Dall’uso del gesso alle parole del gesso

Like most of traditional thechnical lexicons, the lexicon of the chalk manufacturing is made up both of lexemes drawn from common lexicon and of a few exclusive terms. However, it is scarcely recorded in Sicilian dictionaries as well as scarcely studied.Nevertheless a specialized chalk lexicon has recently been documented thanks to ethnolinguistic fieldwork survey, in an area comprehending centers around Enna, Caltanissetta, Agrigento and Palermo. Most of the lexemes of this "minor" lexicon, however, do not appear in the most complete regional lexicographic repertoire, the Sicilian Vocabulary (VS). For example, the word carcara, the most typical artifact of the ergological chalk culture, is glossed with a laconic "furnace" without further descriptive or functional notes.The lecture presents important technical items characterizing the popular taxonomy of Sicilian gypsum and the different shapes and types of stones employed to to build a carcara.