[[File:Lingua siciliana.png|thumb|Etymological analysis of 5,000 terms from the Dizionario etimologico siciliano by Salvatore Giarrizzo:<br /> 2,792 (55.84%)<br /> 733 (14.66%)<br /> 664 (13.28%)<br /> 318 (6.36%)<br /> 303 (6.06%)<br /> 107 (2.14%)<br /> 83 (1.66%)

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Early influences

Because Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea and many peoples have passed through it (Phoenicians, Ancient Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Vandals, Jews, Byzantine Greeks, Arabs, Normans, Swabians, Spaniards, Austrians, Italians), Sicilian displays a rich and varied influence from several languages in its lexical stock and grammar. These languages include Latin (as Sicilian is a Romance language itself), Ancient Greek, Byzantine Greek, Spanish, Norman, Lombard, Hebrew, Catalan, Occitan, Arabic and Germanic languages, and the languages of the island's aboriginal Indo-European and pre-Indo-European inhabitants, known as the Sicels, Sicanians and Elymians. The very earliest influences, visible in Sicilian to this day, exhibit both prehistoric Mediterranean elements and prehistoric Indo-European elements, and occasionally a blending of both.

Before the Roman conquest (3rd century BC), Sicily was occupied by various populations. The earliest of these populations were the Sicanians, considered to be autochthonous. The Sicels and the Elymians arrived between the second and first millennia BC. These aboriginal populations in turn were followed by the Phoenicians (between the 10th and 8th centuries BC) and the Greeks. The heavy Greek-language influence remains strongly visible, while the influences from the other groups are smaller and less obvious.

|-

! scope="row" style="font-weight: normal; font-style: italic;" | binelli

| Ligurian

|-

| rowspan="4" | Ancient

! scope="row" style="font-weight: normal; font-style: italic;" | èmmuli

| Latin

|-

! scope="row" style="font-weight: normal; font-style: italic;" | cucchi

| Latin

|-

! scope="row" style="font-weight: normal; font-style: italic;" | minzuddi

| Latin

|-

! scope="row" style="font-weight: normal; font-style: italic;" | ièmiddi, ièddimi

| Ancient Greek

|}

A similar qualifier can be applied to many of the words that appear in this article. Sometimes it may be known that a particular word has a prehistoric derivation, but it is not known whether the Sicilians inherited it directly from the indigenous populations, or whether it came via another route. Similarly, it might be known that a particular word has a Greek origin but it is not known from which Greek period the Sicilians first used it (ancient Magna Grecia or the Byzantine period), or once again, whether the particular word may even have come to Sicily via another route. For instance, by the time the Romans had occupied Sicily, the Latin language had made its own borrowings from Greek.

Pre-classical period

The words with a prehistoric Mediterranean derivation often refer to plants native to the Mediterranean region or to other natural features.

  • – "to dam or block a canal or running water" (but also Spanish "to muddy") At this time the island could be considered a border zone with moderate levels of bilingualism: Latinisation was mostly concentrated in western Sicily, largely among the upper class, whereas Eastern Sicily remained predominantly Greek.
  • – "basket" (from ; but also Latin )

Germanic influences

From 476 to 535, the Ostrogoths ruled Sicily, although their presence apparently did not affect the Sicilian language. The few Germanic influences to be found in Sicilian do not appear to originate from this period. One exception might be or "to hawk goods, proclaim publicly", from Gothic "to give a signal". in modern Italian). Words that probably originate from this era include:

  • – "to work in the fields" (from ; but other possible Latin derivations)
  • – "jar" ( ; but also Latin ) and Spanish )
  • – "sesame seed" (from Tunisian or . and Spanish ).
  • – "leader" ( .
  • – "canal" (from .
  • – "saffron" (type of plant whose flowers are used for medicinal purposes and in Sicilian cooking; from . Cognate of Maltese żagħfran and English Saffron)
  • – "blossom" ( . and Spanish )
  • – "muscat of Alexandria" (type of dried grape; .
  • – "market" (from ; but also Aragonese and Spanish .
  • (the northern gate of Agrigento; "Gate of the Winds").
  • Gisira – "island" ( jazīra. Cognate of Maltese gżira) (archaic)

Throughout the Islamic epoch of Sicilian history, a significant Greek-speaking population remained on the island and continued to use the Greek language, or most certainly a variant of Greek influenced by Tunisian Arabic. It was into this climate that the Normans thrust themselves with increasing numbers during the first half of the 11th century.

Norman and French influence

When the two most famous of Southern Italy's Norman adventurers, Roger of Hauteville and his brother, Robert Guiscard, began their conquest of Sicily in 1061, they already controlled the far south of Italy (Apulia and Calabria). It took Roger 30 years to complete the conquest of Sicily (Robert died in 1085).

  • – "to buy" (from Norman French ,
  • – "to hide" (Old Norman French , Norman French /, Old French ; but also Greek )
  • / "butcher" (from Old French )
  • – "godson" (from ) (cognate of Maltese )
  • / – blind (from orb)
  • – "to rinse" (from )
  • – "where" (from ond)
  • the names of the days of the week:
  • – "Monday" (from )
  • – "Tuesday" (from )
  • – "Wednesday" (from )
  • – "Thursday" (from )
  • – "Friday" (from )

Occitan influence

The origins of another Romance influence, that of Occitan, had three reasons:

  1. The Normans made San Fratello a garrison town in the early years of the occupation of the northeastern corner of Sicily. To this day (in ever decreasing numbers) a Siculo-Gallic dialect is spoken in San Fratello that is clearly influenced by Occitan, which leads to the conclusion that a significant number in the garrison came from that part of France. This may well explain the dialect spoken only in San Fratello, but it does not wholly explain the diffusion of many Occitan words into the Sicilian language. On that point, there are two other possibilities:
  2. Some Occitan words have entered the language during the regency of Margaret of Navarre between 1166 and 1171, when her son, William II of Sicily, succeeded to the throne at the age of 12. Her closest advisers, entourage and administrators were from the south of France, and many Occitan words entered the language during this period.
  • – "landowner, citizen" (from )
  • – "sparse, thin, infrequent" (from )
  • – "equal" (from ).

Sicilian School of Poetry

It was during the reign of Frederick II (or Frederick I of Sicily) between 1198 and 1250, with his patronage of the Sicilian School, that Sicilian became the first of the modern Italic languages to be used as a literary language. The influence of the school and the use of Sicilian itself as a poetic language was acknowledged by the two great Tuscan writers of the early Renaissance period, Dante and Petrarch. The influence of the Sicilian language should not be underestimated in the eventual formulation of a lingua franca that was to become modern Italian. The victory of the Angevin army over the Sicilians at Benevento in 1266 not only marked the end of the 136-year Norman-Swabian reign in Sicily but also effectively ensured that the centre of literary influence would eventually move from Sicily to Tuscany. While it is often difficult to determine whether a word came directly from Catalan (as opposed to Occitan), the following are likely to be such examples:

  • – "to notice, realise" (from )
  • – "to be embarrassed" (from )
  • – "growth, development" (from )
  • – "to be pleased" (from )

Spanish rule had hastened this process in two important ways:

  • Unlike the Aragonese, almost immediately the Spanish placed viceroys on the Sicilian throne. In a sense, the diminishing prestige of the Sicilian kingdom reflected the decline of Sicilian from an official, standarized written language to eventually non-standardized spoken dialects amongst a predominantly illiterate population.
  • The expulsion of all Jews from Spanish dominions that began in 1492 altered the population of Sicily. Not only did the population decline, many of whom were involved in important educated industries, but some of these Jewish families had been in Sicily for around 1,500 years, and Sicilian was their native language, which they used in their schools. Thus the seeds of a possible broad-based education system utilising books written in Sicilian were lost.
  • – "lament, annoyance" (from )
  • – "receipt" (from ) This process has quickened since World War II due to improving educational standards and the impact of mass media, such that increasingly, even within the family home, Sicilian is not necessarily the language of choice.

Phonology

{| class="wikitable" style=text-align:center

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Sicilian consonants

!

! scope="col" | Labial

! scope="col" | Dental/<br>Alveolar

! scope="col" | Post-<br>alveolar

! scope="col" | Palatal

! scope="col" | Velar

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! scope="row" | Stop

|&emsp;

|&emsp;

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|()&emsp;()

|&emsp;

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! scope="row" | Affricate

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|&emsp;()

|&emsp;

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! scope="row" | Fricative

|&emsp;

|&emsp;()

|&emsp;()

|()

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! scope="row" | Trill

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! scope="row" | Flap

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! scope="row" | Nasal

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|()

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! scope="row" | Approximant

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|()

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{| class="wikitable"

|+Sicilian vowels

! scope="col" | sound

! scope="col" | spelling

! scope="col" | example

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Consonants

Sicilian has a number of consonant sounds that set it apart from the other major Romance languages, notably its retroflex consonants. This sound is rare but present among Romance languages, including Sardinian, Southern Corsican, and some dialects of Calabria. For example, the counterpart to Italian in Sicilian is .

  • Consonantal lenition — A further range of consonantal sound shifts occurred between the Vulgar Latin introduced to the island following Roman rule and the subsequent development of the Sicilian language. These sound shifts include: Latin -nd- to Sicilian -nn-; Latin -mb- to Sicilian -mm-; Latin -pl- to Sicilian -chi-; and Latin -li- to Sicilian -gghi-.
  • Rhotacism and apheresis — This transformation is characterized by the substitution of single d by r. In Sicilian this is produced by a single flap of the tongue against the upper alveolar ridge . This phenomenon is known as rhotacism, that is, the substitution of r for another consonant; it is commonly found both in Eastern and Western Sicilian (but not in central Sicilian), and elsewhere in Southern Italy, especially in Neapolitan. It can occur internally, or it can affect initial d, in which case it should not be represented orthographically to avoid confusion with the regular r (see above). Examples : ("foot") is pronounced ; ("Virgin Mary") is pronounced ; ("to say it") is pronounced . Similarly, apheresis of some clusters may occur in certain dialects, producing instances such as for "big".

The circumflex accent is commonly used in denoting a wide range of contractions in the written language, particularly the joining of simple prepositions and the definite article: = ("of the"), = ("to the"), = ("for the"), = ("in the"), etc.

Unlike Standard Italian, Sicilian uses the same standard plural ending -i for both masculine and feminine nouns and adjectives: ('houses' or 'cases'), ('doors' or 'harbors'), ('tables'). Some masculine plural nouns end in -a instead, a feature that is derived from the Latin neuter endings -um, -a: ('books'), ('days'), ('arms', compare Italian braccio, braccia), ('gardens'), ('writers'), ('signs'). It is also used to denote obligation (e.g. , '[he/she] has to go'),

Tenses and moods

The main conjugations in Sicilian are illustrated below with the verb , 'to be'.

{| class="wikitable" style=text-align:center

|-

! Infinitive

|colspan="6"| èssiri / siri

|-

! Gerund

|colspan="6"| essennu / sennu

|-

! Past participle

|colspan="6"| statu

|-

! Indicative|| eu/iu/ju || tu || iḍḍu || nuàutri || vuàutri || iḍḍi

|-

! Present

| sugnu || si' || esti / è || semu || siti || sunnu / su'

|-

! Imperfect

| era || eri || era || èramu || èravu || èranu

|-

! Preterite

| fui || fusti || fu || fomu || fùstivu || foru

|-

! Future<sup>1</sup>

| — || — || — || — || — || —

|-

! Conditional<sup>2</sup> || ju || tu || iḍḍu || nuàutri || vuàutri || iḍḍi

|-

!

| fora || fori || fora || fòramu || fòravu || fòranu

|-

! Subjunctive|| ju || tu || iḍḍu || nuàutri || vuàutri || iḍḍi

|-

! Present

| sia || si' / fussi || sia || siamu || siati || sianu

|-

! Imperfect

| fussi || fussi || fussi || fùssimu || fùssivu || fùssiru

|-

! Imperative|| — || tu || vossìa<sup>3</sup> || — || vuàutri || —

|-

!

| — || sì || fussi || — || siti || —

|}

  1. The synthetic future is rarely used and, as Camilleri explains, continues its decline towards complete disuse. However, it remains very much a home language that is spoken among peers and close associates. Regional Italian has encroached on Sicilian, most evidently in the speech of the younger generations.

In terms of the written language, it is mainly restricted to poetry and theatre in Sicily. The education system does not support the language, despite recent legislative changes, as mentioned previously. Local universities either carry courses in Sicilian or describe it as , the study of dialects.

Calabria

The dialect of Reggio Calabria is spoken by some 260,000 speakers in the Reggio Calabria metropolitan area. It is recognised, along with the other Calabrian dialects, by the regional government of Calabria by a law promulgated in 2012 that protects Calabria's linguistic heritage.

Diaspora

Outside Sicily and Southern Calabria, there is an extensive Sicilian-speaking diaspora living in several major cities across South and North America and in other parts of Europe and Australia, where Sicilian has been preserved to varying degrees.

Media

The Sicilian-American organization Arba Sicula publishes stories, poems and essays, in Sicilian with English translations, in an effort to preserve the Sicilian language, in Arba Sicula, its bi-lingual annual journal (latest issue: 2017), and in a biennial newsletter entitled Sicilia Parra.

The 1948 filme La Terra Trema is entirely in Sicilian and uses many local amateur actors.

The nonprofit organisation Cademia Siciliana publishes a Sicilian version of a quarterly magazine, "UNESCO Courier".

Sample words and phrases

{| class="wikitable"

! English

! Sicilian

|-

| to make a good impression

|

|-

| wine

|

|-

| man

|

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| woman

|

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| the other side

|

|-

| also, too

|

|-

| there

|

|-

| right there

|

|-

| where

|

|-

| you

|

|-

| be careful!

|

|-

| he, him

|

|-

| she, her

|

|-

| once, formerly

|

|-

| he who pays before seeing the goods gets cheated<br>

|

|}

See also

  • Arba Sicula
  • Baccagghju
  • Cademia Siciliana
  • Centro di studi filologici e linguistici siciliani
  • Griko
  • Magna Graecia
  • Sicilian School
  • Siculo-Arabic
  • Theme of Sicily

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Explanatory notes

References

General and cited references

  • (the orthography used in this article is substantially based on the Piccitto volumes)
  • Cademia Siciliana – a non-profit organization that promotes education, research and activism regarding the Sicilian language, as well as an orthographic standard
  • Arba Sicula – a non-profit organization that promotes the language and culture of Sicily
  • Napizia – Dictionary of the Sicilian Language
  • Sicilian Translator
  • www.linguasiciliana.org