The Italian Language: 7 Facts
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1 Approximately 85 million people speak Italian worldwide
63 million people in the world speak Italian as their first language and 22 million speak Italian as a second language. Italian is around the 20th most-spoken language in the world and it’s also the 4th most studied language in the world.
2 ITALIAN DIALECTS ARE DRAMATICALLY DIFFERENT FROM ONE ANOTHER
In Italy, there are many dialects, however, the Italian standard is based on the Tuscan dialect. Interestingly, the variety of languages in Italy were all developed independently from Latin. For centuries, up until 1861, Italy was divided into a number of different states under foreign rule, where each had its own regional language.
The most widely spoken regional dialect is Neapolitan, with over five million speakers, with strict grammatical rules and even strong similarities to Spanish and Catalan. However, there are many other regional dialects in Italian; some of them are so different from each other that they’re not mutually intelligible. In fact, some linguists have proposed that the Sicilian dialect should be classified as its own language. And that’s why Italians use so many gestures. It is a quick way to understand each other.
For convenience, scholars divide Italy into three large dialectal areas:
1) the La Spezia-Rimini line separates the northern dialects from the central dialects;
2) the Roma-Ancona line separates the central dialects from the southern ones.
Currently, the most important dialects are: the Neapolitan with 5.7 million speakers, the Sicilian (4.7 million), the Venetian (3.8 million), the Lombard (3.6 million) and the Piedmontese (1.6 million).
3 ITALIAN BECAME STANDARDISED BY DANTE ALIGHIERI
During the late Middle Ages, most poetry and literature was written in Latin, but Dante is best known for writing poems in the Tuscan dialect. He helped position Tuscan Italian as the basis for the Italian spoken today.
Modern Italian was formed by Dante, an Italian writer often called the “Father of the Italian language” in the 14th century, at the height of the Renaissance, when elite Italians began to adopt the Tuscan version spoken in and around Florence.
4 By 1950, it was estimated that less than 20% of the Italian population spoke fluent Italian, and even today, many people feel more comfortable using a local language or dialect. Approximately half of all Italians speak a regional dialect as a mother tongue.
Standardised Italian spread thanks to television
The introduction of the television in the 1950s and 1960s played a vital role in the spread of standardised Italian and the subsequent displacement of local dialects and languages. In particular, a programm entitled Non è mai troppo tardi (It’s never too late), which aired on Rai 1 in the 1960s, taught an estimated one and a half million illiterate people to read and write in Italian.
5 Italian was also the language of many former colonies
During colonisation in the 19th century, Italian was a primary language in Libya, Eritrea and Somalia.
In Libya, Italian was widespread until Muammar Gaddafi decreed Arabic to be the sole language permitted in official communications and on road signs. In Eritrea, its usage is mostly limited to commerce, yet it made a lasting impact on Tigrinya (the country’s main spoken language) due to the incorporation of numerous loanwords. Finally, in Somalia, it was the official language of administration and education until the Somali Civil War.
6 Italian is considered one of the closest languages to Latin
When looking at similarities in terms of vocabulary and pronunciation, Italian is considered one of the closest languages to Latin. This is because Latin was the official language of the Roman Empire and was used until the empire’s dissolution in the 6th Century, when vulgar versions replaced it and started to develop into the Romance languages we know. It is also the closest to Latin of all the Romance languages, followed by Spanish, Romanian and Portuguese. It shares 89% lexical similarity with French, 87% with Catalan, and 82% with Spanish.
7 ITALIAN IS THE OFFICIAL LANGUAGE OF CLASSICAL MUSIC
If you play an instrument or are familiar with music, you’ve probably come across classical music scores with terms like crescendo, soprano, alto, and tempo. This phenomenon is largely due to Italian music notation which became popularised during the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Thus, Italian became more universal as the standard for music compositions, with many prominent composers at the time being Italian themselves.
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Видео The Italian Language: 7 Facts канала grammarpirate
1 Approximately 85 million people speak Italian worldwide
63 million people in the world speak Italian as their first language and 22 million speak Italian as a second language. Italian is around the 20th most-spoken language in the world and it’s also the 4th most studied language in the world.
2 ITALIAN DIALECTS ARE DRAMATICALLY DIFFERENT FROM ONE ANOTHER
In Italy, there are many dialects, however, the Italian standard is based on the Tuscan dialect. Interestingly, the variety of languages in Italy were all developed independently from Latin. For centuries, up until 1861, Italy was divided into a number of different states under foreign rule, where each had its own regional language.
The most widely spoken regional dialect is Neapolitan, with over five million speakers, with strict grammatical rules and even strong similarities to Spanish and Catalan. However, there are many other regional dialects in Italian; some of them are so different from each other that they’re not mutually intelligible. In fact, some linguists have proposed that the Sicilian dialect should be classified as its own language. And that’s why Italians use so many gestures. It is a quick way to understand each other.
For convenience, scholars divide Italy into three large dialectal areas:
1) the La Spezia-Rimini line separates the northern dialects from the central dialects;
2) the Roma-Ancona line separates the central dialects from the southern ones.
Currently, the most important dialects are: the Neapolitan with 5.7 million speakers, the Sicilian (4.7 million), the Venetian (3.8 million), the Lombard (3.6 million) and the Piedmontese (1.6 million).
3 ITALIAN BECAME STANDARDISED BY DANTE ALIGHIERI
During the late Middle Ages, most poetry and literature was written in Latin, but Dante is best known for writing poems in the Tuscan dialect. He helped position Tuscan Italian as the basis for the Italian spoken today.
Modern Italian was formed by Dante, an Italian writer often called the “Father of the Italian language” in the 14th century, at the height of the Renaissance, when elite Italians began to adopt the Tuscan version spoken in and around Florence.
4 By 1950, it was estimated that less than 20% of the Italian population spoke fluent Italian, and even today, many people feel more comfortable using a local language or dialect. Approximately half of all Italians speak a regional dialect as a mother tongue.
Standardised Italian spread thanks to television
The introduction of the television in the 1950s and 1960s played a vital role in the spread of standardised Italian and the subsequent displacement of local dialects and languages. In particular, a programm entitled Non è mai troppo tardi (It’s never too late), which aired on Rai 1 in the 1960s, taught an estimated one and a half million illiterate people to read and write in Italian.
5 Italian was also the language of many former colonies
During colonisation in the 19th century, Italian was a primary language in Libya, Eritrea and Somalia.
In Libya, Italian was widespread until Muammar Gaddafi decreed Arabic to be the sole language permitted in official communications and on road signs. In Eritrea, its usage is mostly limited to commerce, yet it made a lasting impact on Tigrinya (the country’s main spoken language) due to the incorporation of numerous loanwords. Finally, in Somalia, it was the official language of administration and education until the Somali Civil War.
6 Italian is considered one of the closest languages to Latin
When looking at similarities in terms of vocabulary and pronunciation, Italian is considered one of the closest languages to Latin. This is because Latin was the official language of the Roman Empire and was used until the empire’s dissolution in the 6th Century, when vulgar versions replaced it and started to develop into the Romance languages we know. It is also the closest to Latin of all the Romance languages, followed by Spanish, Romanian and Portuguese. It shares 89% lexical similarity with French, 87% with Catalan, and 82% with Spanish.
7 ITALIAN IS THE OFFICIAL LANGUAGE OF CLASSICAL MUSIC
If you play an instrument or are familiar with music, you’ve probably come across classical music scores with terms like crescendo, soprano, alto, and tempo. This phenomenon is largely due to Italian music notation which became popularised during the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Thus, Italian became more universal as the standard for music compositions, with many prominent composers at the time being Italian themselves.
Blog: https://grammarpirate.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/grammarpirate/
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Twitter: https://twitter.com/grammarpirate1
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