Sicilian language facts for kids

Sicilian
	Sicilianu
Native to	Sicily, Calabria (Central and Southern), Campania (Cilento), Apulia (Salento, Lecce), Malta
Native speakers	6.8 million (2010)
Language family	Indo-European Italic Latino-Faliscan Romance Italo-Dalmatian Sicilian; ; ; ; ;
Linguasphere	51-AAA-re & -rf (mainland 51-AAA-rc & -rd)
	This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.
	This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

The Sicilian language (lu sicilianu) is a language spoken in Sicily island and central Calabria. It is currently spoken by the majority of the inhabitants of Sicily and by emigrants.

10 million people speak the language. It has three stocks: the Sicilian, the Calabro-Sicilian and Salentinu.

Compared to Italian, it is a distinctly separate form of verbal communication patterned by many years of foreign influence. Efforts to force Sicilians to speak conventional Italian include schools, television and radio. Italians maintain that Sicilian is simply a subset dialect of Italian, while Sicilians see their spoken word as a true and separate language.

Images for kids

A sign in Sicilian at Santo Stefano di Camastra, Messina.
An 1196 miniature depicting the various scribes (1. Greeks 2. Saracens 3. Latins) for the various populations of the Kingdom of Sicily
The development of the Sicilian vowel system.
Minchia: graffiti in Turin, January 2017