Gallo-Italic of Sicily | |
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Italian: Gallo-italico di Sicilia Siculo-Lombard | |
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Native to | Northwest Italy |
Region | Central and eastern Sicily |
Native speakers | 60,000 (2006)[1] |
Indo-European
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Early forms | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | – |
Glottolog | None |
![]() Gallo-Italic is classified as Definitely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger |
Gallo-Italic of Sicily, (Italian: Gallo-italico di Sicilia) also known as the Siculo-Lombard dialects, (Italian: Dialetti siculo-lombardi) is a group of Gallo-Italic languages found in about 15 isolated communities of central eastern Sicily. Forming a language island in the otherwise Sicilian language area,[3][4] it dates back to migrations from northern Italy during the reign of Norman Roger I of Sicily[5] and his successors.
Towns inhabited by the new immigrants became known as the "Lombard communities" (Latin: oppida Lombardorum, Sicilian: cumuna 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 and Old Occitan) to become the Gallo-Italic of Sicily language family.
Gallo-Italic of Sicily evolved from Old Lombard, and thus related to Lombard more closely than other Gallo-Italic languages.
In Sicilia (Trovato 1998) si tratta dei dialetti di almeno ventiquattro località. Trovato (2002) tuttavia riconosce come ancora schiettamente gallo-italici solo i dialetti che condividono, tra le altre isoglosse settentrionali (➔ isoglossa), la dittongazione in sillaba libera tonica o davanti a palatale di ĕ ed ŏ latino: si tratta delle parlate di San Fratello (con l'ex-frazione di Acquedolci), San Pietro Patti, Montalbano Elicona, Novara di Sicilia (con l'ex frazione di Fondachelli-Fantina) in provincia di Messina; di Randazzo in provincia di Catania; di Nicosia, Sperlinga, Piazza Armerina e Aidone in provincia di Enna; di Ferla, Buccheri e Cassaro in provincia di Siracusa.