Italian

Historically, Italian is a Proto-Indo-European (PIE) language which is indigenous to a few European countries such Switzerland where it is only one of the four official spoken tongues. It is also the official language in smaller regions like the Vatican City, Western Istria (around Croatia and parts of Slovenia) and San Marino. Although, most locals recognize Italy as the only ‘Italian Republic’, the modern version of the Italian language is widely spoken around the world with about 70 million people who identify as native speakers. As a 2nd, 3rd or acquired foreign language, it is estimated to be spoken by a much larger number of people, close to 100-130 million around the globe.

 

Italian makes use of Latin script for writing, as well as 21 of the Latin alphabet letters (excluding j, k, w, x and y), with added grave and acute accents used to emphasize vowel sounds. Like several other Romance languages, it shares several similarities with its relatives in this large family that include French and Romanian. Most of its modern vocabulary comes from Latin and it is also closest in structure with spoken Latin. Lexical similarities can also be found to varying degrees in other Romance languages including Portuguese, Spanish and Catalan.
 

Italian Dialects, Influence and Geographical Distribution

Throughout Italy, where the majority of native speakers are, there were historically distinctive dialects unique to each city in the country. Till today, these dialects are often referred to as Regional Italian and minor differences exist in vowel openness and consonant length among other features. Standard Italian language however, is mostly Tuscan-derived.
 
Sometime between the late 19th and mid-20th century, a few thousand Italians occupied countries across South America like Argentina, Uruguay, Venezuela and Southern Brazil. These migrant communities continue to grow and use variants of the different regional languages that resemble their native tongue.
 
Other emigrant communities from Italy are widely dispersed around the world. The largest group of speakers in order of decreasing figures are found in: America, Canada, Australia and South/Central America.

 

At a glance here are some exciting facts about the language and its speakers:

• On Duolingo, a widely used mobile application for new language learners, it ranks 5th behind English, Spanish, French then German (in that order) for the highest number of users.
• Some notable speakers include Christopher Colombus, renowned actor, Robert DeNiro, author of Pinocchio, Carlo Collodi and Oscar-winning actress, Sophia Loren.