Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic

September 4, 2005

Dear Mr. Casselman:

I received as a gift a few years ago your book of collected Canadian Sayings. Anyone who knows me well can confirm wholeheartedly that I am Canadian through and through—I don't just bleed red, but red and white. Needless to say, your book has been a great source of humour to me in the years I've owned it.

However, Canadian Sayings has also been a cure for any homesickness I may feel creep up on me lately. You see, I'm living in the Czech Republic this year as an ESL teacher at a private school, and whenever I miss home, I can just read some of the sayings in your book and smile. I do love it where I am here in the Czech Republic, but, as you probably already know, Canada is an easy place for which one can feel homesick.

Jeff Gulley

Jeff -

Thanks so much for that note and the sayings you included. I would only add that you might try some of the simpler sayings as part of your ESL classes. Some of the humour will not translate well; but some of it will. I'd like to know what happens when you try.

September 30, 2005

Mr. Casselman,

Forgive me if I come late to this etymological dispute, but I was doing a search for Neapolitan etymology and came across your site today. As an amateur linguist (and a Neapolitan), I must point out to you, that to assert that Neapolitan (as well as Southern Italy dialects) do not pronounce the word guappo as wappuh (to use non-scientific transliteration) is absurd.

Neapolitan, like French and English is written to reflect etymology not necessarily pronunciation. We pronounce guarda' as warda' (accent on last syllable). The gua- comes typically from words of Arabic as well as Frankish/Gallic origin (like guallara from Arabic wadara) and transliterates the wa- / va- sound. Some Southern dialects inland from Naples pronounce the word vapp' and vuarda'.

The final -o in many words is either dropped, or pronounced as a final French e. I applaud your efforts to dispel ignorance and racist attitudes, but scholars outside Italy should be aware of the last three centuries of linguistics and etymological work done by Italians, in Italy.

Unfortunately, as you yourself point out, much of this material is still only available in Italian. I welcome any comments or response you may wish to make. And thank you again for your very insightful piece which was very much needed.

You are welcome to incorporate any or all of the information into your pages. I am a lawyer and play with words all day, so you can understand my fascination with meaning and derivation. Keep up the interesting work and dialogue. You are right about misleading ignorant folk etymology. This problem occurs in France and Italy as well. There are debates about Spanishisms and Gallicisms and whether their ancient Arabic roots came directly to Southern Italy or via the Spaniards and French in the 1500 to 1700's.

Dating the entrance of Greek words into Italian is also subject to populist folk etymologists who have argued over the last one hundred and fifty years that such words come directly from ancient times and are somehow more noble and authentic. They sometimes speculate about ancient customs and beliefs to create origins. But modern scholarship has shown that many Greek words came to Italy as late as the 1200 and 1300's with waves of Greeks fleeing the Turkish and Arab expansion. Sometimes words from Germanic languages are misattributed to ancient Latin words which are similar only in so far as they are both from the Indo-European family, again in efforts to explain and offer ancient authenticity.

Distinti saluti & Regards,

Carlo Sant'Elia

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