Language Centre Resources - Italian

An Indo-European language, spoken by c. 60 million people, mainly in the Republic of Italy, where it is the official language, as well as in Switzerland (where it also has official status), San Marino, Vatican City and Monaco. It is an important immigrant language in many countries, especially the USA, Australia, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, and several countries in north and east Africa.

Standard Italian is based on the Tuscan dialect of the Florence region, but there are several major regional dialects. The varieties used in Sardinia and Corsica are closely related to some dialects of mainland Italian, but due to cultural reasons they are often considered to be separate languages.

The earliest textual examples of written Italian date from the 10th century, when the language was attested in a form distinct from Latin. Literary texts started emerging from the late 12th century, reaching a peak of excellence in the 14th century in the writing of Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio.

CLASSIFICATION = Indo-European languages, Romance branch     SCRIPT = Roman