Gallo-Italic of Sicily
| Gallo-Italic of Sicily | |
|---|---|
| Italian: Gallo-italico di Sicilia Siculo-Lombard | |
| Native to | Sicily |
| Region | Central and eastern Sicily |
Native speakers | 60,000 (2006) |
Indo-European
| |
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, it dates back to migrations from northern Italy during the reign of Roger I, the Norman Grand Count of Sicily, and his successors.
Towns inhabited by the new immigrants became known as the "Lombard communities" (Latin: oppida Lombardorum, Sicilian: pajisi 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.