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It’s not just an accent but a language of its own. Like Sicily itself, the dialect is a palimpsest created from foreign invasions and sounds like the exotic mix it is: a romance language with influences of Italian, Arabic, Latin, Greek, Lombard, Ligurian and English. Reflecting the fatalism of the populace, it has no future tense.

Fresh pasta, made of regular wheat flour, was made in Italy as early as the Etruscan era. Dried pasta, which can be stored, was most likely invented by the Arabs using Sicily’s semola , a hard durum wheat flour.

Many place names are Italian versions of original Greek or Latin names. Erice was known as Monte San Giuliano until 1934 when Mussolini went on a name-changing spree and adopted an Italian version of its original Greek name, Eryx. Arabic names remain in abundance – look for names with the prefixes Calta, Gibil and Sala.

Urban plans of modern towns often follow ancient street patterns. The area of narrow straight streets known as la pettina (the comb) in Syracuse is left over from the Greeks. The tiny, winding streets of Palermo’s old neighbourhoods such as La Kalsa or the street plan of Castelvetrano come from Arab settlements. Cefalù’s system of parallel streets leading down to the sea is Norman.

Sicily’s now famous fishing techniques were adapted from Arabic methods. Tuna fishermen still practise the matanza in the channel between Levanzo and Favignana, encouraging tuna through a system of nets until the final so-called “chamber of death” where they are brought close to the surface to be slaughtered. Fishermen work together chanting rhythmically to haul them aboard and to shore. Near Messina, swordfish are hunted from boats called feluche . The swordfish are spotted from the tall mast and harpooned from a long plank extending from the prow.

The Spanish introduced tomatoes, potatoes, chocolate and the cactus Fico d’India ; the Greeks introduced olive trees and grapevines; the Arabs brought citrus fruits, sugar cane, date palms, pistachios, flax, cotton and mulberries.

The Spanish protected Sicily’s coastline with more than 100 defensive towers. Messages were passed from one to the other by fire signals.

Greeks and Romans used aqueducts and water-powered mills, while Arabs introduced land irrigation.

The Romans began deforestation of the island to export timber and make way for wheat plantations. Sicily is now virtually treeless and the earth is easily washed away in heavy rains.

The system of single-owner wheat farms (latifondi ) was codified by the Normans, so by the 1880s farmers had to compete for miniscule plots of land, resulting in mass poverty and eventually, mass immigration.