# Southern Italian: shundalatta / scendiletto



## Pico70

Ciao tutti,

When I was a kid and would come home all disheveled from playing outside, my grandmother would often say, "...tu guarda come una shundalatta!"
I've never been unable to find a word close to "shundalatta" which I'm trying to spell phonetically and think must be dialect. Years later, I was told that the word means ragamuffin. 

Is anyone familiar with this word or have any ideas about its meaning?

Grazie!


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## Nino83

Ciao, Pico70. Where did your grandmother come from? Was she a native speaker or did she grew up in the US?


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## Pico70

Ciao Nino83,  My grandmother came from Pico, a village in southern Lazio located in the province of Frosinone. She was a native speaker and emigrated to the US with my grandfather (also from Pico) around 1920.  For most of their early years in the US, they lived in a neighborhood with other people from Italy who were from their own region as well as people from Abruzzo, Calabria, Sicily, and Campania...so the word could be from a dialect other than her own????


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## Nino83

Thank you for the info, Pico70. 
I speak both Italian and Sicilian but I don't know any word resembling the one you're looking for. 
Let's wait for a native speaker of other Southern Italian languages.


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## Pico70

Nino83, Thank you for your effort!


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## Rani_Author

Caro @Pugnator & caro @Sardokan1.0, mi dispiace per disturbare. Ma, potreste rispondere alla domanda di Pico70.  Anch'io sono molto curiosa.  Questa domanda è molto interessante. 

I'm just trying to connect you with the other Southern Italians, Pico70. The Neapolitan and Sardinian. Maybe one of them could help you. 

Ciao, carissimo Nino!


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## Pico70

Mille grazie, Rani_Author!  The word was always used in the context of someone looking all disheveled.  When my grandmother would say the word, it would sound like a "tt" or a "dd" at the end...if that helps


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## Sardokan1.0

Sorry, I've never heard a similar word in Italian or in Sardinian, it must be something dialectal from Latium


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## Nino83

I've found this proverb from Catanzaro, where the verb "sciundà" could mean "sciogliere" (untie, loosen, dissolve), but I can't understand the meaning of your sentence. Maybe Pugnator can interpret it better. 

*U mundu è cchinu 'e 'mbrogghi nu si ti liga, nu si ti sciunda.*
_Il mondo è pieno di imbrogli un si ti lega, un si ti scioglie. _
Proverbi catanzaresi - Wikiquote 

Ciao Rani!


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## Pico70

Ciao Sardokan1.0, Thank you for your reply!

Ciao Nino83,  Very interesting find!  Thank you!  Maybe this is the answer???


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## aefrizzo

Ciao, ragazzi. In my neck of woods once upon a time, low-income people used, as a bedside rug, a rag rug or even an essiccated goat skin. The Italian term is *scendiletto*, but thanks to schwa and centralized wovels, you might have recognized the consonants only.
For what it is worth, taking into account the English spelling of Pico and the dialectal-informal prononciation of his granny, this is the most similar word I have ever heard. Its meaning is not far from ragamuffin.


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## Pico70

Ciao aefrizzo,  Thank you so much for your response...I believe that you have solved my mystery. *Scendiletto* is very close to the word that I recalled my grandmother using to describe my disheveled appearance...just like a rag rug...I laughed out loud when I read your description   Thank you for bringing joy to my day!


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