Lexical contact in Africa: Italian loanwords in the Mà’dí language of South Sudan and Uganda

We examine the presence of Italian loanwords in Mà’dí (ISO 630 code [mhi]), a Moru-Madi language spoken in South Sudan and Uganda. The existence of Italian loanwords elsewhere in Africa is the result primarily of colonial contact, and/or the presence of communities of Italian-speakers originally from Italy. We show that the Italian loanwords in Mà’dí have two sources of transmission: (a) direct contact with Italian Catholic missionaries; (b) indirect mediation via Arabic (mostly via a creole form of it, known as Juba Arabic). We argue that what are in some cases loanwords borrowed from Arabic are in fact ultimately indirect loans from Italian, having first entered into Arabic. Other loanwords, presumed to be Anglicisms, may be or are also Italian in origin or show some evidence of contact with Italian. The situation is rendered more complicated by the presence of borrowings that may instead be Latin or even Portuguese in origin – the latter potentially having entered Mà’dí indirectly through Swahili.