Italian Language

Italian is the native language of Italy, but it is spoken by more than eighty million people in more than twenty countries. Sometimes called Tuscan, Italian was known as lingua Fiorentina, or the language of Florence, in the Middle Ages. The Italian language, like the Italian people, is a direct descendant of the ancient Roman Empire. It is the official language of Italy.

During the Renaissance, Italian was the lingua franca of Europe, meaning that educated and wealthy people from many countries learned it so they could communicate with one another in a common language. People of the time were considered educated if they knew Italian, and most educated European men were expected to visit Italy at least once.

Literature and writing formed the foundation of what is now modern Italian in the thirteenth century CE. The Florentine dialect used by famed medieval writers such as Dante Alighieri, Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch), and Giovannia Boccaccio ultimately became the standard written language from which contemporary spoken Italian is derived. Historically, Italy was made up of city-states, each with a distinct dialect. In the twenty-first century, however, standard Italian is becoming more widespread and uniting the Italian people with a truly communal language.

History and Classification

Italian is an Italo-Romance language descended from Vulgar Latin. Other languages from this group are Spanish, French, and Portuguese. Italian is classified as Indo-European and, of all the Romance languages, is the closest to Latin in terms of vocabulary. Italian is most closely related to Sardinian, Corsican, and other dialects from the Italian peninsula. It retains the grammar structure of Romance languages; however, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and Germanic languages have influenced it over time.

After the collapse of the Roman Empire in 476 CE, Germanic barbarians conquered Italy. The region was in disrepair, and bandits made travel and communication dangerous. Villages and cities became isolated, and a general decline in education, recordkeeping, culture, literature, and the Latin language occurred. In all, three waves of Germanic invasion occurred between 476 and 960.

The earliest example of written Italian vernacular—a scribbled riddle within a Spanish manuscript known as the Veronese Riddle—is dated to the late eighth century CE. However, the document considered the first official Italian writing is a notarial deed from 960. Legal documents from the province of Benevento date from 960–963. King Frederick II, a poet, led the "Sicilian school," which produced poetry in early Italian in the thirteenth century.

Although Latin remained the preeminent literary language until the sixteenth century, medieval writers from Florence embraced the use of Italian. Dante Alighieri's great work, Divine Comedy, along with literature by Boccaccio and Petrarch, was written in the Tuscan dialect. The popularity of these works led to the establishment of this dialect as a standard literary language. By the fourteenth century, Tuscan was in use throughout the Italian city-states. The printing press arrived in 1470, further spreading the use of Italian.

Another work by Dante, Concerning Vernacular Eloquence, is a Latin text that explores the various languages of medieval Europe. In the text, Dante focuses especially on the numerous Italian dialects and seeks to determine which is most suitable for literary purposes. He ultimately chooses his own dialect, setting the standardization of Italian into motion.

Dante's text sparked a sixteenth-century debate, known as the questione della lingua, about the establishment of a modern Italian literary and spoken language. Scholars argued over which form of the vernacular was most appropriate. Pietro Bembo argued for the continued use of Dante's Florentine. Baldassare Castiglione proposed a new standard system that would draw from multiple dialects. Niccolò Machiavelli suggested updating the Florentine dialect to the contemporary (sixteenth-century) version. Bembo's opinion triumphed, and Dante's lingua Fiorentina remained in use.

For much of its history, Italy was composed of a series of city-states. When the country unified in 1860, Italians used both regional dialects and a standardized literary language based on the Tuscan dialect. Modern Italian is derived from the Tuscan dialect, but several contributions from other dialects and languages—such as Frankish, Latin, medieval French, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, and Hebrew—have occurred.

Geographic Distribution and Modern Usage

The Italian language is primarily spoken in Italy, which is located in southern Europe. More than 90 percent of Italy's population is native Italian speakers. The language also is spoken in Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, Malta, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Australia, Croatia, the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Italian imperialism in the twentieth century spread the language to a handful of African nations: Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Libya.

Tuscan, Piemontese, Sardinian, Abruzzese, Milanese, Venetian, Bolognese, and Sicilian are just a few of the fifteen Italian dialects that exist today. Scholars debate whether many of these dialects should be considered dialects or independent languages. The dialects are divided into two groups, which are separated by the Spezia-Rimini Line that runs east to west across the peninsula—Northern (Settentrionale) dialects are above the line and Central-Southern (Centro-Meridionale) dialects are below it. These groups are further divided within themselves. Dialects are generally mutually unintelligible, meaning that two people speaking different dialects may not understand each other. Dialects generally are used orally and in informal situations only, not for mass communication or in professional situations. Historically, dialect use was viewed a sign of lower social class and limited education. In the twenty-first century, the various dialects are fading as standardized Italian becomes more popular.

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