Like many other European countries, at the end of the 19th century Italy occupied a number of territories around the world, though most of these colonies were located in Africa. In those where the Italian presence has been longer and more pervading, Italian language is still spoken as a second language (e.g. in the Dodecanese, now part of Greece) or in a corrupt form (Simplified Italian of Ethiopia). Nevertheless, given that many years have passed since Italy's colonizing mission, today the number of speakers of Italian is steadily decreasing. However it is also noted that many loanwords still remain, phonetically adapted and incorporated in languages such as Libyan Arabic, Amharic, Oromo, Gawwada, Saho, Tigrinya and Somali (among others). The goal of this work is to give an overall view of these languages, by collecting Italian loanwords found in previous literature as well as in dictionaries, thus making it possible to draw a comparison and find continuities and breaks between them. An historic introduction is outlined so that the reader may better comprehend the background of this linguistic heritage.

B.A. Thesis