Maltese e Siciliano, Maltesi e Siciliani .... a contatto : alcuni esempi

Abstract

This article gives a brief overview of socio-cultural contacts between Malta and Sicily, as well as reproducing a number of literary texts which were written in Malta in the course of the centuries and which contain evident Sicilian influences. If the texts written in Medieval times were of a clear notarial-administrative origin, as from the 15th/16th century onwards, Sicilian influences can be encountered in a number of literary texts, ranging from Caxaro’s Cantilena (min ibiddel l-imkien ibiddel il-vintura – cui muta locu muta vintura), to Attardo de Vagnoli’s Parenti certu sì di tali pasta, to the Abate Boccadifuoco’s 18th century Intermezzo. Though less frequently, this Sicilian vein in Maltese literary pieces spills on into the 19th century, as in the two compositions (Fama volat et virtus occulta perit and Lu Licuri) in Carmelo Camillieri’s 19th century newspaper Nafras u Colombu as well as into the 20th century (vide John F. Marks’s 1931 Il Lingwa Nostra).