The words of the tonnarotti: a linguistic heritage born from the encounter between Arabic, Latin, Greek and the Gallipoli dialect. Every entry reports its etymology and its source.
Etymology: from Arabic ra'īs (supreme chief)
The absolute commander of the tonnara. He held total authority over the manoeuvres, the lowering of the nets, the discipline of the tonnarotti and the exact hour of the mattanza.
Etymology: from tonnara + suffix -otto (membership)
The workmen and sailors of the tonnara: they handled the nets, the vascelli and the muciare under the command of the Rais, in a strictly codified hierarchy.
Etymology: from Spanish matanza (slaughter)
The concluding rite of the fishing: when the tuna, trapped in the chamber of death, are hauled up and struck. More than a technique, a collective ritual drama.
Etymology: from Arabic jalā (invocation / song)
The rhythmic chant sung by the crew to coordinate, with bare arms, the hauling and lifting of the extremely heavy waterlogged nets made of vegetable fibre.
Etymology: from Latin pedalis (base mooring)
The long wall of net that ran from the shore cliff directly (between Punta Pizzo and the gulf) and stretched out to sea to block the path of the tuna.
Etymology: from Arabic mugiarah (light boat)
The smallest and fastest rowing boat, aboard which only the Rais climbed to inspect the nets, spot the arrival of the shoals and give orders.
The last basin of the fixed plant
The only net basin provided with a bottom (called lu corpu). Once the passage was closed, the net was hauled up from the vascelli for the final phase of the fishing.
Etymology: from Spanish bajel / Latin vascellum
The sturdy boats of the tonnara, deployed on the sides of the plant, from which the tonnarotti hauled up the nets of the chamber of death during the mattanza.
From the verb calare (to lower); in jargon, "to set the nets"
The lowering into the sea of the entire net plant that opened the fishing season. The last calata of the fixed Gallipoli tonnara dates to the 1960s-1970s.
Species: Thunnus thynnus
The majestic pelagic fish of the Mediterranean that in spring travelled up the warm currents of the Ionian sea, passing off the waters of Gallipoli.
The vocabulary of the tonnara is a linguistic stratigraphy of the Mediterranean: Arabic (ra'īs, jalā, mugiarah) coexists with Latin (pedalis, vascellum) and Spanish (matanza), grafted onto the Gallipoli dialect.
The proposed etymologies refer to the current bibliography on tuna fishing and to the lexicon curated by the Multimedia Museum. For published sources, see the Sources and Bibliography page.