Editing Sicily (section)

===Languages===
{{Main|Sicilian language|Gallo-Italic of Sicily|Arbëresh language}}
[[File:Dialetti parlati in Sicilia.png|thumb|upright=1.3|The languages spoken in Sicily]]

Today, in Sicily, most people are bilingual and speak both [[Italian language|Italian]] and [[Sicilian language|Sicilian]], a [[Romance languages|Romance language]] distinct from Italian. Some [[Sicilian language|Sicilian]] words are [[loan word|loanword]]s from [[Greek language|Greek]], [[Catalan language|Catalan]], [[Norman language|Norman]], French, [[Arabic language|Arabic]], Spanish and other languages.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.leoluca-criscione.net/HTM-DOCUMENTI/DIALetto-english%20version.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050302100426/http://www.leoluca-criscione.net/HTM-DOCUMENTI/DIALetto-english%20version.htm |archive-date=2 March 2005 |publisher=LeoLuca-Criscione.net |title=The Sicilian Language |url-status=usurped |date=7 October 2007}}</ref> Varieties related to Sicilian are also spoken in [[Calabria]] and [[Salento]].<ref>{{Citation |last=Ledgeway |first=Adam |title=The dialects of southern Italy |date=2016-06-30 |work=The Oxford Guide to the Romance Languages |pages=246–269 |url=https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199677108.003.0016 |access-date=2024-01-20 |publisher=Oxford University PressOxford |doi=10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199677108.003.0016 |isbn=978-0-19-967710-8}}</ref> Nowadays, the use of [[Sicilian language|Sicilian]] is limited to informal contexts (mostly in family) and in a majority of cases it is replaced by the so-called ''[[regional Italian]] of Sicily'', a variety of Italian that is influenced by Sicilian.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www3.istat.it/salastampa/comunicati/non_calendario/20070420_00/ |title=La lingua italiana, i dialetti e le lingue straniere |work=istat.it |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121030180855/http://www3.istat.it/salastampa/comunicati/non_calendario/20070420_00/ |archive-date=30 October 2012}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |last=Amenta |first=Luisa |title=Contact between Italian and dialect in Sicily: the case of phrasal verb constructions |date=2017-01-10 |work=Towards a New Standard |pages=242–266 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/9781614518839-009 |access-date=2024-01-20 |publisher=De Gruyter |doi=10.1515/9781614518839-009 |isbn=978-1-61451-883-9}}</ref> Sicilian had a significant influence on the [[Maltese language]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=2023-12-29 |title=Maltese language {{!}} Semitic, Indo-European, Phonology {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Maltese-language |access-date=2024-01-20 |website=www.britannica.com |language=en}}</ref>

Sicilian was an early influence in the development of the first Italian standard, although its use remained confined to an intellectual elite. This was a literary language in Sicily created under the auspices of [[Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor|Frederick II]] and his court of notaries, or ''Magna Curia'', which, headed by [[Giacomo da Lentini]], also gave birth to the [[Sicilian School]], widely inspired by [[troubadour]] literature. Its linguistic and poetic heritage was later assimilated into the literary Florentine dialect use by [[Dante Alighieri]], the father of modern Italian. Dante, in his {{lang|it|[[De vulgari eloquentia]]}}, claims that "In effect, this vernacular seems to deserve higher praise than the others since all the poetry written by Italians can be called Sicilian".<ref>{{cite book |last=Alighieri |first=Dante |author-link=Dante Alighieri |title=De vulgari eloquentia |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-40064-0|date=10 October 1996}}</ref> It is in this language that appeared the first [[sonnet]], whose invention is attributed to Giacomo da Lentini himself.

Other languages are spoken in Sicily. Within the [[province of Palermo]], four towns are home to speakers of [[Arbëresh language|Arbëresh]] varieties.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Nasse |first=George Nicholas |title=The Italo-Albanian Villages of Southern Italy |publisher=National Academy of Sciences - National Research Council |year=1964 |location=Washington, D. C. |pages=19 |language=en}}</ref> Arbëresh is the name given to varieties of [[Albanian language|Albanian]] spoken in Italy. In the eastern part of the island, there are [[Gallo-Italic languages|Gallo-Italic]] varieties known as [[Gallo-Italic of Sicily]],<ref>{{Cite web |title=gallo-italica, comunita in "Enciclopedia dell'Italiano" |url=https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/comunita-gallo-italica_(Enciclopedia-dell%27Italiano) |access-date=2023-06-25 |website=www.treccani.it |language=it-IT}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=De Angelis |first=Alessandro |date=30 June 2023 |title=The Strange Case of the Gallo-Italic Dialects of Sicily: Preservation and Innovation in Contact-Induced Change |journal=Languages |language=en |volume=8 |issue=3 |pages=163 |doi=10.3390/languages8030163 |doi-access=free |issn=2226-471X}}</ref> which are related to the other Gallo-Italic languages spoken in most of northern Italy and in other isolated pockets of southern Italy. It dates back to migrations from [[northern Italy]] during the reign of [[Roger I of Sicily|Roger I]], the [[Normans|Norman]] Grand Count of Sicily,<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=5asNot0c5kwC&pg=PA71 Ann Katherine Isaacs, ''Immigration and emigration in historical perspective'', Edizioni Plus, Pisa 2007, p, 71.]</ref> and his successors. Towns inhabited by the new immigrants became known as the "Lombard communities" ({{langx|la|oppida Lombardorum}}, {{langx|scn|pajisi lummardi}}). The settlers, known as the [[Lombards of Sicily]], actually came principally from the [[Aleramici]] fiefdoms of southern [[Montferrat]], comprising today south-eastern [[Piedmont]] and north-western [[Liguria]], "Lombardy" being the name for the whole of northern Italy during the [[Middle Ages]]. In addition to a common place of origin, the colonizers brought their [[Gallo-Italic languages]]. These languages added to the Gallic influence of the developing Sicilian language (influences which included [[Norman language|Norman]] and [[Old Occitan]]) to become the Gallo-Italic of Sicily [[language family]].