Die englische Wikipedia weiß von einer Romanisierung im Mittelalter nichts zu berichten,
Doch, eigentlich schon, wenn er diesbezgl. auch etwas ambivalent ist. Im Übrigen sind die Arabismen in dem Artikel teil in italienischer, teils in englischer Umschrift angegeben, was etwas verwirrend ist (besonders aufgefallen ist mir das bei "
giuggiulena – sesame seed (from
giulgiulan), (
Giarrizzo)"
جلجلان :rechts: dt. Trskrpt: ǧulǧulān, engl. Trskrpt: juljulān).
Ein Abschnitt, der so wirkt, als sei Sizilien bereits in der Antike romanisiert worden und das Sizilianische habe danach allenfalls noch Einflüsse von außen erhalten, ist dieser hier:
Similarly, we might know that a particular word has a
Greek origin, but we do not know from which Greek period the Sicilians first used it (pre-Roman occupation or during its
Byzantine period), or once again, whether the particular word may even have come to Sicily via another route. For instance, by the time the Romans had occupied Sicily during the 3rd century BC, the Latin language had made its own borrowings from Greek (
Ruffino).
Dazu passt dann auch die Annahme, dass Sizilianisch die erste aus dem lateinischen Sprachverbund ausgescherte romanische Einzelsprache gewesen sei:
Some assert that Sicilian represents the oldest Romance language derived from
Vulgar Latin (
Privitera, 2004), but this is not a widely held view amongst linguists, and is sometimes strongly criticized (
2004, p. 151).
Dies würde voraussetzen, das Sizilien nach den Punischen Kriegen nachhaltig romanisiert worden sei und auch in der byzantinischen Epoche und nach der aġlabidischen Eroberung diese Sprache durchgängig von einem signifikanten Bevölkerungsanteil gesprochen worden sei.
Difiziler und differenzierter stellt es dann aber folgender Abschnitt dar:
Vulgar Latin was spoken by the Roman occupation troops who garrisoned Sicily after Rome annexed the island (after the end of the
First Punic War, ca. 261 BC). A historical feature shared by Sicily, the far south of
Calabria, and the
province of Lecce, is that during the Roman period,
these areas were never completely Latinised. Greek remained the main language for the majority of the population. This helps explain the
linguistic differences in these areas and those immediately to the north which were, more or less, Latinised (
Hull). It is also why
Sicilian is often referred to as a neo-Latin language – it did not descend directly from Latin (although some linguists disagree with that view, see below).
Oder:
Throughout the Islamic epoch of Sicilian history,
a large Greek-speaking population remained on the island and continued to use the Greek language, or most certainly a variant of Greek influenced by Arabic (
Hull). What is
less clear is the extent to which a Latin-speaking population survived on the island. While
a form of Vulgar Latin clearly survived in isolated communities during the Islamic epoch, there is much debate as to the influence it had (if any) on the development of the Sicilian language, following the
re-Latinisation of Sicily (discussed in the next section). There are f
ew Sicilian words reflecting an archaic Latin form (as may be found, for example, in
Sardinian or Romanian ), so the influence may have been minor (
Hull). However,
some forms do exist, so the tantalising prospect of a Sicilian form of a Vulgar Latin surviving the Islamic period and influencing the modern development of Sicilian remains open (as already mentioned,
Privitera puts forward the radical proposition that medieval Sicilian descends directly from a form of Vulgar Latin that survived throughout the Byzantine and Islamic periods).
Wenn im heutigen Sizilianischen im Unterschied zu anderen italoromanischen Sprachen sich Spuren des Gotischen/Langobardischen oder der Sprachen der autochthonen vorpunischen/vorgriechischen Bevölkerung wiederfinden, dann ist das ein ziemlich schwerwiegendes Indiz für eine Romanisierung der Insel bereits in der Antike und für ein Überleben dieser romanischen Sprache über die byzantinische und aġlabidische Herrschaft hinaus.
Speziell in der Sektion MA ist dann dort zu lesen:
The whole of Sicily was controlled by
Saracens, at the elite level, but the general population remained Greek-speaking and predominantly Orthodox Christian.
Von einer romanischsprechenden Bevölkerung ist hier also nicht mehr die Rede. Weiter heißt es dann:
In the process, the
revitalization of Latin in Sicily had begun [...] Many
Norman words were to be absorbed by the
new language during this period
[...]
The Normans brought with them not only their own Norman-speaking kin (more than likely in quite small numbers) but also mercenaries from mainland Italy. In particular, they included Lombards (with their
Gallo-Italic idiom, ancestral to the modern
Lombard language) and other Italians from around
Campania. The latter would bring with them the
Vulgar Latin from that region, an idiom not too different from that to be found in central
Italy at the time (
Hull).
Further migrations to settle the depopulated areas were encouraged from the mainland by Roger; in particular, Italian settlers from areas controlled by the
Roman Catholic Church. The western parts of Sicily were colonised by migrants from Campania, and the central-eastern parts by settlers from the western
Padan Plain (AKA
Po River Valley) in northern Italy, who also brought with them a Gallo-Italic idiom. After the death of Roger I and under the regency of
Adelaide del Vasto during the minority of her son,
Roger II (herself from northern Italy), the process of Lombardic colonisation was intensified (
Hull and
Norwich). The main factors that go into framing modern Sicilian language can be seen. The Vulgar Latin base (predominantly from Campania) was similar to the Vulgar Latin in central Italy (and therefore, by implication, reasonably similar to the Vulgar Latin in Tuscany that would eventually form the base for the national language). This base from Campania was influenced by the many Gallic influences present in Sicily at the time, namely Norman, French and Langobardic. There were also remnants of the Arabic and Greek idioms that the new language eventually replaced, but hundreds of words remained in the vocabulary of the changing Romance language.
Die zuletzt zitierten Abschnitte sollten auch Antwort auf diese Frage geben:
Gibt es denn irgendwelche Hinweise, dass festländische Dialekte die Grundlage des Sizilanischen darstellen?