ETYMOLOGY AND HISTORY OF ITAL. ‘BOSCO’

Abstract

This paper aims at presenting the history of the Italian word bosco ‘wood’, a Germanic loanword which entered the Italian lexicon during the Middle Ages. The first section of the paper presents the data on the distribution of the word in modern Italian dialects, in past Italian varieties, and in Medieval Latin. These data show how this lexical type was first documented in the Northwest of Italy and then spread to areas in eastern and southern Italy. The second section focuses on the etymology of bosco, showing that the geolinguistic distribution and the presence of a different stressed vowel (ǫ́, ọ́ or ú) in different dialects hint at the existence of two different Germanic strata which could explain the particular distribution of the word across Italy. The first stratum is represented by the form *bŭsk (originally meaning ‘bush’), probably a Gothic word which entered northern dialects and gradually came to replace the classical Latin word silva, while the second stratum is represented by a Franconian form, coming from France through the mediation of the medieval Latin word boscum ‘wood’, which arrived in Tuscany and from there spread to the southern dialects.