Rare Anglicisms and Frenchisms in Montale's letters

A glossary

Abstract

The language of Eugenio Montale’s epistolary prose is characterised by an extraordinary openness to the contributions of foreign idioms, particularly in the area of vocabulary. This contribution, which is based on the examination of over two thousand letters, offers an initial selection of this material, collecting within a glossary a series of anglicisms and frenchisms that are now rare or even out of use. The introductory paragraphs present an overview of the selected loanwords and try to show the different functions they are called upon to perform within Montale’s epistolary text (playful, snobby, euphemistic, etc.).