Palermo 2000–2020: Sicilian in Old and New Migrations

This article will focus on the comparison between language attitudes and the status and functions of local dialect into migrant communities over the last twenty years. The first research started in the first years on the third Millennium and is being conducted (using narrative interview) within hundred young and adult migrants born in Palermo or residents in the city for years. In D’Agostino ( 2004, 2006, 2010), I suggested that very often the dialect was seen by migrants as a bridge thrown by the host society to favour their insertion, like “we code” shared by foreigners and natives who live in the same spaces within the city. It is been several years that the older migration has integrated a new form of migration coming mainly from Sub-Saharan Africa and joining Sicily through the Mediterranean Sea. It is characterized by some elements: the young age (some of the are minors at the moment of arrival), the absence of family networks in the city, the inclusion in a reception system with strongly segregating aspects. Due to the physical, spatial and social segregation in which a great part of the new migrants live for long periods waiting for the definition of their own status. Today, the processes of cultural and linguistic contacts take place in an extremely difficult way because of the absence of sharing of places and tongues with both the autochthones and the old migration, thus determining weak social exchanges. The relationships with the dialect of these new migrations has started being investigates (D’Agostino 2018) and can be seen as a strong signal of the characteristics of new migration models. The details that will be taken into consideration are both qualitative (also using narrative interviews) as well as quantitative (surveys) ones.