Italian Eritrean


Eritrean Pidgin Italian was a pidgin language used in Italian Eritrea when Eritrea was a colony of Italy.

History

This pidgin started to be created at the end of the XIX century and was fully developed in the 1930s. It had similarities with the Mediterranean Lingua Franca.
In 1940 nearly all the local population of Asmara spoke the Eritrean Pidgin Italian when communicating with the Italian colonists.
Until the late 1970s this pidgin was still in use by some native Eritreans.
About the Italian Eritrean Habte-Mariam wrote that: “ at the initial stage of their contact It seems likely that the Italians simplified the grammar of the language they used with underlings at this stage, but they did not borrow vocabulary and grammatical forms from Amharic and Tigrinya, since it does not show up in the 'simplified Italian' used today”. Habte wrote that it was used not only between native Eritreans and Italians, but also between different tribes in Ethiopia and Eritrea.
The linguists G. Gilbert & Lionel Bender called this pidgin a "Simplified Italian of Eritrea" and wrote that:
"Simplified Italian of Eritrea" is definitely a pidgin; it is described by Habte as a “relatively variable form of Italian”. Habte’s account of its sociolinguistic setting and what we know of recent Eritrean history make it quite clear that it is not likely to become a creole, and in fact seems likely to die out within the next generation or two.
For them the Simplified Italian of Eritrea "has basic SVO order; unmarked form is used for nonspecific; stare and ce as locatives".

Examples of the Italian Pidgin Eritrean

The lexicon and syntaxes of the Italian Eritrean Pidgin was described by Saul Hoffmann in
Examples:
The Italian language is still widely spoken and understood and remains a principal language in commerce and education in Eritrea; the capital city Asmara still has an Italian-language school since the colonial decades. Refugees -born in Italy and their children born in Italian Eritrea - now maintain associations of Italo-Eritreans in Italy.
Nearly 10% of the population of the capital Asmara is still able in 2018 to understand the Italian language and some old Eritreans still speak some words and phrases in Italian, according to the Italian ambassador. He pinpointed that some Italian words are commonly used in the Eritrean language, like "pizza".

Language characteristics

While phonology and intonation are affected by native Eritrean languages, including Tigrinya and Arabic, Eritrean Pidgin Italian is based on standard European form. The Italian lexicon in Eritrea has some loanwords of Tigrinya and Arabic origin. On the other hand, the Italian languages has given to the Tigrinya language many hundreds of loanwords.
Nearly five hundreds Italian words are used commonly in the Eritrean spoken in Asmara and surroundings, from "pasta" to "spagueti".
The following are a few of these loanwords:
and pastries. It has the italian word "caffe", that means 'coffee'
Eritrean - Italian