Is there a similarity between Spanish and Sicilian? Would It be fun to speak both, or make it harder?

Question

I am sicilian, but i do not fluently speak it...i only known little words. I am developing well in my spanish class. i would prefer taking sicilian... though, there is no classes offered at my school for italian or sicilian . . . i plan to learn sicilian in the future

Answer 1

d, Italian is what it is and Spanish is Spanish D

Answer 2

Yes. Sicilian, Calabrian, Apulian and Venetian are considered by most Romance linguists to be the Italian dialects most similar to Spanish. For example, Sicilian rizzo (ree-tsoh) "hedgehog" is phonologically more similar to Spanis erizo (ehr-ee-soh; Old Spanish ehr-ee-tshoh) than Standard Italian riccio (ree-chee-oh). Compare also Sicilian malu, Spanish malo "bad" but Standard Italian cattivo (related to French chétif "wretched).

Sicilian also has some links to Portuguese and Romanian (or Rumanian).

However, the two languages are still not mutually intelligible. Just because two languages are closely related to each other does not automatically mean that their speakers can understand each other. They probably have to be as close to each other as Dutch and Flemish or Dutch and Afrikaans before that is possible.

The strong similarities between Sicilian and Spanish do not necessarily mean that the two peoples are closely related to each other either. They simply mean that the ancestors of the Spanish and Sicilian peoples in the Roman Empire spoke a shared type of Vulgar (or Popular) Latin. Dalmatian, an extinct Romance language once spoken on the coast of Yugoslavia also has many features in common with Spanish not found in French or Standard Italian.

Answer 3

Spanish and Sicilian are both descendants of the Latin language. There are literally thousands of words as well as grammatical features shared between both languages. However, Spanish has imbibed Arabic and Germanic words more than Sicilian, which in turn has imbibed Phoenician and Greek more. Linguists say that Sicilian is the closest to Latin and therefore has the most cultured ancestry.

It would be cool to speak both languages, as they are somewhat mutually comprehensible.

Answer 4

My grandma is from Sicily, although she "lost her language" (her expression) growing up in the U.S. However, at 80 yrs old she watches the Spanish programs on TV and understands them.