Santa Cristina Gela

Santa Cristina Gela or "Sëndahstinë" in its local language, is an Arb%C3%ABresh%C3%AB village in the province of Palermo in Sicily. As of 2007 Santa Cristina Gela had an estimated population of 919.cite web | url=http://www.world-gazetteer.com/wg.php?men=gpro&des=gamelan&geo=460747333 | title="The World Gazetteer" | accessdate=2007-02-24]

Common Surnames

Common names in the village are:Criscione, Cucciarré, Di Maggio, Mandalá, Matranga, Musacchia (an Italianisation of the Albanian tribe name Myzeqe), Palermo, Polizzi and Rocca.

History

Santa Cristina Gela was founded in the late 18th century by a group of four farmer families from Piana degli Albanesi.

In 1890 CE the parish priest of the village, Papas Gaetano Arcoleo, changed the rite of mass from Byzantine catholic to Latin rite.The original Albanian village from where the ancestors of Santa Cristina Gela came is Himara [reference needed] in Southern Albania.

Feuds

The territory of Santa Cristina Gela comes from three main feuds. The feud namesake of Santa Cristina, the fief of Turdiepi and finally the feud of Pianetto. The territory of the latter is rich in vineyards and olive groves and ultimately is residential area.

Local Products

The village is a traditional agricultural and culinary producing village, its production of wood cooked bread is much appreciated, it is also exported in the adjacent municipalities. Other local products which are successful, are the production casearea (ricotta / gjisë, pecorino / udhos and caciocavallo / kaskaval), sweets (cannoli, sfince with ricotta) and meat from local farms (particularly appreciated is the sausage with fennel seeds / likëngë).

Language

Santa Cristina Gela is trilingual, its inhabitants proficient in Arbërisht and Italian and Sicilian. However, the local dialect of Arbërisht is undergoing attrition with children learning Arbërisht as their first language and being more confident using Arbërisht, then by school leaving age are more comfortable with Italian and are able to express a wider range of concepts in Italian. This attrition may be due to the lack of formal education in Arbërisht and the lack of Albanian media.

ome common phrases

Sources