Onomastica del contatto italo-eritreo

The linguistic-cultural contact between the Italian language and the different endogenous codes of Eritrea can be described as prolonged and bilateral, despite being at the same time characterized by heterogeneity, asymmetry and top-down dynamics. The reflections of this contact on the repertoire of proper names, which can be present or absent depending on the historical or cultural setting, prove the complexity of the socio-cultural representations naturally developed by the speakers as well as the motivations connected to the language planning choices made by the political élite. Founded on field research, and also on written and oral sources, this contribution aims to propose some onomastic paradigms useful to interpret, both in a diachronic and synchronic perspective, the articulate and multifaceted effects of the contact between Eritrean and Italian languages mainly in the area of Asmara, but also in the whole Eritrean territory, as well as the retroactive impacts on Italian onomastics.