Sicilian language

Sicilian (Lu Sicilianu, Lingua Siciliana) is the Romance language spoken in Sicily and southern Italy. Sicilian dialects (or dialects comprising the Italiano_meridionale-estremo language group) are spoken on the island of Sicily (and all of its satellite islands), as well as in the southern and central sections of Calabria ("southern Calabro") and Puglia ("Salentino") on the Italian mainland. Ethnologue (see section below) describes Sicilian as being "distinct enough from Standard Italian to be considered a separate language".

Related Topics:
Romance language - Sicily - Italy - Italiano_meridionale-estremo - Calabria - Puglia

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It is currently spoken by the 5,000,000 inhabitants of Sicily, plus a further (approximately) 5,000,000 Sicilians around the world. The latter are to be found in the countries which attracted large numbers of Sicilian immigrants during the course of the past century or so, especially the USA, Canada, Australia and Argentina. In the past two or three decades, large numbers of Sicilians were also attracted to the industrial zones of northern Italy and indeed the rest of the EC, in particular, Germany.

Related Topics:
USA - Canada - Australia - Argentina - EC - Germany

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As the table indicates, Sicilian is not recognised as an official language anywhere in the world, not even within Italy. There is currently no central body, in Sicily or elsewhere, that regulates the language in any way. The autonomous regional parliament of Sicily has legislated to encourage the teaching of Sicilian at all schools, but inroads into the education system have been extremely slow.

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