Calabrese

We were all gathered for the 50^th anniversary of the Nesci family migrating to Australia. Little did we know then that this was the last time we would hear Salvatore’s humour. He didn’t disappoint and this time wrote an Ode to Nonna (his mother of the equivalent of grandma in English) in Calabrese or Calabrian, the dialect of the region.  The written poem is all the more amusing because Calabrese is thought of as a spoken dialect.

C’era na bell chiamata Ntonuzza

Contadina, durmia cui cucuzza

ma si sposao cu Raffaele

senza luna di mele

ma po dopo disseros nindiimo di ca –che puzza

Dopo tant’ anni lavorando colu mulu

Raffele partio per luaustalia sulu sulu

Ciangendo disse addio alla famiglia

partio cu poco robba in valigia

gridando : Fabrizai vanculo

Che vitaccia ogni girono in Fattoria

e a notte chiamando “dove sei cara mia?”

In quei giorni non cera lalitalia

per portar la gnete in Australia

dop un mese viaggiando con in pesci

finalmenet si riuniro tutti in Nesci

 e oggi siamo qui per dare grazie a Antonuzza mamma mia

Loosely translated it reads as:

There was a beauty called Antonuzza

Peasant, mother and great cook,

But she married Raffaele

Didn’t have a honeymoon

And was told that she had to leave – that stank

After many years working in the mill

Raffaele went to Australia alone, alone

He said goodbye to the family

With very few things in his bags

And said “Fuck you” to Fabrizia

He worked every day in factories

And at night said where are you my darling

Not sure of the next line

To bring them to Australia

After a month of travelling with the fishes

The Nescis were finally reunited

And we’re here thanks to my mother Antonuzza.

                                  Antonuzza and her father and mother on a trip back to Calabria

After years of listening to Calabrese, I came to realise that I could follow part of the conversation with my knowledge of Italian, just by adding ‘oo’ to the end of many words. The “oo” sound is similar to the final sound in the word ‘who’, for example ‘sulu, sulu” is Calabrese for solo, solo or alone, alone.

My first encounter with trying to understand Calabrese was when my father-in-law died. Death is a time when you can really delve into another culture as death rituals are a mirror into the heart of a culture. 

Family and paesani would come around and just sit. All the chairs in the dining room were placed around the walls of the room and people would sit and in turn sigh out another a platitude. “Ahh What canna you do.” “Ahh he had a good life.” “Ahh he’s in a better place.” “Ahh he was a good man.” These were in either Calabrian, Italian or English

Someone would also be telling a story or explaining something in Calabrian and I was able to follow the main idea of the conversation because I would hear a word in English like ‘bathroom” “that’s right”, “high school”. Eventually I started to piece together some of the stories but after the obligatory introduction of platitudes they really started to talk and talk and talk.

All Italians are masters in the art of conversation, particularly those from peasant backgrounds like the paesani from Fabrizia where literacy levels are very low. Theirs was an oral culture and everything was passed on verbally. Everything was spoken. Stories are embellished and detail is important. The truth is often irrelevant. 

When my mother –in-law, Antonuzza, was staying at my brother and sister-in-law’s house in Italy, she was helping in the kitchen. Robyn, my sister-in-law is an excellent cook and her kitchen is her domain. Antonuzza vocalises every action. “Now I’m chopping the onions.” “I’m going to take out the centre of the eggplants.” “You must stir the sauce all the time.” It was driving Robyn mad as the chatter continued all through the preparation for a large family and friends dinner and of course every day while they were in Italy together.

Afterwards we could both imagine Nonna with her sisters all talking and the kitchen about rolling the pasta, baking the bread and stirring the sauce for the pasta. All the learning and information about life was passed on in this great oral tradition. This was their work and life, they didn't have anything else to do such s rush off after dinner to a show or write a blog or go down for a swim after lunch.

Professor Jo lo Bianco, Chair of Language and Literacy Education at the Melbourne School of graduate Education at Melbourne University and President of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and most importantly,  a Calabrian, claims that Calabrese is a dialect of Italy not of the Italian language. 

This means that the Calabrese dialect is equal in importance to the national language which comes from the area of Tuscany.  He states that the so called dialects of Italian are all direct descendants of proto-Latin, that is  vulgar Latin and that the different influences of each area were all absorbed into the ‘dialect. 

Calabrian has a lot of Greek influence as Calabria was part of Magna Graecia in the eighth and seventh centuries BC. The language also has influences from the Byzantine period which although it was a continuation of the Roman Empire was actually quite Eastern and Spanish. Further he claims that what is commonly called ITALIAN is also a direct descendent of Latin, that is lingua Toscana in bocca romana which is Tuscan as pronounced by Romans. So this thing, which linguists call standard Italian, or Italiano standard is a sister of Calabrian, not its parent.

Description	English: Ancient Greek colonies and their dialect groupings in Southern Italy (Magna Graecia).    NW Greek    Achaean    Doric    Ionian
Date	6 September 2008
Source	Own work Dialect areas according to: Roger D. Woodard (2008), "Greek dialects", in: The Ancient Languages of Europe, ed. Roger D. Woodard, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p.51. (= partial re-published version of The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Ancient Languages, 2004). Positions of cities after various on-wiki sources.
Author	Future Perfect at Sunrise

Salvatore's writings

Fabrizia, where I was born in 1953, is a remote village high up in the Calabrian mountains.  Before you start imagining a quaint rustic village, bucolic countryside, endless nostalgia, let me assure you that Fabrizia is totally devoid of any charm.

There is a local legend that explains the origin of the village: Local bandits used to seek refuge in remote hills surrounding the village. One band finally came upon the spot of what is now Fabrizia and decided to set up permanent camp here on the premise that the area was so remote and inhospitable the authorities would never suspect that anyone would be hiding there. A more plausible explanation is based on the plague of malaria that infested the lowlands of Calabria in the 19^th century forcing the coastal dwellers to abandon their homes and migrate to the mountains.

Whatever explanation we believe, the fact is that Fabrizia was a most unfortunate place; the only industry was farming yet little was produced in the fields because the soil was so poor. The Romans had virtually deforested the area to build their fleets. The harsh winter when it snowed for months coupled with the ferocious heat of Summer made farming even more difficult. The end result was that Fabrizia since its founding has been a miserable place to live and the only escape from such misery was to migrate yet again and so for all of the 20^th century any Fabrizian that could, would arrange to migrate to any country possible. Early on before the first world war the favoured destination was the United States; later especially in the fifties Argentina and Australia became the main destinations.

Ciao paesani

Mention to anyone that your partner is Calabrian and you are confronted with knowing looks and smiles. Mafiosi, revenge and marijuana plantations at Griffith in NSW Australia come to mind. Today on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald was an article about the Italian government wanting the extradition of three Calabrian/ Australians wanted for drug/Mafia related crimes.


There is of course another side to the Calabrian stereotype and that is the hard-working loyal and family loving (when not feuding) Calabrian. My in-laws were the latter and in thone generation went from illiterate peasant farmers with very little, if any, schooling to proudly attending the university graduation of their two sons, Bruno and Salvatore.
Salvatore Nesci, my partner for nearly 30 years died on May 10 2009. He was born in Fabrizia, a small town in the hills of Calabria and migrated to Australia with his family when he was five years old.


I wanted to tell his story as a tribute to all he did for me and our daughter, Raffaela. It is also a thankyou to my brother-in-law, Bruno who pledged that he would look after us on my husband's deathbead. I am forever grateful, if a somewhat difficult person to look after.
The picture for this blog is of Salvatore when he was 2 or 3, dressed as a little Saint Anthony. This, my friends is a good place to start Calabrian Tales.