Unique sounds

Sicilian has a number of consonant sounds which, though not unique to Sicilian, certainly set it
apart from the other major Romance languages. The most unusual sounds include, but are not
limited to, the retroflex consonants or cacuminals (Cipolla 2005).

 DD — The -ll- sound (in words of Latin origin, for example) manifests itself in Sicilian as
a voiced retroflex plosive with the tip of the tongue curled up and back, a sound which is
not part of standard (Tuscan) Italian. In standard literary Sicilian, this sound is written
simply as -dd- (but can also be found written ḍḍ, ddh or ddr). The sound itself is not [d]
but rather [ɖ]. For example, the Italian word bello [ˈbɛllo] is beddu [ˈbɛɖɖu] in Sicilian.
This sound [ɖɖ] also evolved from Latin -ll- in Sardinian and (to an extent) Asturian.
 DR, TR — Similarly, Sicilian has a unique pronunciation of the digraphs -tr- and -dr- as
[tʃɹ] and [dʒɹ], not common to Italian. The sound of -tr- is exactly like that heard in
English tree and the sound of -dr- exactly like the digraph heard in English dragon.
 RR — The Sicilian consonant cluster -rr- also differs from standard Italian in that it is a
voiced retroflex sibilant ([ʐ] according to IPA notation). At the beginning of a word, the
single letter -r- is similarly always pronounced double, though this is not indicated
orthographically. Therefore, the -rr- sound heard in the words riccu and terra is similar to
the 'zh' sound in English vision or the 'j' sound in French jour. This phenomenon,
however, does not include words that include an 'r' resulting from rhotacism (renti from
denti) or assimilation (ranni from granni).
 STR — The trigraph -str- in Sicilian is [ʃɹ], quite different from the Italian form of the
trigraph. The t is not pronounced at all and there is a faint whistle between the s and the r,
the latter not being trilled as would be the case in Italian (Cipolla 2005). An example of
this trigraph is the shr sound heard in English shred.

 Latin FL — The other unique Sicilian sound is found in those words that have been
derived from Latin words containing -fl-. This has generally become fi in Italian, for
example, fiume from Latin flumen (river). In standard literary Sicilian, the sound is
rendered as ci (representing the voiceless palatal fricative [ç]), e.g. ciumi or /çjumi/, (but
can also be found in written form as hi, sci, x or çi). The sound approximates to an
allophone of English language /h/ before /ju/ as in words like huge, but slightly more
fricative (Cipolla 2005).
 Sicilian Vowel System — One obvious difference from Italian is what linguists describe as
the Sicilian Vowel System. Unlike the seven vowels shared by Italian, Vulgar Latin, and
many other Romance languages, the Sicilian Vowel System only includes five: a [a], è
[ɛ], i [i], ò [ɔ], u [u]. This results in the unstressed vowel o of Latin becoming an
unstressed u in Sicilian (Hull). 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 u 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, the future of these borrowings is uncertain as Sicilian has always
Sicilianized foreign loanwords over time in the past.
 Consonantal Palatalization — A further range of consonantal sound shifts occurred
between the Vulgar Latin introduced to the island following Norman rule and the
subsequent development of the Sicilian language. These sound shifts include: Latin -nd-
to Sicilian -nn-; Latin -mb- to Sicilian -mm-; Latin -pl- to Sicilian -chi-; and Latin -li- to
Sicilian -gghi- Pitrè 1875.