Pulcinella et le napolitain sans frontières

Abstract

This article considers the question of language and the figure of Pulcinella. Multiple of character in his colourful clothes, Pulcinella has crossed time periods, geographical areas and cultural spaces, but his spoken language, Neapolitan, has always been his identifying mark. Wherever he may have gone, he has taken with him this language rich in historical signifiers, full of images and sounds, and representative of a rich heritage of ancestral folk traditions. Even as he travels fluidly about, defying space and times, Pulcinella has contributed to the updating and regeneration of this dialetto which once competed with the Tuscan before the latter became the unifying language of the Italian peninsula. The presence of “linguistic invaders” in the south of the peninsula deeply influenced the pattern of this linguistic variation which not only adapted but also adopted many of their then-unfamiliar linguistic features.

Keywords

• Pulcinella
• Neapolitan
• romance languages
• Southern dialects
• phonology
• metaphony