The Sicilian philosophy of life is simple: if you can’t solve the problem that’s tormenting you, then futtitini.
“In Sicily, we have a magical word, with its own flavor: Futtitinni“, says Italian actor Giuseppe Capodicasa in a BBC Reel video.
“It’s not a bad word, it’s a blessing“, he states.
It is worth remembering that, in Sicily, Italian is spoken as in the rest of Italy, but with its own sound, the result of centuries of history intertwined in the language.
Before Italian established itself as a common language, Sicilians spoke Siciliana Romance language marked by the successive conquests and domination of the island — Greeks, Arabs, Normans and Spanish left their marks on the accent and vocabulary.
When standard Italian began to impose itself in the 19th century, it did not replace this base, but mixed with her.
Therefore, although someone like Capodicasa, who defines himself as “100% Sicilian”, speaks Italian, it is possible to perceive tones, constructions and words in his speech that come from this ancient heritage.
Futtitinni is one of those words.
According to Capodicasa, it is a word that carries “a philosophy of lifea way of conceiving our existence.”
“Futtitinni… how beautiful it sounds”, says Sicilian philosopher Pietro Briguglio, pronouncing the word with pleasure. “When you say it, you release the weight you were carrying and become lighter.”
According to Briguglio, the term is very present in everyday language because “it lends itself to being used in many situations”.
It can be understood as “don’t worry so much” or “let it go”, with meanings ranging from “don’t get bitter” to “don’t get tangled up” — equivalent to expressions such as the Mexican no te claves, the Colombian no te compliques, the Caribbean no te calientes la cabeza, the southerner no te hagas drama or the Brazilians, depending on the region, “don’t heat up”, “desencana”, “stay calm” or “relax”.
For Capodicasa, however, futtitinni “is more nuanced, more elegant”.
Elegant?
The root of futtitinni is the Sicilian verb futtíri, which is not particularly elegant: it is a vulgar way of saying “copulate” (have sexual intercourse).
The term derives from the Latin futūere, which in Spanish gave rise to follar, a colloquial word for sexual relations still in use in Spain. In Portuguese, one could draw a equivalence with the term “fuck”.
In Sicilian, as occurred in other Romance languages with verbs of sexual origin, futtíri expanded its meanings and began to have figurative uses, such as deceiving, pestering, steal or take advantagedepending on the context.
Therefore, futtitinni carries a tone between carefree and slightly irreverent, something close to “fuck you”but with a Sicilian inflection that makes it more reflective than aggressive.
It doesn’t mean thinking that nothing matters, nor running away from problems or responsibilities, much less resigning yourself.
“Futtitinn It’s not superficiality“, explains Capodicasa. “It is the ability to go through life’s situations with awareness and lightness.”
In some situations, the expression invites you to let go of what is immutable and continue to live fully, as explained on the website Understanding Italy.
In these cases, it serves to comfort a friend in the face of disappointmentgoing through a financial problem or simply putting an everyday setback into perspective.
It is also an existential tool that helps to separate the essential from the superfluous, to not accumulate every adversity and prioritize what really matters.
Futtitinni synthesizes a way of facing adversity with lightness, dignity and even humor, a trait particularly developed among Sicilians.
As the Roman politician and writer Cicero noted, as early as the 1st century BC, Sicilians were “an intelligent breedbut suspicious and endowed with a wonderful sense of humor.”
“No matter how terrible a situation is, Sicilians always have a witty comment to make,” he added.
This characteristic has accompanied Sicilians throughout their 3000 year history, often difficult to bear. Only by adopting a reflective attitude, notes the website Il Italoamericano, were they able to overcome the constant temptation to transform themselves into tragic figures.
This stance is expressed in the exhortation Sicilians use when things become overly oppressive: futtitinni.
And although the word exists in Sicilian dialect for generationsin recent years it has undergone a significant resurgence.
Meme competitions, t-shirts with the inscription “Futtitinni” and a series of articles and blogs revive its meaning as a kind of “pedagogy of the essential”.
Futtitinni, a revolution
Futtitinni “is not superficiality, but the art of discernment“, says Francesco Mazzarella in Paese magazine.
According to Mazzarella, it is a discernment “that distinguishes between the urgent and the noisy, between what builds us and what consumes us”.
Mazzarella explains that when a Sicilian says futtitinni, they are often saying “Don’t let into your heart what doesn’t deserve to be there” or “Don’t give power to those who want to take your breath away”.
For the author, the traditional term has not only lost relevance but, in a time when everything demands attention and when “every opinion becomes war, every imperfection, failure (…)”, futtitinni became a revolution.
The word invites the practice of “good detachment”, leaving aside the peripheral and focusing on what really matters.
“Your partner left you? Maybe she wasn’t the right person. Did she lose her job? See it as a new beginning“, exemplifies Capodicasa.
“There are those who do yoga, meditation, breathe with their diaphragm. There are those who go to India to find themselves”, he says. “In Sicily, we do all this with a single word.”
It is said that a wise old man, while explaining the laws of Sicilian philosophy to a young disciple, at one point stopped, looked him in the eye and said: “Son, if you can’t change what makes you suffer, then futtitinni.”
Perhaps, when pronouncing the word, the wise man made the typical gesture that usually accompanies it: raising his hand from bottom to top, as if throwing his worries into the air.
The intention is to relieve tension, stop fixating on the negative.
“Life stresses you out? Take it easy…”
“Stuck in traffic? Patience…”
