Overview

""In 2000, two linguistic endangerment experts, Nettle and Romaine, estimated that among the world's 6000 languages, only about 600 could be considered safe today. Arbëresh, the language that Barbara Renzi and Elsa Musacchio present to the readers in this volume, is one of those languages in danger of dying, recognized as such in UNESCO's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger (2010). The great value of this volume is not limited to the preservation and analysis of cultural heritage through the tales, stories and songs included in it, but also in recording the authentic sound of the Arbëresh language that comes to life in Elsa's voice as she reads the collected material on a special CD. The availability of this authentic voice to future generations of younger speakers of Arbëresh makes the volume a practical linguistic and cultural tool. And the best service we can pay to courageous works like this is to bring them to young speakers in their schools, without which Arbëresh and other endangered languages have a very small chance of survival.""– Eda Derhemi (PhD), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Full Product Details

9781443841351

Table of Contents

Reviews

This is a precious volume of Albanian folklore and language from the local variety spoken in Portocannone, Italy. The volume is a collection of distinct genres, from soothing lullabies to playful rhymes and somber rituals. The book comes with recordings that bring the language alive, and allow one to hear the extent to which more than 500 years of contact with Italian has shaped this unique Albanian dialect. - Professor Juliette Blevins, Director, Endangered Language Initiative Linguistics Program

""This is a precious volume of Albanian folklore and language from the local variety spoken in Portocannone, Italy. The volume is a collection of distinct genres, from soothing lullabies to playful rhymes and somber rituals. The book comes with recordings that bring the language alive, and allow one to hear the extent to which more than 500 years of contact with Italian has shaped this unique Albanian dialect.""– Professor Juliette Blevins, Director, Endangered Language Initiative Linguistics Program

This is a precious volume of Albanian folklore and language from the local variety spoken in Portocannone, Italy. The volume is a collection of distinct genres, from soothing lullabies to playful rhymes and somber rituals. The book comes with recordings that bring the language alive, and allow one to hear the extent to which more than 500 years of contact with Italian has shaped this unique Albanian dialect. - Professor Juliette Blevins, Director, Endangered Language Initiative Linguistics Program

Author Information

Elsa Musacchio holds a BA and an MA in Foreign Languages from Università Orientale di Napoli. Her work focuses in particular on Balkan languages. She speaks several modern and ancient languages. She has worked as a translator and interpreter and taught foreign languages in Italian and English schools for many years. She has published articles in Albanian peer-reviewed journals on the language spoken in Portocannone.Barbara Gabriella Renzi holds a PhD from Queen's University Belfast. Her research is at the crossroad between philosophy and linguistics with a particular emphasis on metaphors. She has published in high quality peer-reviewed journals. She has co-authored, with Giulio Napolitano, the volume Evolutionary Analogies: Is the Process of Scientific Change Analogous to the Organic Change? published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Tab Content 6

Countries Available