This is our backup site. Click here to visit our main site at MellenPress.com
Privitera, Joseph F.
About the author: Dr. Privitera has been fluent in Sicilian since childhood. His PhD from New York University was in French, and he has taught French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese at NYU and St. Louis University. He served with distinction in the U. S. Foreign Service for 32 years. He is the author of several scholarly language studies such as Language as Historical Determinant, in which he traces the Norman influence in the 12th century on a Sicilian sub-dialect.
1999 0-7734-3106-3These poems are vigorous and of firm rhythm and sound, meant to appeal to the eye, the ear, the mind and the heart. The poet makes unequivocal statements about old age and the family, and the love poems are sensual, with the intensity and feeling of young love. The section entitled ‘And Other Tongues’ displays his unusual mastery of foreign languages, with poems in French, Italian, Portuguese, and Sicilian (with English translations).
1988 0-7734-8335-7
The Sicilian dialect, like most the other 450 Italian dialects, has almost disappeared. This grammar preserves this dialect for the large number of first- and second-generation Sicilians who are anxious to maintain contact with the language but have no grammar to guide them.
1998 0-7734-8337-3
English translation of Pirandello's original Sicilian plays, retaining the names of the original characters, their dialogue, with all the peculiarities and characteristics of the Sicilian tongue and the nature and flavor of their mores, thus underscoring the fact that Sicily and Sicilians are different ethnically, culturally and linguistically from continental Italians. Volume 1 also contains the Preface, a complete list of Pirandello's plays, and an introduction setting Pirandello's life and Sicilian plays in context.
1998 0-7734-8339-X
English translation of Pirandello's original Sicilian plays, retaining the names of the original characters, their dialogue, with all the peculiarities and characteristics of the Sicilian tongue and the nature and flavor of their mores, thus underscoring the fact that Sicily and Sicilians are different ethnically, culturally and linguistically from continental Italians. Volume 1 also contains the Preface, a complete list of Pirandello's plays, and an introduction setting Pirandello's life and Sicilian plays in context.
1998 0-7734-7727-6
This study reconstructs the grammar of medieval Italian, as used by Dante in his Vita Nova. It is divided into three parts: I – The Grammar; II – A listing of the medieval lexicon in the Vita; and III – a facing page translation of the medieval Italian and English translation of the Vita. This is a work long-needed by Romance language, Italian scholars, and Danteists.
2002 0-7734-7034-4
This is a philological study of Sanfratellan, whose origin has baffled scholars for centuries. It demonstrates, through language analysis, that when the Normans invaded Sicily in the 11th century, they left in San Fratello a large contingent of Frenchmen from the south of France. These soldier-settlers spoke Provençal, which over the years melded with the town’s proto-Sicilian to form an amalgam which now sounds as French as it does Sicilian. It is understood only by Sanfratellans and not by any other Sicilians. This study is one of the most outstanding contributions to Italian dialectology of the 20th century; yet it reads like an exciting historical whodunit. It will be of interest to language scholars and historians as well as anyone interested in Italy and its past.