Talk:Sicilian language

Request for cleanup

The intro is very choppy and could use some work to more properly introduce the article. I'll try to get to it when I can.Mcorco2 (talk) 08:51, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

The way citations are made do not comply with wikipedia standards and most of the word put under the influences of the Arab period are anything but Arabic. The information is also not complete. 99.51.150.199 (talk) 04:57, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

I find it interesting that you've taken issue specifically with the Arab period section, when the same sources and citation format are employed throughout the history section. Any objection to those? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.169.195.134 (talk) 08:37, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Adverbs

I think content about Sicilian adverbs would be appropriate, most likely in the section on distinguishing features of Sicilian. Like other Southern Italian dialects, Sicilian avoids -mente adverbs, and this is novel for speakers of other romance languages. Some example adverbs would be appreciated. Note: I'm no expert on Sicilian, but I am finding no online information about adverbial construction in Sicilian, except that it doesn't use -mente. Example adverbs have been mostly adverbs of time and place, with only a couple of manner, such as those found here: Lingua Siciliana - Lesson 4.. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bearsbearsbears (talk • contribs) 16:28, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Sicilian words for english words

How do you say "Good Luck" or "Blessings" "Good Fortune" in Sicilian?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.119.80.138 (talk) 08:56, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Sicilian vs Dialetti meridionali estremi

This article is quite chauviniste and its fully based on "Etnlogue" book. The sicilian language is part of "meridionali estremi"(= "southern languages") as the picture in the page shows. Dialleti merdionali estremi are: "sicilian", southern calabrian, southern Apulia language, and southern Campania language. Sayng "Dialetti meridionali estremi" is sicilian is like affirming England is UK. A completely non-sence —Preceding unsigned comment added by Firestorm81 (talk • contribs) 10:33, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Don't know who has written this article, but I think it is of poor knowledge of the two languages sicilian and italian, or that one is a political motivated one. To translate fìmmina to donna is not wrong, but the most would translate it to femmina. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.237.175.155 (talk) 11:36, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Why, the Sicilian word fìmmina is the most direct and correct translation of the Italian word donna. It is also the correct translation of the Italian word fèmmina, but it’s less frequently used in that meaning, so much that when the Sicilian people want to qualify the gender of animals and plants they can feel the need to use other words such as masculinu (e.g. i laddichi masculini, the nettle) and fimmineḍḍa (e.g. i virioli fimmineḍḍi, a kind of fish). The Sicilian word donna means another thing, which you would translate as signora in Italian; it’s the feminine counterpart to the masculine don. Peppepz (talk) 10:12, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Sicilian in the United States

Where is there any evidence for the claim that there is a significant number of Sicilian speakers in the United States? I live in one of the US cities cited as having a sizable Sicilian-speaking population. I never hear it anymore. I do not know of a single Bostonian who speaks Sicilian as their only native language, does not speak English better than Sicilian, does not prefer to speak English, or speaks Sicilian on any regular basis. My father has not spoken Sicilian for more than 30 minutes total in the past 30 years.

Sicilian immigration into the US ended about 100 years ago. There are no more than a handful of Sicilian immigrants who are still alive. Very few Americans are of 100% Sicilian ancestry. Little remains of the ancestral identity of most white Americans.Bostoner (talk) 01:49, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree, and I couldn't find any relevant sources for that section (that really looked quite like WP:OR to me), so I've deleted the whole section. I would strongly encourage people to start searching for reliable sources in the future. --Angelo (talk) 10:37, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

You are all 3 incorrect. There are many Americans including myself not only fluent in Sicilan, but speak it regularly. The language is preserved and taught through family association, church organizations and societies, as well as social and ethnic historical clubs. Cosand (talk) 20:18, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

It's great that you speak Sicilian - please continue to do so, and preserve the language here in the US!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.188.113.121 (talk) 01:42, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Arba Sicula, which publishes newsletters and journals in Sicilian to this day, is one of the largest cultural clubs in the USA. --202.14.81.49 (talk) 00:24, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Baaria

User:Angelo.romano deleted my contribution with (rv - as you said in your comments, it's not even Sicilian, but just a mixture of Italian with Sicilian words. So, WP:TRIVIA quite inappropriate for this article.):

One recent example of Sicilian reaching a high profile is the 2009 film Baarìa - La porta del vento that uses a continuum of Italian and Sicilian (in the Baarioto variant of Bagheria) to portray the life a Palermo community in the 20th century.

The film was shot in Sicilian and this version was shown in Sicily and (with subtitles) foreign countries.

The actors also dubbed themselves in Sicilian-accented Italian for the version projected in the rest of Italy.

I think it should appear in the article because Sicilian rarely is seen on the screen. Even more, it represented Italy at the Oscars, so it gets projected abroad in Sicilian (locally subtitled). The dialogue tries to represent everyday Bagheria life. Hence characters talk Sicilian and Italian depending on context, just as real Sicilians did. For example, the school is in Italian, but the shepherds talk Sicilian.

It is also an example of the role of Sicilian in the media today. If you have an recent example of Sicilian given a higher profile, mention it. Otherwise Baaria should go in the article. The contrast between the Sicilian and the Italian dubbings also shows the degree of mutual intelligibility.

I'm not a expert in the language, but I think in the Sicilian version, they speak "full Sicilian" (and Italian and Sicilian-accented Italian and even English in some scenes), not "a mixture". It depends on which character in which context, just as in real 20th century Sicily. If you understood otherwise, please suggest a rephrasing. --Error (talk) 19:05, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

First, it is untrue to say that language is not that featured on screen; it could be valid for non-Italian movie, but a lot of Italian movies covering Sicilian subjects actually make a massive use of the Sicilian language, starting from the Italian record-audience TV series from the books of Andrea Camilleri to a huge list of mafia-related movies (the whole La Piovra series for instance), and it is even occasionally used on the Godfather's trilogy, at least it used to be on the first movie. The Sicilian used in Bàaria is also the same Sicilian used in another Oscar-participant movie by Giuseppe Tornatore, Cinema Paradiso, which was far more successful in the end as you probably know.

However, citing all this stuff we're talking about has little to no meaning in a linguistical article which should directly cover the idiom itself; what you're talking about is not Sicilian language, but Sicilian culture instead, and just looks like unfit for this article - and such information is discouraged by guidelines such as WP:TRIVIA. Also, if we start mentioning movies, then we should mention also music, television, theatre, etc., and we would add a lot of unnecessary cruft to an article which is in a not-so-good state and has a widespread lack of sources in several of its parts. --Angelo (talk) 22:57, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Aha. I think that mentioning that the language is used (or not) in journals, TV, movies, music, is relevant to the article. Sociolinguistics and language politics are also part of linguistics. Otherwise it seems that it is merely a spoken language nowadays. I encourage you to include examples such as those you have provided do in your answer. --Error (talk) 21:04, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Angelo. --202.14.81.96 (talk) 00:32, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Sicilian (an older version) is spoken sporadically in the Godfather series of Oscar winning movies. It is also spoken sporadically in the Inspector Montalbano TV series, much to my amusement. Australian of Sicilian descent (parents).203.214.22.116 (talk) 04:00, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

About the verb to have

I added a "citation needed" in the section about the verb "to have" (link), where it reads: "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". As an Italian I can witness that Italian does indeed use the verb "avere" (to have) in equivalent constructs. For example as a teacher I might say "Andiamo a vedere ..." (we're going to see, literally: we go to see), or as an anchorman I could say "Andiamo ad ascoltare ..." (we're going to listen, literally: we go to listen).

--Astabada (talk) 15:42, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Why "Sicilian language" but "Neapolitan dialect"

I wanted to point out this discrepancy. I made it also in the talk of Neapolitan language. Nothing personal towards Sicily , Sicilians and Sicilian language , that I love (I have supported from years that Sicilian must be declared an official language in Sicilian region) , but it appears to me as a discrimination unjust and unjustified ! Anno1443

Footnotes and parenthetical references

I would like to refactor the references in this page to use the inline citation style of footnote. Currently it uses parenthitical references (Hull, 1989) instead of inline references. I will keep separate the Notes and the References since the page already does this. Does anybody have any objections to using this style of footnote? It is the prevailing method here and is easier (IMO) to maintain.

Sample Footnotes

Thanks, Dusty|💬|You can help! 16:04, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Pronunciation: TR/DR

'DR, TR — Similarly, Sicilian has a unique pronunciation of the digraphs -tr- and -dr- as [tʃɹ] and [dʒɹ], not common to Italian. The sound of -tr- is exactly like that heard in English tree and the sound of -dr- exactly like the digraph heard in English dragon.

This is inconsistent. There is no ʃ in English TR, and no ʒ in English DR. Can someone clarify what the correct pronunciation is, please? Prof Wrong (talk) 20:58, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

The article is probably wrong about this. I am a Sicilian and I have no knowledge of IPA, but I can tell that, although they do sound similar, especially when spoken fast, Sicilian TR and English TR are somehow different. First, in English, unless it’s spoken fast, I can tell the boundary between the two sounds T and R; in Sicilian I don’t, ever. Second, when pronouncing the English R, I seem to feel my mandible going slightly lower to “make room” for the tongue, whereas when I pronounce the R in the Sicilian TR combination my tongue seems to need less “room” as it’s just going backwards and close to the palate. Finally, I never hear the “flap” in the English R, whereas I do hear a weak flap in the case of the R in the Sicilian TR combination. Overall, the Sicilian TR combination seems to denote a single sound (which can’t be split in two, just like the dʒ combination resulting from G). Perhaps this sound is ʈ͡ʂ as suggested by the comment below: I do seem to recognise the sound in the audio clips on the Wikipedia page about affricate consonants, but I seem to understand that IPA is more about how a sound is made than the way it’s heard, so I could be wrong.

Oh and mostly the same observations apply to DR, which I feel closer to ɖ͡ʐ than to the English DR. Peppepz (talk) 09:50, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Pronunciation and IPA

The sentence of ethnologue is unnecessary, because it’s impossible to think that sicilian and italian languages are the same thing. Between sicilian and italian there is not the same differences than between, for example, serbian, croatian and bosnian. The similarities between sicilian and italian concern just part of lexicon, because they are both romance languages and because they influence each other (for obvious social political reasons), but the grammar and overall the phonology is completely different. A stranger can think that czech and slovakian are the same language because they sound very similar; often a stranger cannot distinguish spanish and catalan (despite they are rather distinguishable), but even a stranger can realize that italian and sicilian are two different languages.
The IPA transliteration of the digraphs “tr”, “dr”, aren’t [tʃɹ], [dʒɹ]. In Sicilian they are typical affricate sounds, so [ʈ͡ʂ], [ɖ͡ʐ]. Listen the chart [[1]] it’s exactly like that. The digraph “ci” is not [ç], or rather in some (limited) areas the sound is like that but in majority of Sicily it’s [ʃ], like english “sh” but more faint. In english “sh” is actually [ʃʃ], always strong, instead in sicilian there is a [ʃ] written usually “ci”/“ce” and a [ʃʃ] just like in english, written usually “sci”/”sce”. Sicilian language unfortunately use the italian orthography because it hasn’t a standard peculiarly sicilian.
The trigraph “str” in not pronounced [ʃɹ] but simply [ʂː], it’s a unique sound, always strong. “Shr” in english is different, even if more similar than italian.
It’s true, “j” can be pronounced in different ways, but not like “jelly” in English. “Un jornu” is [uŋˈgjɔɾnu] not [unˈdʒoɾnu]. “Tri jorna” is [ʈ͡ʂigˈgjɔɾna], not [triˈɡjoɾna]; [tr] and [o] in sicilian don’t exist. The pronounce [ˈddʒɔɾnu] can existe just in “bon giornu” (good morning), but it is an italianism, in sicilian in fact the correct pronunciation should be [bbɔŋˈgjɔɾnu]. I’m Sicilian.--16:30, 23 May 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.153.229.189 (talk)

I don’t know IPA, but as a Sicilian, I would like to second what this comment says about pronunciation. I’d like, for what it’s worth, to specify more about the sounds deriving from Latin FL (e.g. ciancu, ciascu, ciatu, ciauru, ciumi). This sound has historically been written as X, possibily during the Spanish domination. To me it looks like that, in Sicilian and Southern Calabrian, this sound has evolved into three different pronunciations, depending on the locality:

• [çj] somewhere in central-western Sicily and in some places in southern Calabria; while this is probably the less common pronunciation, I find that it’s often wrongly presented as the only one in some texts, possibly because it’s the most peculiar one;
• [ʃ] in Catania and Palermo; this is probably the most common pronunciation;
• [t͡ʃ] in Messina.

Of course it’s not unlikely to also hear many of the possbile shades between the three. You can hear online examples of this in this informative atlas from Humboldt-Universität of Berlin, also you can hear how a Calabrian folk singer pronounces the ci in ciuriri as [çj] in this YouTube clip (contains music).

Also, it could be useful if the article mentioned the different kind of sound for I (something like [ɨ]? But it depends on the speaker) which is pronounced, at least in certain dialects, for words where an accented E has lost the accent (e.g. vèntu → vintùsu). Peppepz (talk) 11:06, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Dubious

"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."

It might make sense, if it weren't for the fact that Romance 3rd person (=2nd person polite in most of those lgs) imperative is always derived from subjunctive, and it can be traced back to Latin (coniunctivus iussivus, prohibitivus & optativus, I believe). It's a case of a fancy explanation for a feature that was simply inherited. 176.221.120.207 (talk) 20:51, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

The word dudda

Apparently it is referred in the work Giarrizzo, Salvatore (1989). Dizionario Etimologico Siciliano. Herbita Editrice. Someone should check this source. 79.117.153.178 (talk) 15:20, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I can confirm that it has an entry in Giarizzo, and covers the various older indo-european cognates.124.171.67.104 (talk) 22:30, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

It might be worth to note Romanian dudă and Turkish dut. 95.76.57.42 (talk) 15:07, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

"Italic" languages?

The article contains two statements about "Italic languages": "Sicilian has the oldest literary tradition of the Italic languages", and "Sicilian became the first of the Italic languages to be used as a literary language". Is this an erroneous substitution of the term "Italic" in place of "Romance"? Cicero, Virgil, and Horace all wrote in the first century BC, in Latin, an Italic language par excellence. Kotabatubara (talk) 21:09, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Usually the word Italic in this context is used to mean Italo-Romance/Italo-Dalmatian languages. You could say Italo-Romantic/Italo-Dalmatian I suppose, but generally I've seen the word Italic used for the Romance languages evolved from Late Latin in the Italian Peninsula and associated islands. There are several romance languages that were used in literature before Sicilian, but of the Italo-Romance languages its pretty early. I actually have heard this repeated a few times, and it does make some sense. Namely because Sicily was quite powerful at the time when Late latin dialects were beginning to be standardised and the Latin dialects were new to Sicily around that period, with their own interesting history. I've seen it cited a few different ways, with some being obviously poor quality research. That said, I can't actually confirm which phrasings would be most accurate. Paolorausch (talk) 08:20, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Agree with the above, the expression "Italic languages" clearly refers to the Romance languages of the Italian peninsular. You can read about early Sicilian literature and the influence on the later emergence of written Italian in this article Sicilian School, see also Italic languages. Fissatu (talk) 02:15, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

My first searches for the meaning of "Italic languages" came up with only Latin and its sister languages of antiquity: Faliscan, Oscan, and Umbrian. With some additional searching I did find that the term "Italic" is sometimes used as a synonym of "Romance" (not "romance" or "Romantic"!) languages. If we must use the term "Italic" in this article, would there be any objection to saying "the _modern_ Italic languages", to resolve the ambiguity? Kotabatubara (talk) 14:33, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

Reasonable solution. πιππίνυ δ - (dica) 00:43, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Confused...

I'm confused by this section:

Before the Roman conquest (3rd century BC), Sicily was occupied by populations considered indigenous, including Sicels (or Siculi, or Siculians—who arrived between the second and first millennia BC), Sicani, Elymians, and Morgetes, followed by Phoenicians (between the 10th and 8th centuries BC) and Greeks (from the 8th century BC). The Greek-language influence remains strongly visible, while the influences from the other groups are less obvious. What can be stated with certainty is that there remain pre-Indo-European words in Sicilian of an ancient Mediterranean origin, but one cannot be more precise than that. Of the three main prehistoric groups, only the Sicels were Indo-European, and their speech is likely to have been closely related to that of the Romans[23].

In particular, I can see either four or three "prehistoric groups": Sicels (or Siculi, or Siculians—who arrived between the second and first millennia BC), Sicani, Elymians, and Morgetes (four groups), versus "indigenous population", Phoenicians, and Greeks (three groups, the first of which has 4 subgroups). But in the three-split, there are two Indo-European groups (the Sicels, per the article), and the Greeks (because I know ;-). Can someone with knowledge or access to the sources clarify this? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:11, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

I agree with you that "indigenous" is the incorrect word to describe any of the Sicani/Siculi/Elymians. It's unclear whether the island was occupied before the arrival of the Sicani. Also, there remains much debate about whether 1 or more of these groups were indo-european, much debate about where the Elymians came from (actually, much debate about all three) - an article on the language of island should rightly only touch on these discussions, it's too big a topic to cover here. Having said all of that, there are a few words of a very early Mediterranean origin, pre-indoeuropean (usually names of plants or geographical features), that's worth mentioning as a matter of interest. πιππίνυ δ - (dica) 21:33, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

Time to finally fix up the referencing

The verifiability/referencing notice has been there for many years now. A lot has been fixed up over the years, but what is needed now is a concerted effort from a few committed users to go through it all, make it as tight as possible, ensure absolutely everything is fully and correctly referenced, and then finally get rid of the notices. The references are all out there, I have dozens in my personal library, and there are dozens more available online, so it comes down to a bit of hard work. I'm in contact with a few knowledgeable wikipedians who might be able to help, if there's anyone else out there wanting to help, it will be appreciated. πιππίνυ δ - (dica) 01:08, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Just noticed that someone has just made a start on this, so we're off and running. πιππίνυ δ - (dica) 01:17, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Looking at the opening paragraph, something which needs to be clarified is the status of Southern Pugliese, central calabrian and cilentino. I think the latest thinking is to view only Reggio di Calabria, and immediate environs as representing a dialect which can be categorised as being part of Sicilian, but Southern Pugliese, central calabrian and cilentino are considered to be part of a broader language group which also includes Sicilian - but we need that referenced - nice if someone out there with knowledge on this point could help. πιππίνυ δ - (dica) 04:11, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

I was able to track down good references from the it.wiki page, and I also found a terrific map/chart on the en article on Sard, whcih can be used here to clarify the groupings. Also of relevance to Sicilian because it shows the relationships of the other romance languages which have influenced Sicilian. πιππίνυ δ - (dica) 02:33, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

I have specified that the Southern Calabrian of Reggio Calabria is recognised is being a dialect of the Sicilian lanugage, and that the related dialects of south-central Calabria, Salentino and Cilentano all form part of the language group called: Italiano meridionale estremo. πιππίνυ δ - (dica) 06:15, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Ok, as of today, completed the referencing for sections 1 to 3, taking us to the end of the History/philology section. I have a pretty good library as far as the grammar goes as well, and will start working on that. πιππίνυ δ - (dica) 02:30, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

I have now completed a thorough review of this article in an attempt to fix all the referencing issues, adding new ones where required, as such, I have deleted the various notices which have been there for a while. Any expansion of topics such as phonology and grammar can probably use new articles because this one has become quite big. Please leave a comment if you think something else can be improved, or if made any errors in my revision. Cheers, πιππίνυ δ - (dica) 02:37, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

You can do it but without pretending there's some official regulator. Also, you should let neutral 3rd-party judge your work on sources. Cademia sicialiana proposal is fairly solid, but currently historically irrelevant. Finally, what is relevant is not your classification of Southern Calabria "parlances" but sources' one, many (most?) of including the whole RC province and even parts of Catanzaro province. --Vituzzu (talk) 12:10, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

I didn't make any edits regarding there being an official regulator. In relation to Southern Calabrian, I'm following the lead from it.wiki and using the same Varvaro source. I'm not sure what your issue is. You can't slap the verifiability notice back on because you erroneously believe I've added something incorrect. I spent three days fixing up all the referencing, so unless you can find a few issues, then that notice can come off. And finally: what on Earth does self-deemed mean?? πιππίνυ δ - (dica) 12:26, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

In the Italian edition of Wikipedia I've put all references and quotes about Reggio di Calabria's dialect's belonging to the Sicilian language. 1204grandine - (dica) 14:18, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Cool! Thanks! Can we get the same over here? Reggio is generally marked as "insular sicilian" in English.Paolorausch (talk) 19:07, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Unfortunately I only could put bibliography, not also quotes .1204grandine - (dica) 18:48, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

Please cool down.

You already violated 3RR rule, even if you were warned. You have to let other users judge whatever notices can be removed or not. I'm currently reviewing them founding just minor issues, so I'll likely remove both notices, just suggesting some improvement in citation style. Still you must do not engage in editwars.

Just found: Paolorausch wrote Cademia is the official regulator of Sicilian language, so it wasn't you.

Self-deemed = self-proclaimed, if that's not right that's, anyway, what I meant.

--Vituzzu (talk) 13:54, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

Done, it's substantially good for me.

I have only a major concern: I think "Lu Patri Nostru" section should be removed. Sicilian translation seems to be weak, for example: "viatu" means "soon", I don't see how "Venga il tuo regno." can become "Viatu vinissi lu Vostru regnu.". Calabro-sicilian translation is even worse, "nuastru", "riagnu", " 'ndu cialu", "dani goi" it's not Calabro-sicilian at all, it seems to be a very very weak transliteration of dialects spoken in some area of Catanzaro province.

--Vituzzu (talk) 14:11, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

I"m not sure where the other translations came from. I did the Sicilian translation 12 or so years ago, but who knows what has been added and changed over the journey, I stopped oversighting for a very long period. Part of the issue was that once Ethnologue recognised Sicilian some 13 years ago, the language group included all of Southern-central Calabrian and Salentino, but in the intervening period, that view has differed a bit, so they might all belong to the same category, but a level up from what would now be viewed as the Sicilian language, which, according to Varvaro, does cross the straits to Reggio (being very similar to Missinisi). It.wiki made that distinction a while back, and I was wanting to be consistent here, but as we know, these linguistic boundaries and categorisaitons can get murky. So I believe that's why someone or some people may have added the other translations, to be honest, it's not crucial, it's something which was often done in the early years of wikipedia, but I'm not fussed one way or the other. Thanks for looking it over, πιππίνυ δ - (dica) 22:03, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

I've eventually removed Calabro-sicilian, I'm inclined to remove Sicilian too, while I cannot tell whether Salentinu translation is good or not. As a general principle I think language example should be taken from true literary works instead of being translations from Italian, which ends up "contaminating" them. --Vituzzu (talk) 23:34, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

That's reasonable, no probs from me on that front. As I said, in the early days of wiki, it was common to put up a translation of the Lord's Prayer, but personally, I don't think it's all that important. πιππίνυ δ - (dica) 23:38, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

hi guys! so great to see so much work. i just wanted to comment on the "regulated by" thing, you'll see that CSFLS is listed this way in the IT version (ultimately also misleading). But honestly the wiki template for this just doesn't have a section for the weird situation of unofficial languages. I still think my decision to add Cadèmia and CSFSL was right, but I also tried to clarify what it meant by it. I put "non-profit" to clarify that it wasn't government, and i put csfsl (descriptive) because they don't prescribe. You'll see I also added the "unofficial" box at the same time to further dispel such an idea. I'm open to whatever you guys think it not-misleading but also I don't want people to think that no one has proposed orthographies. The issue is the template says "regulated by", which is hard for us. Other than CS, CSFSL, Wiki, Krivu, Pitrè blah blah there are many ways of writing and I think we need to show people that it's not true that there's no way to write Sicilian! Of course, I could also be totally wrong, I'm pretty open to that too :), thoughts?Paolorausch (talk) 00:01, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

I understand the dilemma, it's certainly not accurate as far as the current template goes, but equally, I agree with you that it's incorrect for people to conclude that standard form of written Sicilian has never existed. I wonder whether the Orthography article is the best place to tackle this, to lay it all out in its many complexities, and to leave the main article as saying, correctly, there is no body formally charged with regulating the language. In the Orthography article, we need to get that quote from Camilleri's Grammatica, where he argues upon a very solid foundation that the descent into arbitrariness in written Sicilian is very much a modern phenomenon. In both scn.wiki (and I think the Cademia has gone down a similar route), the starting point is that there is actually a very solid basis for what we could loosely term a "standard" (even if this has never been formally recognised anywhere). πιππίνυ δ - (dica) 04:42, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

I write Sicilian on a daily basis while chatting to my friends (trying using purest vocabulary), still I don't dare writing the same way on a wiki ;)

Cademia's (which I pronounce "ccadimia") proposal is currently just a proposal. I read it, I don't like the alphabet used, I think it gives too much precedence to some variants of Sicilian but I find it a terribly interesting study aimed at preserving Sicilian language.

So I have no prejudices but Wikipedia's mission, ethics and rules are pretty clear: Wikipedia cannot be a mean to push Cademia's work.

You may cite different attempts/proposals to create a Sicilian "standard" orthography, which include the works Cademia's proposal is based upon. But, as of now, there's no prevailing orthography.

Finally there's no need to say "there's a way to write Sicilian", Sicilian literature, spanning over nine centuries, already tells this.

--Vituzzu (talk) 21:39, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Vituzzu, it's tempting to reach the conclusion you have reached that there has never been a standard way of writing Sicilian, spanning centuries, but Camilleri in his grammatica argues quite convincingly that the opposite is true, written Sicilian was very stable from between 1600 and 1900, it's only in the past century that people starting writing in the manner they preferred. I don't have the direct quote handy, but I have the Sicilian translation:

• • Camilleri raggiuna ca doppu lu granni successu di Antoniu Vinizzianu ô fini dû sèculu XVI, l'ortugrafìa dû sicilianu si sfrutta di quasi tri sèculi d'equilìbbriu, nu pirìudu 'n cui attruvamu na koiné abbastanti unificata pi quantu riguarda la sò scrittura. Comu n'asempiu, Camilleri parraggia lu palirmintanu, Giuseppi Marchisi, nu scritturi dâ prima mitati dû sèculu XVIII cû pueta catanisi, Tommasu Custanzu dâ stissa èbbica pi vidiri ca a ddu tempu cc'era quasi nudda diffirenza[36].

Marchisi (di Palermu):

E quannu di la tavul fineru,

Li parenti, e l'amici cummitati,

Tutti leti, e cuntenti sinni jeru.

Custanzu (di Catania):

Cunsighieri crudili foru l'anni,

Anzi foru cu manu diamantina

D'iddu stissi carnefici, e tiranni.

Nu beddu asempiu di zoccu sta dicennu Camilleri è lu puema tradizziunali: La Barunissa di Carini, chi Salvaturi Salomuni-Marinu trascrissi ntô 1873 e 1914 (dui virsioni diffirenti, ricurdannu chi si tratta di nu puema pupulari cu tanti virsioni attraversu li sèculi)[37]. Sta virsioni di 1873 accumenza:

Chianci Palermu, chianci Siragusa,

Carini ccè lu luttu ad ogni casa;

Cu' la purtau sta nova dulurusa

Mai paci pozz'aviri a la sò casa.

Si pò diri la stissa cosa dî pruverbi arricugghiuti e trascritti di Giuseppi Pitrè nnâ fini dû sèculu XIX. N'asempiu[38]:

Acqua di primintìu, allarga l'armu miu; acqua e suli 'ntra li simenzi, mi criscinu li spiranzi; acqua di maju e aprili, curru cu tutti li vili; poi boni matinati, ricchizza di li casi.

πιππίνυ δ - (dica) 23:51, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

I think you misunderstood, I think @vituzzu said "there IS" a way. regardless I think we're coalescing around a consensus anyway. I personally enjoy @vituzzu 's criticisms and I would invite you to help us improve these articles. Paolorausch (talk) 19:07, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Indeed, there's a corpus of written Sicilian in literature which is, as of now, the best we can "offer" to non-Sicilian speakers. Writing Sicilian is hard for two reasons: immense variability of the language and its dialects and lack of some of the relevant phonetics in Italian. Cademia proposal tries to address the second problem, but, as of now, the best we can offer to non-Sicilian speaker is the orthography used in literature, which may be different among authors. --Vituzzu (talk) 18:34, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Pretty inappropriate edits seem to be linked to the work of some users on this article

Hello, first of all, my congrats to all the users which are working hard on this page, I am Sicilian and seeing this makes me really proud. Unfortunately I saw some "political" edits coming from user deeply involved in this article such as change of nationalities and an indiscriminate replacement of Italian terms/infobox/templates with Sicilian ones. Well, I don't know if you are scholars or simply Sicilians like me or Americans with Sicilian ancestry, my point is that this wonderful work on the Sicilian language shouldn't be confused and polluted by unreal political claims since it does not pertain to contemporary history as well as to modern Sicilian society.--80.104.150.166 (talk) 16:36, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

I think you're referring to another authors changing of the nationality of some authors on other articles. I saw your comments and I think there is in general in Italian Wikipedia a misunderstanding about the terms 'ethnicity' and 'nationality' in English. As we've seen the same issue with the Sicilian nationalism article and bigger ideas regarding the nationalisation of history and the 'antiquity of the italian nation'. In the anglophone scholarship such assertions are not taken without criticism, whereas in Italy to call pre-risorgimento Sicilians as "italians" would almost be insulting not to. It implies race overtones etc. The reality is that if someone was born and died before the annexation of the Kingdom of Sicily to Italy their 'nationality' would not have been Italian. One could argue any person proficient in italian language was of the italian ethnicity, but if we apply that definition I think it's obvious the ramifications, for example under that definition all Corsicans and Maltese just became Italians as well. Just like Archimedes wasn't "Italian". Realistically 'Italian' ethnicity is in fact an amalgamation of several ethnic identities, and is much better labelled a nationality than an ethnicity. Of course in the last 100 years things have changed a lot, and Italian ethnic identity is now quite strong within many areas of Italy. That said we should not be tempted to nationalise our history and apply just demonyms into the past. Finally, if you look at the edit history of that page you'll actually see that the article was created that way and has been an ongoing conflict, with references being deleted etc. Many sources prefer to use the correct polity of citizenship for the demonym rather than the politicised term "Italian" which implies that all citizenships of the modern Italian state were 'destined' to be in that polity based on an ancient italianità. I hope this provides more context for that discussion. thanks!Paolorausch (talk) 20:18, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Agree with previous edit, quite clearly the Kingdom of Sicily existed for centuries as a nation-state prior to the formation of the modern Italian state, so someone like Antonio Veneziano, born, bred and died within Sicily in the 1500, quite obviously, cannot be Italian because the Italian state would not exist for another three hundred years. The state into which he was born was Sicily, and therefore, he is Sicilian. πιππίνυ δ - (dica) 23:45, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

The issue becomes then what about people like Michele Amari? Who left Sicily and worked in Northern Italy and Naples (under the crown of aragon)? We have the issue that in the past borders and passports didn't exactly exist and the mediterranean had overlapping identities. I understand at least in the case of Northern Italians where the usage of Italian had for a long time been the primary lingua franca, whereas in Sicily and Sardinia other Mediterranean languages had strong value. But what do we do for people like him who operated in all of these spaces?Paolorausch (talk) 00:14, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

What was the state language of the Kingdom of Sicily?

I would rather welcome a statement on what might have been the official language of Sicily used in the Parliament and official state correspondence at different points in the history of the Sicilian kingdom, particularly after its re-founding in the 12th C. This is an encyclopaedia where I would hope to find an answer to such a question. I am not really interested in whether there were Arabs or Jews or Gauls or Lombards etc living in Sicily but in what was the official language used in official correspondence by the Kingdom of Sicily once it was founded. As the official language of the Kingdom, I would have thought it would be something this article should provide some information about. Was it Latin? Old/Middle Sicilian? South Italian? Italo-Norman? Arabic? Skamnelis (talk) 16:46, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Skamnelis has just volunteered to do some work. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.178.1.178 (talk) 14:50, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Skamnelis, well this is complicated. I feel like you may be accidently projecting modern nationalism into the past. The Sicilian language only came to exist during the Kingdom of Sicily, and for it's early period Latin/Greek/Arabic were used as it's administrative languages. Sicilian only coming later as an evolution of "local Latin". It was used to increasing extent until the Aragonese/Catalan period where it starts to be replaced by a more Standard Latin and then Italian much later on. The last edicts issued in Sicily are around the jewish expulsion. Although of course the spoken language was already developing in exciting ways. Sicilian language is not the 'language of the Kingdom of Sicily" it's a language 'connected to it'. Those groups you mentioned are just as linguistically relevant as they form the people that would eventually develop into speakers of the modern Sicilian language, each contributing substantially. They are not 'minorities' or 'non-Sicilians', but rather linguistic communities that would slowly integrate into a range of variation, some of which have survived. I would suggest reading the articles about Arab-Byzantine-Norman Civilisation, the Kingdom of Sicily itself, as well as metcalfe's papers and books that are available online for a more clear answer. If you write on my wall I can send you some sources that you can use to cite in your work if you decide to edit the article.Paolorausch (talk) 16:55, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

Salentino dialect

Salentino dialect in its own article is described as a dialect of Sicilian language. Here it is only mentioned in the header, and not at all in the section on dialects. Could someone look at the issue and work a bit on it? noychoH (talk) 09:52, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

/ɖː/ to be added to phonemic consonants?

On the 'Sicilian orthography' page (at 'Ḍḍ, ḍḍ'), I see that both /dː/ and /ɖː/ exist, so shouldn't /ɖː/ be added to the phonology table? Exarchus (talk) 12:26, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

I've just added that. The consonant table seemed to have been copied from the Italian phonology article. It should absolutely be a separate phoneme. Teangacha (talk) 09:58, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

About the phonology section and /ɖ/

I have edited the phonemes table and someone seems to have made few changes.

I now realise that adding all persistently geminated consonants as long phonemes on the chart might have been excessive, although there are some that are pronounced as such 100% of the time (mainly /ɖ/, /d͡ʒ/ and /b/). But of course, phonological analysis may vary (they might be regarded as sequences of two identical consonants /bb/, etc.) and the sources aren't exactly thorough on the topic, especially on a wider pan-Sicilian scale, so adding them not as geminates but as specifically long vowels with the triangular semicolon may be misleading or incorrect. That was my mistake.

However, /ɖ/ is surely a separate phoneme from /l/ and /d/, even though it evolved from Latin -LL-. It's true that some areas consistently or occasionally retained /ll/ and that sometimes younger speakers slip into [dː] due to Italian influence, but it's still absolutely a phoneme, and it contrasts with 'double-l' /ll/ too in modern dialects. If it's ok, I'll remove the parenthesis (so that it lookes like a proper phoneme and not an allophone) and provide sources. I'll make sure to correct the description below so that the article doesn't imply that [ɖ] is a surface realisation of /ll/. The sound is traditionally regarded as a retroflex consonant but I think post-alveolar is also a good way to describe it, so nothing to note there. Teangacha (talk) 22:17, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

There are a couple more issues in this section related to its structure and foundation.

1. The explanation of consonants seems to heavily rely on orthography, which poses a few problems: - It's important to distinguish between phonology and orthography since letters don't directly represent sounds. While they are connected, they should be treated as separate concepts. - Sicilian lacks a standardized official orthography. While the Cademia Siciliana has established one, it remains largely unfamiliar, as only a few individuals learn to write in native Sicilian. This means that there isn't a single way to spell certain sounds.
2. The description also appears to focus on the evolution from Latin, as seen in phrases like "Latin FL." Although this is an important aspect to consider in this section, it shouldn't be the initial focus for readers who are searching for the phonemes listed in the table above.

My proposed solution is to remove the "subtitles" used to identify sounds (e.g., "ḌḌ/DD —" and "Latin FL —") and instead present the IPA transcriptions of those sounds/phonemes within the first few words after the bullet points. The orthographic and diachronic descriptions of the sounds should follow the phonological explanation. Teangacha (talk) 10:47, 24 June 2023 (UTC)