics. Without filter or mediation, this firsthand evidence expresses the will to preserve and continue the historical and cultural memory of this ancient cross-cultural Italian community.

Glossary of Giacomo Nunezs Interview

During the interview Giacomo Nunez used twenty-four Judeo-Italian words and expressions, which are listed in the Glossary at the end of this article.17 A comparison of lexical sources shows that thirteen of them have been

T1: Io non sono, sono tunisino. Ehm non sono livornese. [Donc] non so [quelle reinsegnments] posso darti [ . . . ]

T1: Ahh . . .I: Ma come ha eeh . . .T1: Imparato? A a scuola . . .I: A scuola? Litaliano?T1: Ji . . .

T1: Im Tunisian, Im not Livornese, so I dont know if I can be of any use to you [ . . . ]

T1: Ahh . . .I: How do you . . .T1: Learn it? At school.I: Did you learn Italian at school? T1: Yes.

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found exclusively in the Judeo-Livornese dialect and two in Judeo-Tuscan dialects only. Nine of them originate in Iberian etymology, consistent with the principal distinctive of the lexicon of the Judeo-Italian dialect featured in Livorno (Franceschini 2008, 198). All the definitions in the Glossary express the meaning personally given by Nunez. In respect to common meanings in Judeo-Livornese speech, Nunezs dialectal lexicon underwent significa-tive semantic alterations in at least three cases, following dynamics already observed in some varieties of Judeo-Italian (Aprile 2012, 7480). The first instance is the word h. acarnza: According to Nunez it means ceremony, warm welcome, in the sense of showing delight and pleasure at the arrival of someone. However, according to other documentary sources, in Judeo-Livornese and Judeo-Florentine speech the same lexeme means strong friendship, intimacy or clique, clan. In the Judeo-Venetian dialect hacarnsa means exclusive clique, or putting on airs or getting haughty, while in the Judeo-Roman dialect fare chakkeranza means to bond, become acquainted (Aprile 2012, 209). Comparing the semantic evolution of this term with other Judeo-Livornese attestations, Nunez seems to keep in mind an acceptation that expresses a greater semantic movement from abstract to concrete (Aprile 2012, 77), and a strong intention (Aprile 2012, 7879) with respect to the original meaning.

The second case is inhighidto: According to Nunez this word expresses the condition of a person or a thing having become flabby, limp, or shriveled. The etymology of this term is uncertain, although many scholars propose the Spanish hgado (liver) (Aprile 2012, 26). Nunez supplies an unusual form composed by the Italian prefix in and the Italian suffix -ito applied to this supposed Iberian basis. The Judeo-Livornese sources report only the first-conjugation verb higadeare with the meaning of to bore; the adjective hgedo, hghedo, or chghedo (boring, annoying, fussy person); and the abstract noun hghedanza (excessive meticulousness) (Aprile 2012, 203). If the proposed etymology is correct, all these Bagtto meanings are evidently metaphorical, referring to psycho-somatic disorders caused by bilious secretions of a person who overthinks and ponders too much, according to the model of Spanish locutions such as echar los higados (to urge somebody nervously with fussiness). However, Nunez seems to get close to the etymological meaning with a semantic extension based on the material attributes of the liver as physical object and biological organ. Nevertheless, we cannot exclude the possibility of an error due to lack of familiarity with the spoken language, which may have led to a mistaken memory that was influenced by the model of other Judeo-Italian terms, such as the Judeo-Roman ntisito (shriveled and stiff food; numb person).

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We find a similar case in the last term: inhalamponto. Again, the etymology is controversial: The Spanish hampon (braggart) seems logical for semantic and phonetic reasons, but we cannot exclude the Hebrew halam (dream), from which comes the Ferrara Judeo-Italian expression che halom! (what a stupid! what a senile!). According to Nunez, this adjective has two different meanings: a person who becomes stupid or something that becomes little. In Judeo-Tuscan and Judeo-Roman speech this term means boaster (Aprile 2012, 211), with no semantic sliding of the etymological meaning. If the Iberian etymology is correct, Nunezs first acceptation reflects a clear semantic sliding and widening (Aprile 2012, 76, 70, 80), because in the common sense every boaster is considered stupid. The second acceptation, become little, could be explained with an antiph-rasis: If a boaster is notoriously a person who tries to make himself greater with respect to reality, the Judeo-Livornese speakers of Tunis could be over-turning this sense because of negative judgment about this behavior.18 19

Glossary

bAGTo (nms): 1. quietly spoken language, 2. Livornese Jewish language, Sp. hablando bajito (to speak quietly).

bbo (nms): stupid, Sp. bobo (stupid).

bllo (nms): typical Jewish cake of Livorno, Jud. Sp. bollo (cupcake).

CASR DoNSlAS (prnfs): charitable institute for orphans and unmarried girls of Jewish community of Livorno, Jud. Port. and Jud. Sp. Hebr de casar orfas e donzelas (association for the settlement of orphans and unmarried girls).

CATANllo (nms): kid, Hebr. qatan (little).

CuSCuSS (nms): typical Livornese Jewish cous cous, Ar. Tun. cuscuss (cous cous).

GIulPPe (nms): Kippurs red berries, It. giulebbe (aromatic sweet syrup).

hACARNzA (nfs): ceremony, warm welcome, Hebr. hakkara (knowledge) or Sp. Jcara (high-spirited band of friends playing music and singing by night).

hAFASCIIo (nms): presumptious, pedantic person, Hebr. hfas (investigator) and It. cafaggiaio (meddler).

hANIFT (nfpl): flattery, pandering, Med. Hebr. h. anefut (flattery, hypocrisy).

hIzzTA (nfs): unpleasant thing to say, uncertain, perhaps Jud. Ven. harizada (uncertain meaning).

hlA behR SI FRuSTA l hAmR (idiom): when the school starts, we whip the donkey, Hebr. kol habeh. or (every firstborn), It. si frusta il (we whip the) and Hebr. h. amor (donkey).

INhAlAmPoNTo (adjms): 1. become stupid, 2. become little, uncertain, perhaps Sp. harampon, hampon (braggart).

INhIGhIDTo (adjms): become flabby, limp, shriveled (person or thing), uncertain, perhaps Sp. hgado (liver).

mANzR (adjinv): 1. mischievious, 2. smart and resourceful person, Hebr. mamzer (bastard son).

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mARITR DoNSlAS (prnfs): charitable institute for orphans and unmarried girls of Jewish community of Livorno, It. maritare (give in marriage), Jud. Port. donzelas (unmarried girls).

mASSRo (nms): leader of the Jewish Community of Livorno, It. massaio (estate manager).

NSCIo (nms): ignorant, unwise, It. nscio (ignorant), Sp. necio (ignorant, imprudent, stubborn), Port. nscio (ignoramus, stupid).

oRCChIe DAmN (idiom, fpl): typical Jewish cake of Livorno, It. orecchie (ears) and Hebr. Amn (Haman, biblical character).

PAhARllA (nfs): mild fear, Hebr. pahad (fear).

PAhTo (adjms): fearful, Hebr. pahad (fear).

RoSChTTA (nfs): typical little donut of Livorno, sweet or salty, Sp. rosquete (big donut) and Port. rosquilla (spiral-shaped sweet dough).

SCoDellNA (nfs): typical Jewish cake of Livorno, It. scodellina (little bowl).

Notes

1. Issued in 1591 and 1593, the Medici Lettere Patenti (commonly known as Costituzioni Livornine or Leggi Livornine) included incentives encouraging the settlement of Spanish-Portuguese Jews expelled from the Iberian Peninsula from 1492 onward by edict of the Catholic monarchs. These rules were enacted in the belief that the activi-ties of Jewish merchants and practitioners would be useful for the development of the city, and indeed they fully succeeded in their goal, as Livorno quickly became one of the main ports in the Mediterranean. The Grand Ducal government had granted the Livorno community the privileged status of free port in order to promote trading activi-ties among the ports of the Levant, the city squares of Italy, and northern Europe. The Jews of Livorno played a fundamental role in this system, and their community, called the Nazione Ebrea, came to represent about 10 percent of the total population.

2. This word originates from Qurna, the Arabic name for Livorno (with the separation of the first syllable, assimilated to the Arabic article: Livorno = Al-Qurna). The Jews of Livorno in Tunis were therefore called Qurni or Gorni in the singular and Qrana or Grana in the plural (Franceschini, 2013, 194).

3. The original video interview is available at: http://videobam.com/LSYot.4. The transcription of interview extracts is speech appropriated by adopting the modern

Italian alphabet complemented with some markers to indicate relevant phonetic or lexical features. For the consonants, the occurrences of the aphonic velar fricative depend on the sounds of the Hebrew language heyt, he, or kap (possibly aspirated in the Judeo-Italian variety of Livorno); in all cases, this sound is always made with h, regardless of the degree of spirantization. The frequent halving of double consonants on Italian words due to the influence of French pronunciation has not been indicated graph-ically. Tonic vowels are graphically accented in all the Judeo-Italian or Sicilian-Tunisian words. Foreign words from French, Arabic, or Hebrew are indicated by Roman font and transcribed according to contemporary writing conventions of the foreign language. I have also used a comma to indicate all short breaks in enunciation, thus extending the meaning of this punctuation beyond its common use in written Italian. In all other cases the standard conventions of written Italian have been used. The sign [ . . . ] indicates sections removed from the full original interview. All interview translations are mine.

5. To better specify the meaning of the sentence, the English translation sometimes departs from a literal rendering.

6. The original video interview is available at: http://videobam.com/Ejple.

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7. Bagtto (or bagto, the form nearer to the Spanish) is the original Judeo-Italian dialect of Livorno, which was widespread between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and spoken in Tunis as well. This dialect was characterized by a varied lexical repertoire, derived especially from Hebrew and the Iberic languages but also composed of loan words from French, Greek, Turkish, Arabic, and other languages of the Mediterranean area, including jargons.

8. The original video interview is available at: http://videobam.com/VOHoh.9. The publication is presently directed by his daughter Prof. Silvia Finzi.

10. The original video interview is available at: http://videobam.com/jmXbK.11. Etymology and semantics of singular words are illustrated in the Glossary. 12. The original video interview is available at: http://videobam.com/OcdDW.13. The original video interview is available at: http://videobam.com/TXVyS.14. The original video interview is available at: http://videobam.com/ixSbp. I was unable

to obtain this persons name.15. The original video interview is available at: http://videobam.com/FemlX. I met this

person casually and did not record his name.16. Amira Lakadhar is the only one who makes a passing reference to this aspect:

Anche litaliano era presente principalmente nella variet dei dialetti siciliani, ma anche nella variet toscana degli Ebrei livornesi, i cosiddetti Grana (Italian, too, was present principally in the variety of Sicilian dialects, but also in the Tuscan variety of the Livornese Jews, the so-called Grana [editors translation]) (Lakhdar 2006, 381).

17. Abbreviations key: n = nounprn = proper nounadj = adjectiveidiom = idiomatic expressionm = masculinef = feminines = singularpl = pluralinv = invariableHebr = HebrewMed. Hebr. = Medieval HebrewSp. = SpanishJud. Sp. = Judeo-SpanishPort. = PortugueseJud. Port. = Judeo-PortugueseIt. = ItalianAr. Tun. = Arabic Tunisian dialect

18. This unprecedented meaning is explained by Nunez with a wrong etymological root in the Italian word lampone (raspberry), that is to say little as a raspberry.

19. The examined lexicographic sources are Bedarida (1956), Fortis (2006), Del Monte (2007), Orfano (2010), Aprile (2012), and Franceschini (2013).

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