marcin
(Marcin)
#1
SICILY
At the beginning of the century, Sicilian
dialect could be considered the unofficial
language of a people and territory. For the
lower classes it represented virtually the
only linguistic code in use, nor was the
“Sicilian tongue” perceived as diminutio: the
national language remained an expression of
other realities, both geographic and social: it
was the language of the rich (as diabetes was
regarded a disease of the rich) and of the
North: of people from the “continent.”
Illiteracy in Sicily reached extremes of
70.89% in the demographic census of 1901, of
56.97% the next decade, as compared to a
national average that reached, respectively,
48.49% and 37.43%.^1 If after the draft a
recruit tended to reproduce extraneous