Neologismi quotidiani. Un dizionario a cavallo del millennio (1998-2003), the first volume to emerge from the Osservatorio neologico della lingua italiana, has been published in the series "Lessico Intellettuale Europeo", by Leo S. Olschki (Florence).
The Osservatorio neologico della lingua italiana (Onli) is a research project by Giovanni Adamo e Valeria Della Valle begun in 1998, with the support of the Istituto per il lessico intellettuale europeo e la storia delle idee of the CNR (under the direction of Tullio Gregory), the Associazione italiana per la terminologia (Ass.I.Term) and the teaching experience in Italian Lexicography and Lexicology of the Faculty of Lettere e Filosofia at the University of Rome "La Sapienza". The aim of the project is to study lexical innovation in the Italian language, with particular reference to neologisms taken from newspapers, to try to define current trends in their creation.
The material collected has been placed in a databank, classified by theme (economics, politics, culture, science, technology, sport, etc.) and analysed on the basis of morphological, syntactic and semantic characteristics, with the aim of outlining the most common typologies of present-day neologisms. Any form already registered in the two most important and substantial Italian dictionaries published in the last two decades (A. Duro, Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Rome, Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1997, Second edition, 5 vols, and T. De Mauro, Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, Turin, Utet, 2000, 6 vols) has been excluded. Included are newly coined and derivative forms, foreign expressions, international terms and technical terminology. There are also individually coined neologisms, given the widespread influence newspapers have on current language, particularly as a written source of it. From 1998 to the present around 5000 neologisms have been registered, taken from over 10000 newspaper articles. Some appear once only, and are thus less valuable and convincing as evidence; others recur various times and in many of the sources examined, suggesting that they have probably taken root in current usage, slowly losing their original journalistic flavour.
We can draw up a preliminary balance on the basis of the data available so far.
As regards the morphological aspect, derivations obtained by adding an affix to a verb or noun base continue to be extremely common. This process is in accordance with a spontaneous tendency towards regulating (and, if possible, reducing) what is polymorphous in the language, accompanied by the simplification of linguistic structures. The use of suffixes and prefixes, and still more of suffix-like and prefix-like forms, remains a plastic and versatile instrument for enriching the lexicon while respecting correct neological forms. There can sometimes be something disproportionate in this, however, with slogans, fashions, trends or even linguistic tics being given excessive prominence and attention.
Anglo-American language and culture have an extremely powerful influence on present-day Italian, an influence which is far more extensive than that of technology. In spite of this, the Italian language of today has a striking vitality and responsiveness, particularly noticeable in the phonetic and morphological adapatation of forms borrowed from English, and the more and more widespread use of new forms deriving from unaltered loan-words. There is also an intrusive presence of syntactic models deriving from English and of hybrid lexical forms, which are perhaps given too much emphasis in journalistic prose, creating a distorted and exaggerated image of the consequences of the invasion of Anglo-American.
Many of the neologisms we have noted are ephemeral and short-lived, because they are connected with circumstances of the moment, or to the temporary celebrity of personalities from the worlds of politics, sport or entertainment. Nevertheless, it is equally true that many of these forms are printed by the journalists in inverted commas or italics, distancing the writer from them, and clearly indicating that they are being used occasionally and episodically. In the same way, these new words can be given humorous, ironic or even polemical connotations. Often, indeed, they are deliberately extemporary, designed to give a sparkling register to the terminology of ufficialese, considered either too difficult for the reader or unsuitable for journalistic language (e.g., icimetro, meritometro and tavolo tecnico).
One aspect worth mentioning of the semantic evolution of some Italian forms is the new value given to certain affixes. Our databank demonstrates, for example, that in the last few decades a new semantic value has developed for the prefix bio-, as a result of the development of biotechnology. Another significant case is that of -ite, which had always been much in evidence in the fields of geology, chemistry and, especially, medicine. In this last category it had been much used to denominate processes of alteration or inflammation, and now, by extension, is used to refer to scandalous or extreme situations or episodes of dishonesty and corruption in public life, as in condonite, dizionarite and furbite. This could be partly due to the widespread international use of the English neologism Enronitis following the scandal involving the American company Enron in the summer of 2002. The term was subsequently adapted in many other languages, including the Italian Enronite. The prefix super- too, continues to perform vigorously its well-known elative function, giving emphasis to a word, but is has also taken on a new value referring to interventions of genetic modification or manipulation, as in superalbero, supercampione, super-cellula, super-germe, superovulo, superpollo, super-salmone, superspecie, and supervino.
One aspect worth commenting on is the semantic neologisms created by a shift of meaning, as in the cases of campana (container for rubbish collection) or forchetta (in statistics, extent of the possible oscillation between a minimum and maximum value). This is something that takes place exclusively within the language and purist judgements on it are inappropriate; it simply reveals the vitality of the language in question. In some cases the aesthetic effect of newly coined words can be surprisingly graceless, as in some individually coined neologisms (for example, allarmologia, coined by Antonio Di Pietro, coriandolarizzazione by Gian Antonio Stella, embrionidolatria and spermadolatria by Gianni Vattimo, infantocrazia and infantolatria by Milan Kundera, ipersocietà by Roberto Vecchioni and poppizzare by Francesco Guccini). But, more frequently, the speaker can be disorientated by these new forms, because he sees the linguistic code he possesses unexpectedly altered, even if he then decides to approve and accept the new entry, as can happen with estremista, scalabile, and sventagliare, and the polyrhematic combinations cavaliere bianco and pillola avvelenata.
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