Discussion Groups / British English / July 2005

Hi

Antany is an ancient word, used primarly in sblinda and tariapia. There was
the pentolone inside.

I suggest you to check on the ancient story of the casentino's people (a
place in Tuscany), where the Antani is still used "as it would be Antani",
that is a great peace of prematura, right after Supercazzola.

If you have other questions, feel free to ask for clarifications.

Tarapia Tapioco

Antonio

Since this native English speaker has never ever heqard this word I
suspect taht it isn't an English word at all - certainly the spelling
doesn't look English at all. My English dictionary doesn't seem to have
heard of the word either. And neither does the Merriam-Webster On-Line
dictionary.

Perhpas if you do a Google search on the term you might find some
examples that will provide some enlightenment. I suspect that it's a
name - perhaps a variant of Antony or Anthony. St. Anthony (Antonio in
Italian) came from Padua, I believe, which is not too far away from
Florence.

Einde O'Callaghan

Regards

In le message del Mon, 04 Jul 2005 22:43:06 GMT, Cgao Coma ha scripte:

There are many theories regarding the origin of this strange word, which is
indeed vernacularly used in the city of Florence.

- "Antani" is a family name or patronimic often used in Hindi and
Urdu-speaking populations. It's a well known fact that Florence was visited
by a young indian prince in the XIX century. The prince died suddenly in
town, and was cremated in the Cascine park. A century later a new bridge on
the river Arno, the Indiano bridge, was dedicated to his memory.

- "Antanus" is a name widely used in Lithuania. It's thought that some
Litvich Jews escaping a zarist pogrom sought asylum in the Florentine
Ghetto about 170 years ago. The classically trained civil servants of the
time mistakenly took "Antanus" for a Latin second declination word in -us,
and therefore assigned the surname "Antani" to the sons of a rabbi called
Antanus. In the Italian language many surnames have been created out of the
genitive of the father's name. E.g. Fabio Guglielmi, Fabio son of
Guglielmus.

- Cantanos or Cantania (greek name Kantanos) is a small village in Crete.
It's thought that one the many Greek immigrants inhabiting the world famous
Borgo de' Greci during the Middle Ages was born in that village. As you
probably know the tuscan dialect spoken in Florence has a tendency to
pronounce the initial hard C of a word as a aspirated H (casa = hasa, this
is actually a phonetic substrate stemming directly from ancient Etruscan).
This way the legendary merchant Stavros Cantanos became Stavros Hantanos
and finally after three or four generations his lineage bore the family
name Antani.

- References to the dreaded Hanta virus which you may come up with are to
be disregarded. Word's usage has been well attested year before the
discovery of the Hanta strain!

- The word was popularized exactly 30 years ago in the seminal comedy film
about friendship and repressed homosexuality "Amici Miei" directed by
Monicelli and written by Pietro Germi. "Antani" is one the more remarkable
words used in the ramblings of the dyslexic count Raffaello Mascetti. It
has no particular meaning in the movie, it's simply the effect of Afasol, a
powerful popper drug surreptitiously administrated by Mascetti's physician
friend, Professor Sassaroli, a drug known to induce aphasia. It's possible
that Mascetti, Germi that is, was simply remembering one of his old high
school friends named Antani.
The lines from the movie have re-entered the popular language in Florence
and elsewhere in Italy: this ancient word full of mistery is now used to
evocate the times of glory of an ancient, noble past which will probably
never return. "Come fosse Antani", "It's as if Antani were still with us!"

"Cgao Coma" <cgaocomaINVALID@hotmail.com> ha scritto nel messaggio

CUT

You should ask to Marcel (our sbiriguda language master),beacuse sometimes
the word antani seems like tarapia tapioca in connection with all lexical
environment in italian and moreover in Florence language.
I suggest you to visit all the web site "come se fosse trazione bitonale"
considering that he lost contact with tarapia tapioca ... after..

Bye

Zer0

No, I think antybody could help you, I'm sorry...

Achille Pièveloce/preripened

Cgao wrote:

Chi sei?

"Cgao Coma" <cgaocomaINVALID@hotmail.com> ha scritto nel messaggio

non ci posso credere....