Italian in English

It's only been a few days here and already I have so many pictures and things to talk about.  But keep in mind that I'll be here for almost 60 days and don't want to exhaust all of the best things right off the bat.  Plus, I'd like to add a little bit of variety to this blog.

Some of you may know that I'm quite interested in language - both learning foreign languages as well as learning the science behind language.  While I have some experience with linguistics, my knowledge of etymology is limited.  Etymology, of course, is the study of word origins.

Now many of you know, especially if you studied hard for the SATs, that many words in English have roots that come from Latin or Greek.  That is why you'll find some words easy to understand when learning Latin or a Romance language such as Spanish, French, and of course, Italian.  Naturally, many Italian words originate from Latin, but I was curious about what English words have Italian origins but are not originally from Latin (or vulgar Latin), and these are not limited to words related to music and Italian food.  Some of these words come from a time after the Latin language went out of style, while others originate from local Italian dialects.  Let's take a look.

• Arsenal comes most directly from the Italian arzenale, which derives from the Arabic dar as-sina'ah, meaning "workshop."  The meaning of the word as it is used in English originates in Venice, where the Italian word was used to name a large wharf in the city, perhaps for the purpose of storing weapons.
• Artichoke derives from the Northern Italian articiocco, which comes from the Italian arcicioffo, which comes from the Old Spanish alcarchofa, which comes from the Arabic al-kharshof.  Whew!  The Northern Italian version supposedly stuck over the other forms because the ending sounded like "choke," which people must have found catchy.
• Assassin comes from the Italian assassino and the French assassin, which in turn come from the Arabic hashishiyyin, meaning "hashish users."  The meaning of the word originates from a fanatical Muslim sect who had a reputation for murdering opposing leaders after getting high on hashish.
• Balcony comes from the Italian balcone, and for a long time was accented on the second syllable instead of the first, just as it is in Italian.  The Italian word comes from the Langobardic (a language that was spoken in the Lombardy region of Italy) balko, meaning "beam," plus the Italian suffix -one.
• The word balloon has quite a long history.  The word was invented in 1579 as a game played with a large inflated ball.  It derives from the Italian pallone, meaning "large ball," while the Italian palla, meaning "ball," comes from the Langobardic palla and most originally from the Proto-Indo-European bhel, meaning "to blow or swell."  In 1783, the word gained a new meaning after some flights on inflatable vessels.  It then acquired the additional meaning of the common child's toy in 1848.
• Buffoon comes from the Italian buffone, meaning "jester," which was created from the Italian verb buffare, meaning "to puff out the cheeks," which was a comic gesture of the time.
• Ghetto is a word that was invented in Italy and was used to describe parts of cities where Jews were restricted.  The original source of the word is unknown, but it is definitely not from Latin.  It may be from Yiddish, Venetian, or even the Italian word borghetto, which means "a small section of a town."
• Giraffe comes from the Italian giraffa, and in turn from the Arabic zarafa.  The origin of the Arabic word is unknown, though it is probably from an African language, since after all, that is where one finds giraffes.
• Graffiti seems to have originated from Italian, where it means "scribblings" or "scratchings."   In Italian, the verb graffiare means "to scribble" or "to scratch" and I find no indications from my searches that this word derives from Latin, where different, unrelated words are used to say "to scribble" and "to scratch."
• The word group was originally used to describe "a mass of objects in a painting" and came from the French groupe, which came from the Italian gruppo, meaning "group" or "knot."  The Italian word probably comes from the Proto-Germanic kruppaz, meaning "round mass" or "lump."  The word meaning in English was later extended to describe any mass of objects.
• The origin of the word jeans actually comes from France, but it is named after an Italian city!  The French term bleu de Gênes, which means "blue from Genoa" describes the color.  (Additionally, the fabric called denim originates from de Nîmes, which is French for "from Nîmes (a French city)."
• Lottery comes from the Italian lotteria, which basically has the same meaning as it does in English.  It seems that the word was invented in Italian.
• Magazine comes from the Italian maggazzino, and originally from the Arabic makhazin, meaning "storehouses."  The word was originally used to mean "storehouse," but its current meaning came into use when publications started terming themselves magazines - figuratively, storehouses of information.
• The word magenta has an interesting story.  The word was coined in 1860, a year after the Battle of Magenta in Magenta, Italy - a battle important in the fight for Italian independence.  A dye was found after the battle, and its color was named after the town.
• Malaria is a word that does ultimately have its roots in Latin, but the word actually originated in modern Italy, where the disease, which is carried by mosquitoes, was instead believed to be caused by bad air ("mala aria").
• One of my favorite word origins is that of the term paparazzi.  The word originates from the Italian movie La Dolce Vita, where a character named Paparazzo is a freelance photographer who tags along with the lead man of the movie, who plays a journalist, to follow the lead woman of the movie, who plays a movie star.  In Italian, you generally make a noun ending in -o plural by changing the ending to -i, hence, paparazzi.
• Some believe that the word pistol comes from the Italian town of Pistoia, which is famous for its gunsmithing.
• The ultimate origin is the word risk is unknown, but the farthest it has been traced back is to the Italian riscare, meaning "to run into danger."  The equivalent forms in other languages such as French, Spanish, and German are derived from the Italian form.
• Rocket comes from the Italian rocchetto, which means "bobbin (little spindle)," which is a diminutive form of rocco, which means "distaff (large spindle)."  This origin seems unrelated to rockets other than their cylindrical shape.  The Italian rocco has Germanic roots, not Latin ones, and ultimately comes from the Proto-Indo-European rug, which means "to spin."  Weird, right?
• Sequins were gold coins formerly used in Italy and Turkey.  The English meaning comes from their resemblance to the coins and comes from the French sequin, then from the Italian zecchino, which comes from the Italian zecca, meaning "mint (where money is made, not the herb)", and ultimately from the Arabic sikkah, meaning "minting die."
• The words skirmish and scrimmage come from the Italian scaramuccia, meaning the same thing.  The origin of the Italian word is probably Germanic.
• Tarot is a French word, but comes from the Old Italian tarocchi, after which the origin is unknown.

Well, I thought this was going to be a short post, but it turned out much, much longer than expected.  Oh well... there are just so many interesting things to learn about in language and etymology!  If you're curious about the origins of some words, look it up on the Online Etymology Dictionary, which seems to have a rather comprehensive database.  Of course, Wikipedia was helpful in finding a large list of words of Italian origin (though many parts of the list are a little dubious - after all, it's Wikipedia!).

I promise the next post will have pictures!  I think I will write about lunch.  Also, I got to walk a little through the downtown area and got some more nice photos there.  Stop by again tomorrow!