Franco Fanciullo - Biography#

Born in Cellino San Marco (Brindisi, Italy) in 1950, Franco Fanciullo studied in Pisa (at the University and the Scuola Normale Superiore), where he graduated with honors in Linguistics in 1973. After the achievement of “Perfezionamento” (Phd.) in 1976, he entered his academic career in the Italian university up to the highest level (“Professore Ordinario”). He taught Linguistics and Dialectology at the Universities of Potenza, Viterbo, Turin and finally Pisa. He retired in 2021/22 and he is still volunteering as dialectology professor at the University of Pisa.

His main interests are in historical linguistics, Italian linguistics, Italian dialectology, languages in contact in the Mediterranean area during the Middle Ages, Italian and dialectal etymology. He contributed from 1982 on to the compilation of the "Lessico Etimologico Italiano", founded and directed in Germany by M. Pfister untill his death and now directed by W. Schweickard and E. Prifti. He has completed about 200 articles and books; since 2004 he has been the director of the Pisa journal "L’Italia Dialettale", the most prominent in the field internationally, and since 2009 is one of the directors of the journal "Lingua e Stile", Bologna.