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Giuseppe Brincat, Elena D’Avenia, L’Inchiesta marinara a Malta. Centro di studi filologici e linguistici siciliani, Palermo, 2014, 126pp + 50 plates.
Every so often we read of Sicilian fishermen who are handed down crippling fines for plying their trade in Maltese territorial waters. No matter how fluid and far-removed from the usual and more tangible checkpoints, national borders will take their toll. Language, thankfully, blows a raspberry to the lot.
This book was born out of a collaboration between three people. Two of them, Giuseppe (Joseph M.) Brincat and Elena D’Avenia, are linguists who specialise in the geography of the Italian language. Brincat has also contributed immensely to our knowledge of Maltese and its historical contexts.
The third is Nazzarenu Cuschieri, a septuagenarian who has spent his life fishing the waters of the central Mediterranean. Brincat and D’Avenia owe much to a chance meeting with Cuschieri at a St Julian’s fishmonger’s in 2012.
He turned out to be an affable and forthcoming respondent with the time and patience to answer their 582 questions.
The questionnaire itself was a standardised instrument applied in a number of fishing ports around Sicily as part of the research for the maritime component of the Atlante Linguistico della Sicilia. Never mind that Malta is not Sicily.
The authors assure us that it makes sense to think of the region as one of intense inter-action and cross-cutting routes. Nazzarenu’s experience is not that of an islander looping around in territorial waters.
On the contrary, it is one of constant exchange between the many islands that punctuate this part of the Mediterranean.
Which means that Nazzarenu’s limited formal schooling did little to limit his proficiency in Sicilian. When D’Avenia asked him, in Italian, if fish stocks had declined, he replied that in his younger days the sea was infestatu di pisci (teeming with fish).
All types counted, it is clear that Italian (Sicilian) is the biggest contributor to the language of Maltese fishermen
Apart from the Homeric overtones, his use of dialect took her back to her fieldwork in her native Sicily.
It turns out that there are many facets to this linguistic porosity. Part of it is due to a kind of brotherhood of the sea which effectively means that out there, ‘Maltese’ and ‘Sicilian’ are not necessarily useful qualifiers.
To many Maltese fishermen, the fishing ports of Sicily are like second homes. Nazzarenu has friends in Lampedusa, Porto Palo, and Siracusa, among other places.
The fact that Maltese fishermen often buy used boats from Sicily explains the ubiquitous Italian names (the photographs in the book include ‘Carmelo Padre’, ‘Saveria Madre’ and ‘Leonardo da Vinci’) in Maltese harbours. To re-christen a boat is considered bad luck, apparently.
In a fascinating section, Brincat and D’Avenia list the things that have changed in the course of the channel crossing. First, a number of words have dropped some or other vowel or replaced a consonant – these include sargu (from sarago), skorfna (from scorfano), fanfru (from fanfaro), and kulpara (from polpara).
Secondly, some words seem to have been corrupted by changes to the first syllable – thus pastardella (from kostardella) and artikla (from firdícula).
A third category includes those words which have undergone more major changes, usually due to a liberal interpretation; these include parelli (from remi a pariglia) and pixxi petrica (from rana pescatrice).
Finally, many fish seem to have changed their gender from masculine to feminine. Tordo became tirda, mazzolu became mazzola and so on. The authors suggest that the reason may be that ‘fish’ is masculine in Italian (il pesce) but feminine in Maltese (il-ħuta). That said, many fish species have feminine names in Italian.
A good number of words to do with fishing and fish have crossed the channel unchanged. Vopa, sardina, tramuntana, and lanterna are in this category. All types counted, it is clear that Italian (Sicilian) is the biggest contributor to the language of Maltese fishermen.
A good chunk of the questionnaire had to do with the Maltese names for fish and other marine animals. I would have preferred the authors to use more up-to-date scientific (binomial) nomenclature, but this must be a quibble given that this is not a technical book on fish. In any case Nazzarenu’s verna-cular systems of classification are fascinating.
While he can be very precise and discriminating, especially with species of commercial importance, he also groups entire families of fishes under generic names. For example, the various species of blennies and wrasses are all budakkri and tird respectively; small pelagic fishes are laċċi, irrespective of variety.
The questionnaire was not without its fun. There is a hilarious moment when the gentleman in Nazzarenu tries to avoid giving D’Avenia the cheeky Maltese name for the intriguingly-shaped sea cucumber.
He finally gives in to dotting the ‘z’. It seems the Maltese like their cucumbers locally-sourced, or perhaps vegetables generally are strongly territorial.