Capish?! A linguistic journey and a final repatriation

This study develops the blended theme of pragmatic particles (such asinterjections and exclamatory remarks) as cultural key-words, developingkey concepts (Wierzbicka 1997), and their diachronic, diatopic anddiamesic usage. The addressed issue is the word /capish/, its use withinthe migrant community of Italian Americans and its global spread. Capish,in its different and alternative spellings, is today the name of HipHopartists and their songs worldwide, but also of restaurants and pizzabakeries in South Africa, sandwich bars and street food in the UK, streetwear companies in Ontario and brand of jewels in Brazil, to mentiononly a few of the numerous companies or activities with this name. Thearticle describes the parallel, unbalanced spreading of the signifier andthe significant of this migratory lexical item on a global scenario, to itsfinal reconciliation after almost a century in Italy. Here, in recent years,while local people still use capish as a dialectal expression, some Italiansuse it as the result of the echo of the Italian-American culture disseminationin the world, mainly influenced by mafia literature, Hollywoodfilmography and Hip-Hop music.