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Home / Academics / Academic Divisions / Literature & Languages / World Languages / Italian
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| Italian |
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Did You Know?
Italian is used by more than 70 million people around the world, and is the fourth most studied foreign language in the United States.
Overview:
Italian (l'italiano) is a Romance language spoken by about 70 million people, most of whom live in Italy. Standard Italian is based on Tuscan dialects and is somewhat intermediate between the languages of Southern Italy and the Gallo-Romance languages of the North. The long-established Tuscan standard has, over the last few decades, been slightly eroded by the variety of Italian spoken in Milan, the economic capital of Italy. Italian has double (or long) consonants, like Latin (but unlike most modern Romance languages, e.g., French and Spanish). As in most Romance languages (with the notable exception of French), stress is distinctive.
Classification:
Italian is a member of the Italo-Dalmatian group of languages, which is part of the Italo-Western grouping of the Romance languages, which are a subgroup of the Italic branch of Indo-European.
Geographic Distribution:
Italian is the official language of Italy and San Marino, and is an official language in the Ticino and Grigioni cantons or regions of Switzerland. It is also the second official language in Vatican City and in some areas of Istria in Slovenia and Croatia with an Italian minority. It is widely used by immigrant groups in Luxembourg, the United States, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina and Australia, and is also spoken in neighbouring Malta and Albania. It is spoken, to a much lesser extent, in parts of Africa formerly under Italian rule such as Somalia, Libya and Eritrea.
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Did You Know? statistics come from Wikipedia, "The free encyclopedia" and Infoplease, "All the knowledge you need"
Overview information is adapted from Wikipedia, "The free encyclopedia"; Classification and Geographical Distribution information comes directly from Wikipedia, "The free encyclopedia"
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