Italian vs Sicilian | How Different Are They? | Learn Sicilian
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ก.ย. 2019
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In this video we explore some of the similarities and differences between Italian and Sicilian.
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The music is distracting. Also lancuage is NOT just a sack full strange or rare words, but a language is a distinct way of forming sounds, forming words, and forming sentences. The final AIM of any language is ALWAYS to form a FULL sentence, because only a full sentence can convey a meaning to an addressee.
@@marcelbork92not necessarily if you just say the word work and you’re saying it like it’s a demand then the person you’re saying that to will be like oh shit guess I gotta work and that’s only one word
Sicilian is older than Italian the famous Sicilian school of literature paved the road for the Italian language
I never knew that! Interesting
How similar is Sicilian to Napulitano?
@@CinCee- similar enough to understand each other
@@alfredvinciguerra532 So they're more intelligable to eachother than they are to Italian?
@@CinCee- yes
My parents were both born in Sicily. Of course everyone in Sicily speaks proper Italian but when with family and friends everyone speaks Siciliano . It is a language made up of Italian, French , Arabic , Greek and maybe a few others. Their is a debate of whether its an official language or a dialect. I really do not care what people say. I feel its a language on its own.
Of course it is. The Sicilian language was taken from the Sicilians along with so many other things. It is terrible. A dictionary should be made. Try and tell them they speak Italian, they will say, ''No, it is Sicilian''. If it were just a dialect, they would agree it is Italian.
@@Sigridovski Correct. My family was Calabrese and my Nanna called herself Sicilian if you called her Italian but Calabrese if you called her Sicilian
Latin. I learned the Mass in Latin very easily because of the Siciliano spoken at home in the 1950’s.
It's not made up with italian. Sicilian language helped creating the italian language
The difference between a language and a dialect is that a language had an army and a navy.
That’s crazy how different the languages are I never believed it
Yeah, my wife didnt know, and her freaking last name is Siciliano!!!!!!! Lol I love her though 😁
It's not very diverse
Sure it’s a different language and older also
@@alfredvinciguerra532 yes, but it's not use
@@gabrielecatania6682 It’s used in Sicily and many parts of the world with Sicilians
My great grandma and her side came from Palermo, Sicily. When her family immigrated, she never learned the language, due to integration into the "proper" language of English. So I'm happy I found you and am able to learn the language of my ancestors.
What is my my my gray gray from Palermo? U must be an americano? The Italian Americans have nothing to do with Sicilian or Italian blood anymore, if u and ur gran gran gran gran still in Sicily then u are
I am Half Sicilian and half Irish@@bigboss-ci5zw
Wow! I used to think Sicilian was just a dialect of Italian with just slight differences in terms of spelling and pronunciation; I didn’t realize they differ so much!
Sicilian is a Language and actually is older than Florentine . It has both a different vocabulary and syntax . Sadly , for political reasons , Italy never recognized Sicilian as language
@@locusta4662 cool!
i laughed and got emotional watching this. brought back memories of my childhood having a sicilian nonna
Thank you for watching! 😀
Even more interesting is the etymology of those words. You'll find traces of everyone who ever lived in Sicily in the language itself 🙂
Leftover,
I have to say.... suona come un'impossibilità. Every person? Per favore ..dove l'hai imparto where were you able to discover that?
Paolo
@@nonzerosum8943 not every person, of course... read between the lines. every people - Spaniards, Arabs, Normands, Greeks... etc etc. And more I assume.
I definitely saw 4 Arabic words in there..
Unni, Sciuri, Sciarriari, Taliari,
They mean the same thing in Arabic but with the -i endings added
@@nonzerosum8943 non di ogni persona pero di ogni popolo che ha conquistato l'isola :)
@@kazmanscoop interesting! Unni, definitely comes from latin unde (related to spanish donde), sciuri/ciuri also (compare italian fiore), sciarriari comes indeed from arabic and taliari too! Greetings from Germany and have a good day! :)
My father was born in Sicily. I'd love to learn the Sicilian language, the language of my ancestors. But first I have to get fluent in Italian. I'm alread quite good, but it requires lots of practice. When I'm fluent, I'll learn Sicilian. Love Italy and Sicily!
All four of my grandparents came from Sicily (in or near Palermo) in the 1920’s. My father’s parents spoke only Sicilian. I recognize many of the Sicilian words in the video, but I also remember that some of the Italian words sound a lot like what they spoke too. And they came here way before Sicilian kids were forced to speak Italian in school. Interesting.
Before Sicilians were "forced" to learn Italian in school, do you think they studied Sicilian?
Every region was forced to learn Tuscan italian. That is the regional dialect spoken in Florence and the dialect that became national and the standard variation. Before all Italians kingdoms were forced to learn Tuscan Italian, everyone spoke their own dialect - including Sicilians, Sardinians, Calabrians, etc
@l.apastore4208 they weren't forced to learn it. The standard was based on Tuscan (due the popularity of Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio etc.) But that standard was developed by writers from ALL across the peninsula. Pietro Bembo for example was from Venice, Manxoni; from Milan and Torquato Tasso from Naples amongst many others. It was developed by great writers and then adopted by each Italian state successively before they were united. They weren't forced. You don't know the history of it at all.
@@michaelm-bs2er First of all- don’t accuse me of not knowing my countries history. Secondly because of the influence and economic power of Florence, and it being the most similar to Latin are the real reasons it was chosen Not JUST because of cultural works. Thirdly The Italian Consitution was set up in 1948 and gave everyone the right to education, to help improve literacy and dissolve regional dialects in favour of Tuscan, partly due to communication issues during the war. Go f urself. I don’t know why the hell u came with venom and chose violence.
@l.apastore4208 Sicilians were never taught Sicilian in schools. No region of Italy ever used its dialect as an official language (well, maybe with the exception of Venice and a couple of other places).
The official language of the Kingdom of Sicily (inc. Sicily and Southern Italy) was Latin. In school, for those fortunate enough to go, children would learn Latin up until about 1500 something, then they adopted Italian (standard Italian, based on Florentine) as the official language.
There was certainly a rich literature of Sicilian and many songs and plays composed in Sicilian and other dialects (especially Neapolitan), but Latin was the official language up until Italian was introduced in the 1500s as the official language long before the unification.
Having been raised in a Sicilian family, this is basically right on the mark. One correction, however. The Italian for "to mix" is "mescolare", not "mesclare".
@Eros Delorenzi Messinese
@@spideraxis discord.gg/jGdUhcs
So Called Black Man We are blacker but we sure as hell ain’t black . Don’t get your hopes up muli
@So Called Black Man Sicilians have among the most mixed ancestries, one of which is Middle Eastern. That includes me, but they are not of subSaharan heritage, and thank God for that.
@So Called Black Man You can't figure out what it means? Ignorant is your middle name. But don't fret, your stupidity is covered by Obozocare, and you also qualify for free fried chicken for a year, the cause of the stupidity.
As an American born Sicilian raised in the Italian section of South Philadelphia, I never realized how different the languages were. What I heard growing up was predominantly Italian. I understand some of it, but never learned either language.
Both of my parents were born and raised in Sicily and came to the US as adults. in the 1950s and 1960. Both were educated and my father graduated with a degree in literature from the University of Messina in the late 1950's. In the US, he taught Italian language at American universities for more than 30 years. I studied Italian under my father and practiced it with both parents. Still, when speaking to each other, my parents frequently spoke Sicilian. Although I can't speak it, I'd say I recognized 80 percent of the words presented here.
This helps me a lot thanks for the lecture
You are welcome!
My grandmother spoke Sicilian (Messinese). I know about 75% of these words.
own a greco sicilian friendship discord server if you want to join send me your account
LOVE this comparison format!!!
I love this video especially considering the variations from city to city my family from Borgetto says cacio for cheese.
I can't believe that there are that many differences...it's almost another language...seriously...
Almost ? It is already another language
@@Kurdedunaysiri true
@@Kurdedunaysiri thank u lol
It IS another language. It is NOT a dialect as people were duped to believe. It should be reerected as a language. It is also much, much bigger than Italian; much in the same order as Arabic and English.
@@Sigridovskiit is a dialect of italian. Why would it be a language?
I’m a Spanish speaking Mexican and I don’t understand Sicilian at all. 90% of the words are foreign to us. Italian, however, is similar, I understand most of the Italian words and format.
Some of the words remind me so much of my parents speaking in Sicilian... brings a tear to my eyes.
Glorious presentation.
It sounds like Italian regarding Pronunciation yet the words are very distinct.
I appreciate the fact that you're keeping the Sicilian language alive, Very Important.
But, you should have a disclaimer stating that some of the words you're translating are not spoken or pronounced the same way you are presenting them in other regions of Sicily.
Your speaking seems to be from western parts of the Island. For instance in the eastern Messina provinces the word (yes) "si" is "si" not so much "se" and (cheese) formaggio is fumaggio and these pronunciations travel across the Straight into Villa San Giovanni and lower Calabria.
BTW..... I Just Subscribed.
In verità a Messina diciamo sia "sì" che "se", a seconda del contesto
Some towns have their own dialect. You can't even go 40 mi before it changes. This is what's frustrating.
What would your advice be to someone trying to learn Sicilian? The dialectical differences between different villages/regions of Sicily make it frustrating. I'm American of Sicilian descent and have wanted/tried to learn it my whole life. I'm slowly learning Italian but would love to be able to speak Sicilian
@@JustAdude291 Find out which places in Sicily your ancestors came from, and pick one of those dialects
I found some Arabic words there!
Unni (where) sounds a bit like the Arabic word Wein وين (where)
Taliare (to look) is very similar to an Arabic Lebanese word Talaa طلع... Which means to Look at something
Sciuri (flowers) is very similar to the Arabic word for flowers, Zuhuur زهور
Sciarriari (to fight) sounds like the Arabic word for fighting, Shijar شجار
I find it fascinating that some of these words survived even though the Arab occupation of Sicily didn't last that long, relatively.
I'll tell you a couple more things: there are a lot of names of small towns in Sicily that come from the Arab domination(for instance: Marsala or probably Buccheri), and we've also adopted some "linguistic trends". For instance, I read somewhere the other day that Arab people say "Inshallah (sorry if I spelled it wrong)" and often times in Sicilian culture you would say the equivalent of "If God wants it". Other than that, up until last century, people often greeted each other saying "sabbinirica", meaning literally "may God bless you". I would really love to learn Arab because I think there are a lot of connections with Sicily yet to discover
Totally different language!!!! I never realized that. Some Romanians can understand Sicilian.
Yeah, I thought a couple of the words looked more like Romania . I wonder if Sicilian is closer to Latin?
Wow Calabrese Italian has a lot of similarities to Sicilian!
It’s Sicilian, in Calabria and Salento Puglia they speak Sicilian
That's because Calabrese is a dialect of Sicilian!
@@atides33 Sicilian is spoken in Calabria in Salento (Puglia) with variations but which linguistically are part of Sicilian, in Messina a dialect very close to Calabrese is spoken.
@@atides33if you tell a Calabrians that what he speaks is a sicilian dialect, he'll tell you very quickly where to go. It is not a separate language. Both Sicilian and Calabrians dialects and the dialects of Southern Puglia are southern Italian dialects. They grouped together in a larger category called "Far Southern Italian". They probably originated on the peninsula, having diverged from an older form of italian and then crossed into Sicily at some point in late ancient times or the middle ages.
Is it possible to do a video on verbs or vocabulary for things like jobs or hobbies?
Absolutely! Also, thank you we always appreciate new ideas. Let us know if you have any specific ones you'd like to hear!
@@LearnSicilian chi suono la chitarra in sotofondo ? Molto bene . Grazie mille
Paolo
I'm noticing some cognates between Sicilian and French:
- accatari = acheter
- travagghiu = travail
We still have a Sicilian social club on 18th Ave in Bensonhurst to honor our ancestors and for our elderly community to have a gathering point
And to discuss union shake downs
In greek we say pitsirikos, sounds like picciriddu, and chiddu sounds like ekino (greek for that)
Yes that's true but when you will find out the history of sicilia you will now why sicilian language has so many Greek and even Arabic influences and let's not forget the Spain and ..
.... well if you want to know just search more about the history of sicilia
Is it possible that Pitsirikos comes from Latin in the first place?
My mom's family comes from Sicily. I want to learn the language.
Thanks for watching!
@@LearnSicilian Thank you for posting this video.
@@opticalraven1935 i own a greco sicilian friendship discord server if you want to join send me your account
I'm in love with the music. It's so relaxing and makes me feel so good 🇮🇹❤
I was thinking the same! Does anybody know the title and where to find it?
@@Arcusiridis Spanish Rose by Chris Haugen!
Highley interesting 😃
Easy to see how Italian came directly from Latin (since many of the words are similar to the same words in Spanish and Portuguese), but almost none of the words in Sicilian even sound like Spanish or Portuguese.
Though the words that they chose to demonstrate here may be different than the Portuguese and Spanish, you will find other Sicilian words that more resemble Portuguese and Spanish. Just depends on the words that are chosen/demonstrated. .
I did not know that the Sicilians had their native language, is it a language or dialect?
It is a language, even though for the Italian state it is a mere dialect.
It's a language, but as you can see is close to Italian.
Massinissa ⵣ le berbère ⵎⴰⵙⵏⵙⴻⵏ Sicily was invaded, colonised and occupied by the Arabs, Normans, Spanish, French and Romans. Sicily has it own language, as a result of this. Although Italy only recognise this as an Italian dialect.
@@oraziosalvatoredimaria8807 The Phoenicians, Greeks, Danes, Portuguese also left their influence. Although similar to Italian, it is a language, not a dialect. It is spoken in some small towns mostly in the central regions, and some residents in their home life. In business, schools, government, literature, cinema, journalism, etc., the Fiorentino, which is the modern Italian, is spoken, written and taught. When Italy became a republic in 1946, one of the first things the new government did was to establish a uniform language throughout the country. Out went the dialects, hundreds of them, in favor of one, unified tongue to have one unified nation. After WWII the technology, industry and communications made it much more feasible than before. This makes a lot of sense. Then look at America, where immigration is out of control, the political left uses identity politics to make people see themselves in racial or ethnic ideology, and encourages them not to learn English. Thus you see a fractured nation and in some cities dozens and dozens of languages are spoken. I am of Sicilian descent. My family there certainly understands Sicilian, can read and write it. But in business and public life they speak the Fiorentino. With some exceptions, Sicilian basically thrives in home life, literature, theatre, folk dances. But in commerce, educations and print, the modern Italian is what is employed. Were it not, Sicily would remain a backwards, remote, undeveloped area seen as inferior and unworthy by the rest of the nation.
spideraxis Yes I agree that Sicilian isn’t a language. I am also Sicilian. I grew up in Palermo. Although standard Italian was taught in School, because the Sicilian language was seen as improper. At home we spoke Sicilianu with our parents and grandparents.
Fan fact.
Racina ( grape) and recina in greek is a specific wine who it has ρητίνη
Piciridu - piciriki ( Greek).
Due piccole precisioni : 1) il termine "raggia" in siciliano più che rabbia è sinonimo di "mmidia" /"mmiria", cioè invidia. Rabbia infatti lo si traduce più spesso con "nierbi" Sono arrabbiato si può dire infatti "sugnu annirbatu" o se è una rabbia lieve "sugnu siddiatu". 2) Lottare andrebbe tradotto come "cummattiri" ciò combattere poiché "scerra" e "sciarriarisi" assumono hanno il significato di lite/rissa e litigare/venire alle mani rispettivamente. Buona serata a tutti.
Esatto
@@jeanatzori grazie per l'apprezzamento. Molti non siciliani pensano che il siciliano sia quello della TV o del Cinema ma spesso le cose non stanno così.
Song names in description please.
My great grandmother came from Sicily, I had no idea it had such a distinct dialect/language from Italian. Wow, I want to learn this. I don't know if Sicilian and Italian are mutually intelligable, but I still want to learn it.
What is the background music
Big fan
And learning Sicilian as an Indian
Beautiful
Spanish Rose by Chris Haugen
In central Sicily , oriental sicily and western sicily the words change , for explample
Male goat in central sicily : caprune
Male goat in oriental sicily : beccu
Male goat in western sicily : magghjàtu
In southern sicily we say : Crasto/crašto, coming from greek κραστου
@Face in the Crowd As you can see, there is no universal Sicilian dialect.
No, you can live here just by speaking Italian.
@Face in the Crowd Yes. Altough i don't think it's a good idea to immigrate here. May i ask where are you from?
Face in the Crowd I‘m german with kurdish ancestry and first of all it‘s nice so people starting to care about their heritage and the culture they lost. But tbh the economical situation is really challenging. You could come to Italy and study (like I did) but life there isnt really easy
@Face in the Crowd Just know that pretty much everyone who manages to get a degree here emigrates or goes to northern italy. Pretty much everyone goes away from here after high school or uni. I'm a living example of this, since i'm going to emigrate to holland in june(with my family)
Yes, the situation is pretty bad here
Mismanagement, corruption, everything is polluted (I live in Gela), there is nothing to do for young people (in small cities), low pays and, of course, Mafia.
Ohhhh this made me want to learn Italian and Sicilian
Name of song plz
You will find differences in many areas of Italy. Milanese, Abruzzese, Venician etc.
So many remember ❤
Name song?
Our Book "SICILIAN WISDOM" available on Amazon: amzn.to/2NUF789
Sounds beautiful, , I got away from my roots, ( born in Sicily) but my soul is Sicilian,,, ti "vodiu benne" I more than love you,, I want " good" for you!! Sicilia ❤
What’s this song
Totally different!
Viva Magna Grecia 🇬🇷 e bella scilia
Alcune parole siciliane sono pronunciate male
Travagghiu, sound like spanish Trabajo (work)
It's because of the spanish empire that controlled south of Italy
And french- travailler
Pi fauri
Is the modern name Belles
Siciliano?
People are still confused to death about Sicilian and Italian languages. Here is my understanding of this.
Sicilian language is NOT a dialect of Italian, IT IS A SICILIAN LANGUAGE. This is why so so many words and sentences are totally different spoken of the same things in Italian.
Dialect would be pronunciations and sound variations like Sicilian spoken in Palermo and Sicilian spoken in Catania. Similarly with Italian dialects between people speaking in Rome and people speaking in Venice.
As most other Italian dialects, Sicilian is derived from Latin and so is a Latin dialect or a romance language depending on whom you ask. It is most definitely not a dialect of standard Italian because it has evolved alongside it and only recently been influenced by it through school and television. It is an Italian dialect only in the sense that it is a dialect spoken in an Italian region.
@@pozz941 sicilian is a dialect of italian. Sicilian and all italoromance dialects have been influenced by italian for centuries. The proof? Already in 1861 in northern dialects consonantic ties and palatalization and s endings in the second singular and plural persons in verbs have disappeared.
And in sicilian already in texts of 1871 you see many phonetic changes
For example ricu was replaced by dicu. And puttari by puRtari.
@@libertaslibertas5923 You might even be right. I am not a linguist and I have very little formal education in humanistic or language related topics. On the other hand you brought up two very minor examples of how a language has been influenced by another. Is italian now an English dialect because of how English terms have entered so prominently in our every day life? If in 500 years or so of standard Italian existing only a handful of very minor consonant shifts has occurred and now Sicilian is officially a version of italian in another ten years Italian will surely become an English dialect, mark my words! Jokes aside, if a Sicilian speaker would speak to me (native Italian from Verona) I wouldn't understand half of what he has to say. I would probably understand better a Spaniard despite me being Italian and having studied exactly zero Spanish. To me that seems to indicate, if nothing else, that the difference between language and dialect is very subtle. I know that there is pride among the educated in speaking correct, unaccented Italian, but I feel like this has a little bit of a blindfold effect on the reality of the disappearing dialects of Italy, since "it's just dialect". Maybe with a little more recognition and officiality more of the linguistic richness of Italy would be preserved.
@@pozz941 sicilian has veen HISTORICALLY influenced by standard italian. And much more than italian has been by english. And sicilian is closely related to standard italian while italian is not closely related to english. And sicilian is a non minority local idiom. Italian is not a non minority british local idiom. And sicilian is more understandble than spanish. If the speakers have a clear pronounciation, are not too far and are not 10 people talking to each other and dont talk too fast you understand the general meaning of the conversation in sicilian but not in spanish. I studied spanish and when i was in spain i understood 0.
And sure dialects must be preserved but in a way that is subordinated to standard italian. So in non minorities areas standard italian must be the only official language.
@@libertaslibertas5923 Sicilian exist from way before Italian was ever standardized, Italian comes from a Tuscan vulgar Latin, and when it was made standard (not even 150 years ago), Sicilian had already been in use for hundreds of years, and it was the common language of the kingdom of the two Sicilies alongside the similar in history: Neopolitan (Italian was nowhere to be seen because it didn't even exist, you can only argue that Latin was used, but it was not a spoken language). Just as an example, Sicilian has many more words with Greek and Arabic origin than standard Italian, simply because Sicily was occupied by greeks and arabs. Se mi vieni con la bestemmia che Il Siciliano è un dialetto Italiano sei semplicemente un ignorante. Dittu di un sicilianu.
What sicilian dialect
Sicilian is a language, but for the Italian state it is a dialect, since it is not recognized as the official language of the country, but only of the Sicilian Region
@@ImAnounymouse He wasn't claiming that Sicilian is a dialect of Italian, he just asked which dialect of Silician was present in the video
@@guillermo..4825 Ah, ok I didn't understand it, I'm not very good at English. However the dialect of the video is "Giurgitano", a dialect spoken in the province of Agrigento, is that it is very similar to French and Spanish.
Many words change such as "Let's go home", in Sicilian language it is "Jiemu à maìđđa", in Giurgitano "Annamu a la casa".
@@ImAnounymouse oh nice to hear ^^
Non è catanese
Which dialect is this??
what dialect of sicilian? Cause it sounds a bit different from another variant of ssicilian that I heard
This is Sicilian from the area of Palermo
Im half sicilian on my mothers side and half maltese from my fathers. Basically all of my maltese ancestry can be traces back to Sicily going as far back as 1770. My sicilian side over on sicily still speak proper Siculo-Arabic as it is called officially and it sounds very much like the maltese language which is made up of Sicilian and Arabic words as well. Very interesting stuff honestly and im glad i stumbled upon this video because sicilian language varies through out sicily on the way it is spoken. There are different dialects of the sicilian language. And yes it is one of its own extremely different frim italian in many regards. My Nanna used to tell me that calling a sicilian an italian is like calling a mexican a Puerto rican 😂 and thats so true considering the fact that are dna is so much different from norther italians. I think we are closer to Calabrians more than any other people who live in Italy ( not sicilia )
I don't mean to sound insulting, but I think some of what you're saying is mistaken. Nobody speaks Siculo-Arabic. Arabic (in any form) has not been spoken in Sicily for over 800 years (unless you're talking about recent migrations). There are minority languages in Sicily like Albanian, gallo-italic dialects and some say even a small Greek speaking community in Messina that existed until very recently but not Arabic.
Also Sicilians are very much Italians. Our language is an Italian dialect and if you look at its fundamental features it is clear that is where it comes from.
We have always been considered Italians, even by other Italians. In fact the Italian war for independence started in Sicily. So I'm not sure why your grandmother would say such a thing. Was she herself from Sicily or did she pick up this idea second hand from someone else?
@@michaelm-bs2erme as sicilian I don’t see myself italian.
Italians are very different from us in story, culture and language
@@Kitsurex Can you give more detail? What differences are their in history or culture that make us Sicilians "non Italian".
How do you talk about Italian culture as a whole when every region has its own folk culture?
As I Sicilian I do us see myself very much as an Italian, but I'm curious to hear your point of view on it.
@@michaelm-bs2er we were a state for centuries we had our identity and our language, before Italians take us as a region. I don’t see myself as Italian, my origins are very different from the north or center.
@Kitsurex But we really didn't. Our "own state" was the Kingdom of Sicily. But it wasn't really ours. It wasn't exclusive to Sicily. The Kingdom of Sicily included all of Southern Italy from Campania and the Abruzzo going south. It wasn't founded by Sicilians. It was never ruled by Sicilians, and it didn't even start in Sicily.
The kingdom was founded by knights from Normandy who had already acquired territory in southern Italy (the Duchy of Melfi). They were given licence by the Church to expand into Sicily and remove the Arabs who ruled there and had been attacking Italy and threatening Christianity for over 200 yrs by that time, and also to acquire the territories that were under the domain of the Greek Orthodox Byzantine Empire, which had recently been in schism with the Catholic Church.
Hence the Pope gave the title of "Duke of Calabria, Apulia AND SICILY" to Roger d'Altavilla (de Hauteville in his native French) and he and his brother, Roger, drove the Muslims out of Sicily and expanded their dominion.
Under Roger, the duchy was raised to the status of a kingdom, and therefore, Roger became the first King of Sicily, but this kingdom really grew out of a pre-existing political entity from inside Italy.
When the Normans entered Sicily, they brought with them many common people from the territories they already had in Southern Italy. That's why our dialect has all the same fundamental distinguishing sound shifts as the other southern Italian dialects. For example, in Italian the word for "rain" is "piove" from Latin "pluvit" and in Sicilian, Neapolitan and every southern Italian dialects they say "chiove" (or something close to that). The southern Italian dialects (inc. Sicilian) consistently change the Latin pl + vowel into a chi + vowel, which could only happen if they diverged from the italian form pi + vowel. (This is one of the key features that proves that Sicilian is an Italian dialect and not a separate language that evolved independently from Latin, but there are many other features, too).
The Normans protected us from the Muslims, at least, but they also introduced many cruel feudal laws that oppressed us. Furthermore, they never intermarried with the common people. They preferred to marry nobles from other parts of Europe. That's why the so-called Kingdom of Sicily was always ruled by a French, or Spanish, or sometimes even German, viceroy. We never had control.
The only times we asserted some independence were firstly, in the rebellion of the Sicilian Vespers, when we kicked out the French and put ourselves under the protection of the Spanish, but even they eventually became overlords.
The other time was in the rebellion of 1848 when we briefly managed to kick out the Spanish Bourbons and set up an independent state with a new constitution. You should know that during this time, the Sicilian rebels flew the italian tricolour. Then the Bourbons returned by force of arms a year later. We weren't finally able to get rid of them until Garibaldi came along and drove them out with the help of those same rebels from 1848, e.g. Ruggero Settimo. (The Italians didn't "conquer us," or "take our identity", we were already in revolt).
Also, your idea of us having a separate state doesn't make sense for another reason. What was it separate to? It was separate to Italy? But there was no unified Italian state in the middle ages. It's not as if there was a kingdom of Sicily in the South and a Kingdom of Italy in the North and Centre. All of Italy was divided into several republics and duchies. How are the Genoese or Venetians "Italians" or more closely linked to the other Italians of Rome or the Umbria than we Sicilians are?
I grew up speaking like this but today in Sicily it's more proper Italian. Younger crowd probably wouldn't understand unless spoken at home.
Hi, I think Sicilian is a language, not a dialect. They are too different to be the same language.
@@Sigridovski Thats not what the person means. the way they structured the comment makes it confusing. what they're trying to say in the comment is in sicily, its more proper and prestigious to speak italian instead of sicilian, because italian is the official language taught in schools, while sicilian is for informal purposes only.
@@MrBegliocchi Yes, it is a pity that the government always tried to destroy Sicilian, speak bad of it, say it is only a dialect and not even teach it in Schools or make dictionaries, joke about it in newspapers etc. . But they haven't succeeded because Sicilian is spoken in people's homes everywhere and they continue to speak it because it is easier to get over a thought and clear concepts in those Languages spoken in Sicily and south Italy, than in Italian. Poets would use it in the past. It is much older and bigger than Italian, which was also a ''dialect'' chosen for that reason to be taught all over in Schools as it is inferior and will create a people who can not express themselves as well as they can and still can in Sicilian. There is an agenda and the people with the money and the power always came up with unworkable solutions. This ''teaching Italian to everyone'' is one of them and is designed to destroy the Italian culture and people's intelligence. I hope in the future, there will be created more big dictionaries with all the 250.000 Sicilian words and its grammar and pronunciation which is completely different from Italian. Sicilian is a wonderful language, so are the languages spoken in many other places in Italy, and the people with the money and power were jealous of others who had it and were intelligent, so they wanted to take it from them. All their efforts were to destroy people, not to help them in any way, and the best way to do so is to take their originality, their culture and most importantly their language - to mix up all the peoples and have ONE language, one country, one military (theirs), one human race, one government, no money, no ability to exchange things with others, no ability to do things on your own volition or to be cause, only effect of the environment, no money or time to make a dictionary, no nothing, just wars, chemicals, sickness, dead babies, animals without food, starving, criminality, drugs rampant, drugs in schools, others taking care of your children for money, not the family or the parents, not nothing, only unhappiness. This is the dream of evil people, to stop all FREEDOM and perpetuate the bad and the evil. The normal people find this hard to confront and so can not believe it. It all started with suppression and one of the first things they took was the LANGUAGE. Such always take from you what you want and give you what you don't want. They way out is to not do what they say.
@@Sigridovski There is a newer dialect that has emerged. Words like Buon Giornu (Bon jornu)and Ragazzu (Carusu) are examples. Its a mixture of Tuscano and Sicilian. Sicilians call Grandma & Grandpa Nanna and Nannu or Nannuza and Nannuzu. Great Grandma is a Catananna not bisnonna. Sicilian has lots of Greek origin.
@@billfilice6408 Yes, and Sicilian has lots of Latin origin, more than any other, so it comes from long ago. It is perfect. People speak it at home because it can relay thought. The better the language - the better the thought - the greater the intelligence. Therefore it is SO important to keep it. All those other things you learn in School are there just to distract you and don't need to be studied by everyone, year after year, just to confuse you and make you feel less. Time could have been instead spent on your language, writing and counting - the things we were not allowed to learn in the past and we had to fight for. Now, it is being covertly attacked by hiding it behind all those subjects.
We say Casho in North Western Sicily not formaggio or tumazzo. I was born in Bagheria. Thank you. The rest is quite spot on!
I was born right next door - Porticello. Saluti!
I came here because I noticed the differenc in both.
I hear the Norman influence in some words.
E falso u sicilianu mordenu e assà arabi , greci , latin , berbèri sugnu rivinusara !!!!!!
@@fleurdeminuit1929 Really?
@@fleurdeminuit1929 norman too
"Mescolare" or "mischiare", not "mesclare".
"Assai" is both Italian and Sicilian.
My initial reaction is that it's closer to Latin. I wonder...
Softer music would help to hear the subtleties of the pronunciation...
Ma che meraviglia😍🇵🇹
Less similar than I imagined.
standard italian is spoken only in Tuscany and Rome (almost). in the other regions they use dialects or languages altogether. Sicilian isn't even too hard compared to the nordic dialects.
My Grandfather is Sicilian. An would always instill within us that we were NOT Italian proper. As Sicilian was looked down on Neopolitans. They are light complected as compared to Sicilian. An considered themselves superior to Sicilians. Im proud of my heritage. Sicilians are Warriors. An it runs through our Bloodline....
own a greco sicilian friendship discord server if you want to join send me your account
With all respect to your grandfather, Sicilians are very much Italians and fought hard to liberate themselves and unite with the rest of Italy. The battles against the Neapolitans were not really wars against the Neapolitans themselves, but against the government of the Bourbons based in Naples. I suspect this is what your grandfather was referring to. These uprisings against the Bourbons took place all through out southern Italy though, not just Sicily
@@michaelm-bs2er Thank you. Yes we are Italian. But as he explained it to me, we were looked upon as inferior. Possibly because we may have mixed blood lines with Corsicans, an Maltese. Who's to say.? But was proud of Our heritage. We are Italian. Just a little darker an a different dialect. We live forever ! 🇮🇹
@Carlo Florez It would be good if the old folk were still around so we could pick their brains about it a little more.
My opinion, i may be wrong but based on what I've observed, I don't think it is so much a racial issue. I think alot of Americans (of Sicilian ancestry) are looking at this with a very American racialised perspective.
Sicilians and southern Italians were looked down upon, especially in the early 1900s but it was more so because we were seen as being rural, backward, underdeveloped country people. Kinda like snooty people from the big coastal cities like New York look down on people from the South or the Midwest. It's the whole city-slicker vs bumpkin thing.
Sicilians and southern Italians have darker features generally speaking. But we always have, if you look at old paintings of the Etruscans and Romans, they were usually depicted as having dark skin tones and dark curly hair. These are typical Mediterranean features.
This idea that Sicilians are mixed with darker people is something I've seen more from American or English media (that movie, True Romance for example). It's not really mentioned much in Italian sources (at least not from what I've seen).
Cumu si
What does the name
Baddestteddi mean?
Ovviamente ci sono anche altri tipi di dialetto siciliano come messinese palermitano ecc. (Ma cmq le differenze sono poche)
Quelli sono dialetti della lingua siciliana. Il siciliano è una lingua
@@settagashista142 vabbè si sono io che non mi so spiegare
My cousin is half Sicilian. Though it's technically part of italy it's a very unique ethnic group with a seperate language and culture.
That's because Sicily only become part of Italy in 1860s. We were part of Spain longer than we are part of Italy!
I'm sorry but this is not true. Sicilians are Italians. We come from the same roots as the other Italians. Our language/dialect (whichever you prefer) ultimately comes from the same old Italian that all the other Italian dialects evolved from and it's not any more different to standard Italian than Milanese, Torinese, Venetian or Abruzzese is.
@@michaelm-bs2er fun fact. Sicilian isn't a dialect of italian. It's roots are similar to literally any romance language. And genetically sicilians aren't anymore related to italians than they are to Greeks or spaniards. Unless of course they're mixed. Good try though.
But sicily is unique and not culturally or linguistically more tied to Italy than any other romance language. And is not anymore genetically related than any other iberian or mediterranean ethnicities
@@alexandrahenderson4368 Your fun fact is not a fact at all. Sicilian is specifically part of the Italian dialect family within the romance languages. Are you saying Sicilian is as closely related to Spanish or French as it is to Italian? It isn't. Sicilian has the same features as the other Italian dialects which distinguish them from the other romance languages. You're also wrong to say Sicilian is not more closely tied to Italian culture. Don't they dance the Tarantella in Sicily? They don't dance flamenco. They don't smash plates at weddings like the Greeks do and they don't paint themselves with Henna like the Arabs or North Africans. I think if you look at Sicilian music, food and other things in their culture, you'll see it's alot closer to southern Italian culture than it is to either Spanish, French or Greek culture.
As far genetics, well I'm not an expert but I'm pretty sure the most closely related people (genetically) to the Sicilians are other southern Italians.
@@michaelm-bs2er those are not part of traditional Sicilian society though. those were not introduced to Sicily until after Italy had tooken away its sovereignty. those are not parts of Sicilian culture until the 1800s. and there's been a lot more Italian influence in the Sicilian language because of Italy's trying to conquer the Sicilian culture. And also if you really knew that much about the dialects of Italy you would be able to tell the difference between a dialect and a language. Sicilian is not a dialect of Italian because it is not anywhere near the same as Italian that's like saying Spanish is a dialect of Latin or that Spanish is a dialect of Italian or that Spanish is a dialect of Portuguese. how come you can recognize Spanish and Latin and Italian and Portuguese being different languages but you can't recognize Sicilian as being a different language. the reason why is because you're ignorant on the fact that Sicily was at one point independent and they had their own culture and they had their own language and they still do in Sicily. Until the Italian conquest of Sicily. That's like saying well Mexico is practically the same as Spain because they do a lot of things that are familiar with Spain despite 80% of the population being Native American. they are not Spanish they have parts of their culture that are related to Spain and their language is heavily Spanish because of conquistadors. But the majority of the Mexican population is in Spanish. Same old places like Peru and Bolivia. why is that so difficult for you to understand? Sicilians had hardly any Italian influence until Italy took over in the 1800s.
Every region in Italy has its own dialect and then standard Italian. You should compare other regional dialects to Sicilian. That would make more sense.
I’ve always been interested in why the mafia is primarily Sicilian and I don’t understand why. But I’m a prime example because I am part Sicilian and I do have mafia in my family (but we’re not supposed to talk about it lol)
lol same actually! My brother has been digging into our mafia ties for a few years now.
I’m sure part of it is bc a large majority of Italian immigrants were Sicilian. Perhaps colorism played a part as well? Sicilians have historically been darker than northern Italians. Maybe the mafia spurred out of a creativity to thrive on the “American dream” idea in a way other more “white passing” Italians wouldn’t need to and those of darker or more differing ethnicities couldn’t manage due to the level of prejudice they faced?
It's got nothing to do with colourist and the Mafia is not unique to Sicily. It was just that the Sicilian Mafia in America was the first to come into common knowledge through film and television
Inglese = Work
Italiano = Lavoro
Siciliano = Un cinnè
Or "travagghiu", which may come from French "travail", ultimately from latin.
"tciavagghiu" in catanese
@@gaborodriguez1346 "un cinnè" ("non ce ne è" in italian) mean
"there is none" 😂
🤣🤣🤣Non hanno voglia,perche cinnè techia.....
@@gaborodriguez1346 it came from spanish trabajo, when the spanish controlled the south of Italy
The music is distracting. Also lancuage is NOT just a sack full strange or rare words, but a language is a distinct way of forming sounds, forming words, and forming sentences. The final AIM of any language is ALWAYS to form a FULL sentence, because only a full sentence can convey a meaning to an addressee.
I am here for my novel.
Oh, Sicilian vocabulary resembles French vocabulary. Their words have the same roots in many cases.
Latin
Sicilian had a period of Norman (French Viking) influence. English also had Norman influence. As a result, Sicilian, French, and English have some cognates that they don’t share with Italian. E.g., grape in Italian is uva. In Sicilian it’s racina, which is cognate with French/English raisin.
It is because of norman French and because of the common Latin origin
I'm Sicilian and I understand this but I have a question why do people think sicly is italy their nothing alike we say oh my God
Well, mostly because of it belonging to the Italian nation and it’s common history, particularly within the Roman Empire.
Ohhhhh thank u how do u know all of this stuff are u google
Sicilian google 🤣
Lol
Are u Sicilian???
IS THERE A SICILIAN-ITALIAN and ITALIAN-SICILIAN DICTIONARY?
U should do adjectives next.
Thanks! Any in particular you would like to see?
Kinda like two different countries..
No, all Italy is like that, we have many regional languages.
@@masterjunky863 cool
Sicilians are Italians. This video is so badly informed that it's a joke
I can hear some French influence.
definitely!
@@LearnSicilian And its double D sounds like Greek D.
Well that was really VERY different. There must be other words that are closer than that, surely?
Learn Sicilian!!! Where were u 30+ yrs ago! 🥰🥰😂😂😢😢😭😭😭😂
😂😂😂
I am came here because of the Godfather.
Hadassah Branch
Me too,I thought Sicilian was a dialect of Italian but it turned out is a while fucking language,lol
Salutamu, me too
@@adelh7862 the International Organization for Standardization, the most important organization in the world for the definition of technical standards, has also assigned a code to the Sicilian (ISO 639-3 scn), which only happens with languages and not with dialects. UNESCO a few years ago recognized the Neapolitan and Sicilian as mother languages in danger of extinction, however intended exclusively as "regional or minority languages [...] which are not dialects of the official state language", according to what has been clarified from article 1 of the European Charter for regional and minority language, The Emperor "Federico II" gave impetus to the Sicilian Poetic School by launching, for the first time in the history of the Bel Paese, the Italian poetic tradition in the vernacular. The elite who gave birth to the literary movement used the illustrious Sicilian, a language that had its roots in the traditional language of the island, but completed and "guided" by Provençal and Latin "cancelleresco". A little later Dante took up the model to make it the illustrious Tuscan vulgar developed in the "De vulgari eloquentia".
The first state document written in Tuscan is from 1526. The last drafted in Sicilian is from 1543.
same here😂
Flake H it’s vulgar Italian lmaaoo the official language is still Italian tho
Today young Sicilians consider their language to be inferior compared to Italian, that's the reason why the language is only spoken in the most rural/ poor areas or amongst elders. If the Sicilian authorities will not react in time, the language is doom to inevitably disappear in less than 50 years.
very sad!
I dont know what you based this comment on, while I can assure you that Sicilian is still widely spoken. Each city, each town has its own variant of Sicilian, and if you go to Palermo which is the biggest city you ll find that everyone or mostly everyone is indeed able to speak sicilian.
@@ettorecaruso3778 e certo grazie se vai a Ballarò, allo Zen o a Brancaccio è ovvio che troverai gente più povera che lo parla, vai in zone più ricche di Palermo e vedi se senti una parola in siciliano. Anche a Catania da dove vengo, nei quartieri come Librino, Nesima e Monte po' si parla perché i ragazzi non finiscono nemmeno la scuola media, ma tra chi ha finito l'educazione secondaria superiore o l'università raramente sentirai parlare siciliano, in primis perché non si studia ufficialmente come si studierebbe il Gallese nel Galles, o il catalano in Catalonia, e secondo ai giovani non piace parlare il siciliano perché la considerano una lingua " zaurda", o meglio, è sempre stata trascurata come lingua dalle autorità siciliane e dai siciliani stessi perché in Sicilia la cultura e l'eredità linguistica sono solo delle opzioni che vengono sempre dopo " a panza e u mari".
@@fulippuannaghiti1965 Io sono palermitano FIlippo.
Non siamo ragazzi dello zen e siamo tutti ragazzi espatriati ormai, e sai cosa? Lo parliamo tutti e quando torniamo a casa lo continuiamo a sentire, sia perchè lo parliamo noi, sia perchè viene parlato dalle persone che popolano i luoghi della città che frequentiamo.
Ci sono scuole in Sicilia che insegnano il Siciliano, poche, per la definizione di zaurdo-tascio etc, io non sono d'accordo, il Siciliano fa parte della nostra identità culturale e negarlo e sminuirlo non ci rende persone piu' colte.
Io ho tanti amici catanesi, e tutti hanno la capacità di parlare il Siciliano, a Palermo lo stesso, l'unica cosa è che non lo sentiremo mai in contesti formali, ma altrove, è praticamente la regola.
@@ettorecaruso3778 sono espatriato anch'io e la differenza la vedo quando scendo. Non vengo da una famiglia ricca ma nemmeno povera, ma il siciliano lo parliamo in famiglia, infatti non sto mettendo in dubbio che non venga parlato a casa, ma non è assolutamente la lingua che sentivo parlare a mia zia di 98 anni, quello che si parla oggi è un siciliano molto italianizzato ed il più delle volte mischiato all'italiano, non stiamo parlando del siciliano di fino a 30 anni fa', adesso non è che dobbiamo dire le cose per quelle che non sono, perché da come scrivi sembra che il siciliano sia in voga come lo fosse fino a 30 anni fa, invece non è così. Vai nelle zone fighette di Palermo o Catania e fammi sapere se senti una parola in siciliano, tra poco persino l'inglese si sostituirà all'italiano visto che anche in Italia fa fighi buttare inglesismi ovunque, figuriamoci il siciliano. Non è che stiamo parlando della Sardegna, li si che c'è un orgoglio vero verso la propria cultura, in Sicilia tutti fingono di essere patriottici, poi sotto sotto si vergognano a parlare la propria lingua, che non è l'italiano. Io parlo siciliano e ne sono fiero, ed i miei figli lo impareranno pure, ma ripeto il siciliano è una lingua in via di estinzione, come anche dichiarato dall'UNESCO stesso.
Do you know how many mainland Italians use Sicilian slang? My family are from Molise and I practically grew up with this.
not many, specifically in the north of italy. in the south you might hear similar slang terms but the further north you go the less and less of those slang words you hear.
Quite a different vocabulary
Il Siciliano non e' un dialetto , ma una vera lingua , di minoranza
Oui, effectivement.
@@gaborodriguez1346 Hey you again with French language!!! 🤣🤣🤣
Ma che minchia dici dai
Picchí cumpari, chi dissi i stottu?
@@enzotipenzo8243 a parte che non ce un vero e proprio dialetto siciliano... e poi la pronuncia proprio non ci siamo
Il siciliano è una lingua
Keep up the good work and continue to speak and learn your language of south Italy or Sicily (aka ''dialect''). They tried to steal those big, 250,000 words languages that can express everything in a smooth and easy way, in order to dumb you down. If others complain; they just want to look better than you because they are jealous. In the future, will come proper one language dictionaries for those languages of Sicily and south Italy. They are NOT dialects just because the governments told you so. Remember to always ask older people what words mean; the exact definitions of words. If you are good, you write it down, make a webpage for everyone where to save the words and from what area, for everyone, for all the areas of the country. Write down many words, also small common words. They can have many definitions. They should need to get written down. Lots of people could help on this. Sicilian etc. are huge languages, not like Italian, a very small and new language with which you can not express everything. Don't listen to the already dumbed down. Do your own thing. Speak only ''dialect'' at home and know you can express more with it. That is why you never stopped speaking it. Everybody does but pretend they don't - so deep goes the hoax, made by the ones in power and the media , but look, they will not keep the power for ever and you will need your language. I only wish I could speak it too, but I can't. I only have a small language, Swedish, with 30,000 words, not 250,000 or so. I try to learn another big language, English, but it is slow as I am not a child any more. For the children who learn fast, it is imperative they learn your proper language.
In English if you compare say Devonian with Geordie, they will appear as different though related languages, with way different pronunciation and lexicon. Are they different languages? Only if they were taught in schools as such. Are they mutualy intelligible? When broad, not really, Geordie is just wibble wobble to me, though words can be picked up, albeit strangely pronounced. When reduced to mild dialect or just an accent, yes they are intelligible. So how far on that spectrum is standard Italian and Sicilian?
Thats just accents , if you write what both are saying they are going to be the same on paper. However
Guarda li bambini como giocano
Dove quel ragazzo
E
Talia i carusi comu jucanu.
Un'e stu picciottu
Its not the same.
@@johnbryant5338 Hardly just accents, there is a division between accents and dialect and language. The example of standard Italian vs Sicilian shows clear cognates, li vs i, como vs comu, giocano vs jucano. The same can be demonstrated for many Romance languages, and I have seen comparisons between them and Classical Latin that shows the change in meaning of words and grammar. In English kraft used to mean power, force, but came to mean ones strength, i.e skill. We still use the original meaning in e.g. 'witch craft'. So Kraft werk would easily be understood to mean power station in the distant past of English. 'Chiel' is child in Devonian, but 'bairn' in Geordie from 'borne. They are all intelligible if one understands their source and original meanings.
Geordie and Devonian are deffo very different accents, but more than accents to each other when broad in their pure dialect forms. Without the unifying influence of London English, would the regionl forms of English drifted so far apart as to be unitelligibel languages? Lowland Scots, some define as seperate language, despite coming from the same source as Northumbria and Cumbrian English (northern English dialect of Middle English). Now they do all look much the same if written down phonetically, clearly related. If one writes them down using the international phonetic alphabet (IPA), they will appear related languages, but even further apart than Cornish from Welsh, other than for the same basic structure and grammar. I have a good knowledge of Cornish, but despite having lived in Wales, Welsh is is mostly uninteligible to me. Breton, does make more sense to me, despite a strong French influence. Back to Devonian vs Geordie, Devonian is rhotic, Geordie is not. Devonian comes from West Saxon, old English with a strong Devonian Welsh (became Cornish) influence. Geordie came from Northumbrian old English, with a strong Norse influence. The vowels and diphthongs are in general very different. Lexicon is also somewhat different. Would 'whur 'ee gwain tu? make sense to a Geordie? Would probably be 'Where ye gan' in Geordie. 'As for Devonian dialect vs Geordie (Northumbrian) dialect they will look even further apart when spelled in IPA. As for mutual inteligibility, I doubt Geordies would be able to understand broad Devonian, and vice versa e.g. th-cam.com/video/65_3EIMq_78/w-d-xo.html Example of Devonian, is where mid v is a b or dropped, e.g. Devon is Debm or De'm, tea is tay, head is aid, great is gurt, boy is buy, car is car, in is een, sea is zay etc etc. I've no idea of their dialect words, they are from the same source as Lowland Scots. Here in Cornwall, Cornish English dialect (I still know people who speak broad Cornish English), often uses Cornish language word order, for instance 'are you going to Truro' would be 'going to Truro are 'ee'.
@@kernowforester811 i still dont think its the same. English is pretty universal. If a geordie slows down a bit a devonian will understand him. I cant speak italian but i can speak sicilian. And if i speak to my friend who is from verona he is just baffled now matter how i try to break it down ( which i cant because i dont speak italian ) i live in bristol and i have scouse mates , manc mates , scottish mates ,We all understand eachother perfectly fine. Granted sometimes wel take the piss out of eachother and i like how you included " gurt " as i say it all the time🤣 but as a speaker of both and having spent ample time in both places id respectfully retort that they are not the same thing.
@@johnbryant5338 Yep, 'gurt' used down yurr as well, it's called 'metathesis', i.e. reversal of vowel and consonants. Gurt viddy means very fine. When I first went to Aberdeen in 1984, I was met with the phrase 'fit like, faa ya deein'. Still English, with a Norse influence, known locally as 'Doric'. Literally 'what like how are you doing'. As a Cornishman, speaking to an Aberdonian, there was a language barrier at times, took me months to understand Aberdonians and vice versa, even a friend from Edinburgh struggled to understand Aberdonians. Some call Scottish dialects a separate language called 'Scots', I have my own opinion on that. When I moved to the West of Ireland in 1998 for work, I also struggled to understand some of the locals, took a while, but they were still speaking Hibernian English, not Irish. They thought I was from south Dublin. Northern Ireland also has 'Ulster Scots', regarded a a separate language related to 'Scots'.
However, English is now unified by the influence of educated London RP English via education, the media etc. If it weren't, we'd have problems. Hence we generally are mutually intelligible, barring broad accents and dialects. Without it, I don't think we would be, and that is where older speakers of rural dialects lack ease of understanding of other dissimilar dialect speakers. There is no way older, broad dialect speakers from rural areas have mutual inteligibility in much of the UK. However we don't generally speak to each other in local dialects, we use a standardised RP based upon London English with just our local accents. All your buddies speak, irrespective of where they are from, speak what is basically London English (RP) standardised in the 19th C via education, with their local accents only, hence they will be able to understand each other. I doubt any of them speak dialect to complicate things. The same is happening in France for instance, dominated by Parisian, which has supplanted locals dialects and languages like Occitan and Breton. When I hear Breton now, it is often with a Parisian accent. The old Breton accent was similar to a west Cornish accent. The older people in the south of France still tend to roll their 'r's and can sound Scottish to my ears.
Italy was only unified in 1861! Standard Italian is the Speech of Tuscany I believe, specifically Florence, like what we call English is the educated English of London (now called RP). Most languages in Italy started out as Classical Latin, then went their own ways, with no standardisation. Tuscan dominates Italy now as standard Italian, via education, though dialects still dominate in rural areas and amongst the older generations, like English dialects dominate in rural areas and amongst the older people. So not surprising many Italians won't understad Sicilian, especially if not accustomed. Its typical of 'assymetric intelligibility'. Sicilians will generally understand standard Italian, but many Italians wont understand Sicilian.
I am well aware of the massive variation in dialects (some are languages) across Italy, which sound very different. I've heard one, Emilian-Romagnol that sounds Portugese to my ears. I have also heard a Brazilian Portugese accent from the south of Brazil, that sounds more Cornish to my ears, with the same Westcountry type of retroflex 'r'. Saying that a friend of mine from uni, from Mexico City, would often talk Spanish to one of her friends from Rome, he talked in Italian, and another from Brazil who spoke in Portugese. I said to them once in the pub, can you understand each other? The answer, was basically yes, much to my surprise.
@@kernowforester811 well i have learned a few things from you so thats always nice and for that i thank yoy. You are obviously very educated whereas im just speaking from my life experiences being im sicily and england and what iv noticed. The spanish point is true, my mum speaks siciliand AND italian and she can get around spain just fine. Also i found sicilian got me around spain pretty well too , which may not be suprising to you as sicilian had more spanish influence. Eg for the word ' work ' in italian it is ' lavoro '. In spanish it is ' trabalho ' and sicilian it is ' travagghiu'. I didnt realise at the time , but it helped out alot when i was in the baelerruc islands.
Gosh, the Sicilian word for child is hard to pronounce. "Piciriddu" vs. "Bambino".
Mi po ddari u titulu di sta canzuni meravigghiusa?!
And which one were they supposed to be speaking in The Godfather?
note that this video strictly focuses on the differences between the two. most of italian and sicilian is similar or the same. examples: parlare/parrari/to speak, ci sono/ci sunnu/there are, giorno/iurnu/day, sera/sira/evening, portare/purtari/to bring, etc. also the lady in this video i think is american, she didn't bother correcting "mesclare" which should be "mescolare", and she doesn't pronounce "tr" the sicilian way, but the italian way
Seems like Sicilian is closer to Latin
Virgil solozzo send me here
Sicilians are of mostly Greek extraction. I'm talking blood line.
Italo-greeks
We're Italians. The Greeks have a lot of Roman/Latin in their bloodline too. We've been neighbours and intermixed for almost 3000 years