Subject:
FW: [NABOKV-L] [Fwd: Thorns]
From:
"Dmitri Nabokov"
Date:
Mon, 27 Nov 2006 23:32:05 +0100
To:
<NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
I am retransmitting this exchange to make sure Giulia Visintin, P.N. Dale, and J. Rea get proper credit, and to pass on to the List a very interesting link.  I spent parts of eight or nine summers at my little place at Cala di Volpe (Sardinia), but "ki" and other details still perplex me. It's true that every Sardinian village has its own variant of dialect.
 
DN
 
 -----Original Message-----
From: Dmitri Nabokov
Sent: lundi, 27. novembre 2006 17:16
To: 'Vladimir Nabokov Forum'
Subject: RE: [NABOKV-L] [Fwd: Thorns]

DN's reply to Giulia Visintin:
 
Your version is very plausible, and, I think, makes more folk sense than mine. Meanwhile, I again encounter the name of the learned and kind J. A. Rea who paid me the nice compliment on my lucky translation of "Cunning Stunts" into Italian, and who likes to conclude his letters with the saying in question. A considerable amount of information on this and related linguistic matters can be found at: http://groups.google.co.jp/group/sci.lang/tree/browse_frm/month/1993-10?hl=ja&_done=%2Fgroup%2Fsci.lang%2Fbrowse_frm%2Fmonth%2F1993-10%3Fhl%3Dja%26&hl=ja  Fascinating stuff.
 
I guess I have lurched into a thicket of thorns [a word whose Italian equivalent, spina (pl. spine), is incidentally but  doubtless  related to "spinach", "Spinoza", etc.].
 
DN
-----Original Message-----
From: Vladimir Nabokov Forum [mailto:NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU] On Behalf Of Nabokv-L
Sent: lundi, 27. novembre 2006 15:21
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Subject: [NABOKV-L] [Fwd: Thorns]



-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Thorns
Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2006 09:42:42 +0100
From: 371421 <371421@libero.it>
To: NABOKV-L <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU> 
Ki semenat ispinaza, non andet isculzu.

To my ear - it is: to my eye - it sounds from Sardinia (or Corse, maybe, or even Romania) rather than Sicily.

And the meaning *could* be: Who sows thorny plants, shouldn't go barefoot.

Giulia Visintin
Florence, Italy

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