Italian is a language descended from the everyday Latin of the late Roman Empire. Not so with Sicilian. Because of its unique history, the language of the island is still Romance based, but contains many borrowings fro Greek, Arabic, Norman-French, Castilian, and even some German. So, for example, the Italian word for priest is "sacerdote," while in Sicilian the word derives from the Greek and is "presti."
Likewise, spia is the word for spia in Italian, but in Sicilian it is sciortino (which can also mean guard) coming from the Arabic. But, be careful, this does not mean that Sicilians with "presto" as part of their surnames all hail from Greece, or that the Sciortinos who live down the street are of Arabic origin. Only the name, not the family, has that derivation.
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