Sicilian is a Romance language that is spoken on the island of Sicily and its satellite islands. It also has a variant, Calabro-Sicilian, because it is also spoken in southern Calabria, where it is called Southern Calabro, specifically in the Metropolitan City of Reggio Calabria, whose dialect is viewed as being part of the continuum of Sicilian. Dialects of central and southern Calabria, the southern parts of Apulia (Salentino dialect) and southern Salerno in Campania (Cilentano dialect), on the Italian peninsula, are viewed by some linguists as forming with Sicilian dialects a broader Far Southern Italian language group (in Italian italiano meridionale estremo).
Ethnologue describes Sicilian as being “distinct enough from Standard Italian to be considered a separate language”, and it is recognized as a minority language by UNESCO. It has been referred to as a language by the Sicilian Region. It has the oldest literary tradition of the modern Italian languages. A version of the “UNESCO Courier” is also available in Sicilian.
