Making a multilingual dictionary of Italian loanwords: the Dizionario degli italianismi in francese, ingelese, tedesco (DIFIT)

This talk will outline the methodology, scope and structure of the DIFIT (i.e. the Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, prepared by H. Stammerjohann, E. Arcaini, G. Cartago, P. Galetto, M. Heinz, M. Mayer, G. Rovere, G. Seymer; Firenze: Accademia della Crusca 2008), a trilingual loanword dictionary recently published in print. This specialized lexicographical resource focuses on language contact resulting in synchronic and diachronic lexical transfer from the Italian language to French, English and German. Italian as a culturally extremely rich and diverse source for borrowings has extensively influenced the other three European languages in different historic phases all along the past six centuries. The DIFIT reflects this rich European heritage of borrowings in a maximal variety of lexical fields. Major challenges in and prior to editing the dictionary included the delimitation and exploration of the source material and deciding on depth of historical coverage as well as defining the information programme of the microstructure. At the same time, limitations of the general lexicographical documentation on Italian and the three recipient languages had to be taken into account and, wherever possible, circumnavigated. Complementing the review of methodological issues in the first part, the second part of the paper will present the results of an introductory survey on the quantitative impact of Italian loanwords as documented in the DIFIT and give a brief outlook on the ongoing project of digitizing the lexicographical data by means of an online database (E-DIFIT)