Siculo-Arabic

1. Oh you’re from Sicily?
2. Yeap.
1. Nice. Home of the Mafia? [smile]
2. You got it [smile]
1. But it’s not so much anymore. You used to hear it a lot more back in the day.
2. There’s too many things going on in the world
1. So the people in Sicily have black hair?
2. Oh yeah.
1. Serious?
2. Yeah and they have darker skin…
1. Do they look Arabic?
2. Oh sure…
1. But you have white Arabs and dark Arabs.
2. Well they look different then the people of the north, plus Sicily has had other cultures live there.
1. Yeah Arab Muslims lived there for 200 years. They actually had a Emirate there, an Islamic state.
2. Oh ok…yeah well you can tell by looking at the people that there has been mixture.
1. Arabic was spoken all over Sicily. And guess what, when they were expelled by the Normans, a number of them went to Malta.
2. Oh. Well actually it’s just a ferry ride away…like 4 hours.
1. Wow that long?
2. Yeah.
1. Yeah so anyway, if you listen to Maltese, it sounds Arabic.
2. Hmm.
1. Yeah like half of Maltese is Arabic. It’s the only Semitic language that uses Latin…it’s because the Arabic came from Sicily and influenced Maltese. They call this Arabic Siculo-Arabic…because it originated in Sicily.
2. Wow…that’s pretty cool.