California Italian Studies

Following the methodological perspective of Bruno Migliorini, this paper intends to show the interplay between cultural history ("storia esterna") and linguistic history ("storia interna") during the Neapolitan Angevin period (1266-1442).  The paper focus on some words borrowed from French and Provençal that appeared in the most important literary texts of the Angevin period: the Neapolitan Letter of Giovanni Boccaccio and the Libro de la destuctione de Troya. These words demonstrate how deep the linguistic influence of the Angevins was on local language. Through analysis of the type of diffusion of French words, it is evident that these words spread in the local language via everyday spoken comunication. In fact these loan words reflect the phonetic adaptation to Neapolitan and a significant variety of forms. The great proliferation of some French suffixes, such us the suffix -anza, indicates that French loan words were not only read and written but also used in everyday conversation. Therefore, using French words, Boccaccio intended to describe a lexical cliché of the Neapolitan manner of speaking.