Friday, March 29

Tag: heritage

Living Remnants: Arpitan in Southern Italy
Stracciatella: A Sprinkling of This & That

Living Remnants: Arpitan in Southern Italy

A view of Faeto's center (Photo: Stephen J. Cerulli) by Stephen J. Cerulli August 1, 2020 (This is a modified and updated version on an article first published in: 1 University Place: Volume 1 / Issue 2 / Spring 2015) Nestled in the rolling hills of the Daunian Mountains, in northern Apulia, lies the village of Faeto. The Faítare, the village’s residents, affectionately call it “Faít”. Though this may seem like a cute moniker, or a southern Italian dialect place-name, neither is the case. In fact, the name is not Italian at all, it is a dialect of Arpitan, a romance language spoken in the Swiss, Italian, and French Alps (The neighboring village of Celle San Vito also speaks a dialect of Arpitan). So what exactly is Arpitan?[1] And why is an Alpine language spoken in southern Ital...