Sicilian | |
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sicilianu | |
Native to | Italy |
Region | Sicily |
Ethnicity | Sicilians |
Native speakers | 4.7 million (2002)[1] |
Dialects | |
Official status | |
Recognised minority language in | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-2 | scn |
ISO 639-3 | scn |
Glottolog | sici1248 |
Linguasphere | 51-AAA-re & -rf
(mainland 51-AAA-rc & -rd) |
![]() Sicilian as part of the Central-southern Italian linguistic area
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This article is part of the series on the |
Sicilian language |
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History |
Literature and writers |
Linguistics |
Organisations |
Sicilian (Sicilian: sicilianu, Sicilian: [sɪ(t)ʃɪˈljaːnu]; Italian: siciliano) is a Romance language that is spoken on the island of Sicily and its satellite islands.[3] It belongs to the broader Extreme Southern Italian language group (in Italian italiano meridionale estremo).[4]
Ethnologue (see below for more detail) describes Sicilian as being "distinct enough from Standard Italian to be considered a separate language",[3] and it is recognized as a minority language by UNESCO.[5][6][7][8] It has been referred to as a language by the Sicilian Region.[2] It has the oldest literary tradition of the Italo-Romance languages.[9][10] A version of the UNESCO Courier is also available in Sicilian.
(20th ed. 2017)