Sicilian from A to Z: the surprising “Abecedario” by Roberto Alajmo

There is a great little book that can be useful to those who still think that Sicilian – like Neapolitan, Bergamo, Bari, perhaps even more so Sardinian – is just a dialect. Because it is enough to read even just some of the 150 definitions, words in common use in the parts of the island, to discover how the Sicilian language is a treatise on history, a concentration of dominations, an almost state of mind, with those hundreds, thousands of nuances, which can totally change the meaning of a sentence while always using the same words.
Sicilian primer Of Roberto Alajmo, journalist, writer, man of culture who for many years also directed the Teatro Biondo in Palermo, is not just a book just published by Sellerio. No, it is more of a short treatise on anthropology which certainly amuses the Sicilians who read it but also opens up a world to those who are not Sicilian and often fail to fully grasp its meaning.
Let’s take the verb catch up, which opens Alajmo’s volume. He explains it like this: “Bring to level, lift, rise. But in a figurative sense: arriving at a new and greater dimension. Acchianata is the first visit of the fiancé who goes to meet the relatives of the future bride. It is said of people who have made the leap towards a different quality of life: – she took care of it. The highest degree of acchianata is the electoral one, of those who are elected and can consider themselves out of trouble for the rest of their existence. In this case, however, before getting ready you need to get to grips with the verb to stand for elections….”.
You understand that it seems easy to understand a sentence in Sicilian, and we are certainly not talking about one of the most incomprehensible dialects – sorry, language. What becomes complicated is interpreting what is said and what is hidden behind what is said. And which can only be deciphered by a gesture, a grimace on the face, a more or less tone loadedjust to stay on topic.
The dominations, it was said, starting from the Arab one which left culture, monuments and food in Sicily. And commonly used words like choked, or he who, coming from a long fast, throws himself without restraint into food. “It is not difficult to imagine that the origin is to be found in the custom of the banquet which concludes the Ramadan fast – explains Alajmo – to which the devotees arrive ferociously hungry. The stigma of the foreigner is found in the fact that the accusation of being vulgarly hungry is always directed at someone else: – Such is the one who is lafnato!
But come on muggle a Cabbagea term now cleared by Camilleri, from cosciuliar a flashyes matapollo a zaurdo, there is a complete tour of Sicily to be done, from West to East, from Vigàta by Inspector Montalbano to Màkari by Gaetano Savatteri. In short, reading Sicilian primer you can go somewhere, everywhere. Where the suffix yes it is nothing more than the English equivalent ever. Whenever, wherever, whoever, however, whatever what else are they if not when, where, when, how e ‘nzoccegghiè?