I nomi delle malattie animali e le loro motivazioni in alcune varietà arbëreshe della Calabria: tra piante, insetti e fenomeni naturali

Abstract

Starting from Mendicino-Belluscio (2010), Fjalë shtegtuese: animal diseases and folk medicine in Albanian and in three arbëreshe varieties of Calabria, in the present work we examine in more detail some aspects concerning the local names of animal diseases in the arbëreshe varieties of Lungro, San Basile, Santa Sofia d'Epiro, in the province of Cosenza, and Caraffa in the province of Catanzaro. In particular, in the light of new investigations on popular knowledge related to diseases as well as on their causes, we will focus on the motivations and on the cognitive processes underlying the different names: plants, insects, typical features of some animals, but also atmospheric phenomena and some fundamental categories of human mind turn out to be at the center of multiple interactions between worlds through which it is possible to explain less semantically transparent names of the lexical field under study.