“Kataloipa Venetikon glossikon stoicheion sta Kythira” (“Venetian Linguistic Survivals on Kythera”)

Author:Yiannis G. Kassimatis
When Published: 1993
Publisher: Atlantis, Athens
Available: In print
Description: Behind a sadly rebarbative title lurks a delightful lexicographic and etymological compendium of Italian words surviving (but for how long?) in Kytherian speech. Anybody in love with words will enjoy browsing through this surprisingly extensive list of linguistic borrowings and adaptations, some less obvious than others. “Krenditoros” (creditor) from “creditore” is relatively straightforward; “ambonora” (early in the morning), from “a buon’ora”, perhaps less so. Other words stretch far back into history; for instance, the old Kytherian term for a bootmaker, “kalikotis”, is derived from the Italian “caligar”, which in turn harks back to the Latin for boot, “caliga”, from which the emperor Caligula (“little boot”) derived his childhood nickname.