Sicilians speak Sicilian, and most also know standard Italian. The difference between the Sicilian language, and Italian language is similar to the difference between French and Haitian Creole. There are also many different dialects within the Sicilian language.

Sicilian Language is different from Italian. Just like the other romance languages (French, Spanish, or Portuguese) are different from Italian. The Sicilian grammar shares the same fundamentals as the other Latin language and, in my opinion, has a closer relation to Spanish grammar.

sicilian dialect

Sicilian has less than 80% lexical similarity to Italian, which makes it s separate language, not a dialect.

See related links for a summary of distinct features of Sicilian.

The heritage of the Arabic language can still be found in numerous terms adapted from it.