Sicilian Language or Sicilian Dialect?
Before getting into the merits of Sicilian, I find right and useful to briefly explain you what is the difference between what we define language and what we define dialect from a linguistic and sociolinguistic point of view.
There are two main facts that generate and determine the word dialect. When we speak about dialects, in fact, we might refer both to the variety of a language (for example American English, Irish English in which the grammatical structure of standard English is preserved while modifying its accent, pronunciation and introducing local elements) and also local languages that have lost their autonomy compared to another that has become dominant for historical and political reasons, and subsequently recognized as official. In both cases, it is true, it would be therefore a ‘language’ spoken by a population in a given territory, but there are aspects that need to be further argued.
The language, despite its official status, also includes a spoken structure used in every-day life that does not respect the “textbook” standards in detail, ie it shows elements distinguished according to the territory where it is spoken. For Italian linguistics – clearly referring to the Italian territory – this “spoken language” would be defined as regional Italian, but for Anglo-Saxon linguistics – guess what – these territorial differences precisely refers to dialects. Now, taking into consideration this excursus, if we consider Sicilian as a linguistic variety, I would say that we are getting a bit out of focus.
In fact, Sicilian would precisely respect the second definition of dialect, since it is indeed subordinate to the Italian language. For this reason, it could never ever be defined as a linguistic variety deriving from Italian – but rather from Latin – influenced by the neighbouring Arabic language, as well as by Greek and all the other Romance languages that have followed one another on the territory over the centuries. However, after having clarified and explained how Sicilian is nowadays a dialect, I will “mess up the cards on the table”.
The Sicilian Language
Can we then refer to it as Sicilian Language or is it a dialect? Sicilian – as you have surely understood – is in fact a language in all respects, before fulfilling the role of dialect. In fact, we call it “Sicilian language” because it is koinè (common language) throughout the Sicilian territory, although it has different peculiarities depending on the Sicilian provinces – what I would define here as dialects.
To be clear, if an individual from Palermo speaks in Sicilian language with an individual from Catania, the conversation will be absolutely feasible and understandable for both, albeit with accent and perhaps even pronunciation differences. This means that the language represents and outlines not only the territory but also the cultural belonging of each population. Furthermore, there are other reasons for defining Sicilian as a language in all aspects: the existence of a well-articulated grammar and vocabularies and the presence of a literary corpus – that is the totality of literary texts whose writing uses this language – raises it to a role much more important than the one a dialect would play.
Giuseppe Pitrè drew up his Sicilian Grammar in 1875, but much earlier Jacopo da Lentini established the Sicilian Poetic School, where between 1233 and 1241 at the court of Frederick II of Swabia he invented the Sonnet, subsequently influencing what will later come to Tuscany known as Dolce Stil Novo. However, we must also say that the Sicilian of Pitrè’s grammar – but even more the one belonging to the Sicilian Poetic School – is now far from our way of speaking in Sicily, since we very often forget the original words.
Thus it happens that the Sicilian catu ( “bucket”, that in Italian is called “secchio”) becomes ‘sicchiu’ a clear dialectal form, in this case, from Italian. Furthermore, Sicilian is no longer used for official and formal matters, such as in legal or academic field, as it happens in Northern Italy with Venetian instead.
Sicilian thus becomes a language in the middle. A language that we all understand, but that we no longer speak, except in small doses in our now refined Italian. However, it must be emphasized that we do not want to forget it, but we want it to define us always and forever, also recovering it, more and more lately, in modern songs.