Sulle concordanze linguistiche della parlata di Piana degli Albanesi (PA) con la Sicilia orientale

Abstract

Some historiographical studies today confirm to orally handed down information about a 'stopover' in eastern Sicily of Albanian colonists who, at the end of the 15th century, would settle definitively in western areas of the island. Is it possible to trace today, in their Siculo-Albanian speech, traits that are linguistically justified by a contact with eastern Sicilian varieties and that, in turn, count as further evidence of a historical situation that could have allowed such linguistic outcomes? Such a question had been posed by Birken Silverman in a 1989 essay entitled Concordanze linguistiche della parlata di Piana degli Albanesi con la Sicilia orientale [Linguistic Concordances of the Piana degli Albanesi dialect with Eastern Sicily], but upon closer examination, almost all the traits taken into consideration to support the analytic viewpoint proposed in the title of the essay by the German scholar turn out to be irrelevant. Such a viewpoint could be (re)considered, if not supported entirely, through other and different linguistic traits taken into consideration in the second part of the essay. Today these traits seem to be found, only, or mostly, in varieties of eastern Sicily, and particularly in the north-eastern Gallo-Italic and/or those with strong Gallo-Italic influence.