Siculish


Siculish is the macaronic "Sicilianization" of English language words and phrases by immigrants from Sicily to the United States in the early 20th century. The term Siculish is, however, rather recent, being first recorded in 2005.
Siculish was used to Sicilianize the names of American places among immigrant communities, such as Bensonhurst, New York becoming nicknamed "Bensinosti". Indeed New York itself became known as Nu Iorca.
Forms of Siculish are also to be found in other Sicilian immigrant communities of English-speaking countries, namely Canada and Australia. A surprising similarity can often be found between these forms, through either coincidence, trans-national movements of Sicilian immigrants, or more likely, through the logical adaptation of English using linguistic norms from the Sicilian language.
Some common Siculish terms and an explanation of their derivation :
Many children of Sicilian immigrants will often confuse actual Sicilian words for Siculish. This will especially occur where both the Sicilian and English languages have basically the same word derived from Norman. For example the following are Sicilian words that could be mistaken for being Siculish: anciòva means "anchovy", trubbulu means "trouble", damaggiu means "damage", raggia means "rage", tastari means "to taste" and truppicari means "to trip" - but they are examples of Sicilian and English words with the same Norman derivation.