<BR> <BR>Has anyone heard of Hotel Kaos in Agrigento? I'm looking for a way to contact this hotel. <BR> <BR>Also, I've heard people say that the Italian in Sicily is different than that in "the boot". Any comments?

Up up and away!

My Italian in-laws tell me that Italian is indeed the spoken language of Sicily, but it may be considered to be spoken with an accent. It could be difficult for someone to understand just as someone who learned "textbook" English might have a problem understanding the US "southern drawl".

Sorry, but though italian is the native language, there is a whole lot more to it than their accent. <BR>They speak sicilian. It is nothing like italian. <BR>I know for a fact just because you speak perfectly italian, does not mean you can get around their "accent" and understand. <BR>They have their own dictionary, I have seen it. <BR>However, as long as you are in cities you won't have a problem, pratically everyone speaks italian. <BR>It is usually a problem in smaller towns. The old generally don't speak a perfect italian either. <BR>

Wanted to ad that it is different from the "boot" just as all the other regions because each region has its own dialect. <BR>You will just find that dialects are used more often in the south than the north.

Sicilian is considered by most linguists to be a separate language, which is to say even more different from Italian than a separate dialect, of which there are plenty in Italy. To give you a corollary, Occitan, which is spoken in the SW of France is a separate language from French. The word for bread, for example, in French is "le pain," and in Occitan is "lou pan." So there are obvious latinate similarities, but not ones the average traveler would necessarily be able to make in speaking, or to understand when listening. That said (and I haven't been to Sicily), I have heard from visitors to Sicily that their Italian worked pretty well for them, at least in major towns and cities.

Seconding micia's observations on languages.... <BR> <BR>Ph# for Hotel Kaos is 39.0922.606733 <BR>Fax# is 39.0922.607839 <BR> <BR>Buon Viaggio! <BR>BC <BR>

Everyone in Sicily except very elderly unschooled people can speak Italian. Italian is taught in school all over Italy. However, many, or maybe most, Sicilians like to speak Sicilian to friends and family. But they will speak Italian to foreigners and people from other regions. If you can speak and understand Italian, you should be able to communicate with everyone except maybe very old people in the country and little towns. Generally Sicilians will have a Sicilian accent when they speak Italian, just as Venetians have a Venetian accent (and in the US people from Boston and south Carolina and Minnesota all tend to have some degree of regional accent when they speak American English.) <BR> <BR>The Sicilian dialect is actually a “language.” It is not a variation of Italian, and it is not a substandard form of speech. <BR> <BR> <BR> The dialects in Italy developed in various geographic areas of the peninsula on their own, from Latin. (They are not variations of Italian because “Italian” did not necessarily come first; instead both Italian and the dialects are derived from Latin.) Some dialects, e.g., Dante's Tuscan, Sicilian, Friulan, may have become more standardized because of their use in respected writings, while others, e.g., Lucanian, were primarily just a way of talking. While the dialects of Italy are all Romance tongues, some do have more non-Latin origin words than others. Sicilian, for example, has numerous words of Greek and Arabic origin.In the last century or so, most of the dialects changed to become a little less unique and more like Italian, for various reasons, e.g., unification and more widespread learning of Italian (and people's blending of their two ways of speaking), mass media, travel, migration to other regions for employment, schooling, etc. <BR> <BR>There was well known literature written in the Sicilian vulgate even BEFORE Dante decided to write in his Tuscan vulgate, which developed into the standard “Italian” of today. There are regional variations of Sicilian; it sounds quite different in the west and the east of Sicily. There are also many local variations in each little town. There’s such a thing as “good” Sicilian grammar. Sicilian is very much a live language, more so than Occitan in southern France. Most Sicilians are at the very least bilingual and completely fluent and comfortable in both Sicilian and Italian. Many people believe that it is worth making an effort to keep the language alive, and I read recently that the Sicilian Parliament has passed a law mandating the teaching of Sicilian in public schools. <BR>

<BR> <BR>Thank you all for your thoughtful responses. It's always impressive to see the amount of knowledge collected here. <BR> <BR>(I apologize for not replying sooner, but my internet connection went byebye lastnight.)

Dear E, <BR>Me again! I can tell you this.....your Italian will work just fine. The Sicilian people are very forgiving if you "butcher" their language and will even help you with your pronunciation with a smile. Very proud people with good reason.

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