Sicilianisms

Noun

Sicilianism (countable and uncountable, plural Sicilianisms)

1. The ensemble of customs, mentality and attitudes traditionally attributed to Sicilians.
   • Leonardo Sciascia, for example, views the motif of the dissolution of individual identity as an aspect of Pirandello's Sicilianism rather than as a reflection of the vaster Western crisis of identity.1997, Fiora A. Bassanese, Understanding Luigi Pirandello, University of South Carolina Press, page 158
2. A word or phrase identified as being Sicilian (language or Italian dialect), as written in Sicily or by a Sicilian, or as expressive of Sicilian mentality or attitudes.
   • In proving or testing for Sicilianism or Ferrarism amongst the MSS. tabulated above, we must be to a large extent dependent upon fresh examinations and further collations. It is, however, interesting to note that in the case of some of the MSS. referred to, including the less accessible of them...1900, J. Rendel Harris, Further Researches into the History of the Ferrar-Group, C. J. Clay and Sons, Cambridge University Press, page 76
3. Sicilian nationalism; a political movement within Sicily, and to some extent in the Sicilian diaspora, which seeks greater autonomy or even full independence for Sicily from Italy and promotes Sicilian identity in terms of culture, history and language; also used historically.
   • 2009 [Pearson Education Ltd], Martin Clark, The Italian Risorgimento, 2nd Edition, 2013, Taylor & Francis (Routledge), page 23,
     ‘Sicilianism’ was conservative and aristocratic, but it was a real separatist threat to the weak and remote Bourbon government in Naples.