Sicilian language usage: language attitudes and usage in Sicily and abroad.

Giacalone, Christine Guedri

Abstract: This linguistic study investigates the usage of the Sicilian language in three generations of Sicilians living in Sicily and abroad. Findings conclude that sociological factors such as age, sex and context affect situational usage. A family case study reveals that linguistic attitude affects language usage outside of Sicily. Based on the results confirming Sicilian language disuse in Italy and abroad, several recommendations are included on preserving the Sicilian language in future generations.

Keywords: Language preservation, dialectology, Sicilian.

Introduction

Whether Sicilian is a language or dialect is a longstanding debate both within Sicily and abroad among many of its own speakers. The Sicilian language, in fact, is the oldest Romance language derived from Latin (Bonner 2001: 1). Although Sicilian is a rich language that has been influenced by several other languages, including Arabic, Spanish, Italian, it is undisputedly being used less frequently, both in Sicily (Cipolla 2005: 104) and abroad (Fitzgerald-Crozier 2011: 1). In Sicily, Italian, not Sicilian, is the official language used in schools, government and business. As a result, many Sicilians are not familiar with the written language, because it is not formally taught. Outside of the government, rote memorization of spoken Sicilian is used in churches and in catechism, but, again, not reinforced through formal instruction by the written language (Cipolla 2011). Over time, the implementation of language policy officially stunted the use of the Sicilian language, yet unofficially the language is depending on context and audience.

Sicilian has an estimated twenty million speakers worldwide (Fitzgerald-Crozier 2011: 2). The case of Sicilian as a regional language is unique to the Italian peninsula because Sicily is the southern island, therefore, more isolated geographically. Daniele Petrosino conducted surveys in both Sardinia and Sicily to inquire about language usage and preferences in these two regions. In comparison with Sardinia, also an island with an endangered regional language protected under the law by UNESCO, Petrosino argues that Sicilian seems more consolidated and stronger in particular regions than the Sardinian language (Petrosino 2008: 235). However, more linguistic pride is noted in Sardinia than Sicily. In fact, one researcher even cites that Sicilian is often stigmatized by many of its speakers (Cipolla 2005: 101). Being that Sicilian is used less in formal situations and for many has a negative connotation, this research reports endangerment, not only abroad, but also in the land where it originated in Italy.

The number of Sicilian speakers living abroad is dramatically decreasing. Sicilians have migrated to other countries including Australia, Brazil, and Argentina, with the United States accounting for almost half of all Italian-American migrants in the world. There have been different waves of Sicilian migration throughout the late 19th and 20th centuries prompted by political and economic events. At the apex of Italian migration, some neighborhoods in New York exclusively used Sicilian instead of English. Migration from Italy peaked from 1890 to 1914, fell during the interwar years of the 20th century and then grew again after World War II. In many cases, residents of entire neighborhoods or villages in Sicily migrated to the United States and established a Sicilian neighborhood, (Gabaccia 1999: 8), thereby creating familial, economic and linguistic ties. Over time, the demographics of these neighborhoods have changed, for example, children have moved out of the neighborhoods with many going off to college. As a result, Sicilians have become less concentrated geographically and more integrated throughout American society.

Sicilian: A Language in Danger

According to David Crystal, an expert on endangered languages, "If you are the last speaker of a language, your language--viewed as a tool of communication--is already dead. For a language is really alive only as long as there is someone to speak it to" (Crystal 2002: 2). Migration and failure to pass the language on from one generation to the other contribute to the extinguishing of languages. Sociolinguist David Harrison suggests that "a language no longer being learned by children as their native tongue is known as 'moribund'. Its days are numbered, as speakers grow elderly and die and no new speakers appear to take their places. Once a language is moribund, it continues to decline, as its use becomes more restricted. It may only be spoken in the home, or among elders, or at ceremonial events (Harrison 2007: 8).

Theoretical Models

Gaetano Cipolla, president of Arba Sicula, an international organization for the preservation of Sicilian language and culture, notes how the Sicilian language is being gradually lost by observing that the first generation of immigrants begin to lose their communicative skills by speaking a pidgin Sicilian that they alone understand. "Thus Sicilian-Americans have no difficulty understanding 'u storu' or 'a giobba' ... etc. By the second generation, the transformation is nearly complete. The offspring of Italian-Americans rarely go beyond a passive knowledge of the dialect. They comprehend a lot but will rarely communicate in the dialect. By third generation, the dialect has all but disappeared. Perhaps a curse word or epithet in the dialect may remain but that is the extent of it" (Cipolla 2005:101). He further attributes language disuse to snobbery, saying that among Italians and Italian-Americans, even among Sicilians, Sicilian is generally considered an inferior form of communication (Cipolla 2005: 115).

Not only is Sicilian becoming an endangered language abroad, but its future is in question in Sicily as well. Harrison further states, "Languages do not literally 'die' or go 'extinct', since they are not living organisms, rather, they are crowded by bigger languages. Small tongues get abandoned by their speakers, who stop using them in favor of a more dominant, more prestigious, or more widely known tongue" (Harrison 2007: 5). In Sicily, it is Italian that is doing the "crowding"; in the United States, it is English. Andrew Dalby, author of Languages in Danger, claims that in the end, bilingualism typically marks the death of an old language because a speaker switches allegiance to another language (Dalby 2001: 91). Phonological contrasts, variability, changes in word order are other signs that point toward loss of one language and acquisition of another. Carol-Myers Scotton, a linguist that specializes in bilingualism, has done research showing that by examining the mixing of two languages, also called 'code--switching', there are linguistic signs that show which language is dominant over another (Myers-Scotton 1998: 289). She continues that acquiring inflections and function words from one language leads to eventual language death of another, thus confirming Dalby's claim. In research on code-switching specific to Sicilians, rural youth, ages 14 to 25 were shown to have an almost a total absence of the rapid, bi-directional, smooth type of switching typical of competent adult bilinguals from the same communities (Alfonzetti 2005: 103), confirming that younger Sicilians favor Italian over Sicilian.

Similar accounts of language use are reported outside of Sicily. One study examines the relationship between Sicilian and Italian and a third language in Australia. By analyzing a set of spontaneous conversations, Antonia Rubino focuses on the role played by a second generation woman as a mediator within her family. She writes, "The linguistic analysis shows that, in order to overcome communication breakdown, the second generation woman makes full use of her competence in all three languages: Italian, Sicilian and English, and employs code-switching extensively as a conversational strategy to accommodate participants with different language abilities. Furthermore, while she maintains Sicilian as the language of the most inner family circle, she shifts to Italian as the more Tearnable' language that can contribute to cohesion in the extended family" (Rubino 2004). Rubino's research serves as a theoretical model to address the question whether Sicilian language usage with different family members may be a predictor of usage in specific contexts?

Methodology

The present study is divided into three parts. The first part, the case study, describes linguistic attitudes and abilities in a multigenerational family residing outside of New York City. The second part of the study analyzes language usage among Sicilian-Americans, while the third part of the study analyzes language usage among Sicilians.

The standardized survey, similar to the one used in the Petrosino study, sought information about language preferences and usage from twenty Sicilian-Americans as well as twenty Sicilians. Since sociological factors can affect language contact and usage (Thomason 2001: 66), demographic information including age, sex, and educational level were sought. Subjects were asked to indicate with whom they used Sicilian in their families and their language preferences. Finally participants were asked an open-ended question concerning where they encountered Sicilian in the media. Data from these findings are presented in two groups: Usage of the Sicilian language by Sicilian-Americans and their descendants in the United States and language use of Sicilians living in Sicily.

1. Case Study: A Sicilian-American Family in New York

The family interviewed in the case study consisted of a 71-year-old widow, six adult children ranging in age from 28-39 and grandchildren ranging from 5 to 12. Participants were asked to complete a survey about language use, and provide an example of spontaneous and elicited speech. Results from the study reveal that the mother spoke Sicilian with the four oldest children and a mixture of Sicilian and English with the two youngest sons. The younger children reported that they understood what the mother said in Sicilian, would answer her questions in English and were reluctant to use Sicilian at all. Members of the second generation revealed that they spoke with siblings and cousins exclusively in English unless a member of the first generation was part of the conversation.

Providenza, the matriarch of the family, preferred to use Sicilian over Italian and English when given the opportunity. Often, loanwords from English were present in her discourse. When providing a spontaneous speech samples, she seemed to laugh and smile more when speaking Sicilian. With regards to other linguistic competencies, she preferred to write in Italian over English or Sicilian.

With regards to the second generation, most of the family members spoke Sicilian when older first generation adults initiated the discourse. While Sicilian was clearly preferred by the first generation member of the family, there was disparity in how members of the second generation responded to Sicilian discourse. When this multigenerational dialog did occur, there was much more code-switching in the second generation, especially in the younger group.

Members of the third generation in this study were all under the age of fourteen. Never once did they initiate Sicilian; however sometimes they would repeat something that their grandmother said. They would respond to commands including "close the door," "set the table" and "be quiet" by performing the action; however, they did not respond in the Sicilian language. Never once were members of the second generation observed to use Sicilian with third generation children. Third generation children were able to sing some short songs and rhymes in Sicilian that first generation had taught them; they did not, however, produce spontaneous speech. While children were able to point to household objects when the grandmother named them in Sicilian, they were either reluctant or unable to produce these words in Sicilian themselves.

Aside from observing linguistic behaviors of three generations of Sicilian-Americans, interviewees were asked to fill out a survey that dealt with language abilities and preferences. Below is a sample of some of the responses from second-generation interviewees. Anthony, a 39-year-old male said that he mostly spoke Sicilian with immediate family and when he was in Sicily. He said that for six months, he attended school in Sicily when the family was considering moving back there permanently, yet he ultimately ended up coming back to New York. He remembers as a 14--year--old youth he spoke Sicilian in the school yard with friends but said that he got in trouble in class if he was not speaking Italian. When asked if he could read it, he said, "I never had seen it written-I didn't know it was written. I thought it was a gutter language: you are not supposed to be reading or speaking Sicilian." When asked if he could write in Sicilian, he replied, "No, but if 1 am writing Italian, and if I don't know a word, I put it in Sicilian."

Anthony's sister, Rosaria, is one of the middle children of the family and responds to her mother in Sicilian and English, unlike the older children who speak exclusively in Sicilian with their mother. She spent the seventh grade in Sicily and reported that classes were in Italian and students were not allowed to speak with each other in Sicilian. If a student did speak Sicilian in school the teacher would tell them "the right way to say it in Italian." She reports using Sicilian at home with her mother and father. With her brothers and sisters she said she would use Sicilian, "only when we didn't want someone else to understand what we were saying in public." She said that when writing to family in Sicily, she would use Sicilian on social media sometimes and when talking to people born in Sicily, she would use it on the phone.

Another sister, Francesca, 35, said that she preferred to speak English when given the opportunity. When asked if she could read and write Sicilian, she replied that she had never attempted it. When living in Sicily for six months as a little girl she reported "that it was fashionable to speak Italian in Sicily. With the first cousins, we spoke Sicilian sometimes but with the second cousins, definitely Italian." Another fact that she noted was that her parents were from different regions of Sicily, her father hailing from Palermo and her mother from Catania. Because they had "different dialects" as she put it, words were different and it was difficult to know what "the right way to speak Sicilian" was. She was aware that the Sicilian that she spoke was different than that of her extended family in Sicily.

2. Survey of Sicilian-Americans about Language Preferences and Usage

The next part of the research involved a standardized survey, similar to that used in the data of Petrosino, which sought information about language preferences and usage among 20 Sicilian-Americans. Of the four proficiencies surveyed in Figure 1, understanding the Sicilian language was by far the ability that dominated. With regards to speaking the language, 67% of the interviewees reported that they possessed this ability. Those who reported not being able to speak the language had never visited or lived in Sicily. Of those whom reported the ability to read Sicilian, all had visited or lived in Sicily. Also there appeared to be interdependency in the ability to read and write the language.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

The common thread linking all interviewees residing in the United States to Sicilian language usage is having a relative with whom they primarily used the language to communicate. Data in Figure 2 illustrate that the 20 Sicilian-Americans interviewed were more likely to have an older relative originating from the country than a younger one. Participants were asked to further explain which languages that they preferred to speak with family members. Sicilian was preferred with older over younger family members.

Trends can be observed in the ways that the Sicilian-Americans surveyed used the language with their families. The participants surveyed overwhelmingly preferred to use only one language, with less than 15% of those surveyed reporting using both Italian and Sicilian with a specific family member. Of the 20 Sicilian-Americans surveyed, 43% reported using the language with their mother and 38% reported using the language with an aunt. Sicilian was the preferred language to use with grandparents over Italian. Only 10% of participants reported using Sicilian with their children. Similar to the results of the case study presented above, Sicilian usage with younger family members appears to be in decline.

Situational use outside the home was also explored among Sicilians living in the U.S. Data in Figure 3 indicate that Sicilian is used in less than 50 % of situations in its country of origin. These data reinforce that the Sicilian language is not likely to be used outside of the home, even in Sicily. Almost half of respondents reported to have used the language with a stranger, someone who was more comfortable in Sicilian than in English. Speaking on the telephone and with a butcher were additional situations in which Sicilian-Americans might use the language in the United States.

[FIGURE 3 OMITTED]

Participants in the study varied in their usage and exposure to the language. When asked where they had encountered the language in either written or spoken media, several responses included the internet. Social media such as YouTube and the Stupormundi channel were cited, as well as Sicilian News and BestofSicily.com. Facebook was another outlet to use the language. The author encountered at least twenty groups on the social media site that were linked to Sicilian language and heritage such as New York Sicilians and Sicilian Heritage Society. Others noted that they hardly had the opportunity to see or hear the language. One respondent wrote, "The only times 1 have heard Sicilian is when my grandparents were alive. They did not speak English at all, but I could pretty much understand them. I don't use it at all now." Another commented, "I have read in subtitles for mafia movies and heard it from Rai Italia singers." Another participant in the study also commented that it was the language of her grandparents; however, it was never taught to the grandchildren because the grandparents wanted them to become Americans and learn English.

On reading the language one Sicilian-American commented, "I've never read it. I can't even recognize it in writing except for the use of a lot of j's and more words ending in u. I've learned Italian formally. I will only try to imitate Sicilian when speaking with older Italians. (I naturally assume Italians in the NYC area are Sicilians, especially in Queens). Sicilian is more difficult than Italian, words seem more abbreviated and sounds flow into each other."

Another interviewee summed up his feelings on preservation of the Sicilian language in the United States given his own personal experience and those from people around him. He observes, "If your family emigrated to the U.S. from Sicily and they valued traditions and culture of Sicily, it is still very strongly used today daily, especially within our own families. It is a magical language we're all very proud and honored to have learned and will keep speaking it. Today it is hardly spoken, taught or understood in the very land it was derived in. I am very proud to be Sicilian."

3. Usage of Sicilian in Sicily

The final part of this study analyzed language usage of Sicilians living in Sicily. Of the twenty people interviewed, over half of those interviewed lived in Siracusa, Sicily. Other respondents were from Catania, Palermo and Bisacquino, Mazara del Vallo and Floridia. The electronic surveys were evenly distributed among men and women with various educational backgrounds. While 100% of those interviewed reported being able to speak, understand and read the language, only 42% of the participants reported being able to write in Sicilian. Like the data reported above from the Sicilian-Americans, writing again proved to be the weakest area among the four proficiencies; however, unlike Sicilian-Americans, all Sicilians in this survey reported being able to read the Sicilian language. When surveyed about language preference, the Sicilian data mirrored the Sicilian-American data. In summary, Sicilian was used with older family members with Italian serving as a competing language. Outside of the family, Sicilian was reported to be used situationally. Data in Figure 4 reflect language preference in the community.

[FIGURE 4 OMITTED]

When given the choice, the majority of respondents did not prefer to use Sicilian exclusively outside of the home. In all cases, Italian was the language of choice. In informal places of commerce such as the market and butcher, Sicilian was used; however, in more formal situations such as the bank, it was not. In the case of using Sicilian with a stranger, no one preferred to exclusively to use the language, confirming that the language is used when one is more comfortable with the person to whom he or she is speaking. This is contrary to the data reported by Sicilian-Americans who reported using Sicilian with strangers.

Further Discussion

In closing, much can be learned about the linguistic situation of Sicilians both in Sicily and in the United States. In both cases, the younger generation is using the language less than the older generation. Also in both cases the language is more likely to be used in the home with a close family member that is older rather than with someone who is younger. One thing that is different in Sicily than abroad is that Sicilians who have migrated or who are descendants of immigrants appear to have greater concern for the fate of Sicilian than those who live in Italy.

In New York, there have been efforts to revitalize the Sicilian Language with weekly meetings at cultural heritage associations, such as the Italian Charities of America (Fitzgerald-Crozier 1). Students use the text An Introduction to Sicilian Grammar (Bonner 2001). When Sicilians living in Sicily were asked whether they would like the opportunity to formally study the Sicilian language, only half reported they did. In addition, Arba Sicula, an international organization that promotes the language and culture of Sicily, has its headquarters in New York and their publication appears in both Sicilian and English and sponsors trips to Sicily so that Sicilian-Americans and others can become more familiar with the language and culture.

Both in Sicily and abroad, it is evident that the younger generation is losing the language. Among the third generation of Sicilian-Americans, members of this group are in danger of losing this language completely and it will not be passed on to their descendants. Some steps that may be taken include recording grandparents singing songs and telling stories in Sicilian. In addition, children could attend a playgroup or class with other children who are interested in the Sicilian language and culture. In each meeting, there could be a theme and children could be encouraged through play to implement the language. Second-and third-generation Sicilian-Americans might benefit from reading Sicilian literature. Some basic written words in Sicilian should also be used so that it becomes more recognizable. Books and journals by Sicilian authors should be requested at libraries, colleges and community centers so that the written Sicilian word is accessible. In Sicily as well, these strategies can also be applied; however, support from the government is needed to change existing language policy and in turn, linguistic attitudes.

Given the results of this study, there are ample opportunities for future research of the Sicilian language. Some possible topics include incentives to preserve the language, studies of reading in Sicilian, revitalization efforts, variations of Sicilian in Sicily, trilingual code--switching: Italian, Sicilian and English; birth order and language maintenance of Sicilian, and studies of attitude toward the Sicilian language.

CHRISTINE GUEDRI GIACALONE

College of Saint Elizabeth

Works Cited

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Thomason, Sarah. Language Contact: An Introduction. Washington D.C: Georgetown UP, 2001. Print. Fig. 2: Distribution of family members born in Sicily Percentage of relatives born in Sicily grandmother 19% sister 2% brother 2% mother 10% father 12% children 1% aunt 14% uncle 14% cousin 9% grandfather 17% Note: Table made from pie chart.