L'acqua nella tradizione popolare salentina

This paper accounts for a selection of words belonging to traditions of the central Salento that are related to water and its uses in everyday life. A difficult etymological analysis often depends on a relative phonetic variation in the attested forms. Furthermore, a significant cultural distance between generations is responsible of changes in the lexis. Language witnesses therefore the coexistence of two broadly autonomous cultures for the old generation and the younger one (vertically connected by an intermediate generation). Through a different linguistic knowledge about techniques and uses of pots and pans, elderly and young people describe their vision of this resource and its civilization value. The main informant is a woman born at the beginning of the XX s. who still remembers the vital role played by water in the countryside whereas younger speakers tend to refer to seawater or town's water supply, just trying to keep a broad memory of pottery in agriculture and domestic use.