Giovanni Giordani

Giovanni Giordani

Giovanni Giordani (born October 27, 1822 in Alagna Valsesia , † January 12, 1890 in Scopello ) was an Italian doctor . He is important for German dialectology because his book about the Walser dialect of his homeland is one of the first presentations of a High Alemannic dialect. Moreover, he was one of the first ascent of the Monte Rosa massif lying Signalkuppe .

Life

Giordani, who grew up in a mountain village in the Sesia Valley , southeast of Monte Rosa, was the son of Giuseppe Giordani and Carestia, a daughter of the surgeon Giacomo Antonio Carestia, who came from neighboring Riva Valdobbia . He first studied classical philology and philosophy in Varallo , then medicine and surgery at the Universities of Vercelli and Turin ; at the latter he received his doctorate in 1846. As a doctor, he worked for a few years in Briona in the Novarese hill country and in Fobello in a side valley of the Valsesia, but most of his professional life he was the village doctor of Scopello in the Sesia valley itself.

Along with Giovanni Gnifetti he boarded and six other companions in 1842 was the first to 4554 meters above sea beyond Signalkuppe .

From 1874 onwards, Giordani devoted himself with increasing intensity to geographic and linguistic studies, the fruits of which were the essay L'epoca glaciale nella Valgrande in Valsesia (1888) and the book La colonie tedesca di Alagna-Valsesia e il suo dialetto (posthumously 1891).

In 1888 he received the Order of the Crown of Italy from the Italian King Humbert I for his work as a doctor .

La colonia tedesca di Alagna-Valsesia e il suo dialetto

Giordani's presentation of the dialect of Alagna Valsesia was only published one year after his death - in a shortened form and without the fact that he could still have implemented the changes requested by the specialist. It is the first monograph on a South Walser German dialect ( Albert Schott's book on the German Colonies in Piedmont formed an overview of all German dialects south and east of the Monte Rosa massif and was also heavily influenced by folklore) and one of the first about a highly Alemannic dialect in general (primarily Jost Winteler's work on the language of the Kerenzerberg and Valentin Bühler's publications on Davos German; Jakob Joseph Matthys ' Nidwalden grammar and dictionary remained unprinted). Eduard Hoffmann-Krayer's detailed review in the Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum und deutsche Literatur 21 (1895) was extremely critical. Rudolf Hotzenköcherle , the main editor at the time of the language atlas of German-speaking Switzerland and himself a connoisseur of the Alagna German, wrote in 1956 that this review “does not do justice to the achievement of the doctor working without a philological-Germanic education.” And further:

“Even for connoisseurs of this dialect (which Hoffmann was not), Giordani's book is an immensely noteworthy source that deserves great thanks; the linguistic blunders that prompted H [offmann] to make his most ungracious judgment can easily be corrected by any Germanist himself. "

The Canadian linguist Sergio Maria Gilardino also emphasized the importance of Giordani's work on the Alagna German dialect in 2008 and contradicted "several linguists and philologists who had declassified Giordani to amateurs" (vari linguisti e filologi abbiano declassato il Giordani al dilettante). In addition, he found on the basis of Giordani's manuscript, which appeared in 2005, that “a large part of it had remained unprinted” (il grosso… rimase inedito) .

Giordani wrote his book in view of the increasing displacement of the Alemannic local vernacular by the Piedmontese of the Sesia valley and hoped that in the future interested parties would get an adequate picture of "the nature, the nature and the richness of our dialect" (una idea adeguanta della natura, modalità e ricchezza del nostro dialetto) . In particular, it contains extensive chapters on local history (45 pages), inflection (37 pages), numerous text examples (children's songs, proverbs, riddles, conversations, sagas; 30 pages) as well as an Alagna-German-Italian glossary (76 pages). Further, brief sections deal with the syntax , the native baptismal and family names as well as local names; Lists in which the Alagna German dialect is compared with the dialects of Davos (based on Valentin Bühler's publications) and Upper Valais conclude the book.

Works

• L'epoca glaciale nella Valgrande in Valsesia. In: Bollettino CAI 22 (1888), pp. 174-180.
• La colonia tedesca di Alagna-Valsesia e il suo dialetto . 1st edition Candeletti, Turin 1891, 2nd edition Unione Tipografica Valsesiana, Varallo Sesia 1927. Reprints of the 2nd edition 1927: Forni, Bologna 1974; Libreria Alpina Editrice, Bologna 1982.

literature

• Giovanni Giordani: La colonia tedesca di Alagna-Valsesia e il suo dialetto . Reprint of the 2nd edition from 1927. Litografia FARAP, San Giovanni in Persicato (Bologna) 1982, without ISBN, pp. 7-10 ( Cenno biografico by Antonio Carestia and Prefazione by Giovanni Giordani).
• Sergio Maria Gilardino: I Walser e la loro lingua dal Grande Nord alle Alpi. Profilo linguistico. Dizionario della lingua walser di Alagna Valsesia. Associazione culturale Zeisciu Centro Studi, Alagna Valsesia 2008, ISBN 978-88-87405-27-9 , pp. 62-66, 100-133.

Web links

• Giovanni Giordani (Alagna 1822 - Scopello 1890) medico e alpinista on the website of Alagna Valsesia.

Footnotes

1. ^ ^{A b c} Giovanni Giordani: La colonia tedesca di Alagna-Valsesia e il suo dialetto . Reprint of the 2nd edition in 1927. Litografia FARAP, San Giovanni in Persicato (Bologna) 1982, p. 8.
2. ^ Sergio Maria Gilardino: I Walser e la loro lingua dal Grande Nord alle Alpi. Profilo linguistico. Dizionario della lingua walser di Alagna Valsesia. Associazione culturale Zeisciu Centro Studi, Alagna Valsesia 2008, p. 62.
3. ^ Sergio Maria Gilardino: I Walser e la loro lingua dal Grande Nord alle Alpi. Profilo linguistico. Dizionario della lingua walser di Alagna Valsesia. Associazione culturale Zeisciu Centro Studi, Alagna Valsesia 2008, p. 64 f., On correspondence between Giordani, Giuseppe Farinetti, Giuseppe Morosi and other people in connection with the publication of the work, see ibid. Pp. 100-133.
4. ↑ See on this Thomas A. Hammer: Continuity and change in the Swiss German dictionary, in: Swiss German dictionary / Swiss idioticon. Report on the year 2008, [Zurich 2009], pp. 19–31, here p. 21 ( digitized version ).
5. ^ Eduard Hoffmann-Kreyer: [Review of] La colonia tedesca die Alagna-Valsesia e il suo dialetto. Opera postuma del dr Giovanni Giordani, pubblicata per cura ea spese della Sezione Valsesiana del Club Alpino Italiano col concorso di amici. Torino, GCandelotti, 1891. In: Journal for German Antiquity and German Literature 21 (1895), pp. 26–39 ( digitized version ). Here it says on p. 27 that the part about the theory of sounds, forms and sentences is “as far as its execution is concerned, in every respect below the level of the most primitive grammatical work”.
6. ↑ Rudolf Hotzenköcherle: umlaut phenomena on the southern edge of the Germania. In: Questions and research in the area and scope of Germanic philology. Festgabe for Theodor Frings (=  publications of the Institute for German Language and Literature. Volume 8). Berlin 1956, pp. 221-250, here p. 224 f.
7. ^ Sergio Maria Gilardino: I Walser e la loro lingua dal Grande Nord alle Alpi. Profilo linguistico. Dizionario della lingua walser di Alagna Valsesia. Associazione culturale Zeisciu Centro Studi, Alagna Valsesia 2008, p. 63 f.
8. ^ Giovanni Giordani: La colonia tedesca di Alagna-Valsesia e il suo dialetto . Reprint of the 2nd edition in 1927. Litografia FARAP, San Giovanni in Persicato (Bologna) 1982, p. 9 f.
9. ^ Text from Sergio Maria Gilardino: I Walser e la loro lingua dal Grande Nord alle Alpi. Profilo linguistico. Dizionario della lingua walser di Alagna Valsesia. Associazione culturale Zeisciu Centro Studi, Alagna Valsesia 2008, p. 62.