The Italian Language

Italian is spoken by over 65 million people worldwide, the majority of which live in Italy, where it is the official language. Significant numbers of Italian speakers can also be found in France (including Corsica), Switzerland's Ticino canton, as well as in areas of Croatia and Slovenia.

Italian is a Proto-Italo-Western Romance language, from which it derives its close relationship to Spanish, French, and Portuguese. The standard modern form of spoken Italian is based on the dialect of the Tuscan city of Florence with some influence from the dialect spoken in Rome.1 This standardized form of the language is what is used in magazines, periodicals, newspapers and news broadcasts. However, common speech in Italy is almost always dialectical. According to omniglot.com, the dialectal differences within Italy are not only very numerous, but can also be so pronounced that speakers can be unintelligible to one another (for example, Sicilian is many times regarded as a separate language).2

  • Northern Italian (Gallo-Italian)
  • Venetan, which is found in northeastern Italy
  • Tuscan (including Corsican)
  • Southern and eastern Italy:
    • Dialects of Marche, Umbria, and Rome
    • Dialects of Abruzzi, Puglia (Apulia), Naples, Campania, and Lucania
    • Dialects of Calabria, Otranto, and Sicily3

Below are some brief but important facts about the country of Italy and its people.

Capital: Rome
Currency: Euro(EUR)
Government Type: Republic
Population: 58,057,477 (July 2004 est.)
Internet Country Code: .it
Internet Hosts: 1,437,511 (2004)
Internet Users: 18.5 million (2003)

For additional demographic information on Italy and its people, please see the following links:

For information on The Spanish Writing System, please see our Quick Facts Library.

http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/it.html