Swobodin v Brně

Until 1862, there was no word in the Italian language called “mafia”.
Some people say it’s the acronym of “Morte Alla Francia, Italia Anela” (Death To the French Is Italy’s Cry). Another theory affirms that it’s an apocope of MiA FamilIA (my family) du to the “family’s system” of the mafia.

Former U.S. mob don Joseph Bonanno provided an origin that was a potentially erroneous reference to the Sicilian Vespers, a patriotic uprising in Sicily against the French in 1282. Bonnano claimed that French soldiers had violated a Sicilan girl. The girl’s distraught mother ran through the streets of Palermo crying “ma fia” (”my daughter”), causing the young men of Palermo to kill the French in response.

But the most probable origin, is that the word ‘mafia’ comes from the Arabic mu afyiah معفية which means exempt, and has the sense of inviolability, strength, vigour, refuge, secure …
The word probably came from the Maltese, “which is the only Arabic dialect that has become an official national language”.
 
Reference: http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Mafia

This entry was posted on Monday, January 16th, 2006 at 4:39 pm and is filed under General, Arabic, History, Etymology, Italian, Italia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.