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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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! 😂
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.
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.
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 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
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.
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.
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!
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.
Pistiare reminds the word hestia (εστία), meaning hearth, that is used for diner εστιατόριο. The goddess Εστία is the equivalent of Vesta in Latin. There's a Greek verb εστιάζω (meaning gather to eat). Anyway, as always, your videos are very interesting and fun (please don't headbutt me).
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.
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💪🏽
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!!
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
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.
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 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 :)
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.
Fascinante ! Tenho sangue siciliano, minha família os "Trigona" vem desta linda ilha ... faça mais vídeos sobre o idioma, não entendi nada hahaha mas é muito interessante ❤
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!
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!!
@@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..
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
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.
@@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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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
Il Commissario Montalbano was a good exercise...I understood 30-50% even if the 2nd part was too fast for me, but I got "isso se scantò" and everything was allright...😀😀
Si capiscono molte parole (anche se sono romano con origini del centro-nord), per dirne qualcuna: stamattina, Palermo, "lavorare" (travagghiare?), accattare, mangiare, melanzane, picciotto, piccioli, campare, famiglia etc. Ammetto però che, nonostante questo, se non avessi ascoltato la versione in Italiano, non avrei capito appieno il senso del racconto. I understood many words (even though I'm Roman with roots in the centre-north); nevertheless, I've to admit that if I had not listened the Italian version, I would not have (completely) understood the meaning of the story.
What did I get? In Sicilian I was waiting for a dialect from the standard Italian, but seems like another language entirely. Could pick one word here and there, but not much. Italian, well, I understand 80%. I'm not that stranger to Italian, but for a Brazilian it isn't that hard. I can understand it. Specially written. But I'm surprised how different both languages are.
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! ❤
Spanish speaker here, never studied italian yet I understood like 80 - 85% of the story, I was pleasantly surprised. The Sicilian, however, may as well have been arabic or polish to me if I had to guess 😂
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
As a Romanian I got about 90% from Italian (although some of it implied) but almost nothing from Sicilian. It's funny how it's been said that Sicilian is actually a lot closer to Romanian that it is to Italian. Sorry but I'm not seeing ...well... hearing it. Similar story with Catalan and Spanish, but in reverse. In that case I can understand a lot more from Catalan than from Castilian Spanish
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!
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'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
I'm a Romanian who speaks Italian, French and can get around in Spanish, but I understood almost nothing of the Sicilian, even though some say Romanian would be closer to Sicilian than to Italian - I don't see how that is the case.
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.
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?
Scusami ma potevi fare degli esempi meno violenti, così non fai altro che rafforzare le brutte opinioni che già c’hanno di noi siciliani. Questa proprio non lo capisco, anche perché sei siciliano e dovresti cercare di mostrare la nostra cultura millenaria quella bella però
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.
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!
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.
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 😊
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).
As a Romanian with no training in Italian, just learned it from TV with subtitles where there were different words, I understand : Sicilian ~ 10-20% maybe, Italian ~99.90%. It's funny how Italy has so many different languages within her borders, but Romania and Moldova speak the same language and are still riped apart in two......
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.
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.
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.
I speak varying degrees of English, Spanish, German, Italian, and French. In Sicilian, I understood that you wanted to eat something, some guy was trying to rob you, you said something about this is what you do to a guy trying to feed his family, he didn't care, got that there were some threats but thought he was threatening you rather than the other way around. Got a bit more in Italian, like that you bought eggplant specifically, but still missed a lot of the details until you said it in English.
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.
As a Brazilian, native Portuguese speaker, without any training in either language I was able to understand 80% of the Italian and 0% of the Sicilian 😮.
The Palermo dialect is beautiful but very difficult to understand, then there are dialects like Messina that are easier to understand and closer to classic Sicilian and Italian. Example: Messina dialect : Io annai a Putia mimmi cattu u manciari e mi fimmau unu chi mi vulia rrubbari i soddu , io invece mi mi pigghiu i scantu ci rispunnia chi si non si luvava davanti cun pugnu ciavissi scassatu u nasu e poi pi sentiri i ciauri avia usari i ricchi Classics sicilian--) lautru iornu mentri iva a ccattarimi lu manciari mi firmau nu balordu Ca mi vuliva futtiri li picciuli .....etc etc
Que interessante! Estudei um pouco de italiano e consegui entender quase 100% da versão italiana da estória. Mas a versão siciliana, 0% !! Parecem realmente dois idiomas diferentes.
As a Pole knowing Spanish and some French, I was able to follow the Italian text to some degree, understanding about 50-90% depending on the topic, but I could understand almost nothing of Sicilian. Probably it is a matter of register. Typical local dialects tend to use many intrinsic, specific words and a strongly mutated pronunciation compared to the standard language. I can imagine a situation, when Sicilian would have evolved into an official standardized language in the 19th century. In this case, when formally spoken e.g. on the TV or in a parliament, it would be much more comprehensible. Also, I felt a specific flavour of Sicilian, almost aggresive, underlined by the body language and facial expressions. It actually seemed to change the speaker's personality! I can imagine it might be risky to enter some Sicilian streets in the evening;) I think we have a similar situation in Silesia, Poland. Silesian tends to be spoken in a hard way, showing a strong regional identification AGAINST standard Polish. In these cases, a regional language provides a communication platform for internal needs, but simultaneously, it is a fortress, where a local society is closed to the outer world. Again, this was very interesting to hear!
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'm a portuguese speaker from the carioca accent, I understood 0% of sicilian, and usually I can catch something from latin languages, I got 75-80% when you spoke italian, they are completely different languages for me, for me is as different as Italian and french, I'm sure if I see sicilian written I will be able to get more...
@@alkemystica I feel this way with italian If somebody I say “scropire” looks like some alien word for me, but if I hear someone saying sounds a lot like “Descobrir” from portuguese mean discovery/uncover in english So for standard italian and spanish as well I can say the spoken form is the one I get more, french for me is the opposite if someone says something I get nothing, but while in france I can read almost everything with minimal effort but regarding to sicilian, for me is like french I got absolutely nothing.. I got this phrase on the internet of sicilian not sure if a good one Tutti l'òmini nàsciunu lìbbiri e i stissi pi dignità e ntê diritta. Iddi sunnu addutati di raggiuni e di cuscenzia e hannu a travagghiari nzèmmula cu spìritu di fratirnità. I can get this from that… All the men born free… dignity…,…are… conscious…and have… with the spirit of fraternity
@@thiagoracca Yes it's hard. There are many words in Italian , Spanish, Portuguese that are similar but others totally different so it's not easy to get. For example some words above sunnu = they are / sono raggiuni = reason / ragione cuscenzia = conscience / coscienza travagghiari like spanish trabajo port. trabalho etc,,,,,
From what I'm hearing, when English speakers here in America imitate an Italian accent, they usually mimic the Sicilian accent. Probably from movies like the Godfather. To me, Sicilian sounds more like what we think Italian is 😂
Many Italian immigrants in the US were Sicilian, Neapolitan or from other southern regions. They didn't really speak Italian, rather their regional language and local dialect. Italian spread all over the country with industrialization, public school, radio and, finally, TV. And ultimately with the internet
@@Nico-iv3wr This. My great-great-grandparents were from Sicily. My father’s father’s mother’s side had a more affluent background, and my father’s father’s father’s side less so, but there’s a chance they might have both spoken Sicilian (though in slightly different forms, due to regional variations). Not that I’ll ever know, though, since my grandfather rarely saw his grandparents and speaks only English, sounding like any other guy from Connecticut. If I ended up learning standard Italian and went back in time to around 1900, I sometimes think that though I would not have been totally unintelligible to some of these ancestors, they would probably have had to pause for a minute.
As a native Catalan speaker, I am obviously a lot more used to hearing Italian, so the first time I watched the Sicilian story, I didn't get much (interestingly, the parts about eating and the fighting words xD). I got 100% of the Italian, then revisited the Sicilian again and finally understood a lot more.
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% 😅
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.
It felt like I was being spoken to by Don Fanucci, Clamenza, and GF2 Michael, respectively. It was quite an experience! Bravo, sir! A most interesting departure! 👍👍 P.S. I understood nothing specific from Fanucci or Clamenza, but I could still tell that my life was in danger.
I only picked up eating and family, the rest had me lost. I am a native American English speaker that can understand Spanish fairly well and use that as the basis of Romance language comprehension. I enjoy hearing these deep dialects as a challenge.
Dang, as a Spanish speaker I usually have no trouble understanding Italian, but Sicilian is something else, I couldn't understand anything. Pretty interesting
Irish-polyglot here.....its defo two different languages. As far apart as German & Dutch, or Gallego & andaluz. Cousins.....but not too similar. To learn Sicilian would need a few months on the ground....... drinking your beer and getting friendly with the locals. Plus my favourite....finding chatty elderlies with little empathy on how much the listener is struggling 😂
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’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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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
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
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.
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
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.
Pistiare reminds the word hestia (εστία), meaning hearth, that is used for diner εστιατόριο. The goddess Εστία is the equivalent of Vesta in Latin. There's a Greek verb εστιάζω (meaning gather to eat). Anyway, as always, your videos are very interesting and fun (please don't headbutt me).
Pistiari significa mangiare a sazietà,mangiare come gli animali,divorare.
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.
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
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!!
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
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.
Im from NYC but my parents are from the Trapani area. I understood a good portion but had problems with certain words.....
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 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.
Fascinante !
Tenho sangue siciliano, minha família os "Trigona" vem desta linda ilha ... faça mais vídeos sobre o idioma, não entendi nada hahaha mas é muito interessante ❤
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..
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
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)
@@TheAtomoh 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.
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.
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
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.
Damn I understood the entire story in Italian and one word in Sicilian 😅
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.
Try Barese, Calabrese, Neapolitan, Veneto, they’re equally difficult to. All geographic regions have dialects that are incomprehensible.
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 am Polish, I speak English and a bit of Italian. I understood
0% Sicilian
85% Italian
100% English
Il Commissario Montalbano was a good exercise...I understood 30-50% even if the 2nd part was too fast for me, but I got "isso se scantò" and everything was allright...😀😀
Si capiscono molte parole (anche se sono romano con origini del centro-nord), per dirne qualcuna: stamattina, Palermo, "lavorare" (travagghiare?), accattare, mangiare, melanzane, picciotto, piccioli, campare, famiglia etc.
Ammetto però che, nonostante questo, se non avessi ascoltato la versione in Italiano, non avrei capito appieno il senso del racconto.
I understood many words (even though I'm Roman with roots in the centre-north); nevertheless, I've to admit that if I had not listened the Italian version, I would not have (completely) understood the meaning of the story.
What did I get? In Sicilian I was waiting for a dialect from the standard Italian, but seems like another language entirely. Could pick one word here and there, but not much. Italian, well, I understand 80%. I'm not that stranger to Italian, but for a Brazilian it isn't that hard. I can understand it. Specially written. But I'm surprised how different both languages are.
I got
Sicilian : 0%
Italian : 2%
English : almost everything
My first language is French though
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! ❤
Spanish speaker here, never studied italian yet I understood like 80 - 85% of the story, I was pleasantly surprised. The Sicilian, however, may as well have been arabic or polish to me if I had to guess 😂
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 👹
As a Romanian I got about 90% from Italian (although some of it implied) but almost nothing from Sicilian. It's funny how it's been said that Sicilian is actually a lot closer to Romanian that it is to Italian. Sorry but I'm not seeing ...well... hearing it.
Similar story with Catalan and Spanish, but in reverse. In that case I can understand a lot more from Catalan than from Castilian Spanish
Sono di genitori trapanesi e ho a grandi linee capito il discorso.
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!
I understood 99% but I am Sicilian 😁. I did not get "pistiari". Never heard before.
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'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
I'm going to Palermo for an Erasmus and I didn't understand a word of Sicilian. I'm good with Italian though, but I hope I learn some Sicilian
While you spoke in palermitano, you kinda of acted it, instead of talked it... but ether way not bad..
Im from Argentina, I understood most of the Italian story but I couldn’t understand any of the Sicilian
Sounds like Italian mixed with Japanese! 😅 I understood waaaay more in standard Italian (native Spanish speaker here).
sicilian: 2%, italian: 85%, english: 100% (native English speaker so that last one makes sense lol)
I'm a Romanian who speaks Italian, French and can get around in Spanish, but I understood almost nothing of the Sicilian, even though some say Romanian would be closer to Sicilian than to Italian - I don't see how that is the case.
that sicilian language sound crazy,more threat sounding than italian;)
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'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?
Picciuuuuuuuotto!
Love Palermo from Siracusa! 💛❤️🇮🇹
Soy mexicano, de Hermosillo. Al siciliano le entendí como 5 palabras sueltas, y al italiano como el 80%.
my Italian is not that good, but I definitely recognised the accent as portrayed by some characters in "Il giovane Montalbano" hah
Scusami ma potevi fare degli esempi meno violenti, così non fai altro che rafforzare le brutte opinioni che già c’hanno di noi siciliani. Questa proprio non lo capisco, anche perché sei siciliano e dovresti cercare di mostrare la nostra cultura millenaria quella bella però
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.
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!
That sounded like Japanese with Italian intonation. Sorry
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.
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 😊
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).
As a Romanian with no training in Italian, just learned it from TV with subtitles where there were different words, I understand : Sicilian ~ 10-20% maybe, Italian ~99.90%. It's funny how Italy has so many different languages within her borders, but Romania and Moldova speak the same language and are still riped apart in two......
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.
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.
Being born and raised in Palermo, I can say: average day in Palermo 😂😂😂
I'm a native Spanish speaker. I understood 2 words in Sicilian and 70 to 80 percent of Italian.
I'm romanian and I understood the Italian version almost entirely. I do not speak Italian nor have I learned it.
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.
Sicilian is a beautiful, and unique language, I hope to learn it.
I speak varying degrees of English, Spanish, German, Italian, and French. In Sicilian, I understood that you wanted to eat something, some guy was trying to rob you, you said something about this is what you do to a guy trying to feed his family, he didn't care, got that there were some threats but thought he was threatening you rather than the other way around. Got a bit more in Italian, like that you bought eggplant specifically, but still missed a lot of the details until you said it in English.
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.
As a Brazilian, native Portuguese speaker, without any training in either language I was able to understand 80% of the Italian and 0% of the Sicilian 😮.
The Palermo dialect is beautiful but very difficult to understand, then there are dialects like Messina that are easier to understand and closer to classic Sicilian and Italian. Example: Messina dialect : Io annai a Putia mimmi cattu u manciari e mi fimmau unu chi mi vulia rrubbari i soddu , io invece mi mi pigghiu i scantu ci rispunnia chi si non si luvava davanti cun pugnu ciavissi scassatu u nasu e poi pi sentiri i ciauri avia usari i ricchi Classics sicilian--) lautru iornu mentri iva a ccattarimi lu manciari mi firmau nu balordu Ca mi vuliva futtiri li picciuli .....etc etc
I need to practice sicilian more. It's embarrassing how my italian level is so much higher despite having family that speaks sicilian
There are not enough hand gestures in Sicilian, that's why it's hard to understand
Que interessante! Estudei um pouco de italiano e consegui entender quase 100% da versão italiana da estória. Mas a versão siciliana, 0% !! Parecem realmente dois idiomas diferentes.
Eu só entendi uma ou outra palavra em siciliano, enquanto entendi quase tudo da versão em italiano também. E veja, eu não falo italiano!
As a Brazilian I got:
- Sicilian = 1%
- Italian = 40%
😅
As a Pole knowing Spanish and some French, I was able to follow the Italian text to some degree, understanding about 50-90% depending on the topic, but I could understand almost nothing of Sicilian. Probably it is a matter of register. Typical local dialects tend to use many intrinsic, specific words and a strongly mutated pronunciation compared to the standard language. I can imagine a situation, when Sicilian would have evolved into an official standardized language in the 19th century. In this case, when formally spoken e.g. on the TV or in a parliament, it would be much more comprehensible. Also, I felt a specific flavour of Sicilian, almost aggresive, underlined by the body language and facial expressions. It actually seemed to change the speaker's personality! I can imagine it might be risky to enter some Sicilian streets in the evening;) I think we have a similar situation in Silesia, Poland. Silesian tends to be spoken in a hard way, showing a strong regional identification AGAINST standard Polish. In these cases, a regional language provides a communication platform for internal needs, but simultaneously, it is a fortress, where a local society is closed to the outer world. Again, this was very interesting to hear!
Sicilian: 0%
Italian: 2%
English: I don't want to visit Palermo
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'm a portuguese speaker from the carioca accent, I understood 0% of sicilian, and usually I can catch something from latin languages, I got 75-80% when you spoke italian, they are completely different languages for me, for me is as different as Italian and french, I'm sure if I see sicilian written I will be able to get more...
In my opinion written it's more complicated 🙂I understand enough when I hear it but written it's worse
@@alkemystica I feel this way with italian
If somebody I say “scropire” looks like some alien word for me, but if I hear someone saying sounds a lot like “Descobrir” from portuguese mean discovery/uncover in english
So for standard italian and spanish as well I can say the spoken form is the one I get more, french for me is the opposite if someone says something I get nothing, but while in france I can read almost everything with minimal effort
but regarding to sicilian, for me is like french I got absolutely nothing..
I got this phrase on the internet of sicilian
not sure if a good one
Tutti l'òmini nàsciunu lìbbiri e i stissi pi dignità e ntê diritta. Iddi sunnu addutati di raggiuni e di cuscenzia e hannu a travagghiari nzèmmula cu spìritu di fratirnità.
I can get this from that…
All the men born free… dignity…,…are… conscious…and have… with the spirit of fraternity
@@thiagoracca Yes it's hard. There are many words in Italian , Spanish, Portuguese that are similar but others totally different so it's not easy to get. For example some words above sunnu = they are / sono
raggiuni = reason / ragione
cuscenzia = conscience / coscienza
travagghiari like spanish trabajo port. trabalho etc,,,,,
From what I'm hearing, when English speakers here in America imitate an Italian accent, they usually mimic the Sicilian accent. Probably from movies like the Godfather. To me, Sicilian sounds more like what we think Italian is 😂
Many Italian immigrants in the US were Sicilian, Neapolitan or from other southern regions. They didn't really speak Italian, rather their regional language and local dialect. Italian spread all over the country with industrialization, public school, radio and, finally, TV. And ultimately with the internet
@@Nico-iv3wr This.
My great-great-grandparents were from Sicily. My father’s father’s mother’s side had a more affluent background, and my father’s father’s father’s side less so, but there’s a chance they might have both spoken Sicilian (though in slightly different forms, due to regional variations). Not that I’ll ever know, though, since my grandfather rarely saw his grandparents and speaks only English, sounding like any other guy from Connecticut.
If I ended up learning standard Italian and went back in time to around 1900, I sometimes think that though I would not have been totally unintelligible to some of these ancestors, they would probably have had to pause for a minute.
Can you give the Sicilian text for this?
You should create a Sicilian course (or courses) . I'd pay a lot of bucks for that♥️.
In spanish, pistear can mean to drink alcohol 😂
As a native Catalan speaker, I am obviously a lot more used to hearing Italian, so the first time I watched the Sicilian story, I didn't get much (interestingly, the parts about eating and the fighting words xD). I got 100% of the Italian, then revisited the Sicilian again and finally understood a lot more.
I speak near fluent Italian and i couldnt understand and Sicilian
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% 😅
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.
It felt like I was being spoken to by Don Fanucci, Clamenza, and GF2 Michael, respectively. It was quite an experience! Bravo, sir! A most interesting departure! 👍👍 P.S. I understood nothing specific from Fanucci or Clamenza, but I could still tell that my life was in danger.
I only picked up eating and family, the rest had me lost.
I am a native American English speaker that can understand Spanish fairly well and use that as the basis of Romance language comprehension.
I enjoy hearing these deep dialects as a challenge.
Dang, as a Spanish speaker I usually have no trouble understanding Italian, but Sicilian is something else, I couldn't understand anything.
Pretty interesting
Irish-polyglot here.....its defo two different languages. As far apart as German & Dutch, or Gallego & andaluz. Cousins.....but not too similar. To learn Sicilian would need a few months on the ground....... drinking your beer and getting friendly with the locals. Plus my favourite....finding chatty elderlies with little empathy on how much the listener is struggling 😂
Bon je ne parle pas italien mais j’ai compris toute l’histoire en italien et zéro en sicilien. 😊
Sicilian (Agrigento region) is my first language. I understood the Italian better than the Sicilian. LOL
Me too! Palermitano is hard to understand
Is this video suitable for children?