Italian (Italiano)
Italian is the official language of Italy, whose population is about 58 million people. Italian is also spoken in the following countries: Argentina (about 1.5 million speakers); France (about 1 million Italian speakers) and United States (more than 900,000 speakers). Other countries where Italian is also spoken include Switzerland, Australia, Canada, Tunisia, Somalia etc., thus amounting to approximately 66 million Italian speakers worldwide.
Italian is a member of the Romance language family and comes from Latin and the numerous dialects of the region. During the 15th and 16th centuries, Italy was the centre of Renaissance, which also meant that language and writing became increasingly important to the Italian people. The Italian language has been heavily influenced by the works of Dante, Boccaccio, and Petrarch who wrote mainly in the Florentine dialect. This dialect has evolved into the so-called "Standard Italian" that is recognized today as the national language.
The political instability that followed Roman rule kept Italy from re-uniting as a nation until the nineteenth century. This long period of fragmentation and the fact that Classical Latin was preferred as the international language of study allowed each region of Italy to develop its own very distinct dialect. Only 2.5% of Italy's population could speak standard Italian when it became a unified nation in 1861.
Many dialects in Italy are only vaguely similar to standard Italian (with the exception of Sardinian, which is actually a different language) and are often unintelligible to people not born in the area. For the historical reasons explained above, Florence is the only Italian city today that does not have a distinct dialect separate from Standard Italian.
As a specific feature of Italian, it is often possible to determine the gender of an Italian word by looking at its ending:
Italian is written using the Latin alphabet. The letters J, K, W, X and Y are not part of the standard Italian alphabet - but can be seen in imported words (e.g.Taxi).
Italian is the official language of Italy, whose population is about 58 million people. Italian is also spoken in the following countries: Argentina (about 1.5 million speakers); France (about 1 million Italian speakers) and United States (more than 900,000 speakers). Other countries where Italian is also spoken include Switzerland, Australia, Canada, Tunisia, Somalia etc., thus amounting to approximately 66 million Italian speakers worldwide.
Italian is a member of the Romance language family and comes from Latin and the numerous dialects of the region. During the 15th and 16th centuries, Italy was the centre of Renaissance, which also meant that language and writing became increasingly important to the Italian people. The Italian language has been heavily influenced by the works of Dante, Boccaccio, and Petrarch who wrote mainly in the Florentine dialect. This dialect has evolved into the so-called "Standard Italian" that is recognized today as the national language.
The political instability that followed Roman rule kept Italy from re-uniting as a nation until the nineteenth century. This long period of fragmentation and the fact that Classical Latin was preferred as the international language of study allowed each region of Italy to develop its own very distinct dialect. Only 2.5% of Italy's population could speak standard Italian when it became a unified nation in 1861.
Many dialects in Italy are only vaguely similar to standard Italian (with the exception of Sardinian, which is actually a different language) and are often unintelligible to people not born in the area. For the historical reasons explained above, Florence is the only Italian city today that does not have a distinct dialect separate from Standard Italian.
As a specific feature of Italian, it is often possible to determine the gender of an Italian word by looking at its ending:
- Words ending in 'o' are usually masculine singular, e.g. piatto
- Words ending in 'a' are usually feminine singular, e.g. tazza
- Words ending in 'i' are usually masculine plural, e.g. piatti
- Words ending in 'e' are usually feminine plural, e.g. tazze
Italian is written using the Latin alphabet. The letters J, K, W, X and Y are not part of the standard Italian alphabet - but can be seen in imported words (e.g.Taxi).