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Re: Alighieri
in reply to a message by Obie
Alighieri comes from an old german name. We can find it already in Xth century.
Alighieri still exists in Italy as a surname but as a masculine name
now Alighiero is used, of course in honour of DANTE.
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In fact the names has come into Italian Through the medieval LatinAlagherius, Alaghieri. In germanic countries Alaker.
At the moment the first name Alighiero is very rare in Italy.
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That's great, thanks. With this info I discovered that the ghieri part goes back to Germanic 'gaira' meaning lance. The ali (ala) bit is said to mean something like all or every. However, it should mean 'shake', because I heard that Alighieri means 'Shake-Spear'! So does ali or ala mean shake in any European language?
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So because it comes from Germany, an Italian speaker would not be able to give any translation of Alighieri, right? Do you perhaps know the German name from which it derives?
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It was in old german, the medieval language ALAKER.
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That fits well enough. So what I heard was right: 2 of Europe's greatest literary figures were both called Shake-spear. How amazing. (This is considered so improbable by some people that they say it proves that 'William Shakespeare' was merely a PSEUDONYM, the implication being that his Works were not written by that certain schoolmaster from Stratford.)
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