Mafia vs Cosa Nostra

The Mafia" Only Existing in Italy, US is "La Cosa Nostra

Michael Franzese opened up to VladTV about why the mafia only exists in Italy, and he explained that the U.S. has a similar organization called La Cosa Nostra. He went on to explain that potential members of La Cosa Nostra have to have paternal Italian lineage, but Franzese added that they prefer that both the person's mother and father are Italian.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=opVHBroPYvA

It's "Cosa Nostra" not "La Cosa Nostra". The feds invented the name "La Cosa Nostra" to distinguish the US version from the Sicilian version.

The mafia name is used worldwide to describe organized crime groups , but the name mafia refers to Sicilian Mafia. In Italy they almost always use term 'Sicilian Mafia' or 'Ndrangheta etc. Sometimes the media would say Calabrian mafia etc

The word mafia was used in the 1863 for a opera called the "I mafiusi de la Vicaria" while the word Cosa Nostra was used when the Sicilian Mafia after 1956 meeting with their american cousins adopted the Commission.
After that,all criminals that was made can say "Io faccio parte di Cosa Nostra" (I'm part of Cosa Nostra).

Google translated "Our thing" to La Nostra Cosa" and "This thing of ours" was translated to "questa nostra cosa"

"Cosa Nostra" translates to "Thing our".

furio, you're Italian, what's going on here with the words? Why does "Cosa Nostra" translate to "Thing our"?

Because "Cosa Nostra" should be traslate "The Thing of Our" but Google translate use the grammatical rules and translate in "Our Thing" or "Thing Our".
The italian language is very difficult because the position of an adjective or an adverb can change the meaning of a phrase and digital translators don't translate well.

A blood oath is a blood oath regardless. For all we know Franzese can be sticking to his oath, feeding mixed information to keep LE and nonmembers guessing

Furio

ll criminals that was made can say "Io faccio parte di Cosa Nostra" (I'm part of Cosa Nostra). Is this dialect from Napoli?

Io sono parte di Cosa Nostra=basic Italian ?

Io faccio = I make?
Thanks

Blood=Sangue(italiano) sanguea(Napoli)?

Okay that explains it.

What did the Sicilians refer to their organization prior to importing the Cosa Nostra terminology from the Americans? Honored Society?

The feds added the”La” but many American members are geared referring to it as “La” Cosa Nostra....is that just an example of the newer generations picking up on the “La” from the news/LE? A form of life imitating art?

Io faccio parte di Cosa Nostra is italian. I dont know the sicilian dialect. I should find the sentence in sicilian.

"Cosa Nostra" first surfaced to a broad public during the Valachi hearings.

One thing that english speakers do is to try and translate foreign languages by each word at a time. It's the same for even spanish speakers. In Italian, fare and avere are commonly used to express things such as the weather or hunger or fatigue instead of essere (to be). Furio gives a good example of that (I make).

The mistake that the FBI made was to look at Cosa Nostra as an entity, so they figured it should be prefaced with the definite article: the (la).

The one such title that I find the most amusing is Capo di tutti capi. That is a perfect example of what I stated above: trying to translate foreign languages by each english word.

this organization never had a real name, it was called 'the sect' before 1860, 'mafia' after 1860 and 'cosa nostra' since the 1950s, it has not a proper name although it's the same since at least the 1830s, the members anyway always called themselves 'men of honour' since the beginning, the real name should be honoured society

Thank you

What?

Italian is Italian, or do the Sicilians speak a slightly different version of Italian?

Some Italians don’t consider Sicilians Italians, as well as Northern Italians not caring for southern Italians

Different dialects of Italian depending on region. Sicilian is a separate language, different dialects on the island, that Sicily is.

This is true, they don't have a name. "Cosa Nostra" is just Italian for "this thing of ours" which is not a name, it's just the term they use when referring to their organization.

I didn't know they called it "the sect" before 1860 but the name "mafia" is just a name the media gave them, as far as I know. However, I heard a story about the name "mafia". The short version of the story was a peasant Sicilian woman was getting raped by a rich land owner and she yelled out to another peasant woman she knew for help, she yelled out; "ma-fe-aa", "ma-fe-aa" (the woman's name) who subsequent came to her aid. And so the name "mafia" was born.

Probably just a Sicilian legend, who knows.

I learned something new today.

Cool, I have also learn new things from these discussions. Ask most tho and it appears that if you ask a Sicilian what it is they will always tell you they are Sicilian, hahaha

Italian is a leanguage,sicilian and neapolitan are dialects;in the south many people learn first the dialect and after the italian.
The sicilian and neapolitan dialects are different from the italian like the sun with the moon.

Ah, I see, thanks for the clarification. Your explanation is great!

Yes, the term is used today to refer exclusively to the Mafia of Sicilian origin, especially in the United States of America. In Italy "Brotherhood" or "Honored Society" were two of the terms used at the time to identify Cosa Nostra.

Those are the words from a guy in the comments of the video, and I think it make sense

« They're is different organizations. Naples has the Camorra, Calabria has the N'drengheta and Sicily has the Sicilian Mafia . The Cosa Nostra in America is a blend of all 3 with its own rules »

« bigdc202
Yep, and they all migrated to the US in the late 1800s/early 1900s with the Mafia being the dominant group of the three. After they merged to create La Cosa Nostra, the newspapers continued using the term Mafia because they hadn't discovered the new name yet. »

« they're similar but not the same. Cosa Nostra was started in 1931 at the end of the Castellammarese war. The Sicilian mafia is a separate organization, similar but different rules and structure. Before the Cosa Nostra was founded the US had the Cammora and Sicilian Mafia operating here , they even had a big war in new york from 1915-1918. »


I think its really make sense. Now the Cosa Nostra and The Mafia is the same thing because of the links between the US italians and the sicilians. But, it does make sense that the US are the Cosa Nostra and the Sicilian were the mafia at the begining.

Even, when you search in the mob american history, you find the war between the mafia and camorra in New York.

So could the Cosa Nostra be the American Italian organization original name, after the merging of all the italians in America ? The Mafia and the Camorra were no more, it was simply the Cosa Nostra ? The merging of italian groups of New York ?

And with time, the all the names became the same things ?

I’ve never been clear on this...

So the Americans came up with the Cosa Nostra term and it was imported to Sicily during a 1956 meeting discussing the formation of the Commission?

Is this meeting about the formation of the Sicilian Mafia commission? Since the US based commission was formed in 1931.

Any idea if one person or particular US family coined the Cosa Nostra term? This term gained popularity in the US in the 1950s from what I’ve read...what did the US based mobsters refer to themselves prior? Honored Society? Or?

Someone in Quora said this about the mafia and cosa nostra:

Cosa Nostra is, essentially, the American descendant of the Sicilian Mafia. The members never referred to their organization as anything but “our thing” or “our business,” and the Italian phrase was eventually adopted by some elements of American law enforcement as the name of the national organization.

As a practical matter, the terms Mafia and Cosa Nostra are used synonymously, along with, “The Syndicate,” “The Organization,” “The Mob,” and (in Dick Tracy) the “The Apparatus.” Subsidiary elements of the nationwide organization include “The Outfit” (for the Chicago branch), “The Five Families” (the various branches in the NYC metropolitan area), “The Mayfield Road Mob” (Cleveland), “The Office” (the Boston/New England branch), “The Detroit Partnership” (the Michigan branch), “The Combination” or “The Combine” (a coalition of all the Eastern Seaboard Mob families), etc.

Some commentary on youtube:

- They're is different organizations. Naples has the Camorra, Calabria has the N'drengheta and Sicily has the Sicilian Mafia . The Cosa Nostra in America is a blend of all 3 with its own rules

- Yep, and they all migrated to the US in the late 1800s/early 1900s with the Mafia being the dominant group of the three. After they merged to create La Cosa Nostra, the newspapers continued using the term Mafia because they hadn't discovered the new name yet.

- they're similar but not the same. Cosa Nostra was started in 1931 at the end of the Castellammarese war. The Sicilian mafia is a separate organization, similar but different rules and structure. Before the Cosa Nostra was founded the US had the Cammora and Sicilian Mafia operating here , they even had a big war in new york from 1915-1918.

Protected from such an end by 200 Federal marshals, Joseph M. Valachi made history in language as well as crime in 1963 when he added Cosa Nostra to the world’s vocabulary. Valachi, a convicted murderer who sang about the inner workings of the mob, told U. S. Senate investigators that his crime brothers never said mafia among themselves but called it la cosa nostra (`our thing’). This was news in Italy where cosa can signify just about anything and has multiple idiomatic couplings–cosa pubblica the `State or government’; far le sue cose `go to the toilet’–but where cosa nostra had not theretofore been synonymous with mafia. Italians nevertheless instantly accepted the term as meaning the mafia in America, and it is so identified to this day in the Italian press. Cosa Nostra indeed may qualify as a peculiar American hybrid, U. S. mobsters of Italian extraction having possible antecedents in the Neapolitan Camorra or Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta as well as the mafia. A coincidence, but in U. S. gangland’s hall of fame, Al Capone, was by origin a Neapolitan, Charles “Lucky” Luciano a Sicilian, and Frank Costello (born Francesco Castiglia) a Calabrian.

http://www.verbatimmag.com/Bria_Mafia.html

Throughout the entire history of the Mafia in Sicily, and later in America, its members NEVER referred to their "brotherhood" or organization as the Mafia per se. Thats a fact!

Depending upon in what era we're speaking of, and in what part of the world or nation, they were known as the "La Mano Nera" "Friends of the Friends" "The Piccioteria" "The Zubbio" "The Outfit" "The Arm" "The Office" "The Boys" "The Mob" "Connected" etc., etc., etc.

Individual members were known as mafiosi, connected, button guys, soldati, the boys, etc., and so on.

In Napoli and Calabria they were the Camorra, or Camorrista, the Onorato Societa' (The Honored Society), uomo di rispetto (man of respect). Later they called themselves N'drangheta. etc. But they were still "mafia" in essence.

The Mafia is actually a term used mostly be the government and the public to identify them, but members themselves almost never use that phrase.

The terminology and phrase "cosa nostra" has been used in one variation or another for many, many decades, possibly for over 100 years already. It's English translation simply means "our thing" meaning that we all belong to the "same thing," hence another variation spoken into the ears of fellow members privately, "a stessa cosa" which means, "its the same thing"....in other words, "we are the same thing."

After the blending of the Sicilian, Calabrian, and Neopolitan underworld factions in America it became more common to use the phrase "cosa nostra" because they were now truly one entity. But that phrase has been used many years before Valachi exposed it to the public.

https://www.criminalbehaviours.com/the-sicilian-mafia-cosa-nostra

- Many people confuse the Italian Mafia with Cosa Nostra, although these two things are connected in many ways, they are not the same.

- The Italian Mafia formed slowly over time in West Sicily just after 1700's, initially they were small gangs of thieves and extortionists.
?
- The Cosa Nostra was formed officially in the 1930's during the time of Charles Luciano and the formation of the commision in New York, USA.

- During Luciano's time in America he rose in mafia ranks pretty rapidly, starting out his life of crime as a youngster he was already a well known name in the mafia underworld. Luciano became part of the Masseria Family the most established Italian Mafia family in New York at the time he worked directly under the boss Gieuseppi “Joe the Boss” Masseria. After the death of Salvatore Maranzano another powerful mafia boss, Joe the boss would eventually go on to be executed on April 15, 1931 and Luciano took his place as head of the Masseria family.

With both of the biggest names in American Italian mafia gone Luciano was boss of bosses he called a meeting to put into place the restructure and re-organisation of what is now known today as Cosa Nostra. At that current time the Italian Mafia had structured the American Italian mafia into 5 original New York families Maranzano, Profaci, Mangano, Luciano, and Gagliano families.

During this sit down Luciano proposed that instead of a capo di tutti i capi (boss of all the bosses) that the structure should be more like a company with a board of commissioners that make decisions collectively. Effectively eliminating a boss of all bosses and equalising the vote of the representatives (caporegime) of each family.

- In conclusion although the Italian Mafia and Cosa Nostra (Italian American Mafia) are closely related they are not one in the same and should be thought of as two separate organisations that are connected through history and circumstance. It is true that one would not exist without the other but the way they operate and the obvious move away from Italian traditions are an example that they are to be seen and want to be seen as different from one another.

IIRC way before Valachi in Sicily a police informant first mentioned Cosa Nostra so it originated in Sicily.

As hardly any member of the American group can actually speak Italian, they can call it what they want...

New video of Franseze about the mafia and cosa nostra

Two different organizations

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Rxu4rhFIPBA

anyway in Sicily it is also called Cosa Nostra

Yes now, the two organizations have the same name. You can call it the mafia or cosa nostra. But at the beginning, the two were separate.
Al Capone was never a member of the mafia, he was simply an italian gangster. But after the birth of Cosa Nostra, he was a member of the Cosa Nostra.

Mafia was only for sicilians, even in the US.

But with time, and the use of the words by the news, cosa nostra and mafia became synonymous.

Also, with time, mafia became almost a synonym for organized crime, that why people use japanese mafia (yakuza), chinese mafia (triads and tongs), russian mafia (bratva).
Even in italy, some news call the ndrangheta the calabrese mafia and the camorra the naple mafia

You get the point, the use of the word mafia change with time

Even tough mafia should only be use for a type of organization from Sicily with only (or mostly) sicilian members