Gallo-siculo

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The gallo-siculo dialects represent a group of dialects found in central-eastern Sicily that date back to migrations from Northern Italy during the time of Roger I of Sicily and which continued after his death under his successor Roger II (from around 1080 to 1120). The towns that were populated by the new immigrants were to become known as the "Lombard communities" (or cumuna lummardi in the Sicilian. In truth, the colonisers were not all from Lombardy, but from all parts of Northern Italy, including Piedmont. Apart from their geographic origin, the one common attribute that the colonisers had was that they brought with them their gallo-italic idioms. These idioms were to add to the gallic influence of the newly developing Sicilian language (influences which also include Norman and Old Provençal), but more importantly, in about nine isolated communities, the idioms would merge with Sicilian over the centuries to create distinctive gallo-siculo dialects. They are far too unique to be considered dialects of Sicilian itself, nor can they be considered dialects of the Lombard language, and because of the differences in origin of each respective community, they share only a passing resemblence with each other.

Although Roger I took 30 years to take complete control of Sicily (1061 to 1091), by 1080 he had effective control over much of the island. In the course of this conquest, large parts of central Sicily became depopulated as the Saracens of the muslim faith either fled to other arabic communities that remained intact, or else fled the island entirely in the direction of North Africa. Roger encouraged new migrations to these central parts, in particular, the migrations of latins who were closely aligned with the Western church. The bulk of the migrations came from Northern Italy and from present day Campania. The latter migrations were to provide the vulgar Latin which would form the basis of the new romance language, while the former migrations would both influence the development of the language profoundly, while at the same time, create altogether unique gallo-siculo idioms in some of the more isolated communities.

The main gallo-siculo dialects are to be found in the following towns:

in the province of Messina: Acquedolci, Montalbano Elicona, Novara di Sicilia, San Fratello e San Piero Patti;
in the province of Enna: Aidone, Nicosia, Piazza Armerina e Sperlinga.

Other such communities were also once to be found in the provinces of Catania (for example, in Paternò, Bronte and Randazzo), Syracuse and Palermo. Similar communities have survived in part outside of Sicily, in Basilicata, which was subject to similar forces during the same period in question.

[edit] Bibliography

F. Piazza, Le colonie e i dialetti lombardo-siculi, Catania, 1921.
Illuminato Peri, "La questione delle colonie lombarde di Sicilia", BSSS 57, 3-4 (1959), pp. 3-30.
Giorgio Piccitto, "Testi aidonesi inediti o ignoti", L'Italia dialettale 25, n.s. 2 (1962), pp. 38-100.
G. Petracco, "Influenze genovesi sulle colonie gallo-italiche delle Sicilia?", BCSic 9 (1965), pp. 106-132.
Giovanni Tropea, Il vocabolario siciliano manoscritto inedito di Giuseppe Trischitta da Furci Siculo, in: Saggi e ricerche in memoria di Ettore Li Gatti, 3 voll. BCSic [Bollettino del Centro di studi filologici e linguistici siciliani], (Palermo) 6-8 (1962).
IDEM, "Un dialetto moribondo, il gallo-italico di Francavilla Sicula", BCSic 9 (1965) pp. 133-152.
IDEM, La letteralizzazione dei dialetti gallo-italici di Sicilia, in: Lingua parlata e lingua scritta, Convegno di studi 9-11 nov. 1967. BCSic 11 (1970) pp. 453-479.
IDEM, "Effetti della simbiosi linguistica nella parlata gallo-italica di Aidone, Nicosia e Novara di Sicilia", BALI [Bollettino dell'Atlante Linguistico Italiano], n.s. 13-14 (1966), pp. 3-50.
IDEM, Parlata locale, siciliano e lingua nazionale nelle colonie gallo-italiche della Sicilia, in: Atti del 3° Convegno Nazionale della Cultura Abruzzese; del VI Convegno del CSDI; del 948° Circolo Linguistico Fiorentino. Vol. II: Linguistica. Vol. III: Dialettologia, Pescara, Istituto di Studi Abruzzesi. Abruzzo, Rivista dell'Istituto di Studi Abruzzesi, (Pescara) 8, 1-3 (Gennaio-Dicembre 1970).
IDEM, "Testi aidonesi inediti", Memorie dell'Istituto Lonmbardo di Scienze, Lettere e Arti, Milano, 33, 5 (1973).
IDEM, Considerazioni sul trilinguismo della colonia galloitalica di San Fratello, in Dal dialetto alla lingua, Atti del IX Convegno per gli Studi Dialettali Italiani. Lecce, 28 settembre - 1 ottobre 1972. Pisa, Pacini, 1974.
IDEM, "Italiano di Sicilia", L'Orizzonte, 4, Palermo, Aragne, 1976.
IDEM, Testi sanfratellani in trascrizione fonetica, in: Vittore Pisani et alii (ed.), Italia linguistica nuova e antica. Studi linguistici in memoria di Oronzo Perlangèli, 2 voll., Università degli Studi di Bari, Facoltà di Magistero, Galatina, Congedo Editore, 1976-1978.
IDEM, Vocabolario siciliano, fondato da Giorgio Piccitto, 4 voll. Catania-Palermo, Centro di Studi Filologici Siciliani, 1977, 1985, 1990, 1997.