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Quagmire asked in Society & CultureLanguages · 8 years ago

Is there much Greek and Arabic influence on the Sicilian language?

Sicilian was distinct enough from Standard Italian to be regarded as a separate Romance language in its own right, but are there substantial influences from the previously spoken non-Romance languages on the Sicilian language, whether in terms of pronunciation, vocabulary, etc. I know that both Greek and Arabic were widely spoken in Sicily prior to the Norman conquest of Sicily, which resulted in a "Latinization" of the island as Italian immigrants from the mainland flooded into Sicily, bringing Roman Catholicism and Italian dialects, along with some Norman and French settlers who brought French and Occitan-Provencal.

After the Greeks and Arabs were assimilated into the increasingly dominant Latin culture, to what extent did they leave traces of their languages on the emerging Romance language that gave rise to the Sicilian language?

I'm half-Sicilian so I've always been interested in this subject and would like to know more. My grandparents spoke Sicilian when they were younger but haven't for many years, but they recall always having a very hard time understanding people from northern and central Italy when trying to converse with them.

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    Lv 7
    8 years ago
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    There is no one Sicilian dialect, but eleven of them. Greek words remains to this day in all of the dialects as well as in standard Italian. The language has influences from the following travelers that passed on certain words... Greek, Latin, Norman, Lombard, Provençal, German, Catalan, French, Spanish, Arabic and of course Italian from Vulgar Latin. To this day the majority of Sicilians still speak these dialects known as Siculu or Calabro-Sicilian, since some of these dialects are also spoken in Calabria. I'm full Italian in ancestry.

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