Assabenedica

In Sicily, a historical way to greet someone, especially to show reverence to a person more senior than you, is to say Assabenedica. This word, which translates as “May God bless you”, might rarely be heard these days except amongst older people in rural villages but its possible etymology takes you on a fascinating journey through the island’s history.

The first two syllables are the same as the Arabic greeting As-salamu alaykum, meaning “peace be upon you”. If you take the full phrase, As-Salamu ʿalaykum wa-raḥmatu Allahi wa-barakatuhu, this is translated as “may the peace, mercy, and blessings of Allah be upon you”, a very similar sentiment to Assabenedica. This has led to one popular theory that the Sicilian greeting partly stems from its Arabic counterpart.

Why has a word with possible roots in Arabic made its way into Sicilian dialect? The story of this island just off the mainland of Italy is one of conquest from various powers. Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Normans and Spaniards have all at various times battled to take control of this strategic location in the Mediterranean, with the Muslim Aghlabids establishing the Emirate of Sicily in the ninth century some time in between Roman (or more specifically Byzantine) and Norman control.

Before I fall too far down a historical rabbit hole, the Aghlabid dynasty hailed from North Africa, originally encompassing territory in modern-day Algeria, Tunisia and Libya. This was an Arabic dynasty with ties to the Abbasid Caliphate which would end up pushing into the Mediterranean, conquering Malta and possibly Sardinia alongside Sicily and other parts of southern Italy.

The Aghlabid dynasty didn’t end up converting Sicilians to Islam but its greater impact was on the Arabicisation of the island’s culture, particularly in the southern part of the island. It introduced crops like citrus fruits and almonds, as well as transforming the settlement of Palermo into a thriving metropolis. Cannoli, Sicily’s famous pastries, have also been influenced from this period, with the word’s roots possibly coming from the Arabic word for tubes, qanawāt.

This historical legacy is why the Sicilian dialect contains hundreds of loanwords from Arabic, bringing us back to where I started. The second half of the phrase Assabenedica has clearer etymological roots, coming from the Latin benedicere which means to bless. From this verb we get benedico (I bless), itself the origins of the name Bendico which is given to both the dog in Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s masterful novel The Leopard and a certain language school in London…