Dialect Poetry of Southern Italy (Italian Poetry in Translation Book 2)

that I cite in its entirety:

My dialect. It was the great philologist

Rohlfs who enlightened me on the Gallic-

Italian origins of the Potenza dialect, my

native city. In the years of my youth I was

guided in my linguistic journey solely by my

love for writing. I understood very early the

“uneasiness” of the Potenza dialect, its being

marginalized, “extraneous” to the

progressive historical consumma¬tion of

that language. In time, Potenza’s dialect has

changed, impoverishing the ancient semiotic

structures. It was spoken by farmers and

artisans, now it is spoken by very few

people. Pasquale Stoppelli wrote: “The fact

that the Potenza dialect has Gallic-Italic

origins has caused it to be influenced by the

dialects in the surrounding areas, rather than

spreading in the surrounding areas,

gradually losing its original northern