The Sicilian Vowel System refers to the system of vowels in the Sicilian language. It is characteristic of the dialects of Sicily, Southern Calabria, and Salento. It may alternatively be referred to as the the Sicilian vocalic scheme or the Calabro-Sicilian vowel system. The Sicilian vowel system differs greatly from the "normal" evolution of the Classical Latin vowel system into the Vulgar Latin vowel system found in the greater part of the Romance area.

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  • The Sicilian Vowel System refers to the system of vowels in the Sicilian language. It is characteristic of the dialects of Sicily, Southern Calabria, and Salento. It may alternatively be referred to as the the Sicilian vocalic scheme or the Calabro-Sicilian vowel system. The Sicilian vowel system differs greatly from the "normal" evolution of the Classical Latin vowel system into the Vulgar Latin vowel system found in the greater part of the Romance area. In this system, there was a lowering (laxing) of short [i], [e], [o], and [u] into a seven-vowel system. In the development of the Sicilian vowel system from that of Classical Latin, long [e] was raised to [i] and fused with both quantities of [i]; short [e] was lowered to [ɛ] with an analogous development with the round vowels; i.e. long [o] was raised to [u] and fused with both quantities of [u]; short [o] was lowered to [ɔ]. This has resulted in a five-vowel system. Exact historical development of the Sicilian vowel system is unknown. In southern dialects with the Sicilian vowel system, the general raising of [e] and [o] to [i] and [u] means that it is impossible to tell whether to split off [from Proto-Romance] through not sharing in the merger of [short i] and [long e], involved Sardinian, Lucanian and Sicilian... Proto-Italo-Western was then defined as the "intermediate stage that was the parent of the Romance languages not included in the Southern or Eastern groups". An obvious quality of the Sicilian vowel system is the restriction of vowels other than the aforementioned five (a, è, i, ò, u). This results in the unstressed vowel [o] of Latin becoming an unstressed [u] in Sicilian. This causes the vowel [u] to have a far greater presence than the vowel [o] in Sicilian, while the opposite is true of other Romance languages such as Spanish and Italian (notwithstanding the conservative nature of Sicilian which retains the vowel of the Latin stems -us and -um). Likewise, the unstressed vowel [e] of Latin becomes unstressed vowel [i] in Sicilian. As a result, the vowel [i] has a much greater presence than vowel [e] in Sicilian. In addition, one will never find a Sicilian word ending in the unaccented vowels [e] or [o], with the exception of monosyllabic conjunctions. Due to the influence of Italian in the media post-World War II, as well as the recent influx of English terminology related to technology and globalization, there is an increasing number of words entering the Sicilian lexicon that do not adhere to the Sicilian vowel system. However, Sicilian is a vigorous language and historically, has always Sicilianized foreign loanwords over time.
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  • The Sicilian Vowel System refers to the system of vowels in the Sicilian language. It is characteristic of the dialects of Sicily, Southern Calabria, and Salento. It may alternatively be referred to as the the Sicilian vocalic scheme or the Calabro-Sicilian vowel system. The Sicilian vowel system differs greatly from the "normal" evolution of the Classical Latin vowel system into the Vulgar Latin vowel system found in the greater part of the Romance area.
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  • Sicilian Vowel System
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