I love how you brushed over the North African Aghlabids (modern day Tunisia) who were the ones that conquered Sicily from the Byzantines and controlled it for 200 years before the Normans took it from them. You can literally find Mosques and Arabic writings and Arabic streets in Sicily. Even the Sicilian language itself and culture is influenced by the period which the Aghlabids and Later under the banner of Fatimids ruled. They ruled the entire nation and it took them more than five years to fully control the island. So why falsify and brush over real history? is it because this time around the colonizers weren't blonde haired christians? Trust me, most of y'all aren't that either and should really acknowledge your past and who you are. Love from Tunisia to the beautiful Island of Sicily.
I remember at a party a goombas father telling me that i wasnt italian, i was greek for being Sicilian......when i told my dad, he wanted to punch the guy
Im sicilian on dads side, moms family is from the north by Austria...i cannot pick up italian, being born n raised in America....but german seems similar enough to english that i can speak it somewhat....
we are not different we are all italians and must stick together. it s these white people who are not italian that keep starting this junk because they have no life or their own dull culture. stay out of our italian world
I was telling my son if he doeant stop saying he us italian his great grandmother who is Sicilian is going to come out of her grave .. but we are Ranaldo fans anyway 😅
This video is very useful. But I would like to know what dialect of Sicilian this is? As Sicilian (at least from what I have researched) has A TON of dialects that can be pretty different. And as I said very useful for learning the basic words of Sicilian! Keep up uploading about the amazing language and culture of Sicily!
I still feel like Sicilian is a dialect because in English there is a difference between the accent of someone from New York and someone from like Mississippi like soda and pop and for and fer some of these differences are a letter difference (even if it’s spelled the same in English) and some of them are entire words but we still call the redneck accent an accent just like we call a New York accent an accent and there’s a lot of languages with very strong dialects especially Irish ALTHOUGH while Sicily isn’t considered a different country legally it’s so more culturally diverse I feel like it is kind of its own thing even if it still contains a lot more Italian aspects than other cultures within it it’s kind of hard not to say Sicily is different from Italy 😅
Very nice video. One correction needed: The Sicilian Vespers at (8:28 in this video) broke out on Easter 1282, 16 years after the French born king was crowned and not 1266.
You crammed 800 +/- of very complex history into under 5 minutes. If this were a history of France, you would have said: "There was contention over popes, Marie Antoinette was beheaded, and Charles deGaul returned to Paris." If you don't want to put in any effort, then don't try at all. You gave short shrift to a very complex history, demonstrating that you have no respect for your subject matter.
I found some Arabic words there! Unni (where) sounds a bit like the Arabic word Wein وين (where) Taliare (to look) is very similar to an Arabic Lebanese word Talaa طلع... Which means to Look at something Sciuri (flowers) is very similar to the Arabic word for flowers, Zuhuur زهور Sciarriari (to fight) sounds like the Arabic word for fighting, Shijar شجار I find it fascinating that some of these words survived even though the Arab occupation of Sicily didn't last that long, relatively.
I'll tell you a couple more things: there are a lot of names of small towns in Sicily that come from the Arab domination(for instance: Marsala or probably Buccheri), and we've also adopted some "linguistic trends". For instance, I read somewhere the other day that Arab people say "Inshallah (sorry if I spelled it wrong)" and often times in Sicilian culture you would say the equivalent of "If God wants it". Other than that, up until last century, people often greeted each other saying "sabbinirica", meaning literally "may God bless you". I would really love to learn Arab because I think there are a lot of connections with Sicily yet to discover
Let’s talk about how when the moors conquered Sicily and started fucking so much they changed the WHOLE COUNTRY! Went from Blond hair and blue eyes too black hair and Olive skin crazy 😂😂
With all due respect to the Arabs, they fled the island and left few traces, being Muslims they did not mix with the native population, they tend to isolate themselves, there is a cliché that the Sicilians are actually dark when compared to the Arabs (beautiful people) the Sicilians are much lighter, the Americans as usual from the height of their knowledge make a lot of confusion, generally the Sicilians if compared with the Scandinavians or the Anglo-Saxons are darker but they are much lighter than the North Africans who for those who don't know are part of the group of white Caucasians. Sicilians have in their DNA a genetic mix made up of Scandinavian, Spanish and Greek populations, all Indo-European populations, that is, coming from Northern Europe which have become darker over time. Many Sicilians are blond with light eyes!
Please as an American with Sicilian blood, blood that has been lost to time, make a documentary hours long. This was exquisitely well done. It is EXTREMELY difficult to find 'good' information about 'Isola del sole' that is not tainted or bias in a particular direction. I can trace my family heritage to roughly the 1800's to Sicily. As a child always I was fascinated with this Island, and the one ting that stands out is hearing the language, compared to main land Italy, sounding very different. Learn Sicily; You have re ignited an old passion for this beautiful Islands rich in history that I feel in my blood and soul and am truly interested in information that is unbias, as you seem to present it. THANK YOU 'LEARN SICILIAN', from the heart.
Thank you so much for those kind words! It means a lot. Presenting unbiased historical information is very important to us. Is there any area in Sicily’s history you would like us to focus on for a video?
I hope you read this this brings back very rare moments from being a young kid. Havnt heard this dialect in a veeeeeery long time. GREAT CHANNEL KEEP MAKING VIDEOS !!!!!
Took a 23andMe and I’m about 57% Italian and they narrowed down that the majority of that ancestry originated in Sicily. Actually didn’t expect that because I thought most of my ancestors were northerners.
I like how the first poem was a dialogue. Some of my friends are Hmong (spelling?) and their poetry is also often like this. It was a nice and unexpected thing to bond over because this is not really a thing in English language poetry.
My great, great el al Grandfather was a magistrate from the Royal Court of Spain and immigrated to Sicily in the 16th century. His name was Don José de Pancamo. Eventually, our surname evolved into Pancamo which is what it is to this day.
My great grandfather left Sicily in 1926, he was 14 years old. He landed in New York and was transferred to Philadelphia to live with his sponsor, his older brother. Him and his brother eventually married two sisters, from the family that were sponsoring other Italians. My great Grandmom, who was of Campaigna ancestry. His brother ended up doing 20 years in prison, and was deported for killing his wife, after he caught her in bed with another man. Other Italian immigrant ancestors were all from compaigna.
Every region in Italy has its own dialect and then standard Italian. You should compare other regional dialects to Sicilian. That would make more sense.
