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Re: Expression for dipping bread in sauce
Hello Kristen,
the Sicilian verb in question is most likely “mogghiari”, which means “soften”. Similar cognates in other languages include Spanish “mojar” and Romanian “a moia”, both of which can also mean “dip”; I don’t know if “mogghiari” also has the “dip” meaning.
Your grandfather’s use of it is most likely “Mogghia! Mogghia!”, in the imperative — “Soften! Soften!” I’m not familiar with Sicilian dialects, but the spelling “-ggh-” usually indicates that the first G would be pronounced as an English (hard) G. However, Sicilian orthography is not fixed, so perhaps what your grandfather was pronouncing was “Moghia! Moghia!”, where the “-gh-” is a phonetic [ɟ], which isn’t quite the same sound as an English Y.
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Language pair: Sicilian; English
This is a reply to message # 237784
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