Utenti:Michiluzzu Scalisi/English

In the streets of Palermo (6/2008)

~ Virsiuni siciliana - Versione italiana ~

Hey! Welcome to my user page.

My name is Micheli Scalisi, and I'm a 23 year old Sicilian-American.

I used to live in the beautiful city of Chicago, however recently I moved to Colorado so that I could enroll in college. So, I'm here and I'm studying physical therapy.

survey
sex	male	age	23
height	6'5	relationship status	single
hair	dark brown	eyes	brown
job	student	religious beliefs	unsure
interests	languages, cultures	languages	English, Sicilian, Italian
music	Sicilian/Italian techno	movies	superbad, the kingdom

LONG LIVE THE SICILIAN LANGUAGE

So, rather than writing about other things, I've decided, since I'm enamored by it, to write about our beautiful Sicilian language, to therefore show you all how I write and speak it, and to also show you my ideas for a Unified Sicilian Language.

However, one should first note that the following work is already protected by the laws of COPYRIGHT, even when under the laws of GFDL of Wikipedia.

copyright [1]
At what point does my work become protected?
Your work becomes protected by COPYRIGHT in the moment that it is written and established in a tangible form that can be seen directly or with the help of a machine or instrument.

Sicilian Language

     from the article Sicilian Language

	« Idioma gentil sonante e puro, e che ... Sicilia fu la madre Della lingua volgar cotanto in prezzo »
	(Dante Alighieri)

Sicilian is a language spoken on the island of Sicily and in the extreme southern part of Italy, that is, in Salento and in south-central Calabria. Sicilian belongs to the family of Romance languages. And Ethnologue and many other filologists describe Sicilian as «distinct enough from Standard Italian to be considered a separate language».

Sicilian today is spoken by nearly 5 million people on the Sicilian island, as well as those who speak it in Puglia in Salento and in south-central Calabria, where it is the native tongue of the population, although there it is often times referred to as the «Calabro-Sicilian language». Also there are those who have immigrated, together with their descendents, who speak it and live overseas in: the USA, Canada, Australia, Argentina, Belgium, Germany and in southern France.

The Sicilian language is to be considered as a «regional or minority language» in accordance with the Charter, which, in Article I states that «"regional and minority languages" means languages that are: ... different from the official language(s) of that State». The Charter was approved on 25 June 1992 and entered into power on 1 March 1998. Italy signed the Charter on 27 June 2000 but has yet to ratify it.

Notebook of Terms

The Notebook, a useful font of information on the Unified Sicilian Language, is an ample notebook of Sicilian words, and contains, for every word, the part of speech, pronunciation, definition and the etymology wherever available.

If you have suggestions for new words, or comments regarding changes in already existing words, write them in the Discussion Page of the Notebook. It would be much appreciated.

And if ever you run into a word that you do not know, go look it up in the Notebook.

Notebook of Terms
A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - L - M - N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - Z

Grammar of the Unified Sicilian Language

Alphabet and Pronunciations

The Sicilian alphabet contains 21 letters, the following:

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | Z

Sicilian Alphabet
Letter	Name	Pronunciation	Esempio italiano	Example in English		Letter	Name	Pronunciation	Esempio italiano	Example in English
Aa	a	/a/	padre	father		Oo	o	/ɔ/	parola	ball
Bb	bi	/b/	babbo	boy		Pp	pi	/p/	parte	part
Cc	ci	1				Qq	cu	/kw/	quando	queen
Dd	di	/d/	Dio	dog		Rr	erra	4
Ee	e	/ɛ/	sette	bed		Ss	essa	/s/	sole	sun
Ff	effa	/f/	fino	fine				/ʃ/	pesce	fish5
Gg	ghi	/ɣ/2				Tt	ti	/t/	paterno	paternal
Hh	acca	3				Uu	u	/u/	ugola	food
Ii	i	/i/	fino	feet		Vv	vu	/w/	uomo	work
Ll	ela	/l/	labbra	lip		Zz	zeta	/ts/	pizza	rats
Mm	emma	/m/	madre	mother				/dz/	zero	beds
Nn	enna	/n/	nulla	none

Vowels

The vowel (Latin "vōcālis", pertaining to voice) in fonetics is a phone that's principal outcome is a vocoid. From the articulatory point of view, a vowel is a sound made by the vibration of the vocal chords without any obstruction to the normal airflow, thus causing resonance. The various vowels are obtained by changing the resonance, and thus with a larger or smaller opening of the mouth, with or without protrusion of the lips, with or without a passage of air through the nasal cavities, and with the tongue placed more or less toward the anterior of the oral cavity.

In the Unified Sicilian Language there are five vowels: a, e, i, o, u. These vowels have a long and a short sound, depending on their position within a word.

The accented vowels are the long vowels.

The unaccented vowels are the short vowels.

Note Regarding the Vowels

With regard to the unaccented vowels, an extremely important aspect of the Unified Sicilian Language is the existence of the mobile vowels. The mobile vowels in Sicilian are "e" and "o", because these, when they don't receive the accent, change to another vowel, mainly "i", "u" or "a". The history of this phenomenon is still to be discovered, however there are possible hypotheses.

The unaccented "e" in the Unified Sicilian Language does NOT exist. This "e" either drops or changes to another vowel, for the most part "i" or "a".

        Ex.: pézzu > pizzúddu

The unaccented "o" in the Unified Sicilian Language does NOT exist. This "o" either drops or changes to another vowel, for the most part "u" or "a".

        Ex.: sóru > surúdda

Diphthongs

The diphthong (Greek διφθογγος, "díphthongos", with two sounds) in phonetics is the combination of two vocoids formed by a rapid movement from one vocoid to another, usually perceived by the listener as one vowel, that is, a single vocalic phoneme. And while simple vocoids and monothongs are described as stable phones, diphthongs require a movement of the tongue.

Monothongs are written in the IPA as a single symbol, for example, the two as in the Sicilian word pasta /'paʃta/. A diphthong can be considered a long vowel, whose articulation is not static, but dynamic. For example, English grass /ˈgɹɑːs/ has a static and prolonged sound, whereas same /ˈseɪm/ has a modulated sound. This is considered a diphthong and is trascribed with two symbols, the first of which represents the site of departure of the back of the tongue and the second the arrival. Note that not all phonetists are in agreement as to where the departure and arrival of a diphthong are.

In the Unified Sicilian Language there are two types of diphthongs:

Descending, which begins with a vowel of more importance (higher pitch), and that ends with a semivowel of lesser importance, such as /ai/ in "ai".

Ascending, which begins with a semivowel of lesser importance and that ends with a vowel of more importance, such as /ja/ in "ghiarnu".

Hiatus

The hiatus, (Latin "hiatus", opening) in phonetics is a linguistic phenomenon that is formed by dividing into two syllables two vowels (or rather, vocoids) that otherwise would belong to the same syllable.

In the Unified Sicilian Language there are in fact four types of hiatuses, which are placed into two groups. Notice however that some of these combinations do not exist in the Unified Sicilian Language, and I've included them for your information only.

The first group consists of the vowel combinations that receive the accent either on the first vowel or on neither of the vowels.

The second group consists of the vowel combinations that receive the accent on the second vowel.

Consonants

Special Pronunciations

The special pronunciations in Sicilian phonetics are those letters and/or vowel and consonantal combinations that have a pronunciation different from that in the corresponding Romance languages. Certain pronunciations aren't found at all in the other Romance languages, others are found in various dialects and subdialects of these languages. The special pronunciations, described in the page above, are dd, dr, g, h, ng, nt, rr, str and tr.

Double Consonants

The double consonants in the Unified Sicilian Language are very numerous.

At the beginning of a word these double consonants aren't normally written, however in the middle of a word they are written double as they are pronounced. The pronunciations of these double consonants are usually like those of the same single consonant, but with a longer sound. However, as it is with rules, there are a few exceptions.

The first exception is the letter r which, when doubled, does not have the sound of a prolonged "r", but rather that of the "zhe" of the Russian language, as you've read above. The other exception is the letter d. This letter, however, when doubled can have two sounds: (1) the sound of single d, but with a prolonged sound; and (2) the sound of the voiced retroflex plosive, as described above. In order to know which is which, it is necessary for you to memorize them.

The double consonants are truly important in the Unified Sicilian Language, and in certain cases, the only difference between two words can be a consonant and a double consonant. Therefore it's important that you pronounce these sounds correctly, otherwise you can mistake one word for another, causing confusion.

Digraphs

The digraph (Greek δισ e γραφος, two written things) in the Unified Sicilian Language is a phoneme written with two characters, or a series of phonemes that doesn't correspond to the normal values of the two combined characters. The sound is often, but not always, one that cannot be written with only one letter. Usually the term "digraph" is reserved for graphemes, whose pronunciations are always or almost always the same.

The digraphs, described in the page above, are ch before e, i; ci before a, o, u; dd; gh before e, i; gn; ng; rr; and sc before e, i.

Trigraphs

The trigraph (Greek τρεις and γραφος, three written things) in the Unified Sicilian Language is a group of three letters used to represent one sound or a combination of sounds that don't correspond to the combined letters. For example, “sci” in the word “Sciacca”, are three letters and the resulting sound is only /ʃ/. This is a trigraph.

The trigraphs, described in the page above, are sci and cci before a, o, and u.

Gemination-causing Words

The gemination-causing words in the Unified Sicilian Language are words that cause a gemination, or reenforcement, of the pronunciation of the initial letter of the following word. There are many such words, but they are mostly words with one syllable or with a truncated ending. Among these gemination-causing words, described in the page above, are e, a, di, cu, ma, pi, chi, etc.

Consonantic Assimilation

Consonant assimilation in the Unified Sicilian Language is a term used to describe the tendency of two, or more, consonants to be reduced to a double consonant of the same consonantic value. The assimilation is highly diffused and is an important and unique characteristic of the Unified Sicilian Language.

Consonantic assimilation that takes place within a word are written to show the assimilation, therefore there can be no confusion with respect to the pronunciation. However, this also takes place between two words, when the final letter of the first word and the initial letter of the second word are assimilated. This type of assimilation is not written, and therefore the reader must be able to recognize it and pronounce it correctly.

It's also important to be aware of this rule when considering the Sicilianization of foreign words, because foreign words must also adapt themselves to the Unified Sicilian Language and respect its phonetic rules.

The consonantic combinations that assimilate to one another, described in the page above, are nv, nd, mb, and nb, which become mm, nn, mm, and mm.

Stress & Syllables

Stress

Stress, or accent (Latin accentum), in phonetics is the relative emphasis that is given a certain syllable within a word.

The concept of stress is very important, because the vowel of an accented syllable is pronounced in a more full manner as opposed to the others, which are less formed, as you can read here. This concept is also very important because there are mobile vowels in Sicilian, which are vowels that change when they lose this stress.

Sicilian stress is called lexical, like that of Spanish or Italian, because the location of stress is not determined by a certain rule, but rather it can differ from one word to another. This, therefore, makes it necessary to memorize the location of stress, apart from those cases where it's clear due to an accent mark.

The accent mark is not written when the stress falls on the second-to-last syllable, this is because in the majority of words the stress falls here:

parrari - pa|rrá|ri

The accent mark is written in all other cases, always using the acute accent:

taléfunanu - ta|lé|fu|na|nu

múzzicu - mút|tsi|cu

accussí - ac|cus|sí

Notice that the accent mark is generally not used in monosyllabic words, because there is only one syllable on which to place the stress. However, there are certain cases in which the accent mark is written in order to distinguish one word from another, which, without the accent mark, would be identical:

si (it. si; Eng. yes)

sí (it. sei; Eng. you are)

Syllables

Nouns

Ran out of time, but I'm still working at it...