Arbërshë in Southern Italy
Following part one of our exploration of Southern Italian genealogical history, let's shine some light on the communities further inland. If you have family from the area, they might have told you stories about your having 'gypsy' ancestry or that certain of your physical features are of the same origin. While there are sizeable communities of Italo-Albanians in Southern Italy and the Romani are an ethnic minority in Albania, it would be a hasty generalisation to make such a claim. Here's some background on the Arbëreshë, Albanians who immigrated to Southern Italy starting in the 16th century:
As many immigrants came as mercenaries, this is noted in derivations of their surnames. A few common ones and variants in Cosenza are Tamburi (drummer), Vigilante (watchman), Quartarolo (quartermaster), etc. In some church process records, you can find the original spellings of these last names ie. Marcoveshio (Marcovecchio), Belushi (Bellusci). What we see today are Italianised forms of their Arbëresh counterparts.
The language is a snapshot of the Tosk dialect of Albanian spoken at the time. My grandfather spoke Arbëresh fluently, as did his parents, and my mum said it sounds like a lot of spitting although I find it easy on the ears. Many comunes' homepages feature text in both languages. This is traditional Arbërshë music, reconstructed by a group called Ensemble in the 90s (lyrics in Arbëresh with Italian translations and MP3 downloads):
Regarding religion, you might mistake them for your 'garden variety' Catholics, but this isn't the case. They belong to the Byzantine Rite and this is evident in church architecture. The scriptures used are the Septuagint for the OT and Peshitta for the NT (I recommend NETS for the former and George M. Lamsa's The Holy Bible From the Ancient Eastern Text for the latter):
The typical dress and dance are some of the best maintained customs. Like me, I'm sure you've seen photos of your ancestors in this clothing. Some years ago, TV2000 did a program on these traditions where you will hear interviews with people whose surnames have been in the area for hundreds of years. Recently, a dramatic film, Arbëria, was interesting enough for Netflix to stream and it showcases this culture beautifully.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0Ns2wkW9kw
If you've made it to the Catasto Onciario in your research and have been wondering why your family were in Italy still instead of Albania, it's because they arrived there a hundred years earlier. You can count yourself as Italian with the rest of us. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
Kommentare
-
I found some poetry translated into English from Arbëresh:
This is the author:
0