IN THE BACK of the jeep driving us to the village of Gangi, I have a problem. A typical British tourist, I’d thought I’d be able to get by on our walking tour of Sicily with just slithers of Italian: grazie, per favore, più vino.
Failing that, I think, yawning and stretching flight-tired limbs, my partner—fluent in Italian—can make up for my shortcomings. But as he attempts to launch into easy banter with our driver, it’s clear the Sicilian language is a beast all its own.
“Is the dialect in Gangi closer to Spanish than Italian?” We’re met with a wry chuckle.
“More like Arabic”.
As it turns out, my thin grasp of
