Gallo-Italic of Sicily

Gallo-Italic of Sicily
Italian: Gallo-italico di Sicilia
Native to Northwest Italy
Region Central and eastern Sicily
Native speakers
 60,000  (2006)[1]
Indo-European
Language codes
ISO 639-3 –
Glottolog None
Linguistic map of Italy. Note the green specks of Gallo-Italic in Sicily.

The Gallo-Italic of Sicily (Italian: Gallo-italico di Sicilia) is a group of Gallo-Italic varieties found in about fourteen isolated communities in central-eastern Sicily. It forms a language island within the Sicilian language[2][3] and dates back to migrations from Northern Italy during the time of Norman Roger I of Sicily,[4] and which continued under his successors.

The towns that were populated by the new immigrants were to become known as the "Lombard communities" (or Oppida Lombardorum in Latin language, cumuna lummardi in the Sicilian language). In truth, the colonisers, known as "Lombards of Sicily" were not all from today's Lombardy, but most parts of Northern Italy, including Piedmont, Liguria and Emilia—"Lombardy" being the name for the whole of Northern Italy in the Middle Ages. 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), and have been influenced by Sicilian itself over the centuries creating distinctive Gallo-Italic languages.

History

Adelaide del Vasto and Roger I of Sicily

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 religion 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. 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-Italic of Sicily idioms in some of the more isolated communities.

Area of diffusion: oppida Lombardorum

The main Gallo-italic languages of Sicily are found in the following towns:

Other such communities existed also in the provinces of Catania (for example, in Paternò, Bronte and Randazzo), Syracuse (Ferla, Buccheri, Cassaro) and Palermo (Corleone).

Similar communities have survived in part outside of Sicily, in Basilicata, which was subject to similar forces during the same period in question; the particular dialects spoken by those communities are known as "Dialetti gallo-italici di Basilicata".

Bibliography

Notes

  1. ↑ Fiorenzo Toso, Lingue d'Europa: la pluralità linguistica dei paesi europei fra passato e presente, Baldini Castoldi Dalai, Milano 2006, p. 158. (In Italian)
  2. ↑ Salvatore Carmelo Trovato, La Sicilia, in Cortelazzo et al. I dialetti italiani, UTET, Torino 2002, p. 882. (In Italian)
  3. ↑ Toso, Fiorenzo (2010). "Gallo-italica, comunità". Enciclopedia dell'Italiano, Treccani, 2010 (in Italian). Treccani. In Sicilia (Trovato 1998) si tratta dei dialetti di almeno ventiquattro località. Trovato (2002) tuttavia riconosce come ancora schiettamente gallo-italici solo i dialetti che condividono, tra le altre isoglosse settentrionali (➔ isoglossa), la dittongazione in sillaba libera tonica o davanti a palatale di ĕ ed ŏ latino: si tratta delle parlate di San Fratello (con l’ex-frazione di Acquedolci), San Pietro Patti, Montalbano Elicona, Novara di Sicilia (con l’ex frazione di Fondachelli-Fantina) in provincia di Messina; di Randazzo in provincia di Catania; di Nicosia, Sperlinga, Piazza Armerina e Aidone in provincia di Enna; di Ferla, Buccheri e Cassaro in provincia di Siracusa.
  4. ↑ Ann Katherine Isaacs, Immigration and emigration in historical perspective, Edizioni Plus, Pisa 2007, p, 71.

See also

External links