Diplomi italo-bizantini e dialetti sud-italiani

Abstract

Italo-byzantine Diplomas and south-italian Dialects.

This paper is about some toponyms and anthroponyms, both of middle Greek or Romance origin, which are preserved in a Byzantine (middle of XI cen- tury) diploma from Southern Italy, where the properties of the mother church of Reggio (in Calabria) are listed. These toponyms and anthroponyms are in some way interesting because, as proper nouns, they either exhibit ‘demotic’ features which are excluded from Greek standard language (e.g., the place- name Γραπαδίνα < *ἀγριαπιδίνα ‘wild pear’) or are somehow scraps of early Calabrian Romance (e.g., the place name Tὰ Bέριδα, presumable hellenization of a medieval Calabrian Romance *verída ‘path; muletrack; old and difficult road’ < late Lat. VERĒDA ‘narrow and difficult road’).