Sicilian

Where it’s spoken

Sicilian (Sicilianu) is spoken across the island of Sicily and in parts of Calabria and Salento (Apulia) on the southern Italian mainland. About 4.7 million speak it as a first or strong second language. The Sicilian diaspora in the United States, Argentina, Germany, and Australia preserves heritage usage. Sicilian is recognized by Italy as a “non-Italian minority language” though Italian remains the formal medium.

What it sounds like

Sicilian distinguishes a vowel system of five short vowels (a, ɛ, i, ɔ, u) that contrasts open-mid mid-low vowels — in some respects more conservative than Italian. It has retroflex consonants (rr, ddh) that derive from medieval Sicilian Norman influence, and characteristic geminate consonants.

How it’s written

Sicilian uses the Latin alphabet with no fully standardized orthography. The Cademia Siciliana proposes a unified system. Letters like dd and ḍḍ are used for retroflex sounds. Older literary tradition follows Italian-influenced spelling conventions.

History

Sicilian has the oldest literary tradition of any Italian regional Romance language — the Sicilian School of poetry at the 13th-century court of Frederick II Hohenstaufen produced the earliest documented sonnet form and influenced Dante.