Italian VS Sicilian: I Speak FULL SICILIAN to You!
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- Опубликовано: 5 фев 2025
- Sicilian (Sicilian: sicilianu, pronounced [sɪ(t)ʃɪˈljaːnʊ]; Italian: siciliano) is a Romance language that is spoken on the island of Sicily and its satellite islands.[3] It belongs to the broader Extreme Southern Italian language group (in Italian italiano meridionale estremo).[4]
Ethnologue (see below for more detail) describes Sicilian as being "distinct enough from Standard Italian to be considered a separate language",[3] and it is recognized as a minority language by UNESCO.[5][6][7][8] It has been referred to as a language by the Sicilian Region.[2] It has the oldest literary tradition of the Italo-Romance languages.[9][10] A version of the UNESCO Courier is also available in Sicilian.
Status
A sign in Sicilian at Santo Stefano di Camastra, Messina.
Sicilian is spoken by most inhabitants of Sicily and by emigrant populations around the world.[11] The latter are found in the countries that attracted large numbers of Sicilian immigrants during the course of the past century or so, especially the United States (specifically in the Gravesend and Bensonhurst neighborhoods of Brooklyn, New York City), Canada (especially in Montreal, Toronto and Hamilton), Australia, Venezuela and Argentina. During the last four or five decades, large numbers of Sicilians were also attracted to the industrial zones of Northern Italy and areas of the European Union, especially Germany.[12]
Although the Sicilian language does not have official status (including in Sicily),[citation needed] in addition to the standard Sicilian of the medieval Sicilian school, academics have developed a standardized form. Such efforts began in the mid-19th century when Vincenzo Mortillaro published a comprehensive Sicilian language dictionary intended to capture the language universally spoken across Sicily in a common orthography. Later in the century, Giuseppe Pitrè established a common grammar in his Grammatica Siciliana (1875). Although it presents a common grammar, it also provides detailed notes on how the sounds of Sicilian differ across dialects.[citation needed]
In the 20th century, researchers at the Centro di studi filologici e linguistici siciliani developed an extensive descriptivist orthography which aims to represent every sound in the natural range of Sicilian accurately.[13] This system is also used extensively in the Vocabolario siciliano and by Gaetano Cipolla in his Learn Sicilian series of textbooks[14] and by Arba Sicula in its journal.
In 2017, the nonprofit organisation Cademia Siciliana created an orthographic proposal to help to normalise the language's written form.[15][16][17]
The autonomous regional parliament of Sicily has legislated Regional Law No. 9/2011 to encourage the teaching of Sicilian at all schools, but inroads into the education system have been slow.[18][19] The CSFLS created a textbook "Dialektos" to comply with the law but does not provide an orthography to write the language.[20] In Sicily, it is taught only as part of dialectology courses, but outside Italy, Sicilian has been taught at the University of Pennsylvania, Brooklyn College and Manouba University. Since 2009, it has been taught at the Italian Charities of America, in New York City (home to the largest Sicilian speaking community outside of Sicily and Italy)[21][22] and it is also preserved and taught by family association, church organisations and societies, social and ethnic historical clubs and even Internet social groups, mainly in Gravesend and Bensonhurst, Brooklyn.[23][24][25] On 15 May 2018, the Sicilian Region once again mandated the teaching of Sicilian in schools and referred to it as a language, not a dialect, in official communication.[2]
A Sicilian American man speaking Sicilian.
The language is officially recognized in the municipal statutes of some Sicilian towns, such as Caltagirone[26] and Grammichele,[27] in which the "inalienable historical and cultural value of the Sicilian language" is proclaimed. Furthermore, the Sicilian language would be protected and promoted under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ECRML). Although Italy has signed the treaty, the Italian Parliament has not ratified it.[28] It is not included in Italian Law No. 482/1999 although some other minority languages of Sicily are
#sicilian #italian #comparison
I learned Sicilian from my grandparents who immigrated from Palermo (the city) to the US the same year Mussolini marched on Rome. Our household spoke mostly Sicilian which was corrupted by many words borrowed from English and blended into a whole lexicon of creative neologisms I spoke Sicilian at home until I went to kindergarten and on and off until a few years ago when my mother passed. In a few months I will turn 82 and although the Sicilian I learned was “frozen in time “, I still was able understand nearly all of your story. Saluti da Florida.
Wow! I’m italin and couldnt understand anything!
I thought I would do better with the Sicilian, due to the fact that it was spoken at home by family from Bagheria? I understood maybe 70 percent of the Sicilian, and 95 percent of the Italian. Certain phrases I didn’t get completely in the Italian was but able to figure it out. What part of Sicily was your dialect reflective of??
Let's not jump to the wrong assumption that all, or even most, Sicilians speak the same way! There are ,mostly slight , differences in words, meanings but some are way off. Sicilian is mostly a spoken language- dialect with a simpler grammar and without a future tense. I always suggest to learn the five vowels, and since it is another phonetic language, like the main Italiano, it will be easier to understand it when and if you're reading it.. Several words have more than one meaning. A Palermo native, yes, from the city. Minni vaiu.
My father will be 82 this year, his mother born in Palermo (the city) and also raised by his grandparents with Sicilian as his first language. His cousin Rose later taught him to read and write it, and decades later, he taught me. We visited Sicily some years ago now, even saw the church they were married in over 100yrs ago now in Francofonte.
My mom tells me I spoke fluent Sicilian with my dad as a toddler, but as I grew older and he didn’t/couldn’t consistently speak Sicilian with me (where we lived there were barely any other Italians, never mind Sicilians 🤦🏾♀️), I began to lose it…
I can still read it aloud though not always understanding what I’m reading, while I still say and can understand other things… it’s funny what stays with you.
@@riccardoromeI’m Italian from Milano and I understood everything 😂
I am Neapolitan, I speak a very old version of this language. I'm also fluent in three different languages.
When you spoke Sicilian, I did not understand all the words, however, I understood what the story was about.
Personally, it's the intonation, gestures, facial expressions are my main clues as to what was going on with your story.
Interestingly, your intonation, gestures and facial expressions changed when repeating the story in Italian and English.
This was a fun video to watch.
Thank you for sharing.
nnapuletano viech? Addò si tu fra?
there is a program presented by discovery channel that when you are speaking different languages your personality changes a little, but not much, the cause for this is, you are re wiring your brain to talk and express yourself with different ideas. we have to remember that the language is an expression of ideas and situations, and the defined cases in one language vary to the others and sometimes information is lost in the process of transaltion.
Just ran into your video, and although I don't speak Italian or Sicilian, I understood 90% of the Italian version because I speak Spanish. I was completely lost when listening to the Sicilian version.
Me too
I’m Italian, from Umbria, and I did not understand hardly anything of the Sicilian! 😆
The next time he should try Tuscany dialects vs Umbria :D
Fuoco mio
If you learn the basics of Sicilian it’s pretty easy to learn Sicilian. I speak pretty good Italian and can understand most of Sicilian after learning basic words because with more intermediate/advanced Sicilian words are just Italian words but conjugated a bit
Praticamente arabo.
@@finmat95 Calabria e peggio
This was a fun exercise for me as someone trying to improve my understanding of Italian. I didn’t really understand any of the Sicilian, apart from a couple words that sounded close enough to Italian. I understood almost all of the Italian, but I had a little trouble understanding the threats in the story until I heard the English version and then went back to the Italian version.
I don't speak Italian nevermind Sicilian. Out of the first one I only understood, "do you understand?" in the end.
And, "he works arduously all day to give food to his family" and "do you understand?" on the second one.
The threats sound so much more powerful in Sicilian than English or standard Italian
Cosa Nostra 😂
Yes definitely much more scary in Sicilian
😂🤣
It helps that he affected a more gruff demeanor while speaking Sicilian.
He over sold it and overacted it, like a cheap mafia movie.. lol
I'm Italian born and raised in Sardinia but my father is from Reggio Calabria, i am fluent in Reggio dialect which is considered to be an offshoot of the Sicilian language on the main land. Even if the pronunciation is different between reggino and palermitano I could understand every world that you said. Nice video, keep it up mate💪🏽
The same for the Salentino, also considered offshot of Sicilian
U calabbrisi è cchiù bieddru però
I speak Catalan and Spanish natively, and Portuguese, Italian and French just about fluently. When you spoke Sicilian, I could only understand that you wanted to eat something the Sicilian way, and then something about the family. That was it! 😂
Aren't we Italians all about food and family anyway?
@@bededaventiquattro2073 my absolute favorite thing about your culture. 👍🏼
Do you speak English too?
Brazilian here and exactly the same. I don't speak Italian but at the very least, I understood most of what he said in Italian but almost nothing in Sicilian.
@@Ggdivhjkjl No.
Great! I’m 70 years old and Italian-American from NY. Granted, I studied the major Romance languages and I heard “ Calabrian” and “ Neapolitan” as a kid and beyond. I decided to listen to the Sicilian 3 times before the Italian and certainly got the gist of the story and knew why you laughed.
With the exception of some words and phrases, it’s very close to the way my father and his parents spoke ( Cosenza, Calabria). I do have a Learn Sicilian book that maybe helped too.
Very entertaining!
I’m Italian American from Connecticut and I didn’t understand nothing! Lol. 3rd generation all I know is basic greetings and swears from my grandparents. The languages are beautiful and I’d like to learn. Us Italian Americans have created our own culture far from the old country though when you think about it. We did the ancestry and my family is from campania, Basilicata, Sicily and Apulia. It’s fascinating and great to hear the old language though.
I always love when you show us the Sicilian language and even more so because you say that your from Palermo, I wish my grandfather would have never gotten sick and passed because I know i'd be showing him videos like this and begging him to teach me some things
Fascinating! I studied Italian for many years and could understand the Italian version, but the Sicilian version was very strange and incredible to hear. Looking forward to hearing from you with other varieties of Sicilian. I recently visited Palermo and loved it. Would like to explore other cities in the island next time.
My fist language is Spanish, I understood about 70% of Italian... but Sicilian, the cadence and words was just too mind blowing for me to understand a thing. It seems like the vocabulary gap between Sicilian and Italian is wider than Spanish and standard Italian.
Fascinating. I speak Spanish and have less than one month of studying Italian on Duolingo and I was able to understand about 70% of the Italian, and perhaps 1% of the Sicilian.
Thank you...I love Sicilianu. My mother was Greek, but migrated to Sicilia as a girl. She grew up speaking both Italiano and Sicilianu...then she went to school in Napoli and picked up Napoletano also. It was funny cause my father was from Torino so he spoke Torinese and Piedmontese. They could speak standard but they didn't really like it, they were from a different generation. What I loved about mom is the more angry she got...the more Sicilianu we heard. Oh...our family is from Trapani, but we have a lot of family in Catania also. I understood like maybe 60-70% ;o) You threw me off at first. But as you kept speaking I started to get a feel for it. A few words caught me though. I caught what you were saying, but if you asked me the say the word, I would have said something else.
did she speak greek?
È una cosa tipica di noi italiani che più ci arrabbiamo e più passiamo dall’italiano standard al nostro dialetto. È difficile arrabbiarsi senza parlare nel proprio dialetto. Ma credo che sia un po’ la stessa cosa anche per altri popoli, di altri Paesi.
@@jason5737 My mother? Oh yes, she could speak Greek. My grandparents were Greek so it was the language of her house as she grew up here in Italy. But for my family, we didn't really speak it together. I learned words and phrases, and of course learned to communicate with family but I wasn't really a fluent speaker...I had enough versions of Italian and English back then to keep me busy. ;o) I started to speak more Greek when I returned to Greece for uni. I actually had to learn both classical and medieval Greek as I'm a historian with a concentration in Roman/Greek intercultural exchanges during the Middle Ages. But don't get me wrong, I'm a proud Italian...I just like to say I'm Italian with Greek influence. I came back to Italy years ago and have been helping support channels like Raff's here that like to promote languages, history, and in particular...Italian, Roman, and Greek topics to a new generation.
@@unarealtaragionevole thats interesting , i am greek thats why i asked haha, we arent very different culturally and geneticaly. Only the language is different , but still i view italians as something very close to my own kind. The genetic similarities are crazy by the way if you study them . Always wanted to visit.
@@jason5737Greeks are every skin color from Black to White.
I have lived in Berlin for years, but I was born in Sardinia to Sicilian parents (father from Catania and mother from Ragusa), from whom I also learnt Sicilian. I recognised the typical Palermo accent and noticed some differences from the Catania dialect in some words, but I understood everything.
However, I would like to say that it would be nice if other themes were chosen to tell stories about Sicily, since the cinema already exports only an image of mafia and crime. Sicily is so much more and offers so many topics!!! Anyway, thank you for your work!
I lived in Catania from 1964 to 1977 and I can definitely say that your story was in perfect Parlermitano. And besides the different words, it is the intonation that makes it instantly recognizable.
I love this. I speak Spanish and only understood words here and there. I really think you could Continue the sicilian Videos. Sometimes I wonder if it should be it's own language on the educational and political level and why it's isn't taught separate from standard italian. I really do love it and hope to go to Sicily one day! Can't wait to hear more of you speaking Siciliano :)
King ROGER 2 made Sicilian the official language of his court in 1102 AD .
@@bertsparacino714so what
The linguistic policies of Italy are simple. Italy is a young nation, dating back to only 1861, and we needed to unify populations that were very different culturally, to make a unified country of a very centrifuge population. One of the tools chosen for that is language. Besides, we speak a fairly small language, Italian counts for just over 60 million native speakers counting also the Swiss and the minorities in Croatia and Slovenia. If we pulverise it into some 40-50 dialects we end up in a babbel tower situation. And you would not be extremely happy about having to learn 5 completely different set of basic phrases if you come over on holiday with the intent of visiting Venice, Milan, Florence, Rome, and Naples.
I love this! My grandfather emigrated from Palermo and although I heard he and my grandmother speaking it (she was Irish, but learned it) I could understand some of it but couldn't speak it. When I was learning standard Italian, I was shocked at how different it was! So many Americans have Italian ancestry so you do hear Sicilian and the Naples dialect quite a bit here. Love this video and your work overall.
I absolutely loved this! When I started to learn Italian at university, I found a coursebook on Sicilian written by an Italian-American. I've not been able to find it again since and I'm still gutted about it. It had a blue cover and used the grammar-translation method. Anyway, I'd love to know the words all Sicilians use in common and then delve into the differences. Looking forward to your future videos on Sicilian. Grazie mille!
This Sicilian you spoke definately struck me as being Palermitana. My roots are from Palermo and Agrigento. I always heard though, and understand, quite a lot of the dialect spoken in and around Agrigento. I certainly noticed it was quite a bit different than the way you spoke here. It was really great to hear. Thx.
The whole body speaks with! Makes easier to understand for me from Ticino, as well as having read Andrea Camilleri and watched the series made out if his books 😊
Wow! Adoro il tuo primo canale, però come qualcuno chi è ossessionato con le lingue, questo tipo di contenuto è perfetto per me.
Sono americano, ho 18 anni, e studio la lingua italiana da qualche anno. Mi piace poter dire che ho capito circa 70% di ciò che hai detto in Italiano. Ma del Siciliano, sfortunatamente zero lol.
Spero di imparare la lingua Siciliana un giorno perché ho famiglia che veniva dell'isola, ma non ci sono le risorse online come per l'italiano.
Grazie mille per aver postato questo video!
Imparare i dialetti (le lingue regionali) è divertente, ma ricorda che ovunque tu vada in Italia troverai gente che parla in italiano standard. Ormai il solo dialetto è parlato da pochi anziani e in alcune zone i giovani (sotto ai 50!) parlano solo in italiano.
Cumpà, troppu forti!!! Thank you so much for making this video, would love to see more content in sicilianu strittu, especially your beautiful palirmitanu ncarcatu accent! Also, glad to hear you use pistiari hahah granni sì!
Even though I didn't understand a single word of Sicilian, at least I can say it was by far, the most intimidating version of the story
That's why they became the Mafia
Even the gestures change.
Fascinating video Sir.
I’m of Sicilian origin, born in México, and fluent in Italian, having studied it in university and beyond. I was somehow able to get part of the gist of the Sicilian, but could not say I really understood it until I heard the Italian version. However, the overall sound of Sicilian seemed familiar to me inits musicality. (I am also a musician.) Interestingly, on the morning of the day that my mother died, I had a dream in which there was a group of anziani that I didn’t know who were huddled in agroup speaking to each other in one appeared to be Sicilian. I didn’t really understand anythong they were saying, but I heard the same music in their voices. I guess, perhaps, my brain, or my soul, knows Sicilian somehow!
Pues eres un hermano Siciliano! 🙂
tiziano ferro "las mexicanas tienen bigote" xD
You're mexican Sicilian too?!
Eres Casi Argentino
😂😂😂 lol. You're mexican mate. You wish you were Sicilian. Hahahaha nice try
I would love to see a dedicated video about the Sicilian language and it’s varieties. There is so little content on the dialetti and even so there is like 100x more now than 5 years ago
I am Italian from Brindisi and, perhaps because of the similarities with the Salento dialect, I understood 95% of what you said in Sicilian. Very interesting.
I was so happy that I understood most of this story on the first try. After years of going to Sicily and hearing Sicilian spoken by my friends, I was able to get it, even while not understanding every single word. I am just so impressed with the Metatron's linguistic abilities. E' un mostro quando si tratta di capacita' linguistiche! I'm curious to know at what age he transferred from Palermo to London because his English is also phenomenal. I'm guessing that it was at a fairly early age.
I've learned both Italian and Neapolitan (+ many other romance languages) and I still found this story to be very very hard to understand... only after hearing it in Italian and going back to listen again the Sicilian version I was able to get around 10% of what you said lol.
You are priceless! ItaloAmericana qui; ho studiato a Perugia, 1963, and I love to hear you speak.
I speak Spanish natively, French and Italian and Portuguese pretty proficiently and can usually understand most of the romance languages to a degree. Have understood other people speaking Sicilian from time to time and can pick up the Gist in movies that feature it. I was pretty lost with yours though. Maybe 25 or 30%. Fascinating!
I'm from northwestern Italy. And I was pretty lost as well
@@Alby_Torino I feel much better now. 😆
His Sicilian from Palermo was spot on, maybe a tiny bit exaggerated but as a native from that city I understood almost all of it. His English is bad. Sabbenerica!!
Prove that YOUR English is better@@jamesmule3035
@@jamesmule3035 are you busting his balls? Because, let me tell you, his English is flawless. Excellent pronunciation. Very little accent to speak of in his RP English..
è impressionante il livello di credibilità che hai in queste tre lingue che hai parlato: appari madrelingua sia parlando inglese britannico, italiano e siciliano, complimenti, sei fortissimo!! A me basterebbe riuscire ad arrivare alla decenza con l'inglese americano che mi piace di più per il suono. Italiano a parte, io parlo il ciociaro che dalle mie parti è ricco di termini e modi di dire napoletani nonché un po' anche l'accento, MA ci sono altrettanti termini napoletani che in Ciociaria non si usano e non sappiamo nemmeno cosa significano perché ne abbiamo dei nostri che almeno apparentemente non derivano né dall'italiano e né dal napoletano. Se parlassi ciociaro stretto, chiunque non sa il ciociaro capirebbe pochissimo di quello che starei dicendo, talmente è diversissimo dall'italiano il ciociaro (con una parte di napoletano, pur tuttavia essendo diverso dal napoletano).
Oh, nano, madrelingua italiana lo siamo tutti, eh! Ormai pure Jannk Sinner parla in Italiano corrente e corretto, te prova a sentire le interviste ad Armin Zöggeler o a Gustaf Thoeni (che però era Ladino) di quella volta là.
I'm Brazilian, could understand about 60% of the italian, enough to get the gist of the story, even the words whose meaning I don't know I was able to differentiate between verb, noun, pronoun...after listening to it in english it became even clearer, a lot of the words have similar sounding counterparts in my language with just slightly different or more specific meanings.
As for sicilian, I understood almost NOTHING, about 3 words only.
Keep up the good content! ✌️✌️
I enjoyed this very much . I know Italian and I could not understand one single word . Bravissimo ❤❤❤
I understood, Italian 98%, Sicilian about a dozen words!! When I was in High School I had an Italian teacher who was Sicilian, she would teach us sometimes Sicilian poetry! She loved the poetry and helped us appreciate it. I can only remember one. I am not sure of the spelling, but here it goes " Quanta sei bella, quanta sventurata. Cara Sicilia, cula di poeti, ma non sempre sono gli anni tuoi piu lieti" I do remember what it means. I hope you recognize it. There are no more teachers like that! Sometime she would bring Sicilian treats for us to try. I am 74 now, this I learned when I was 17!!
That was great! You're absolutely amazing!
Love from an English/Genoese fan
I could have understood more of the Sicilian if it was spoken a bit slower but I recognized some words and certainly got the gist of the story. I understood the Italian. Sono Americano ma la nostra famiglia è della provincia di Messina.
You’re a legend ! When you speak veramente Siciliano more to the point Palermitano! You bring me back to a great time ! God bless paisano beddu ! Dio te benedica!
Italian is my second language. It seems, at least on the surface, very fair to consider Sicilian a separate language (although that's probably for natives/linguists to decide). I barely understood anything when you spoke Sicilian. I heard a few phrases but the impression I got was that you were having a meal and got into an argument with someone at your table. Then you spoke Italian and I started to laugh, realizing how inaccurate I was lol. Sicilian sounds really cool, still though I think I'll always hold Italian as the most beautiful language in the world.
This is why I’m a FAN of your channel because you’re Siciliano 😊
Such a beautiful language! Please teach us more about it!
Also, it can be noticed how you gesticulate differently while speaking it.
Awesome video. The Sicilian dialetti sound so beautiful to me even though I don't understand them at all.
Today is my last day of Sicilian vacation.😢 This is my first day on the island, and I am blowen away.
Regarding language. I've understood 100% of Italian aldo I have never learned it. That's something that I picked up from films, popular culture and from 2 years of Latin in gymnasium.
Sicilian on the other hand is terra incognita or Spanish village as we in Serbia would say.
In the last 10 days I heard one old man speaking Sicilian at bus station with driver, and in my hotel there are 2 waiters who often speak Sicilian to each other, and it is amazing.
Metatron, I can't wait for more Sicilian language videos.
PS word that you use instead of mangiare is great choice. It is like difference in Serbian between jesti i ždrati.
I am very proficient in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. My Italian is decent and I understood everything. Sicilian? Not more than a few words here and there. First time hearing Palermo-Sicilian. Fun to hear. Thanks.
Hi Metatron, wow... I was barely able to understand a couple of words in Sicilian. Whilst with Italian, well... I'm a Spanish speaker so it was easy to understand around 80-85% of what you said. Keep up the good work. Ciao
Great video, congratulations! However, are we suggesting here that when we speak Sicilian we are prevalently talking about robberies, violence, killings, etc.? I'm sure we can use Sicilian to talk about a lot of other stuff as well! Love, politics, linguistics, theology, music, you name it! Btw I'm from Catania and I understood every single word of what you said. And we do use "pistiari" too although "manciari" is more common!
My great grandmother was a LaBarbera from Sicily. Hearing her and all my great aunts converse when I was young, I was able to pick up the “idea” of the story. The Italian, which I studied in High School, I wasn’t able to grasp as easily. Strange what the brain recalls from childhood. (Btw, I’m 66 now).
I hail from Palermo, and I must say, not many would have grasped your meaning... your politeness was excessive for that situation! 😄
Hello Metatron. Great videos. I am subscribed to all of your channels and I enjoy them all. I am from Greece.
Would you find interesting to make a video about Chalcidian alphabet and its connection with Etruscan and Latin alphabet? Also I have a question about how much the latin vocabulary and ancient Greek vocabulary have influenced one another.
Greetings from Greece my friend and wish you the best
My wife's dad was from Palermo and later this year I will be taking her back to look for family. I speak some Italian, but I see I have a lot of work to do! Thanks for the video.
A few years back I saw an italian film and thought I could get by watching it without subtitles as I can somewhat understand italian. It was called Anime Nere and most of it is spoken in calabrese so, just like the parlance from Palermo in this video, my understanding went from 70% to 2% 😅
You spoke the story in Sicilian in such a rapid pace that I could only grab one out of ten words! You went much slower in Italian which enabled me to grab one out of five words! My Mom came from Milan and after La Nonna died no one spoke Italian anymore so my Italian is now quite pitiful. I greatly enjoyed this and will listen again!
Native Sicilian speaker from the southwestern coast here. I could understand ~90-95% of the story. I struggled to understand certain words and also the accent made it harder to understand other words which are common also in my area.
Fantastic explanation and examples. Thank you for sharing.
Hearing the differences between italian and sicilian was so very cool.
It's similar to hearing different groups of filipinos speaking in their different languages.
It is so much fun watching from the outside as groups will sit separately and purposely speak so other grpups cannot understand each other for the most part.
Then when they all join together everyone speaks a tagalog/english hybrid.
I understand more than I can speak of the tagalog, and thanks to my wife can almost follow cebuano. Then they mess with me and switch to visayan, totally lost.
Yeah, what they call "dialect" here in the philippines is more akin to different languages.
I loved this video if not for the fact that hearing Palermitano stretto, even though I did not understand a good 90% of what you said, it reminded me of my nonno maternon (buon anima) who spoke it. I mostly heard Marsalese in the house as my father was born and raised there. My mother spoke Siculish: her mixture was Maralese, Parlermitano and English of course. I understood 99% of the Italian as that was what I learned in school. Keep these vids coming....avogghia!
I am from the central southern coast of Sicily, I understood everything except 1 or 2 words we don't use such as pistiari for example to say to eat. Then of course 100% Italian and also 100% English. I find it interesting to read the comments from speakers of other latin languages telling how much Sicilian they undestood , also what everybody think how sicilian sounds to them speakers of any other laaguage. Nice interesting video as usual! Ma dimm' na cosa, ma u testu tu scrissi Tony Sperandeo? hehehehe
I love how your mimics and gestures speak as well :D
I'm Uruguayan, and speak Spanish and Portuguese (almost as a native), English fluently, and I've studied French though I forgot most of it because it was a long time ago and didn't have to use it.
I understood maybe 3 or 4 words from Sicilian. In Italian I could understand most of the story, but I could understand it completely only when you told it in English.
I am Sicilian-American, my relatives came from the Palermo area - Mezzojuso, Corleone, and Marineo, and even though transmission of Sicilian stopped with my grandparents' generation, I recognize very viscerally the intonation and gestured you use. Really reminded me of being a little kid at my grandparents' house.
Si Marinisi?Comu ti chiami?
It's very interesting video ! Thank You very much ! 😊
The Received Pronunciation of your English example just sounded so polite even the face breaking bit 😂. Much more intimidating in Sicilian.
I speak Italian. And my family is from benevento so my comprehension of Neapolitan is pretty good. Sicilian was basically unintelligible at first. But after I listened to the Italian I listened to the Sicilian and understood. Interesting when you know what one is trying to say
My parents and grandparents spoke Sicilian, but my generation did not learn it at all. So what I know is what I picked up from hearing. I was able to understand the gist of the Sicilian, but not all of it as the Sicilian I heard was from Pozzallo, which is way over on the Southeast coast. When you spoke the Italian, I did get most of it as I am studying Italian, so I am familiar with the words now. It is wonderful you have this channel. Many of us who were born and grew up in the US have lost a lot of the culture and language, and this is a little connection. All the Sicilian speakers in my family are now passed away, so just hearing you today was a treat.Thanks! Interestingly, when I went to Sicily and met my relatives there, no one spoke Sicilian, only Italian, to me, even in the shops. I called my mother, who was still living then, from my cousins' house, and they all spoke to her in Italian and she could not understand what they were saying!
I also know a bit of the dialect of the area you mentioned in Sicily, it is different than the one he spoke 🙂 I guess in southeastern Sicily there's more French and Spanish influence while in the North more Arabic but it's all mixed up in the end. For example in Palermo they say "acchianari" pronounced with ch sound K , while in the Ragusa area they say "accianari" like CH in Spanish. It means TO GO UP
@@alkemysticaLassa iri a scummissa picchi a perdi!
Wow that was difficult to understand even for someone who speaks basically fluent Sicilian. My parents were from Sicily and I speak both standard Italian and Sicilian but my parents were from the Eastern side of the island. Metatron's cadence seems closer to the Napoletano cadence....with very soft vowels at the end of words. Looks like the cadence is very different East to West of the island. Let's just say I understood 100% of the Italian and English version of the story. Metatron could you do a video on cadence? Ciao da Boston
I was born in Palermo and emigrated with my parents to Canada when I was nine. Although my parents were from different parts of Italy (Abbruzzese and Veneto) we spoke Italian/English at home. My grandmother, who was born in the Veneto region and moved to Sicily after marriage, learned to speak the true Sicilian and that's all I heard for my first 9 years. I am 75 years young and I can understand the "basic" Sicilian, and when I do I get this warm familiar feeling of being home. Never forgot my roots. 😢
As a native Romanian speaker, I understood:
Sicilian: 5 %
Italian: 65 %
Sicilian was much harder to understand than I imagined! I understood only a couple of words. I would say I understood a lot of your Italian, perhaps most of it, but I did not understand that you were talking about a mugger and then I did not understand the exact sentences that were said to the mugger in the story, hence why I give myself a lower score of understanding not more than 65 %, perhaps even lower, but I think that is approximate.
I really appreciate your channel that is so rich with a lot of knowledge! Very interesting to learn more about Italian and Sicilian! You create very authentic language videos, unlike many of the other language channels out there, so the choice to subscribe to your channel was not hard at all! :)
Keep up the good work and I hope you will make more videos! :)
PS: Just a suggestion, I noticed you make videos where you try to understand Spanish from various countries. My suggestion is, could you do a Romanian language challenge again, but this time trying to understand the Romanian language from Moldova? Then, it would be very interesting if you also for instance tried to understand Istro-Romanian, Megleno-Romanian and Aromanian :)
Native American English speaker, studied Italian all of my life, have relatives in Sicily and I understood all of your Italian but hardly any of your Sicilian. When I am with family in Sicily, they seem to speak Italian and Siclian (Agrigento) inter-mixed, so I seem to follow them better. I only heard Sicilian growing up, no one spoke it to me.
As a native Rioplatense spanish speaker, I understood what the story was about in Italian besides a couple words, your Sicilian was much harder to understand.
I'm brazilian. I have good knowledge of spanish and french, a little bit of italian. And I didn't get a single word of your sicilian speaking, it stunned me. I wouldn't expect this from a language that comes from latin.
My family is from Sicily, Patti, (Messina dialect) and i understood kinda everything apart from a few words.
Fun fact about Sicilian Dialect: Uva (Ita), Raisin (Eng), Raisin (Fre) Rascina (Messina Dialect but i'm not sure if is only from Messina or from all Sicily to be honest). BTW beautiful video, thanks!
I don't speak either of those but when I heard you speak in Italian compared to Sicilian, I noticed the grammar and even enunciation was different. So different that I knew they were vastly different. You saying the other dialects is staggering to think of seeing as how they might not comprehend either other despite being natively the same area. The other influence I heard is exactly what you said of it sounding more Latin. I only know this because I heard you speak Latin and got used to hearing your voice enunciating it. So hearing the changes from your native tongue to Sicilian was so confusingly different. Awesome video Metatron, appreciate these videos.
The grammar of sicilian is almost the same as in italian, though
I'm from the north of Italy (Lombardy) and I'm very surprised because I thought I would understand very little. I understood, I'd say, 80% or even more. Probably because I read all of Camilleri's books and I grew accustomed to a lot of Sicilian words! LOL
Interessante!
Mentre parlavi siciliano, capivo solamente tre parole. 😆 Fantastico! 😄
You should create a Sicilian course (or courses) . I'd pay a lot of bucks for that♥️.
B2 Italian speaker. In the Sicilian version, understood only that the story was set in Palermo and that something to do with eating was involved (I remembered the verb "pistiari" from your old video comparing Italian and Sicilian). In the Italian version, I understood pretty much everything apart from the precise nature of some of the threats.
On a separate note, would you consider doing a video on the Salentino dialect?
I am Brazilian and both my father and my mother are from Italian families. I do speak Italian and I got the Italian part without any problem, but the Sicilian part I've only got a couple of words. It's completely different from other latin languages.
If you are form an Italian family that has arrived in the 19th in Brazil, probably your family speaks Venetian or another dialect from Northern Italy, while Sicilian is from the extreme South of the country. Those dialects can be quite different.
@@pseudomino3They are both separate languages (Venetian and Sicilian)
@@Netdweller Yes. Although they are traditionally called dialects, they are in facto two separate languages.
@@pseudomino3it's interesting that you say that Italian immigrants to Brazil usually came from the north of Italy. Here in the United States, the vast majority of Italian immigrants came from the south. I wonder why this difference would exist between the US and Brazil.
What an english as well, man, really well spoke you are👏👏👏👏 bravo! Bravíssimo!
I’m a serb who loved your channel before starting to work for an italian company. Right now, i can say that i understand 80 percent and maybe able to speak arround 60 percent of an everyday italian language. Aaaand i was working with genti siciliani. Non posso capire un cazzo de cosa parlano
This was very good. I'm Italian American and can speak Italian pretty good. I have relatives on both the north coast and south coast of Sicily. I can only understand only a small aount Sicilian.
I understood everything perfectly. It's almost the same Sicilian I was taught since childhood.
There are subtle differences between the dialect of the city of Palermo and what my parents taught me which is in the province 20 kilometers away. Mostly accent and stresses on certain words but almost identical.
I was taught to say "manciari" (mangiare) but when we do use "pistiari" it usually refers to a more aggressive connotation like if someone ate something by themselves without sharing, we would say "tu pistiasti tuttu"? "you crammed it down by yourself"?
Also living in California and being exposed to Mexican Spanish, many of my Mexican friends would refer to going out drinking as "pistiar", of coarse it's drinking other than eating but I believe it refers to overindulging. I don't know if there is a connection. There are few borrowed Spanish terms in the local dialect.
there are actually many Spanish words in Sicilian dialects, Ciao!
Hi, I'm from Brazil and also speak french pretty well, but I was lost in sicilian, except for a word here and there. Interestingly, I could understand you in italian.
Native spanish speaker. I can also understand a large amount of italian, portuguese, and various other romance languages including grandpa Latin. I basically couldn't understand any of the Sicilian. Amazing.
Man I luv this video of yours...thank you for sharing. And I also do love the etymological explanation about words you used. I definitely will follow and learn from you. Un abbraccio dalla California!!
E' la variante palermitana del siciliano, anch'io, che sono siciliano ma di tutt'altra zona, ci devo mettere del mio per capirlo. Poi, magari, si poteva usare un altro argomento per formare un discorso anziché la solita sceneggiatura da film TV; succedono anche cose non collegate a reati in Sicilia.
sei bravissimo in tutto quello che dici😊
tanto piacere!
Eu sou do Rio de Janeiro e já estudei francês e espanhol. Nunca estudei italiano, mas consigo entender talvez uns 40% do italiano falado (a língua escrita dá para compreender quase tudo). Por outro lado, entendi zero de siciliano! rs Acertei, por dedução, apenas a última frase "Did you understand?". Vou procurar um texto escrito em siciliano, mas acho que vai continuar difícil. 😅
I am American born raised in a Sicilian/Tuscan speaking home. I can not understand spoken Portugese, but I understood your written comment 100%. I speak Eastern Sicilian (Ragusa), and understood little of the Palermitan spoken in the video.
Your English is so friendly and academic sounding, it has nothing to do with how your Sicilian sounded lol. It sounded funny for you to say that dialog in English.
I'm Romanian who studies Italian and is fluent in English and I understood:
5% Sicilian
90% Italian
100% English
Great video 🤗
Daca vorbesti fluent engleza la fel cum scri, e clar. Sterge dreacu comentariul ca te-ai facut de bacanie. O sti pe aia, Prostul daca nu e fudul parca nu e prost destul?
Io sono di Catania e ho capito il 98% (1 o 2 paroline mi sono sfuggite) di quello che hai detto in Siciliano. Non ti nascondo però che ho dovuto prestare molta attenzione, soprattutto quando hai detto: (lo scriverò in Catanese, tanto è molto simile) "su t'ancagghiu ammenzu a strata t'accavaddu na tistata nde naschi ca, pi sentiri u ciauru, a ciaurari ca ricchi".
(Mi hai fatto morire dal ridere 😂😂😂)
Questo lo dico per chi non è siciliano: secondo me, la maggiore difficoltà nel capire le diverse varianti del Siciliano ha alla base le diverse intonazioni di queste ultime. Il lessico è molto simile, anche se con qualche differenza.
Complimenti per il tuo inglese Metatron 😊
I took Spanish in HS and college and while i can make out about 40 percent of Italian,Sicilian is a puzzlement to me-one to 10 words at the most. Have you ever done a video on Corsican,that might be very interesting.
I understood a good 90% of the sense of the story when you told it in full Palermo Sicilian. I’m Italian born in Rome, from a Roman Dad a Romagnol mother and my father’s father is furlan and mother is Maltese (no joke) while my mother side of the family they are full on romagnol, specifically Ravenna, (Brisighella) and Rimini. That’s pretty much it. I just told my genealogical tree because I’m pretty sure being born in a place from certain “BLOOD” and then move to the north (Province of Verona all my life) is pretty significant. And pretty helpful when learning new languages probably easier to learn romanic languages… I know English very well, even though when I speak it, since a I SING in AE VERSION I talk more American, then I know a little bit of Spanish, German at a very rusty b2 level, and French just a couple of key sentences just for when you make new acquaintances… that’s pretty much all… I think it’s a lot honestly. But I want more, every time I think about languages. I want aaaaall the latin American languages not only the actual Spanish Hispanic kinds… those Central American and South American languages or DIALECTS. Beautiful sounds. But also some particular eastern sounds or middle eastern sounds or even AFRICAN sounds, I miss those. Soooo yeah the world is an oyster, need to check it out more… everybody should.
As a non italian or Scicillian speaker from the U.S. I thought the Sicillian sounded more gangster. The mannerisms and facial expressions were very similar to what we have in the media for Mafiosos. I thought this was sterotyping due to the popularity of gangster films. Then I heard the english version of the tale lol
Scicillian 👹
I'm from Sardinia and I understood only the searching for a place and that there was a discussion with someone
I don't know why but threats (and in general speaking rude) said in each regional language sound more "true" and threatening
As an Napolitan I did understand here and there some single words but I didn't understand the story. 😂
the Sicilian soundet like a part of The godfather! ❤
Enjoyed this. Didn’t catch a word ( granted my Italian is somewhat limited) of the Sicilian. But did understand the Italian enough to follow the story.
It would be cool to see to see some videos of you trying to understand other minority Romance languages like Picard or Galician. I think Asturian in particular would be a cool one to try as it maintains an unmistakably Spanish sound (unlike Galician which sounds closer to Portuguese, or Occitan which sounds closer to French), yet it has some really archaic sounding features which I can only assume are conservative holdovers from the Latin that was once spoken on the Iberian peninsula.
OMG! i laughed so hard, you are amazing, i lived for over 5 years in Palermo, my heart and friends will always be in sicily:) although I speak italian fluently, palermitano is a different tune:) i understand maybe 60% i speak maybe 20%, thank you for this video:)
I don't speak Italian (or Sicilian, for that matter), but I do speak Spanish and know some Catalan. I was completely lost in the Sicilian part but I was able to pick out some words here and there for Italian. "Questa machina," "ragazzo," "sueldi," etc. Definitely didn't understand enough Italian to pick out the overall meaning though.
Bro these examples dialogs are perfectly welcoming for tourists