[Mihalic] Pikinini etymology

[Allison Jablonko]

Just don't forget that the pronunciation of Piccinini is with a soft 
"c",  i.e. in English we might spell it Peachynini.  Italian spelling 
differentiates between hard and soft "c" on the basis of the following 
vowel.
"C" followed by "a", "o", and "u" is hard (k).
"C" followed by ""i" or "e" is soft (ch).
To harden a "c" which is followed by an "i" or an "e" one must insert 
an "h".  For example in the plural of Peach:  peach -> peaches  =  
pesca -> peschi.  If you don't add that "h" you end up with pesci,  
which is fishes not peaches!

Allison Jablonko


On Saturday, May 28, 2005, at 08:55 Europe/Rome, Thomas H. Slone wrote:

> Currently, we have pikinini as originating from Portuguese 
> (pequeninho).  Does anyone else find this inadequate?  I noticed 
> recently that there's an Italian surname, Piccinini, which sounds a 
> lot like pikinini, and also means "little".  See: 
> http://www.italyworldclub.com/genealogy/surnames/p.htm
>
> Is pikinini ultimately from Lingua Franca?  It doesn't appear in the 
> on-line Lingua Franca dictionary 
> (http://www.uwm.edu/~corre/franca/edition3/PP.html).
> --Tom Slone
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