The neologism “atefano” was born in an unusual way, promoted by regional authorities in Piedmont and Liguria who usually do not deal with language, but rather with dialects or the promotion of local dialects. The initiative started from the Liguria Region, which accepted the proposal of the “Rachele Franchelli” association. “After Liguria, the Piedmont Assembly will also vote in the next sessions on an act of direction to spread this neologism” – explained the vice-president of the Piedmont Regional Council, according to whom “giving a name to the people who have experienced this traumatic event means making them visible, with the final objective of guaranteeing them protection”. Some of those who have committed themselves to promoting this word have expressed the desire that the Accademia della Crusca evaluate the official inclusion of the term in the vocabulary of the Italian language. But neither Crusca, nor any other authority, can promote a neologism by placing it in a list of some kind or in a dictionary. Besides the rest, Crusca does not compile the official Italian vocabulary at all, which just doesn’t exist. Language is created by speakers and writers. Only the speakers and the writers. Anyone has the right to invent a word and propose it, but the success is something else, and is never predictable.
Indeed, among the words of mourning, among those that express the loss of a close relative, the parent bereft of his child does not find a precise name. If you lose your husband, you have one qualification: you are a widower or widower; if you lose your father or mother, you have a name: orphan and orphan. The child’s bereaved parent has no special name. In a book published by Crusca in 2022, Right, wrong, it dependswhich in recent days has been plundered (without ever mentioning it) by newspapers and online sites, an explanation is suggested for this silence, for this “hole” in the language. The reason is of a legal, juridical nature. The loss of a child, unlike that of a parent or spouse, does not entail complex legal consequences. The lost child leaves no material legacy, leaves no will. Just pain.
Furthermore, it can be assumed that the tragic event led to a sort of taboo in the past, because the word is missing in many languages. In some you can find something. In Spanish, the Diccionario of the Real Academia Española records the adjective “deshijado”, said of a person who has been deprived of his children. In French there is “désenfanté”, a recent coinage that is still the subject of debate; from “désenfanté” “désenfantement” was taken, used in a book by the Moroccan writer Rita el-Khayat. In the Italian translation the term was rendered as “defigliazione”. We could have “defigliato”, “disfigliato” and “figliato”. The literary tradition offers “one-eyed” and “orbato”, as in Ariosto: “The cries and complaints of widows, / And of orphans, children and of one-eyed old men” (Orlando furioso, XXVII, 34, vv. 1-2). And Tasso: “Old father, one-eyed father, alas, no longer a father!” (Aminta, III, 2). The new proposal is inspired by a Greek term with a very cultured and vaguely bureaucratic flavor, certainly aseptic and valid on a technical level. We’ll see if the regional councils will be able to really circulate this new word.
*Claudio Marazzini, Honorary President of the Accademia della Crusca
