Italian language information

Italian
Italian
italiano, lingua italiana
Pronunciation	[itaˈljaːno]
Native to	Italy; San Marino; Vatican City; Switzerland (Ticino and Italian Grisons); Slovenia (Slovenian Littoral); Croatia (Western Istria);
Ethnicity	Italians
Speakers	L1: 65 million (2022); L2: 3.1 million; Total: 68 million
Language family	Indo-European Italic Latino-Faliscan Latin Romance Italo-Western Italo-Dalmatian Italo-Romance Italian; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;
Early forms	Old Latin Vulgar Latin Tuscan Florentine ; ; ;
Dialects	Tuscan; Central Italian; Maltese Italian; Swiss Italian; Various forms of regional Italian;
Writing system	Latin script (Italian alphabet); Italian Braille
Signed forms	Italiano segnato "(Signed Italian)" ; italiano segnato esatto "(Signed Exact Italian)"
Official status
Official language in	4 countries Italy ; San Marino ; Switzerland ; Vatican City ; ; 2 regions Slovene Istria (Slovenia) ; Istria County (Croatia) ; ; An order and various organisations Sovereign Military Order of Malta ; European Union ; FAO ; Holy See ; OSCE ; IDLO ; IIHL ; Mediterranean Universities Union ; UNICRI ; UNIDROIT ; and others ;
Recognised minority; language in	Bosnia and Herzegovina; Croatia; Romania; Slovenia; Eritrea
Regulated by	Accademia della Crusca (de facto)
Language codes
ISO 639-1	it
ISO 639-2	ita
ISO 639-3	ita
Glottolog	ital1282
Linguasphere	51-AAA-q
	Geographical distribution of the Italian language in Europe: Areas where it is the majority language Areas where it is a minority language or where it was the majority in the past
	This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Italian (italiano, Italian: [itaˈljaːno] ^ⓘ, or lingua italiana, Italian: [ˈliŋɡwa itaˈljaːna]) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. Italian is the least divergent Romance language from Latin, together with Sardinian.^[6]^[7]^[8]^[9] Spoken by about 85 million people including 67 million native speakers (2024),^[10] Italian is an official language in Italy, San Marino, and Switzerland (Ticino and the Grisons), and is the primary language of Vatican City. It has official minority status in Croatia and in some areas of Slovenian Istria.

Paola, a speaker of Italian and Sicilian. Recorded in Italy.

Italian is also spoken by large immigrant and expatriate communities in the Americas and Australia.^[1] Italian is included under the languages covered by the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Romania, although Italian is neither a co-official nor a protected language in these countries.^[5]^[11] Some speakers of Italian are native bilinguals of both Italian (either in its standard form or regional varieties) and a local language of Italy, most frequently the language spoken at home in their place of origin.^[1]

Italian is a major language in Europe, being one of the official languages of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and one of the working languages of the Council of Europe. It is the second-most-widely spoken native language in the European Union with 67 million speakers (15% of the EU population) and it is spoken as a second language by 13.4 million EU citizens (3%).^[12]^[13] Including Italian speakers in non-EU European countries (such as Switzerland, Albania and the United Kingdom) and on other continents, the total number of speakers is approximately 85 million.^[14] Italian is the main working language of the Holy See, serving as the lingua franca (common language) in the Roman Catholic hierarchy as well as the official language of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. Italian has a significant use in musical terminology and opera with numerous Italian words referring to music that have become international terms taken into various languages worldwide.^[15] Almost all native Italian words end with vowels and has a 7-vowel sound system ('e' and 'o' have mid-low and mid-high sounds). Italian has contrast between short and long consonants and gemination (doubling) of consonants.

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Italian at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
^ "Centro documentazione per l'integrazione". Cdila.it. Archived from the original on 1 January 2016. Retrieved 22 October 2015.
^ "Centro documentazione per l'integrazione". Cdila.it. Archived from the original on 23 September 2015. Retrieved 22 October 2015.
^ "Pope Francis to receive Knights of Malta grand master Thursday – English". ANSA.it. 21 June 2016. Archived from the original on 13 August 2023. Retrieved 16 October 2019.
^ ^a ^b "Languages covered by the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 13 December 2022. Retrieved 11 June 2019. (PDF)
^ "Romance languages". Encyclopædia Britannica. Archived from the original on 6 January 2020. Retrieved 19 February 2017. ...if the Romance languages are compared with Latin, it is seen that by most measures Sardinian and Italian are least differentiated...
^ Fleure, H. J. The peoples of Europe. Рипол Классик. ISBN 9781176926981. Archived from the original on 18 September 2023. Retrieved 17 January 2022.
^ "Hermathena". 1942. Archived from the original on 18 September 2023. Retrieved 17 January 2022.
^ Winters, Margaret E. (8 May 2020). Historical Linguistics: A cognitive grammar introduction. John Benjamins Publishing Company. ISBN 9789027261236. Archived from the original on 18 September 2023. Retrieved 17 January 2022.
^ "World Population Review". 2024. Archived from the original on 27 January 2024. Retrieved 15 March 2024.
^ "MULTILINGVISM ŞI LIMBI MINORITARE ÎN ROMÂNIA" (PDF) (in Romanian). Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 December 2019. Retrieved 13 June 2019.
^ Keating, Dave. "Despite Brexit, English Remains The EU's Most Spoken Language By Far". Forbes. Archived from the original on 7 June 2023. Retrieved 7 February 2020.
^ Europeans and their Languages Archived 6 January 2016 at the Wayback Machine, Data for EU27 Archived 29 April 2013 at the Wayback Machine, published in 2012.
^ "Italian — University of Leicester". .le.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 2 May 2014. Retrieved 22 October 2015.
^ See List of Italian musical terms used in English

Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).

[e25-1] Italian at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)

[2] "Centro documentazione per l'integrazione". Cdila.it. Archived from the original on 1 January 2016. Retrieved 22 October 2015.

[3] "Centro documentazione per l'integrazione". Cdila.it. Archived from the original on 23 September 2015. Retrieved 22 October 2015.

[4] "Pope Francis to receive Knights of Malta grand master Thursday – English". ANSA.it. 21 June 2016. Archived from the original on 13 August 2023. Retrieved 16 October 2019.

[coe-5] "Languages covered by the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 13 December 2022. Retrieved 11 June 2019. (PDF)

[7] "Romance languages". Encyclopædia Britannica. Archived from the original on 6 January 2020. Retrieved 19 February 2017. ...if the Romance languages are compared with Latin, it is seen that by most measures Sardinian and Italian are least differentiated...

[8] Fleure, H. J. The peoples of Europe. Рипол Классик. ISBN 9781176926981. Archived from the original on 18 September 2023. Retrieved 17 January 2022.

[9] "Hermathena". 1942. Archived from the original on 18 September 2023. Retrieved 17 January 2022.

[10] Winters, Margaret E. (8 May 2020). Historical Linguistics: A cognitive grammar introduction. John Benjamins Publishing Company. ISBN 9789027261236. Archived from the original on 18 September 2023. Retrieved 17 January 2022.

[11] "World Population Review". 2024. Archived from the original on 27 January 2024. Retrieved 15 March 2024.

[12] "MULTILINGVISM ŞI LIMBI MINORITARE ÎN ROMÂNIA" (PDF) (in Romanian). Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 December 2019. Retrieved 13 June 2019.

[forbes-13] Keating, Dave. "Despite Brexit, English Remains The EU's Most Spoken Language By Far". Forbes. Archived from the original on 7 June 2023. Retrieved 7 February 2020.

[europa2012-14] Europeans and their Languages Archived 6 January 2016 at the Wayback Machine, Data for EU27 Archived 29 April 2013 at the Wayback Machine, published in 2012.

[Italian_language-15] "Italian — University of Leicester". .le.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 2 May 2014. Retrieved 22 October 2015.

[16] See List of Italian musical terms used in English

Italian language information

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Italian language

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Italian language in the United States

Sicilian language

Swiss Italian

Italians

Italy

Italian Sign Language

Italian Argentines

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Italian

Italian profanity

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List of countries and territories where Italian is an official language

Italian
italiano, lingua italiana
Pronunciation	[itaˈljaːno]
Native to	Italy San Marino Vatican City Switzerland (Ticino and Italian Grisons) Slovenia (Slovenian Littoral) Croatia (Western Istria)
Ethnicity	Italians
Speakers	L1: 65 million (2022)^[1] L2: 3.1 million^[1] Total: 68 million^[1]
Language family	Indo-European Italic Latino-Faliscan Latin Romance Italo-Western Italo-Dalmatian Italo-Romance Italian
Early forms	Old Latin Vulgar Latin Tuscan Florentine
Dialects	Tuscan Central Italian Maltese Italian Swiss Italian Various forms of regional Italian
Writing system	Latin script (Italian alphabet) Italian Braille
Signed forms	Italiano segnato "(Signed Italian)"^[2] italiano segnato esatto "(Signed Exact Italian)"^[3]
Official status
Official language in	4 countries Italy San Marino Switzerland Vatican City 2 regions Slovene Istria (Slovenia) Istria County (Croatia) An order and various organisations Sovereign Military Order of Malta^[4] European Union FAO Holy See OSCE IDLO IIHL Mediterranean Universities Union UNICRI UNIDROIT and others
Recognised minority language in	Bosnia and Herzegovina^[a] Croatia Romania^[a] Slovenia Eritrea
Regulated by	Accademia della Crusca (de facto)
Language codes
ISO 639-1	`it`
ISO 639-2	`ita`
ISO 639-3	`ita`
Glottolog	`ital1282`
Linguasphere	`51-AAA-q`
Geographical distribution of the Italian language in Europe: Areas where it is the majority language Areas where it is a minority language or where it was the majority in the past
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Italian language
This article is part of the series on the
Italo-Dalmatian languages Judeo-Italian languages Tuscan (Florentine) Regional Italian Accademia della Crusca Enciclopedia Treccani
History
Veronese Riddle Placiti Cassinesi Sicilian School Dolce Stil Novo The Divine Comedy Pontifical Academy of Arcadia Italian Purism The Last Letters of Jacopo Ortis The Betrothed
Literature and other
Culture Literature Music Philosophy Poetry Comics Italophilia
Grammar
Verb conjugation
Alphabet
Orthography Braille
Phonology
Syntactic gemination Tuscan gorgia
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