Arba Sicula

Last updated

Arba Sicula (Sicilian: Sicilian Dawn) is a not-for-profit international society whose main objective is the preservation and promotion of the Sicilian language and culture. [1] Its administration is located in Mineola, New York. The majority of members are also from the United States, although there are also members from Sicily, Canada and other countries where Sicilian immigrants are found in large numbers. The society was founded in 1978.

Arba Sicula publishes two issues per year of its bilingual journal of the same name (although in recent years they have been combined into a single annual edition), [2] and the twice-yearly magazine Sicilia Parra (Sicilian for Sicily Talks). [3] Both publications are among the very few printed periodicals available in Sicilian. Both publications contain poetry, essays and news items about Sicily and the Siculo-American community. Arba Sicula also has a publishing arm, Legas, [4] which publishes many books on matters relating to Sicily and the Sicilian language (often bilingual, in English and Sicilian).

Gaetano Cipolla has been the president of Arba Sicula (and editor of the journal and magazine) for the last 18 years. He was also a professor of languages at St. John's University, New York for many years, [5] having recently retired. He has written books on Sicilian culture and language and has translated some of the most important Sicilian poetry into English, including the verses of the celebrated poets: Giovanni Meli and Nino Martoglio, along with the works of many modern poets and writers. [6] [7] [8]

While dedicated mainly to the Sicilian diaspora in North America, the organisation is also recognised amongst the various cultural and political institutions of Sicily itself. [9]

Related Research Articles

Sicilian language Italo-Dalmatian language spoken in Southern Italy

Sicilian is a Romance language that is spoken on the island of Sicily and its satellite islands. It also has a variant, Calabro-Sicilian, because it is also spoken in southern Calabria, where it is called Southern Calabro, specifically in the Metropolitan City of Reggio Calabria, whose dialect is viewed as being part of the continuum of Sicilian. Dialects of central and southern Calabria, the southern parts of Apulia and southern Salerno in Campania, on the Italian peninsula, are viewed by some linguists as forming with Sicilian dialects a broader Far Southern Italian language group.

Michele Amari

Michele Amari was an Italian patriot and historian.

Flag of Sicily Flag of the Italian region of Sicily

The flag of Sicily shows a triskeles symbol, and at its centre a Gorgoneion and a pair of wings and three wheat ears.

Movement for the Autonomies

The Movement for the Autonomies is a regionalist, Christian-democratic political party in Italy, based in Sicily. The MpA, whose founder and leader is Raffaele Lombardo, demands economic development, greater autonomy and legislative powers for Sicily and the other regions of southern Italy.

Francavilla di Sicilia Comune in Sicily, Italy

Francavilla di Sicilia is a town and comune in the Metropolitan City of Messina on the island of Sicily, southern Italy.

Isola delle Femmine Comune in Sicily, Italy

Isola delle Femmine is an Italian town in north-western Sicily, administratively part of the Metropolitan City of Palermo.

Gallo-Italic of Sicily

Gallo-Italic of Sicily is a group of Gallo-Italic languages found in about 15 isolated communities of central eastern Sicily. Forming a language island in the otherwise Sicilian language area, it dates back to migrations from northern Italy during the reign of Norman Roger I of Sicily and his successors.

Atanasiu di Iaci

Frate Atanasiu di Iaci or Athanasiu da Jaci was a Benedictine monk and historiographer from Aci. He wrote Vinuta di lu re Japicu in Catania (c.1295), a Sicilian chronicle of the arrival and stay of James I in Catania in May 1287. He may also be the author of another Sicilian history, Lu rebellamentu di Sichilia, written circa 1290, by an anonymous person of Messina. Vincenzo di Giovanni suggested that Atanasiu was of Saracen ancestry.

Southern Italy autonomist movements

In Italy, there are some active movements and parties calling for autonomy or even independence for the areas comprised within the historical Kingdom of the two Sicilies: that is, Southern Italy and/or the region of Sicily. No political movement promoting these ideas has ever been successful in gaining traction among the population. The movement remains on the fringes with no representation in the Italian parliament.

Madreterra

"Madreterra" is the official anthem of Sicily since 2003. It was the first regional anthem in Italy, and was written by Vincenzo Spampinato, whom was chosen after an official competition. However, other songs have been traditionally regarded as national anthems of Sicily. The lyrics are in Italian. Madreterra was performed in public for the first time at the Ancient theatre of Taormina on 14 June 2003 by the Sicilian Symphony Orchestra and the Musa 2000 Choir.

Gaetano Cipolla is a retired professor of Italian and Chairman of the Department of Modern Foreign Languages at St. John's University in New York City. He was born and raised in Francavilla di Sicilia in Messina Province, Sicily and emigrated to the US in 1955. He received his Bachelor of Science (1961) from New York University, Master of Arts (1969) from Hunter College (CUNY), and the PhD (1974) from New York University. He joined the faculty of St. John's University in 1974 and retired in 2011.

The Barbaresca or Barbaresca Siciliana is a breed of large fat-tailed sheep from the Mediterranean island of Sicily, in southern Italy. It derives from the cross-breeding between indigenous Sicilian Pinzirita sheep with fat-tailed Barbary sheep of Maghrebi origin. These were probably brought to the island after the Muslim conquest of Sicily in the 9th century; Arabic texts preserved at Agrigento document the movement of large numbers of sheep to the Sicilian interior.

Nino Terzo

Nino Terzo was an Italian actor.

Sicula Leonzio

Sicula Leonzio, also commonly known as Leonzio, is an Italian football club located in Lentini.

The Chronicle of Cambridge or Cambridge Chronicle, also known as the Tarʾīkh Jazīrat Ṣiqilliya, is a short, anonymous medieval chronicle covering the years 827–965. It is the earliest native Sicilian chronicle of the emirate of Sicily, and was written from the perspective of a Sicilian Christian of the 10th or 11th century. It survives in two versions: a Greek version in two manuscripts and an Arabic version in one. For years only the Arabic text kept in Cambridge University Library was known, but in 1890 a Greek redaction was discovered. The Greek texts are found in the Vatican Library and the Bibliothèque nationale de France. It has been translated into English, Italian and French.

Cademia Siciliana

Cademia Siciliana is a transnational non-profit organization founded in 2016 by a group of Sicilian language academics, activists, researchers, and students with the mission to promote the Sicilian language through education, research, and activism. The organization has published an orthographical proposal for the Sicilian language, and maintains several Sicilian language research and technology projects. Including translation and language advocacy projects for several popular applications and platforms such as Firefox, Telegram, Facebook and Android Keyboard.

Sicilian orthography uses a variant of the Latin alphabet consisting of 23 or more letters to write the Sicilian language.

Now Sicily is a regional centrist Italian political party active in Sicily.

References

  1. "Italian American Studies Association" . Retrieved 31 Dec 2017.
  2. "Arba Sicula, Vol. 35" . Retrieved 31 Dec 2017. an edition of Arba Sicula from 2014
  3. "Sicilia Parra, Vol. 28" . Retrieved 31 Dec 2017. an edition of Sicilia Parra from 2016
  4. "Legas Publishing" . Retrieved 31 Dec 2017.
  5. "NEIGHBORHOOD REPORT: BENSONHURST; Honors for a Poet Who Turns Life Into Verse in Bensinosti" . Retrieved 31 Dec 2017. An article in the New York Times which refers to both Prof. Cipolla and the work of Arba Sicula
  6. "Il bicentenario di Giovanni Meli e lo stato della lingua siciliana" (in Italian). Retrieved 31 Dec 2017.
  7. Pappalardo, Salvatore (2016). "Piero Carbone, The Poet Sings for All/Lu pueta canta pi tutti". Forum Italicum: A Journal of Italian Studies. 50 (3): 1266–1268. doi:10.1177/0014585816678835. This is a review of one of Prof. Cipolla's most recent translations, but also makes mention of his work over the past 40 years.
  8. "Catalogue of publications available through Arba Sicula" . Retrieved 31 Dec 2017.
  9. Scianò, Giuseppe (2004) SICILIA, SICILIA, SICILIA!, Edizione Anteprima, Palermo, p. 114: PER FORTUNA CHE C'È ARBA SICULA: Per associazione di idee, me viene in mente l'azione umana, culturale, "storica" e politica che l'Associazione Arba Sicula di New York ha portato avanti, inizialmente soltanto negli USA, per la difesa e per la tutela della lingua siciliana, quella vera, resa sacra dalle lacrime, dalla nostalgia, dall'amore, dalla volontà di lotta delgi Emigrati. Dei protagonisti, cioè, della Diaspora Siciliana. Colgo quindi l'occasione per dire al Presidente Gaetano Ciopolla ed a tutti i Soci che siamo grati...(in Italian)