Italian and Sicilian: Language Differences

Do you know any interesting Italian or Sicilian phrases or differences? Post them to the comments below.

[DubbleBubbly]

Now imagine learning Italian for three years in high school so you can finally hold a conversation in Italian with nonna but you forgot she's Sicilian and nothing makes SENSE

[Bigbuddyandblue]

Useless phrases. How would you say “I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse” ?

[josephfazio]

Wow, the comments 🙃😂
My grandparents are from Bari, they speak Barese, a dialect I believe.
I love Sicilia and my friend Marco speaks Italian, Arabic, Sicilian and English.
When he went over words with me, some Sicilian words were closer to Arabic than Italian.
That's all I got 😂
I love Italy and Sicilia 💛

[viniciuscarvalho]

Man, I’m so amazed how for me, a Brazilian Portuguese speaker, is much easier to understand and even speak the Sicilian language. Didn’t know it was like that.

[brunocaruso]

The sicilian heard in this video is spoken in the west of the island Palermo Trapani. All those "sicilian" sentences would be different in the east of the island like in Catania or Syracuse. There are thousands of variations and the differences are at times noticeable even in between cities or villages that are not far away from each other.

[toonsi]

English: "Where ist the bathroom"
Sicilian: "Unn'è un bagnu"
In Tunisia we say: "weeno el bano" or "weeni beat el bano"
A big love to our brothers and sisters from the other side of the sea

[writeon]

When I was a kid my Sicilian grandma would say "figu bedu" to us. I didn't know what it meant, only that it was an endearment. About 30 years later when I took Italian lessons I realized she'd been saying "figlio bello" or "figlia bella" - beautiful son/daughter.

[gaetanopiccolo]

Lot of butthurt italians in the section comments. Italy as a country was created only in 1860. But the whole of the south (from Abruzzo to Sicily) was already united in 1130 (first as political union between the Kingdom of Naples and the Kingdom of Sicily and then as a single entity known as Kingdom of the Two Sicilies). All the local languages you find in these parts of Italy ARE NOT Italian dialects, but are variations of either the NEAPOLITAN or the SICILIAN language. Abruzzese, Molisano, Pugliese, Lucano and Neapolitan itself belong to the first group. Calabrese, Salentino and Sicilian itself belong to the second group. Now, Neapolitan and Sicilian are LANGUAGES, not dialects of Italian. The same way Catalan is a LANGUAGE and not a dialect of Spanish. Some Neapolitan words are more similiar to Spanish and Catalan than they are to standard Italian (a female child in Italian is "bambina", in Neapolitan is "nenna", in Catalan is "nena", in Spanish is niña). The same goes for Sicilian which unlike Neapolitan also had some Arab influence before 1130. So the video is entirely correct. Saying "language differences between Italian and Sicilian" is not an attempt against the "italianess of Sicilians". Today Sicilians are Italians, everybody knows that. It's just comparing two different languages, as you would Spanish and Catalan, without implying that Catalans aren't Spanish. Sure some Sicilians don't feel Italians and some Catalan don't feel Spanish, but that's a political issue, leave it out of this.

[keiyutiffany]

Puerto Ricans speak Spanish. Hawaiians have Hawaiian language, as well as Pidgin. The Cherokee people speak Tsalagi. They're all part of the United States, but there is still a differentiation between them.
Okinawa is a part of Japan, but many of the people there prefer to call themselves Okinawan. Sicily is a part of Italy, but people from Sicily still call themselves Sicilian, and while Italian and Sicilian are of the same linguistic group, they're different enough that someone from, say, Milan will have no idea what a person from Palermo is talking about, when they speak in their Sicilian dialect. Let's not be pretentious.

[salvolondon]

Something that must be said is that Sicily is a big island with many cities and the dialect changes from a city to another, for example some words in Palermo have a meaning totally different than in Catania . Or are pronounced and spelled totally differently .

[MrBegliocchi]

In Sicilian, you can also say "voi ballari cu mia", similar to "vuoi ballare con me".

[amac]

Sicilian dialect comes (together with old Greek language) straight from hellenic, ancient time. Sicilians should be Proud of this amazing heritage, they should learn and care to keep the dialect alive! To me Sicily is the most beautiful place on Earth and I share my best feelings about the place with all my friends (I am from Poland).

[ubuntuposix]

Sicilian, like Romanian uses "cu" instead of "con",
"unn'e" (Rom: "unde" ) instead of "dov'e",
"M'a scusari" (Rom: "Ma scuzati") instead of "Mi scusate"

[anthony_ugent]

Sicilian (sicilianu; Italian: siciliano), also known as Siculo (sìculu) or Calabro-Sicilian, [4] is a Romance language spoken on the island of Sicily and its satellite islands.[4] It is also spoken in southern Calabria (where it is called Southern Calabro), [4][5] specifically in the Province of Reggio Calabria, [6] whose dialect is viewed as being part of the continuum of the Sicilian language.[7] Central Calabria, the southern parts of Apulia (Salentino dialect) and Campania (Cilentano dialect), on the Italian peninsula, are viewed as being part of the broader Far Southern Italian language group (in Italian italiano meridionale estremo).[8]

Ethnologue (see below for more detail) describes Sicilian as being "distinct enough from Standard Italian to be considered a separate language"[4] and is recognized as a "minority language" by UNESCO.[9][10][11][12] It has been referred to as a language by the Sicilian region.[2] It has the oldest literary tradition of the modern Italian languages. The end!

[montywoodside]

My Great-Grandmother was from Palermo, Sicily. She was the last generation to know the Italian language. (My Grandfather and his siblings knew a little, but never became fluent.) I so badly want to start picking up the language (Sicilian) and not only carry on the traditions which I've heard from my Grandaunts, but also be able to read the love letters which my Great-Gma wrote to my Great-Gpa (they're in Italian)

[calogerohuygens]

Italian standard exists because it's the language of italian state, but Sicilian hasn't a standard version so there's tens of different ways to tell the same concept, with several inflection, noun and phrasal structure.

[claudiag]

Comunque anche "l'italiana" come la "siciliana" proviene da una qualche regione di Italia, anche lei avrà un dialetto, se etichetti una come "siciliana" dovresti quantomeno specificare la provenienza dell'altra..

[roccalumera]

Where the demonstration failed was what part of Sicily was she from?
I would say that 6 of the 9 Sicilian provinces might not agree with her exact phrasing.

[brooke.]

I’m Sicilian but I just wanted to say Italian and Sicilian dialect/language (whatever you wanna call it) is different. Italian is more Latin and Sicilian is from many different languages and Latin but very similar but different to italian. Sicilian nationality wise are italian, but my family tells people that they are Sicilian not “I’m italian”, but yes both are italian, but culture is a little different. genetically though Sicilians are somewhat different from Italians. :)

[Taliannu_i_stiddi_arrassu]

In almost all Sicily the D consonant becomes R-sound when before and after there is a vowel (or nothing). Di unni si = Ri unni si.
After an N, the G consonant is not pronounced (as in english ring, sing, king),
Bagnu, Benvenuta e Ti amo are modern expressions, all italianisms.
A Sicilian says "ti vogghiu" as in Spanish "te quiero".