Best Learning Materials for English Speakers

I feel like everyone has amassed their own personal collections of materials to help learn. Here let's list what worked for us and what didn't! I'll start!

I bought a big collection of things, but ultimately I didn't gain much value from any of them. Ultimately I found the Sicilian language Wikipedia (scn.wikipedia.org) and Wikizziunariu (scn.wikitionary.org) the most useful. I realise though that since I'm already conversational in my village's dialect my goals are different than many others. My goal is mostly communication with others and literacy, whereas others are trying to start from scratch. I realise now after a long journey how different our variants are and how much I would have preferred each of them being labelled such.

Our YouTube Learn Sicilian Series

Sicilian-English, English-Sicilian Dictionary & Phrasebook by Joseph F. Privitera
https://books.google.com/books?id=hBsOHgAACAAJ&dq

Beginner's Sicilian by Joseph F. Privitera
https://books.google.com/books?id=Z6UJAAAACAAJ&dq

Introduction to Sicilian Grammar by J. Kirk Bonner
https://books.google.com/books?id=licBAAAACAAJ&dq

Learn Sicilian / Mparamu lu sicilianu by Gaetano Cipolla
https://www.amazon.com/Sicilian-Mparamu-sicilianu-English-Italian/dp/1881901890

Check out the huge list of Sicilian musicians thread here.

I think more importantly than teaching me anything, these books helped me conceptualise my language differently, and that's where they gave me the most value! The Bonner book I will say I preferred to the others though. Your turn!

 

This memrise set looks pretty good. Anyone use it?

Here's another course: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Sicilian

 

Bonner and Cipolla are pretty good, I found Privitera far too basic and and the language a bit too Italianised. Giuseppe Pitre's Grammatica Siciliana, written about 100 years ago, stands up very well, and is worth tracking down for those ultra keen on collecting Sicilian texts. For those interested in standardising written Sicilian, it's hard to go past Pitre's work.

For those keen to explore further, Arba Sicula has a massive range of books and periodicals written in Sicilian (but note, none of it is standardised, they allow a massive range of usage).

In terms of reference materials, it's hard to go past the Piccitto dictonaries (set of five), and the Camilleri dictionary is the best Italian to Sicilian dictionary I have found. Giarizzo's dizionario etimilogico is good for those interested in philology.

Some fantastic materials are available online. I once downloaded Pitre's collection of fairy tales, which formed part of his Biblioteca delle tradizioni popolari siciliane, very enjoyable reading. You can also stumble across other texts written in Sicilian published pre-unification.

 

This is a useful link, everything to do with Giuseppe Pitrè on Google books:
https://www.google.ch/search?hl=fr&tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=inauthor:"Giuseppe+Pitrè"

Here you'll mind many of Pitrè's works in both Sicilian and in English.

 

great stuff! keep adding anything else you think of, eventually we'll compile it into one nice document

 

Thanks Paul. By the way, it's a shame this forum is not better utilised. I find facebook a bit too higgly piggly for my liking, whereas a forum like this is a better site to place items within relevant threads, making it much easier to reference, etc. Hopefully, once the main decision-making process is finalised, we can make better use of this forum. Over time, perhaps we can set up collaboration spaces where different people can work on translations together, share ideas, proof read, etc, etc.