The Poetry of Nino Martoglio (Pueti dArba Sicula/Poets of Arba Sicula Book 3)

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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 , 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 , Norwich. In the process, the revitalization of Latin in Sicily had begun, along with the marginalization of Islam the Christian faith continued among the general population during the Saracen period, and it was only the ruling Muslim elite who were adherents of Islam, not the ordinary Sicilians themselves.

Many Norman words were to be absorbed by the new language during this period: The following factors that emerged during or immediately after the conquest were to prove critical in the formation of the Sicilian language:. The main factors that go into framing modern Sicilian language can be seen.

The Vulgar Latin base predominantly from Campania was similar to the Vulgar Latin in central Italy and therefore, by implication, reasonably similar to the Vulgar Latin in Tuscany that would eventually form the base for the national language. This base from Campania was influenced by the many Gallic influences present in Sicily at the time, namely Norman, French and Langobardic.

There were also remnants of the Arabic and Greek idioms that the new language eventually replaced, but hundreds of words remained in the vocabulary of the changing Romance language. The Lombard influence is of particular interest. Even to the present day, a Gallo-siculo dialect exists in the areas where the Lombard colonies were the strongest, namely Novara , Nicosia , Sperlinga , Aidone and Piazza Armerina Hull.

The Gallo-Italic influence was also felt on the Sicilian language itself, as follows Hull:. It was during the reign of Frederick II or Frederick I of Sicily between and , with his patronage of the Sicilian School of poetry, that Sicilian became the first of the Italic idioms to be used as a literary language Cipolla p. 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 not only marked the end of the year Norman- Swabian reign in Sicily but also effectively ensured that the centre of literary influence would eventually move from Sicily to Tuscany Cipolla p. While Sicilian, as both an official and a literary language, would continue to exist for another two centuries, the language would soon follow the fortunes of the kingdom itself in terms of prestige and influence.

As a side note, there are some Germanic influences in the Sicilian language, and many of these date back to the time of the Swabian kings amongst whom Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor enjoyed the longest reign. It should be noted that many of the below words are "reintroductions" of Latin words also found in modern Italian that were Germanicized at some point i. Words that probably originate from this era include:. Following the Sicilian Vespers of , the kingdom was to come under the influence of the Kingdom of Aragon Runciman , and so the Catalan language and the closely related Aragonese would add a new layer of vocabulary in the succeeding century.

For the whole of the 14th century, both Catalan and Sicilian were the official languages of the royal court Hughes Sicilian was also used to record the proceedings of the parliament of Sicily one of the oldest parliaments in Europe and for other official purposes Cipolla , p. By the time the crowns of Castille and Aragon were united in the late 15th century, the Italianisation of written Sicilian in the parliamentary and court records had commenced.

Sicilian language - Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core

By this process was virtually complete, with the Tuscan dialect of Italian becoming the lingua franca of the Italian peninsula and supplanting written Sicilian Cipolla p. Spanish rule lasted over three centuries not counting the Aragonese and Bourbon periods on either side and had a significant influence on the Sicilian vocabulary.

The following words are of Spanish derivation:. Since the Italian Unification the Risorgimento of — , the Sicilian language has been significantly influenced by Tuscan Italian. Mussolini ensured this when he made it obligatory that Italian be taught and spoken in all schools during his time in power. 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.

The Sicilian Regional Parliament recently voted to make the teaching of Sicilian a part of the school curriculum at primary school level, but as of only a fraction of schools teach Sicilian. There is also little in the way of mass media offered in Sicilian.

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The combination of these factors means that the Sicilian language continues to adopt Italian vocabulary and grammatical forms to such an extent that many Sicilians themselves cannot distinguish between correct and incorrect Sicilian language usage. Sicilian has a number of consonant sounds which, though not unique to Sicilian, certainly set it apart from the other major Romance languages.

The most unusual sounds include, but are not limited to, the retroflex consonants or cacuminals Cipolla Rarely indicated in writing, spoken Sicilian exhibits syntactic doubling or raddoppiamento Cipolla , which means that the first consonant of a word is lengthened when it is preceded by a vowel in the preceding word, e.

This process of lengthening is also called gemination , which is a general term used for the lengthening of any sound. The letter j at the start of a word can have three separate sounds, depending on what precedes the word Cipolla Another difference between the written and spoken languages is the extent to which contractions will occur in everyday speech. Thus a common expression such as avemu accattari The circumflex is commonly used in denoting a wide range of contractions in the written language, in particular, the joining of simple prepositions and the definite article.

Generally speaking, Sicilian has the same ending for feminine nouns and their adjectives as does standard Italian , that being the [a] , for example: Whereas Italian uses [o] as the ending for masculine nouns, Sicilian generally uses [u] , for example: The ending i can be either masculine or feminine, as in Italian the ending e can be of either gender.

Unlike standard Italian, Sicilian uses one letter, i , to denote the plural for both masculine and feminine nouns, for example: There are also many exceptions to this rule which are not always shared by Italian, for example: In the vast majority of instances where the originating Latin word has had an initial "i", the Sicilian has dropped it completely.

Dialect Literature

This can also happen occasionally where there was once an initial "e", and to a lesser extent "a" and "o". Unlike Italian, Sicilian only has one auxiliary verb , aviri , to have. This is a characteristic that it shares with Catalan. Sicilian also uses the verb "to have" to denote obligation as is used in languages like English , Spanish , German , Dutch [ citation needed ] , Lombard , and Neapolitan.

The verb "aviri" is also used to form the future tense in Sicilian, as it no longer has a Simple Future construction. This is an ancient feature, also found in Sardinian. Like French, Spanish, and English, but unlike Italian, Sicilian may use the verb jiri , to go, to signify the act of being about to do something. Italian does not use the verb andare , to go, in this way [ citation needed ]. The Simple Future tense in Sicilian is no longer in use. However the Sicilian language employs several possible methods of expressing the future tense:.

The 2nd person singular polite of the Imperative does not follow the same pattern as the rest of the tense. The 2nd person singular and plural employ the Present Indicative in place of the Imperative, while the 2nd person singular polite , because of its formality, employs the Present Subjunctive, which makes it less of a command and more of a request [ dubious — discuss ]. A range of extracts are offered below to illustrate the written form of Sicilian over the last few centuries, starting with a translation of the Lord's Prayer Bonner , through to extracts from three of Sicily's more celebrated poets: The Lord's Prayer is written with three variations: As one of the most-spoken languages of Italy, Sicilian has notably influenced the Italian lexicon.

In fact, there are several Sicilian words that are nowadays part of the Italian language; they usually refer to things closely associated to Sicilian culture, with some notable exceptions Zingarelli Sicilian is estimated to have 5,, speakers. The regional Italian dialect has encroached on Sicilian, most evidently in the speech of the younger generations.

Poets in Sicily sometimes write in Sicilian.

However, most speakers especially the youngest ones are literate just in Italian, not Sicilian; this implies a poor knowledge of the written language in all its formal grammar and spelling rules, in contrast to a still-wide diffusion of informal spoken Sicilian in the island. The education system does not support the language. Local universities do not carry courses in Sicilian, or where they do it is described as dialettologia , that is, the study of dialects.

Outside Sicily, there is an extensive Sicilian diaspora living in several major cities across South and North America, as well as other parts of Europe and Australia. Many descendants of Sicilians who emigrated to the United States in the late s and early s believed that their ancestors spoke 'Italian'. Some are rudely disarmed of that belief if they visit northern Italy and receive quizzical stares when they speak century-old Sicilian. Today, the Sicilian language is spoken to varying extents within families and communities; however, it has neither a recognized status nor programmes established to preserve the language.

The Sicilian-American organization Arba Sicula publishes stories, poems and essays, in Sicilian and in the corresponding English, in an effort to preserve the Sicilian language.

Sicilian language

The movie La Terra Trema is in Sicilian, using many local, non-professional actors. This article has multiple issues.

Sicilian language: Ethnologue report on Sicilian

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Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Italy portal Languages portal. Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Retrieved January 26, Abulafia, The end of Muslim Sicily cit. Sale ends on 24 December at Product description Product Description This is a selection of poems from the Centona, a well known collection of poems by Nino Martoglio, who was the founder of dialect theater in Italy.

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