Sicilian

About Sicilian

Sicilian, sicilianu, is spoken in Sicily and parts of southern Italy. It is a Romance language of its own, not a dialect of standard Italian, and Italians from the north often cannot follow it. Centuries of Greek, Arab, Norman and Spanish rule left words in it that Italian does not have. It has no official status, and UNESCO classes it as vulnerable.

Many Sicilian words end in -u where Italian has -o, as in figghiu (son) for Italian figlio, and a double dd often stands where Italian has ll, as in iddu (he). Spelling is not standardized, so the same word can be written in several ways.

FamilyIndo-European, Romance (Italo-Romance)
Where spokenItaly (Sicily and parts of Calabria and Apulia)
Statusvulnerable (UNESCO)
ScriptLatin alphabet
Codescn (ISO 639-3)

Classification: Wikidata. Retrieved 26 September 2026.

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