It. mosciame ‘filetto di tonno essiccato e salatoʼ

Abstract

The case of It. mosciame ‘dry salted tunny fishʼ (< Sp. moxama ‘id.ʼ < Ar. mušammaʕ​, participle of the verb šammaʕ​a ‘to rub or smear with waxʼ, ‘to dryʼ) underlines once again the complexity of the lexical interrelationship between the Arab world and Europe (as well as the Ottoman empire). The ramifications of the word's history take their origin from Andalusian Arabic, whence it passes into Spanish and Catalan, and finally enters Italian, where it appears for the first time in the translation of Fernão Lopez de Castanheda's História by Alfonso Ulloa (died 1570), and subsequently in Spanish-Italian lexicography (Franciosini 1638), in various literary texts (beginning with Aggravi's Antilucerna of 1664) and in several Italian dialects (with documentation starting from 1714, but surely earlier in oral use).