| Summary: | After a brief characterisation of the Saho language, spoken in Eritrea and some adjoining areas of Tigray, the authors outline a history of the development of literacy in this language from the late XIX century till now. The bulk of this paper consists in the analysis of ca. 300 Italian loanwords collected mainly from (i.) the Saho-English- Italian dictionary published by Vergari & Vergari in 2003, (ii.) Saho school books, (iii.) other supplementary textbooks and the Saho version of the Eritrean Constitution, and (iv.) native speakers of Saho in Eritrea between 2000 and 2007.
Most of these loanwords are nouns, but there are also three verbs and nine interjections. Their integration into Saho phonology and morphology are discussed in § 4 together with some features they share with Italian loanwords in Somali and Tigrinya, as well as with the Eritrean Italian pidgin described by Habte-Mariam Marcos (1976). The main semantic fields these loanwords belong to are: mechanic and building technologies, sports, the army, games, clothing, food and other household-related words.
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