Piedmontese mafi meant rude, rough, and stubbornly silent before the Sicilian term
Evidence
- mafi, mafio, or mafiun = in Piedmontese little, badly shaped, disfigured, but also rude, rough, stubbornly silent, careless (C. Zalli, Disionari Piedmonteis Italian, 2d ed., Carmagnola, 1830); according to Traina’s Vocabolario del dialetto Siciliano (1868, quoted in Leonardo Sciascia’s introduction to Calvi 1986), and also to Vincenzo Mortillaro’s Dizionario Italiano-Siciliano (1876, quoted in Novacco), mafia originated from the Piedmontese term meaning camorra. — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 690
Categorization
Category: Factual Claims