Sicilian legends & traditions recounted in dialect by the elderly of the village of Sant'Ambrogio 

Me too ❤

Este destul de asemanator cu limba română! 😮 Și accentul seamănă.

E cchi dialettu sicilianu parraünu i tó nonni?

They probably answered in italian because they wanted to look polite.

Exactly! It is SO sad. How can some not see this? I think the authorities and the lying media has something to do with this loss of language in Sicily. Maybe some who still speak it could go together and make a dictionary?

@@Sigridovski 1) There are plenty of Sicilian dictionary. 2) Probably no one spoke sicilian because its considered rude. Here in Sicily you speak Sicilian when you're with your friends, when you're angry, when you're saying a joke... If I meet someone I don't know I won't start speaking sicilian.

@@mghc8999 Wow! That's INCREDIBLE information for an interested outsider like myself, because if you speak it when you are angry, when you joke and at home; this means it is really your mother tongue, the language you are most comfortable with. I wonder who told you not to speak it outside in the street or at the market? Somebody did not want you to have that language. They invalidated it until the Sicilians believed it. That is not nice. That is very bad. Imagine, it would be rude to speak your own mother tongue, that with which you can express yourself easily, without thinking.

The sad thing Vicki is that they do understand and they do speak it…the younger generation don’t wNt to be bothered to switch.

I've got grandparents from Mellili, my man. Hit me up with pride!

Vueee amico siciliano ❤️un saluto a tutti l'emittenti

AFRICA

I am Sicilian bless your heart

Me too . Same places ❤❤❤

language from africa

Franchini sai cosa? La Sicilia è come un vino troppo pregiato. I palati dei cafoni non devono assaggiarlo... bevi il tavervello, è adeguato al tuo livello culturale

@@stefanofranchini9416 very wrong. its many languages in one. our culture is a bit african but out language not so much

@@stefanofranchini9416 from arab and we are proud

@@thewebhorse Preferisci bere un bicchiere in meno di vino, perché chiunque scriva così tanta merda è già ubriaco 😂😂😂 Ricorda una cosa: Tutto ciò che è sotto Roma non appartiene più all'Italia, sono africani ! 😂

Someday i will translate it,i m sicilian

​@@JosephPeco-sy1gpI hope that you do, I can only understand some of it. My grandmother passed away in 1990 and I haven't heard the dialect since then

Matthew Galati Galati, I know many Galati's! Is your family from Tortorici perhaps?

@@tinaorifici-hasan832 No. My family is from Partinico.. It is a small town close to Palermo. Happy New Year.

It is Italian.

@@danilaird8360no, è siciliano, con qualche parola italiana dovuta al fatto che ovunque si parla italiano in Sicilia

You learned well... Trajano ceasar of spain took a lot of Spanish and italian people to Romania to inhabit that land.

I am Romanian and sicilian language sounds very familiar for me. Their appearence and faces looks similar to romanians. Im sure from sicilia comes peoples in dacia (romania) 2000 years ago

barely anything ..... mostly very very little........... but nowadays everyone pretty much speaks standard Italian.

Mark Richardson If this person from Turin would speak in his own language (Piemontese, similar to southern french) the Sicilian guy wouldn't understand anything too.. But we're talking about old people, today in turin is much easier to find a Sicilian/southern italian than a native and only few old people know the dialect, in the other hand Sicilian in Sicily is still quite alive.

But regional and local languages are called dialects in Italy. It's just that "dialect" is not a strictly linguistic term, rather a political one.

@Mark Richardson Sicilian came mostly directly from Latin or indirectly from other Latin derived Languages. It emerged the same time the Toscana Language, which the Standardized version of Toscana, is what became Standard Italian today. Sicilian and Toscana languages emerged around the same time and Dante and all the great Tuscan writers were in fact inspired and shaped by the Sicilian language and structure that was part of the Palermo School of Poetry. That school was the result of the Norman Ruler, I think Roger, wanting to bring together all the great writers in Sicily to put together all the literary classics and folk songs of the time, etc into a standard Sicilian language.

Exactly! It would be nice to find a proper and old dictionary.

BrightBlue1111 The apology is accepted ;)

but they are italian

technically, we all are. Yet the culture are quite different. A venetian and a neapolitan, for instance, really have little in common, apart from the national language. A bit like Spain with Catalans, Basque, Galician... the French, on the other end, almost annihilated the different cultures and languages inside their national territory. I don't know about Germans, but they have many quite different dialects as well.

There's an amount of people in every italian region who doesn't want to be considered italian. Thing is we all are and that's the end of it. The variety in itself is something that makes us italian, the younger people are also more assimilated.

No apology accepted. I am Italian half from my mom's side. I am just as Italian as you and whoever is Italian from Italy. My grandpop was born on a boat coming from Italy. His surname ( my mom's surname) was Budassi. All names in my family ( mom's side) are Italian, we speak some Italian ( mostly slang), we have connections to mob, we eat Italian, we love food and family, and we are Italian. I am only half because my dad is not Italian but Scottish-Irish. Sorry but I am half Italian. I love my heritage. If you think Iezzo, Budassi, Ponziano, Virgilio , Brocelli and Bevilacqua are not Italian surnames ( all my family ) you offend me. Some are Roman and some are other. Some even from Southern Italy... I am half Italian and proud. I even inherited my mom's curly thick hair and big eyes.

agree about the music. I hate when videos have music.

a few of these people spoke Italian, with a sicilian accent.

Yeah man its tough

You. I’m Sicilian with a little bit of a Sicilian accent

Sicilian is a language not a dialect!

If you fly to Rome from Ireland you can catch the boat from Civitavecchia to Palermo. Alternatively there are boats leaving from Genova, Livorno e Naples to Palermo. From Salerno to Messina. We look forward to your return to Sicily. Carmelina

Chris,I understand my reply comes very late as your question was posted 3 years ago. You can get on the train from any main Italian city, the train will travel all the way to the south end of the main land (on the shore of the strait of Messina.) You don't need to get off the train at all, once the ship arrives to the other side of the strait (Sicily), the train exits the ship and will continue the trip to the city of your choice,usually either Messina which is by the strait, or Catania, or Palermo.

You can do both.

I think all the people from the countries and regions around the mediterranean sea are the same. We are all passionate, loud, friendly, open to strangers. From Syria/Turkey/Lebanon/Levante to Egypt, trough northern africa untill morrocco, from portugal/spain, southern france, to italy and the balkans, to greece untill we are in turkey again. We are like brothers and sisters and we must help and protect each other. Greetings from Sicily Brother

​@@Donknowwwyou are right and I appreciate my own kind

Really? 🤨

God bless you

I barely understand anymore and when I can't think of the word I'm looking for, it saddens me and I have no one to ask

Stefos the Sicilians on the west coast of Sicily (like Messina) there's many Greeks

That's what I thought........

Stefos Una Faccia Una Razza

@@BassWhiz92 Messina is East. Regardless, Sicily clusters DNA wise with all Southern Italians and the closest DNA cluster outside of Italy with Sicily-Southern Italians are Greeks. There is an extensive body of academic DNA studies that document this fact. Here is a paper by Sazzini et al (2016) which documents how all modern Italians cluster DNA wise and shows Greeks and Italians, pretty much from Central Italy to Sicily, form a close genetic cluster. See Figure 2. www.nature.com/articles/srep32513

God, you made me cry....

My great-great grandfather was from Tunisia.

💯

This is how I learned where we were going on vacation, what the Christmas gifts were, how so and so got in trouble and every other forbidden thing. Makes you learn quick

Snap, my parents are also from Alessandria Della Rocca. Not been back there for many years. They immigrated to the UK in the 60's, grew up in London, but I can speak the old Sicilian, this video is like listening to my parents talking with their friends.

You're right. Really they talked a mix of Italian and dialect.

Prof. G. Cipolla taught Al Pacino how to pronounce Sicilian in the Godfather

Abdelaziz Al moutaouakil remember, Sicily was Arab for over 200 years.. even some Sicilian words come from Arabic! I myself have lots of Arab DNA!

@Spotek lol my friend did 23and me he was 5% North African, his Sicilian Australian.

@Spotek 😂 okay

I'm a bit late, but I will answer the same. Here in Sicily we have many arab immigrants, and I can say that I can recognize an Arab when I see one. Greetings

@@esti-od1mz but many Sicilians just look just like Arabs. there's a reason to it, which is that Arabs ruled Sicily for over 200 years and they left their footprint

I never have heard a wiser statement. I agree it 100%. You know, my friend, under my opinion, the best awful time wich Sicily lived were when a rascal named Garibaldi shipped in Sicily in 1861 to robber our wealth, scamming our people and submit them. Since that time many people expated abroad (maybe you or your anchestors as well). Anyway, you know, fortunally, italian couldn't robbered our history, our nature and, mostly our joyfull. That nice fellow on clip witness it.

I miss the humor, my grandparents used to rib each other in the most gracious manner

+Andrei Nicolae totally agree with this.

Mark Richardson no.not at all.it s just the sound of the language.it s very subjective

I will translate it ( i m sicilian)

Mine too

Translate 1 Once there was sincerity in speech,now it s different 2 i have got second grade at school,we had to go to work for food. TITLE (OLD MEMORIES FROM MADONIE) 3 We played with handcart, 41 , we played with the top ecc.) 4 when someone had a stomach ache,they called me,and i had to stay there using my right foot to massage . 5 Speacking of which,we were at school,one day arrived Ant Filumena asking to the teacher for someone able to do that massage,i answered i was able and she told me that she needed me because her goat had labor pains . 6 Once it was everything better that know,food ,air,now air is poison, now nothing is good . 7 In time of harvest ,for us kids was like game,from home to home to stomp grapes,adults was happy becouse we did the job for them. 8 we had the" Lira " now "euro " ruined us. 9 We used sourdough ,with the flour,now we can use brewer s yeast,i still use the sour dough,in the evening it rises,and the day after i can make bread. I go to to getting wood. The bread is very god. 10 There was oil lamps,everynight a man was in charge to turn on every lamps. 11 than finally arrived the telephone in 70 s . My Father bought one,Rosa came to our house to call,becouse it was free for her,she didn t need money to call. 12 We were 4 brothers,in time of war relief was for the third brother,i was the 4th, i had the " leave early " 13 Everynight at 8 pm a train was passing carrying the military boys from a place to another,and everynight on time a plane was passing shooting with machine gun to the train a lower altitude,we were used to that,it had become funny. We hadn t electricity,no water,no bathroom,we used the chamber pot, and we took water to drink from fontains. 16 We were all farmers,ofter school we had to graze our goats,if we didn t do it our parents didn t leave us to eat at dinner. 17 It was the fascist period,every summer we did the " colonies " with the school s teachers and kids,for us it was something great ,huge change , We went out of our village. Every morning we ate bread with jam or butter and at midday we ate pasta. That kind of food was unknown to us. Somebody took advantage for , he gave us something else like pears and bread. One day two girls (supervisors) came to visit us ,asking us if we was eating good,teachers told us that we had to respond always positive,and we answered always with yes like a flock of sheep,but a kid suddenly told them that we were eating bread with pears and not jam and others good thing like others kid.. It was that holy truth .

​@@JosephPeco-sy1gpthank you so much!

No translation needed

Translate 1 Once there was sincerity in speech,now it s different 2 i have got second grade at school,we had to go to work for food. TITLE (OLD MEMORIES FROM MADONIE) 3 We played with handcart, 41 , we played with the top ecc.) 4 when someone had a stomach ache,they called me,and i had to stay there using my right foot to massage . 5 Speacking of which,we were at school,one day arrived Ant Filumena asking to the teacher for someone able to do that massage,i answered i was able and she told me that she needed me because her goat had labor pains . 6 Once it was everything better that know,food ,air,now air is poison, now nothing is good . 7 In time of harvest ,for us kids was like game,from home to home to stomp grapes,adults was happy becouse we did the job for them. 8 we had the" Lira " now "euro " ruined us. 9 We used sourdough ,with the flour,now we can use brewer s yeast,i still use the sour dough,in the evening it rises,and the day after i can make bread. I go to to getting wood. The bread is very god. 10 There was oil lamps,everynight a man was in charge to turn on every lamps. 11 than finally arrived the telephone in 70 s . My Father bought one,Rosa came to our house to call,becouse it was free for her,she didn t need money to call. 12 We were 4 brothers,in time of war relief was for the third brother,i was the 4th, i had the " leave early " 13 Everynight at 8 pm a train was passing carrying the military boys from a place to another,and everynight on time a plane was passing shooting with machine gun to the train a lower altitude,we were used to that,it had become funny. We hadn t electricity,no water,no bathroom,we used the chamber pot, and we took water to drink from fontains. 16 We were all farmers,ofter school we had to graze our goats,if we didn t do it our parents didn t leave us to eat at dinner. 17 It was the fascist period,every summer we did the " colonies " with the school s teachers and kids,for us it was something great ,huge change , We went out of our village. Every morning we ate bread with jam or butter and at midday we ate pasta. That kind of food was unknown to us. Somebody took advantage for , he gave us something else like pears and bread. One day two girls (supervisors) came to visit us ,asking us if we was eating good,teachers told us that we had to respond always positive,and we answered always with yes like a flock of sheep,but a kid suddenly told them that we were eating bread with pears and not jam and others good thing like others kid.. It was that holy truth .

Ma io capisco un po quello che dicono perche parlano qualque parole in italiano

‘U calabrisi assumigghia a ‘u sicilianu, but they are all sicilians

One of the senior speaks more Italian than Sicilian

tFighterPilot , I am Romanian. The talk does not sound like something from our country. We have accents, like every country, but nothing like this... Anyway, I like these guys. :) As look, they remind me of the old people from Romania. :)

+Cristi C Cristi, I'm Romanian as well, but for me, it definitely sounds like Romanian. Of course I cannot understand all the words, but the sound of the dialect/language sounds like Romanian.

@@alexandruvisan7628 I think Romanian sounds like Slavic in my ears.

El pueblo siciliano es como el árbol del carrubbo, sus brechas son fuertes y llegan muy lejos, pero sus raíces son enormes y profundas.

well said

You are.

Omg why are you so obsessed just with Arabs and Greeks... we had 13 different populations... actually Arabs have been here for just 150 years over 3000

@@andevien2542 because they left their footprint

@@andevien2542 Chi e'un ti piaci ca semu puru arabi, chi ciavissi addiri?

@@andevien2542semu ‘na picca arabi, ‘na picca greci, ‘na picca arbanisi, ‘na picca armeni, ‘na picca cartagginisi e atri cosi

Thank you Carmela. I'm sicilian living in Sicily. You can't imagine how much I'm proud to be it. I don't really feel myself Italian, but rather sicilian. Your nice video made me emotional. I'm aware many many Sicilian expated abroad never has been forgotten them land and neither them son, grandsons etcetera and that warms my heart. I wish reffer you an ancient metaphor "Il siciliano è come l'albero del carrubbo, i suoi rami maestosi si estendono lontano, ma le sue radici sono solide e profonde" translation : "Sicilian people is like carrubbo tree, his breanchs strength out and gets so far, but him roots are massive and deep". (carrubbo is a huge tree wich mostly grows up in South Sicily). Take care! Silvio

@@thewebhorse El pueblo siciliano es como el árbol del carrubbo, sus brechas son fuertes y llegan muy lejos, pero sus raíces son enormes y profundas.

Nuatri parramu Sempri 'nsicilianu! A nuatri a nostra lngua unne capaci livarinilla NUDDRU!