135-657: The Legionary Air Force ( Italian : Aviazione Legionaria , Spanish : Aviación Legionaria ) was an expeditionary corps from the Italian Royal Air Force that was set up in 1936. It was sent to provide logistical and tactical support to the Nationalist faction after the Spanish coup of July 1936 , which marked the onset of the Spanish Civil War . The corps and its Nazi German allies,
270-710: A failed coup d'état against the Popular Front Government of the Spanish Republic by Spanish Army officers on 18 July 1936. In Madrid , the Republican government was unsure what to do. It wanted to put down the coup but was unsure if it could trust the armed forces, and it did not want to arm the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) and Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT) trade unions and potentially accelerate
405-689: A local language of Italy , most frequently the language spoken at home in their place of origin. 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 third-most-widely spoken native language in the European Union (13% of the EU population) and it
540-584: A Republican counterattack by the 5th (communist) regiment under Enrique Líster was beaten off at Parla . On 2 November, Brunete fell to the Nationalists, leaving their troops at the western suburb of Madrid. Mola famously remarked to an English journalist that he would take Madrid with his four columns of regular and Moroccan troops from southwest in Spain outside the city and his " Fifth column " of right-wing sympathisers in it. The term "fifth column" became
675-585: A collection of militias into a regular army, the People's Republican Army . That was achieved by integrating the militias into the structures of the elements of the prewar army that had sided with the Republic. In theory, it reduced the power of political parties relative to the government, but in practice, it increased the influence of the Communist Party, which led the implementation of the policy through
810-565: A heavy toll on the buildings of the quarter. The Republicans had deployed 12,000 troops in Carabanchel and 30,000 more to meet the main assault at the Casa de Campo. Despite their superiority in numbers, they were badly equipped since they had mostly only small arms, with reputedly only ten rounds for each rifle. In addition, most of them had never been trained in the use of weapons, let alone experienced combat before. Nevertheless, they held off
945-565: A huge number of civil servants and soldiers recruited from all over the country introduced many more words and idioms from their home languages— ciao is derived from the Venetian word s-cia[v]o ("slave", that is "your servant"), panettone comes from the Lombard word panetton , etc. Only 2.5% of Italy's population could speak the Italian standardized language properly when
1080-471: A little over one million people in the United States speak Italian at home. Nevertheless, an Italian language media market does exist in the country. In Canada, Italian is the second most spoken non-official language when varieties of Chinese are not grouped together, with 375,645 claiming Italian as their mother tongue in 2016. Italian immigrants to South America have also brought a presence of
1215-531: A peace deal with Franco. The next day, the communist leaders and Negrín fled Spain from Elda , but the communist troops settled around Madrid rejected the authority of the Council and entered Madrid on the 7th. There were some days of fighting in the streets between communist and non-communist troops, which ended with the defeat of the communists and the execution of their leader, Luis Barceló . That left Casado free to try to negotiate terms with Franco. However,
1350-658: A poetic and literary origin in the works of Tuscan writers of the 12th century, and, although the grammar and core lexicon are basically unchanged from those used in Florence in the 13th century, the modern standard of the language was largely shaped by relatively recent events. However, Romance vernacular as language spoken in the Italian Peninsula has a longer history. In fact, the earliest surviving texts that can definitely be called vernacular (as distinct from its predecessor Vulgar Latin) are legal formulae known as
1485-447: A pre-emptive offensive of his own, with over 100,000 men on 15 December and took the town of Teruel . Rojo's offensive put paid to Franco's proposed assault on Madrid, but led to one of the bloodiest battles of the war , with over 100,000 casualties on both sides. In 1938, the siege of Madrid tightened and its population suffered increasingly from a lack of food, warm clothes and arms and ammunition. However, Franco had by now given up on
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#17327720414231620-669: A rapid advance on Madrid, but Franco overruled him to relieve the Nationalist troops besieged in Toledo . That diversion held up the attack on Madrid by up to a month, which gave the Republicans time to prepare its defence. Meanwhile, in Madrid, the Republican government had reformed under the leadership of socialist leader Francisco Largo Caballero , whose government included six socialist party ministers, two communists , two from
1755-417: A renewed interest in linguistics in the 16th century, sparked a debate that raged throughout Italy concerning the criteria that should govern the establishment of a modern Italian literary and spoken language. This discussion, known as questione della lingua (i.e., the problem of the language ), ran through the Italian culture until the end of the 19th century, often linked to the political debate on achieving
1890-522: A result. Starting in late medieval times in much of Europe and the Mediterranean, Latin was replaced as the primary commercial language by languages of Italy, especially Tuscan and Venetian. These varieties were consolidated during the Renaissance with the strength of Italy and the rise of humanism and the arts . Italy came to enjoy increasing artistic prestige within Europe. A mark of
2025-491: A seven-vowel system, consisting of /a, ɛ, e, i, ɔ, o, u/ , as well as 23 consonants. Compared with most other Romance languages, Italian phonology is conservative, preserving many words nearly unchanged from Vulgar Latin . Some examples: Siege of Madrid#Aerial bombardment Nationalist victory The siege of Madrid was a two-and-a-half-year siege of the Republican -controlled Spanish capital city of Madrid by
2160-479: A single language is that they have evolved so that they are no longer mutually intelligible ; this diagnostic is effective if mutual intelligibility is minimal or absent (e.g. in Romance, Romanian and Portuguese), but it fails in cases such as Spanish-Portuguese or Spanish-Italian, as educated native speakers of either pairing can understand each other well if they choose to do so; however, the level of intelligibility
2295-521: A synonym for spies or traitors for Republicans, and paranoia led to massacre of Nationalist prisoners in Madrid during the ensuing battle. The government, including Caballero, expected Madrid to fall and so made a preplanned move from Madrid on 6 November to Valencia . General Miaja and the political leaders who remained formed the Junta de Defensa de Madrid (Committee for the Defence of Madrid) to organise
2430-513: A united Italian state. Renaissance scholars divided into three main factions: A fourth faction claimed that the best Italian was the one that the papal court adopted, which was a mixture of the Tuscan and Roman dialects. Eventually, Bembo's ideas prevailed, and the foundation of the Accademia della Crusca in Florence (1582–1583), the official legislative body of the Italian language, led to
2565-427: Is 89% with French, 87% with Catalan , 85% with Sardinian , 82% with Spanish, 80% with Portuguese , 78% with Ladin , 77% with Romanian . Estimates may differ according to sources. One study, analyzing the degree of differentiation of Romance languages in comparison to Latin (comparing phonology , inflection , discourse , syntax , vocabulary , and intonation ), estimated that distance between Italian and Latin
2700-759: Is also spoken by a minority in Monaco and France, especially in the southeastern part of the country. Italian was the official language in Savoy and in Nice until 1860, when they were both annexed by France under the Treaty of Turin , a development that triggered the " Niçard exodus ", or the emigration of a quarter of the Niçard Italians to Italy, and the Niçard Vespers . Giuseppe Garibaldi complained about
2835-690: Is also spoken by large immigrant and expatriate communities in the Americas and Australia . 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. Some speakers of Italian are native bilinguals of both Italian (either in its standard form or regional varieties ) and
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#17327720414232970-534: Is higher than that between Sardinian and Latin. In particular, its vowels are the second-closest to Latin after Sardinian . As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive. Italian is the official language of Italy and San Marino and is spoken fluently by the majority of the countries' populations. Italian is the third most spoken language in Switzerland (after German and French; see Swiss Italian ), although its use there has moderately declined since
3105-460: Is markedly lower between Italian-Spanish, and considerably higher between the Iberian sister languages of Portuguese-Spanish. Speakers of this latter pair can communicate with one another with remarkable ease, each speaking to the other in his own native language without slang/jargon. Nevertheless, on the basis of accumulated differences in morphology, syntax, phonology, and to some extent lexicon, it
3240-462: Is not difficult to identify that for the Romance varieties of Italy, the first extant written evidence of languages that can no longer be considered Latin comes from the ninth and tenth centuries C.E. These written sources demonstrate certain vernacular characteristics and sometimes explicitly mention the use of the vernacular in Italy. Full literary manifestations of the vernacular began to surface around
3375-594: Is spoken as a second language by 13.4 million EU citizens (3%). 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. 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
3510-549: Is used, and the town of Chipilo near Puebla, Mexico; each continues to use a derived form of Venetian dating back to the 19th century. Other examples are Cocoliche , an Italian–Spanish pidgin once spoken in Argentina and especially in Buenos Aires , and Lunfardo . The Rioplatense Spanish dialect of Argentina and Uruguay today has thus been heavily influenced by both standard Italian and Italian regional languages as
3645-509: The Il Globo (Australia) and the La gazzetta del Sud Africa (South Africa). Italian is widely taught in many schools around the world, but rarely as the first foreign language. In the 21st century, technology also allows for the continual spread of the Italian language, as people have new ways to learn how to speak, read, and write languages at their own pace and at any given time. For example,
3780-991: The La Voce del Popolo ( Croatia ), the Corriere d'Italia (Germany), the L'italoeuropeo (United Kingdom), the Passaparola ( Luxembourg ), the America Oggi (United States), the Corriere Canadese and the Corriere Italiano (Canada), the Il punto d'incontro (Mexico), the L'Italia del Popolo ( Argentina ), the Fanfulla (Brazil), the Gente d'Italia ( Uruguay ), the La Voce d'Italia ( Venezuela ),
3915-521: The Cerro de los Ángeles hill, south of the city, to prevent the cutting off of the Valencia road . The attack collapsed because of language and communication problems and insufficient artillery support, but the road to Valencia remained open. On the 19th, the Nationalists made their final frontal assault. Under cover of a heavy artillery bombardment, Moroccan and Foreign Legion troops fought their way into
4050-996: The Condor Legion , fought against the Spanish Republic and provided support for the Italian ground troops of the Corpo Truppe Volontarie . They served from August 1936 to the end of the conflict, in March 1939. Their main base of operations was on Mallorca , in the Balearic Islands . At the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in July 1936, Francisco Franco , the leader of the rebel armies in Spanish North Africa , had about 30,000 troops and Moroccan nationals under his command, along with some artillery units. To transfer his troops and equipment to Mainland Spain, Franco on 24 July 1936 turned to
4185-702: The Gallo-Italic linguistic panorama of Northern Italy , the Italo-Dalmatian , Neapolitan and its related dialects were largely unaffected by the Franco- Occitan influences introduced to Italy mainly by bards from France during the Middle Ages, but after the Norman conquest of southern Italy , Sicily became the first Italian land to adopt Occitan lyric moods (and words) in poetry. Even in
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4320-674: The Kingdom of Italy in the Dodecanese ). Italian is widely spoken in Malta , where nearly two-thirds of the population can speak it fluently (see Maltese Italian ). Italian served as Malta's official language until 1934, when it was abolished by the British colonial administration amid strong local opposition. Italian language in Slovenia is an officially recognized minority language in
4455-773: The Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia ), although the masses kept speaking primarily their local vernaculars. Italian was also one of the many recognised languages in the Austro-Hungarian Empire . Italy has always had a distinctive dialect for each city because the cities, until recently, were thought of as city-states . Those dialects now have considerable variety . As Tuscan-derived Italian came to be used throughout Italy, features of local speech were naturally adopted, producing various versions of Regional Italian . The most characteristic differences, for instance, between Roman Italian and Milanese Italian are syntactic gemination of initial consonants in some contexts and
4590-1033: The Middle Ages , the established written language in Europe was Latin, although the great majority of people were illiterate, and only few were well versed in the language. In the Italian Peninsula , as in most of Europe, most would instead speak a local vernacular. These dialects, as they are commonly referred to, evolved from Vulgar Latin over the course of centuries, unaffected by formal standards and teachings. They are not in any sense "dialects" of standard Italian, which itself started off as one of these local tongues, but sister languages of Italian. Mutual intelligibility with Italian varies widely, as it does with Romance languages in general. The Romance languages of Italy can differ greatly from Italian at all levels ( phonology , morphology , syntax , lexicon , pragmatics ) and are classified typologically as distinct languages. The standard Italian language has
4725-463: The Nationalist armies , under General Francisco Franco , during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). The city, besieged from October 1936, fell to the Nationalist armies on 28 March 1939. The Battle of Madrid in November 1936 saw the most intense fighting in and around the city when the Nationalists made their most determined attempt to take the Republican capital. The highest military awards of
4860-554: The Placiti Cassinesi from the province of Benevento that date from 960 to 963, although the Veronese Riddle , probably from the 8th or early 9th century, contains a late form of Vulgar Latin that can be seen as a very early sample of a vernacular dialect of Italy. The Commodilla catacomb inscription is also a similar case. The Italian language has progressed through a long and slow process, which started after
4995-895: The Republican Left party, one from the Catalan Left party, one from the Basque Nationalist Party and one from the Republican Union . The communists were a minority in the government, but they gained in influence through their access to arms from the Soviet Union and foreign volunteers in the International Brigades . The Republican military commander in Madrid was nominally a Spanish general, Jose Miaja , but Soviet military personnel were perhaps more important. General Goriev
5130-524: The River Manzanares separated the Nationalists from the city centre and was a formidable physical obstacle. Mola planned his assault on Madrid for 8 November 1936. He planned to attack through the Casa de Campo park on a front of only 1 km (0.62 mi) wide to try to avoid street fighting, as the park was open country and lay just across the river from the city centre. Mola's initial intention
5265-508: The Second World War in 1940. Twelve Fiat CR.32 biplanes arrived in Melilla aboard transport ships on 14 August 1936 (405 would be sent to Franco by the end of the operation), and by the end of August, the Cucaracha squadron was formed at Cáceres with aircraft of that type. Initial dispatches of aircraft were followed by more numerous ones. In March 1939, eleven new Fiat G.50 Freccia monoplane fighters were sent, to be based at Ascalona, but they ultimately never saw action. In addition to
5400-495: The Spanish Air Force . Altogether, a total of 764 aircraft were sent: Italian language Italian ( italiano , pronounced [itaˈljaːno] , or lingua italiana , pronounced [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 language from Latin , together with Sardinian (meaning that Italian and Sardinian are
5535-424: The Spanish Foreign Legion and Carlist and Falangist militia, raised troops in the north. Together, they planned a "Drive on Madrid" with Franco advancing from Badajoz, which he took in August and Mola advancing from Burgos . Franco's veteran colonial troops, or regulares , under General Juan Yagüe , along with air cover supplied by Nazi Germany , routed the Republican militias in their path. Yague argued for
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5670-406: The Western Roman Empire's fall in the 5th century. The language that came to be thought of as Italian developed in central Tuscany and was first formalized in the early 14th century through the works of Tuscan writer Dante Alighieri , written in his native Florentine . Dante's epic poems, known collectively as the Commedia , to which another Tuscan poet Giovanni Boccaccio later affixed
5805-406: The 111 Italian lecturer sections belonging to foreign schools where Italian is taught as a language of culture. As of 2022, Australia had the highest number of students learning Italian in the world. This occurred because of support by the Italian community in Australia and the Italian Government and also because of successful educational reform efforts led by local governments in Australia. From
5940-458: The 13th century in the form of various religious texts and poetry. Although these are the first written records of Italian varieties separate from Latin, the spoken language had probably diverged long before the first written records appeared since those who were literate generally wrote in Latin even if they spoke other Romance varieties in person. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the use of Standard Italian became increasingly widespread and
6075-438: The 1970s. It is official both on the national level and on regional level in two cantons : Ticino and Grisons . In the latter canton, however, it is only spoken by a small minority, in the Italian Grisons . Ticino, which includes Lugano , the largest Italian-speaking city outside Italy, is the only canton where Italian is predominant. Italian is also used in administration and official documents in Vatican City . Italian
6210-405: The 20th, the barracks was stormed by a mixture of workers and Guardias de Asalto ("assault guards", an urban police force) loyal to the government, as well as five battalions of the communist-led Antifascist Worker and Peasant Militias (MAOC). One of the battalions became the famous " Fifth Regiment " of about 10,000 fighters. The fighting was chaotic, and on several occasions, some soldiers in
6345-422: The 231st in 1938. The unit's recognition symbols were roundels placed on both sides of the wings and on the tail-rudder. The wing symbol was a completely-black circle, later personalised with white symbols ranging from a simple cross to designs referring to the commanders of the Condor Legion and the Aviación Nacional . The tail symbol was a simple black cross on a white field, which was subsequently adopted by
6480-422: The Casa de Campo park, and through the streets of the Carabanchel area Madrid was subjected to a sporadic artillery and aerial bombardment, and food became short as the winter went on. The UGT transferred some vital industries to metro tunnels under the city that were not in use. Franco's final action of 1936 was to attempt to cut off the road to Corunna , north-west of Madrid, as the first step towards surrounding
6615-537: The Casa de Campo to meet the main attack. Its strategic location over the Manzanares River made the Bridge of the French of crucial importance. Colonel Romero commanded Republican forces there and effectively repelled attempts to cross it and to gain access to Madrid's city centre. Mola attacked on 8 November with 20,000 troops, mostly Moroccan regulares , supported by Italian light armour and German Panzer I tanks under German officer Wilhelm Von Thoma . The German Condor Legion also provided air support, which took
6750-421: The Civil War. On the other side, both Germany and Fascist Italy supplied Franco with air cover and armoured units for his assault on Madrid, and the Luftwaffe units in Spain, the Condor Legion , were commanded independently of Franco's officers. The Nationalists reached Madrid in early November 1936 by approaching it from the north along the Corunna Road and the west by the Extremadura road . On 29 October,
6885-453: The Communist Party, who wanted to fight to the end. They were opposed by the Republican Colonel Segismundo Casado and others, who wanted to negotiate the surrender of Madrid to spare Republican supporters the worst of the Nationalist retribution. On 5 March, Casado's men arrested communist officers in Madrid, stripped them of their powers, deposed Negrín and established the National Defence Council ( Consejo Nacional de Defensa ) to negotiate
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#17327720414237020-534: The Italian consul in Tangiers and then directly to Major Luccardi, the military attaché at the Italian consulate. Through them, Franco tried to convince Benito Mussolini to send twelve transport aircraft, twelve reconnaissance planes, ten fighter aircraft, 3000 aerial bombs, anti-aircraft machine guns and at least forty-five transport ships. Mussolini was initially reluctant to send them, despite his sympathy for Franco, but under pressure from his son-in-law, Galeazzo Ciano , he changed his mind on 25 July. Ciano had in
7155-417: The Italian dialects has declined in the modern era , as Italy unified under Standard Italian and continues to do so aided by mass media from newspapers to radio to television, diglossia is still frequently encountered in Italy and triglossia is not uncommon in emigrant communities among older speakers. Both situations normally involve some degree of code-switching and code-mixing . Notes: Italian has
7290-439: The Italian language into a lingua franca used not only among clerks, nobility, and functionaries in the Italian courts but also by the bourgeoisie . Italian literature's first modern novel, I promessi sposi ( The Betrothed ) by Alessandro Manzoni , further defined the standard by "rinsing" his Milanese "in the waters of the Arno " ( Florence 's river), as he states in the preface to his 1840 edition. After unification,
7425-542: The Jarama and encircle Madrid's defences to launch an assault on the city. Italian and Nationalist losses were significantly higher than that of the Republicans. Around a third of the city of Madrid heavily damaged, but morale remained still strong in the population, and Madrilenes prided themselves of doing "business as usual" under fire. In May, Republican forces under the Polish communist officer Karol Świerczewski , tried to break out of Madrid in an armoured assault but were beaten back. A far more ambitious northern offensive
7560-412: The July uprising saw a number of so-called fascists or fascist sympathisers being killed in Madrid by Republicans. For example, on 23 August, seventy prisoners from the Modelo Prison in the city were massacred in revenge for the Nationalist killing of over 1,500 Republicans after the storming of Badajoz . The initial strategy of the military plot had been to assume power all over the country in
7695-497: The Mediterranean. The increasing political and cultural relevance of Florence during the periods of the rise of the Medici Bank , humanism , and the Renaissance made its dialect, or rather a refined version of it, a standard in the arts. The Renaissance era, known as il Rinascimento in Italian, was seen as a time of rebirth, which is the literal meaning of both renaissance (from French) and rinascimento (Italian). During this time, long-existing beliefs stemming from
7830-429: The Modelo Prison were taken out and killed in the Jarama Valley by the Republican 5th regiment as potential "Fifth Columnists". It has been alleged that the killings were ordered by the communist leader Santiago Carrillo , but that has never been proved. According to Antony Beevor , the order for the massacre came from either José Cazorla Maure , Carrillo's deputy, or the Soviet advisor, Mikhail Koltsov . The atrocity
7965-442: The Nationalist leader insisted that unconditional surrender was all that he would accept. On 26 March, Franco ordered a general advance into Madrid, and on the 27th, the Republican front collapsed, many of whose troops surrendered or simply threw away their weapons and started for home. On 28 March, Madrid finally fell to Franco's forces. In spite of Casado's efforts at negotiation, many of the Republican defenders of Madrid were among
8100-415: The Nationalist onslaught at Casa de Campo. Some regulares eventually broke through and made an initial crossing over the Manzanares towards the Modelo Prison, the target of the offensive, but the attack stalled at the western fringe of the city. The Republican General Miaja himself reputedly raced to the ruined buildings to which the Republican troops were starting to flee and, pistol in hand, called upon
8235-422: The Nationalists switched the focus of their offensive to the Carabanchel suburb, but the heavily urban area proved to be a very difficult obstacle. The colonial Moroccan troops were pinned down in house-to-house fighting (in which they had little previous experience since their greatest strength was in open-country warfare) and took heavy casualties at the hands of militiamen who knew the urban terrain very well. In
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#17327720414238370-417: The Nationalists. In late 1937, the Nationalists took much of northern Spain, the country's industrial heartland, with its many arms factories, which had sustained the Republican war effort. At the very end of the year, the Republican commander of the IV Corps at the time, Cipriano Mera intercepted Nationalist plans for a fresh assault on Madrid from the direction of Zaragoza . General Vicente Rojo launched
8505-414: The Republicans to breach the walls. Many soldiers were massacred by the crowd, which had been enraged by the apparent false surrenders, after the fall of the barracks. For the remainder of the war, Madrid was held by the Republicans. However, its population contained a significant number of Nationalist sympathisers, over 20,000 of which sought refuge in foreign embassies in the city. The weeks that followed
8640-404: The Spanish Republic, the Laureate Plate of Madrid ( Spanish : Placa Laureada de Madrid ), and the Madrid Distinction ( Spanish : Distintivo de Madrid ), established by the Republican government to reward courage, were named after the capital of Spain because the city symbolised valour and Republican resistance during the long siege throughout the war. The Spanish Civil War began with
8775-442: The Spanish capital. The resulting Battle of the Corunna Road also resulted in a stalemate. The casualties inflicted in the Battle of Madrid were never accurately counted, but the British historian Hugh Thomas estimated that they were a total about 10,000 for both sides and the civilian population. They were not ready to fight in the war. After the Battle of Madrid, the Republican government tried to reorganise its armed forces from
8910-482: The University City quarter of Madrid. While their advance was checked, they established a bridgehead over the Manzanares River. Bitter street fighting ensued, and Durruti, the anarchist leader, was killed on the 19th. Three theories attempt to explain the mystery of Durruti's death. The bullet may have come from a nationalist soldier. Others believe that Durruti was killed by the accidental discharge of his own weapon or of one of his men's weapons. A third theory suggests he
9045-427: The aerial bombardment of the city's residential areas except for the upper-class Salamanca district , which was assumed to contain many Nationalist supporters, with the intention of terrifying the civilian population into surrender. Franco is quoted as saying, "I will destroy Madrid rather than leave it to the Marxists". German bombers pounded the rest of the city from 19 to 23 November. Arguably, that tactic by Franco
9180-548: The aircraft, Italy provided a number of well-trained men, sending more than 6,000 in total: 5,699 airmen and 312 civilians. Various types of bombers were sent to Franco's forces, including 55 three-engined Savoia-Marchetti SM.81s , 99 three-engined Savoia-Marchetti SM.79s , and 16 Fiat BR.20s . The units were made part of the 21st Stormo da Bombardamento Pesante and the 251st and 252nd Squadriglia Pipistrelli delle Baleari . The Cicognas went to 230th Squadriglia da bombardamento veloce in summer 1937, before being transferred to
9315-562: The almost 200,000 people who were executed or died during imprisonment by Franco's regime between 1939 and 1943. The Siege of Madrid became a mythic subject in the popular imagination during the Spanish Civil War. The besieged capital of Spain, with the enemy so close, yet unable to take the city for years on end, became the subject of songs, such as Los Emboscados – a version of Si me quieres escribir , and poems like this one by renowned poet Rafael Alberti , Madrid, corazón de España , which begins thus: The Siege of Madrid, particularly
9450-441: The barracks indicated their willingness to surrender, only for other troops to keep firing at the attackers, which killed those who had broken cover to take them prisoner. Eventually, the barracks fell when the Guardias de Asalto brought up a 75 mm field gun to bombard the complex and its gate was opened by a sapper sergeant sympathetic to the Republicans. The sergeant was killed by one of his officers, but his action allowed
9585-444: The case of Northern Italian languages, however, scholars are careful not to overstate the effects of outsiders on the natural indigenous developments of the languages. The economic might and relatively advanced development of Tuscany at the time ( Late Middle Ages ) gave its language weight, although Venetian remained widespread in medieval Italian commercial life, and Ligurian (or Genoese) remained in use in maritime trade alongside
9720-477: The cities of Barcelona , Alicante , Granollers and Valencia , as well as the railway stations of Sant Vicenç de Calders in 1938 and Xàtiva in 1939. With a total of 728 raids on Mediterranean cities, the Aviazione Legionaria had dropped 16,558 bombs and inflicted numerous casualties. On 12 May 1939, the last Italian aircrew embarked for Italy on the ship Duilio at Cadiz . By the end of
9855-653: The colonial period. In the early 19th century, Eritrea was the country with the highest number of Italians abroad, and the Italian Eritreans grew from 4,000 during World War I to nearly 100,000 at the beginning of World War II. In Asmara there are two Italian schools, the Italian School of Asmara (Italian primary school with a Montessori department) and the Liceo Sperimentale "G. Marconi" (Italian international senior high school). Italian
9990-419: The conflict, the Aviazione Legionaria had logged a total of 135,265 hours of flying time on 5,318 operations, dropped 11,524 tons of bombs and destroyed 943 enemy air units and 224 ships. There were 171 Italian personnel had been killed and 192 wounded, with 74 fighters, eight bombers, two ground-attack planes, and two reconnaissance aircraft shot down or destroyed. The ratio of results to men and machines lost
10125-573: The country (some 0.42% of the total population). Their numbers dropped dramatically after World War II following the Istrian–Dalmatian exodus , which caused the emigration of between 230,000 and 350,000 Istrian Italians and Dalmatian Italians. Italian was the official language of the Republic of Ragusa from 1492 to 1807. It formerly had official status in Albania due to the annexation of
10260-518: The country to the Kingdom of Italy (1939–1943). Albania has a large population of non-native speakers, with over half of the population having some knowledge of the Italian language. The Albanian government has pushed to make Italian a compulsory second language in schools. The Italian language is well-known and studied in Albania, due to its historical ties and geographical proximity to Italy and to
10395-446: The country. A few hundred Italian settlers returned to Libya in the 2000s. Italian was the official language of Eritrea during Italian colonisation . Italian is today used in commerce, and it is still spoken especially among elders; besides that, Italian words are incorporated as loan words in the main language spoken in the country (Tigrinya). The capital city of Eritrea, Asmara , still has several Italian schools, established during
10530-579: The country. The official census, carried out in 2002, reported 2,258 ethnic Italians ( Istrian Italians ) in Slovenia (0.11% of the total population). Italian language in Croatia is an official minority language in the country, with many schools and public announcements published in both languages. The 2001 census in Croatia reported 19,636 ethnic Italians (Istrian Italians and Dalmatian Italians ) in
10665-608: The death toll was about 2000. From early 1937 onward, fighter resistance and Republican pilots' experience had also grown too strong for further bombing to occur during daylight, which further limited its effectiveness. The battle petered out in December, with both sides exhausted. A frontline stabilised in the city, running from the Nationalist salient over the River Manzanares, in the University City, through
10800-464: The design and fashion industries, in some sports such as football and especially in culinary terms. In Italy, almost all the other languages spoken as the vernacular —other than standard Italian and some languages spoken among immigrant communities—are often called " Italian dialects ", a label that can be very misleading if it is understood to mean "dialects of Italian". The Romance dialects of Italy are local evolutions of spoken Latin that pre-date
10935-588: The diffusion of Italian television in the country. Due to heavy Italian influence during the Italian colonial period , Italian is still understood by some in former colonies such as Libya. Although it was the primary language in Libya since colonial rule , Italian greatly declined under the rule of Muammar Gaddafi , who expelled the Italian Libyan population and made Arabic the sole official language of
11070-478: The educated gentlemen was to make the Grand Tour , visiting Italy to see its great historical monuments and works of art. It was expected that the visitor would learn at least some Italian, understood as language based on Florentine. In England, while the classical languages Latin and Greek were the first to be learned, Italian became the second most common modern language after French, a position it held until
11205-462: The establishment of Italian, and as such are sister languages to the Tuscan that was the historical source of Italian. They can be quite different from Italian and from each other, with some belonging to different linguistic branches of Romance. The only exceptions to this are twelve groups considered " historical language minorities ", which are officially recognized as distinct minority languages by
11340-610: The evening of 9 November, General Kléber launched an assault of the XI International Brigade on the Nationalist positions in the Casa de Campo, which lasted for the whole night and part of the next morning. At the end of the fight, the Nationalist troops had been forced to retreat and abandoned all hopes of a direct assault on Madrid through the Casa de Campo, while the XIth Brigade had lost a third of its men. Meanwhile, Republican troops counterattacked all along
11475-433: The fact that it was linguistically an intermediate between the northern and the southern Italian dialects. Thus the dialect of Florence became the basis for what would become the official language of Italy. Italian was progressively made an official language of most of the Italian states predating unification, slowly replacing Latin, even when ruled by foreign powers (such as Spain in the Kingdom of Naples , or Austria in
11610-527: The first unit, initially known as Aviación del Tercio , and set out at dawn on 30 July from Cagliari–Elmas on Sardinia , where they had picked up three officials from the Scuola di Navigazione di Altura at Orbetello , the gerarca Ettore Muti , and Lieutenant Colonel Ruggero Bonomi . The aircraft crews and the specialists were all volunteers from 7th, 10th and 13th Stormo and were provided with civilian clothes and fake documents. All Italian insignia on
11745-476: The free website and application Duolingo has 4.94 million English speakers learning the Italian language. According to the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs , every year there are more than 200,000 foreign students who study the Italian language; they are distributed among the 90 Institutes of Italian Culture that are located around the world, in the 179 Italian schools located abroad, or in
11880-484: The front as a relief force, their arrival was a major morale boost for the defenders of Madrid. The foreign troops, while actually a mixture of volunteers from Germany, France, Britain and various other nations, including Winston Churchill 's nephew, Esmond Romilly , were greeted with cries of vivan los rusos ("long live the Russians") by madrileños since they had been mistaken for Soviet infantry. On 10 November,
12015-462: The front in Madrid, on 9, 10 and 17 November, driving the Nationalists back at some places, but taking heavy casualties in the process. On the 15th, 4,000 CNT anarchist , militiamen led by Buenaventura Durruti , arrived from the Aragón front as reinforcements for the defence of the capital. On 11 November, an infamous massacre occurred on the Republican side ; 1,029 Nationalist prisoners held in
12150-418: The idea of another frontal assault on the city but was happy to constrict the siege gradually and to continue to bomb the city. By the spring of 1939, after the collapse of the Republican forces on other fronts, the Republican cause in Madrid was clearly doomed, which created a bitter division within Republican ranks. On one side was the socialist Prime Minister Juan Negrín , some other government ministers and
12285-523: The immediate area around Madrid, the Battle of Jarama (January to February) and the Battle of Brunete (July). In addition, two other battles were fought further afield as part of the Nationalist campaign to take the capital: in March, at Guadalajara and at the end of December at Teruel , both north east of Madrid. The first battle in early 1937 had Franco try to cross the River Jarama to cut off
12420-489: The island of Corsica (but not in the neighbouring Sardinia , which on the contrary underwent Italianization well into the late 18th century, under Savoyard sway: the island's linguistic composition, roofed by the prestige of Spanish among the Sardinians , would therein make for a rather slow process of assimilation to the Italian cultural sphere ). The rediscovery of Dante's De vulgari eloquentia , as well as
12555-640: The language to that continent. According to some sources, Italian is the second most spoken language in Argentina after the official language of Spanish, although its number of speakers, mainly of the older generation, is decreasing. Italian bilingual speakers can be found scattered across the Southeast of Brazil as well as in the South. In Venezuela , Italian is the most spoken language after Spanish and Portuguese, with around 200,000 speakers. In Uruguay , people who speak Italian as their home language are 1.1% of
12690-498: The late 18th century when it tended to be replaced by German. John Milton , for instance, wrote some of his early poetry in Italian. Within the Catholic Church , Italian is known by a large part of the ecclesiastical hierarchy and is used in substitution for Latin in some official documents. Italian loanwords continue to be used in most languages in matters of art and music (especially classical music including opera), in
12825-534: The late 19th to the mid-20th century, millions of Italians settled in Argentina, Uruguay, Southern Brazil and Venezuela, as well as in Canada and the United States, where they formed a physical and cultural presence. In some cases, colonies were established where variants of regional languages of Italy were used, and some continue to use this regional language. Examples are Rio Grande do Sul , Brazil, where Talian
12960-567: The law. On the other hand, Corsican (a language spoken on the French island of Corsica ) is closely related to medieval Tuscan , from which Standard Italian derives and evolved. The differences in the evolution of Latin in the different regions of Italy can be attributed to the natural changes that all languages in regular use are subject to, and to some extent to the presence of three other types of languages: substrata, superstrata, and adstrata . The most prevalent were substrata (the language of
13095-521: The loyal, disciplined and militarized units of its Antifascist Worker and Peasant Militias (MAOC). Also close to the Communist Party were the Soviet arms providers and foreign volunteers and advisers, both groups providing much of the practical military experience on the Republican side. The party, therefore, had a disproportionate influence in the appointment of military commanders and the setting of military policy. In 1937, there were two major battles in
13230-532: The manner of a pronunciamiento (military coup) of the 19th century. However, resistance to the coup by Republicans meant that Francisco Franco and his allies instead had to conquer the country by military force if they wanted to seize power. Franco himself had landed in Algeciras , in southern Spain, with Moroccan troops from the Spanish Army of Africa . Mola, who commanded the colonial troops as well as
13365-561: The meantime met with representatives of the Spanish monarchy to arrange the transfer of about thirty fighter planes and other equipment, which would arrive on 2 August, that would be sent by the French government. On 27 July, Mussolini ordered the undersecretary for the Regia Aeronautica , General Giuseppe Valle, to send 12 three-engined Savoia-Marchetti SM.81 bombers with crews and relevant specialists to Franco. They would form
13500-566: The most conservative Romance languages). Spoken by about 85 million people, including 67 million native speakers (2024), Italian is an official language in Italy , San Marino , Switzerland ( Ticino and the Grisons ), Corsica , and Vatican City . It has official minority status in Croatia , Slovenian Istria , and the municipalities of Santa Tereza and Encantado in Brazil . Italian
13635-412: The nation was unified in 1861. Italian is a Romance language , a descendant of Vulgar Latin (colloquial spoken Latin). Standard Italian is based on Tuscan , especially its Florentine dialect , and is, therefore, an Italo-Dalmatian language , a classification that includes most other central and southern Italian languages and the extinct Dalmatian . According to Ethnologue , lexical similarity
13770-408: The number of printing presses in Italy grew rapidly and by the year 1500 reached a total of 56, the biggest number of printing presses in all of Europe. This enabled the production of more pieces of literature at a lower cost and Italian, as the dominant language, spread. Italian became the language used in the courts of every state in the Italian Peninsula , as well as the prestige variety used on
13905-467: The offer and Martinez Barrio was ousted by José Giral . Giral agreed to arm the trade unionists to defend the Republic and had 60,000 rifles delivered to the CNT and UGT headquarters although only 5,000 were in working order. In a radio broadcast on the 18th, the communist leader Dolores Ibarruri coined the famous slogan ¡No pasarán! ("They shall not pass") to urge resistance against the coup. The slogan
14040-590: 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. Almost all native Italian words end with vowels , and the language 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. During
14175-487: The ongoing Spanish Revolution . On 18 July, the government sent units of the Guardia Civil to Seville to put down the rebellion there. However, on reaching the city, the guardias defected to the insurgents. On 19 July, Santiago Casares Quiroga resigned as prime minister and was succeeded by Diego Martinez Barrio , who tried to arrange a truce with the insurgent General Emilio Mola by telephone, but Mola refused
14310-630: The openness of vowels, the length of the consonants, and influence of the local language (for example, in informal situations andà , annà and nare replace the standard Italian andare in the area of Tuscany, Rome and Venice respectively for the infinitive "to go"). There is no definitive date when the various Italian variants of Latin—including varieties that contributed to modern Standard Italian—began to be distinct enough from Latin to be considered separate languages. One criterion for determining that two language variants are to be considered separate languages rather than variants of
14445-584: The original inhabitants), as the Italian dialects were most probably simply Latin as spoken by native cultural groups. Superstrata and adstrata were both less important. Foreign conquerors of Italy that dominated different regions at different times left behind little to no influence on the dialects. Foreign cultures with which Italy engaged in peaceful relations with, such as trade, had no significant influence either. Throughout Italy, regional varieties of Standard Italian, called Regional Italian , are spoken. Regional differences can be recognized by various factors:
14580-458: The other hand, almost everyone still speaks the Corsican idiom , which, due to its linguistic proximity to the Italian standard language, appears both linguistically as an Italian dialect and therefore as a carrier of Italian culture, despite the French government's decades-long efforts to cut Corsica off from the Italian motherland. Italian was the official language in Monaco until 1860, when it
14715-640: The planes had been blotted out to avoid an international incident with European governments that supported the Republicans. Fake documents stated that the planes were being sold to the Spanish journalist Luis Bolín . Not all of the Italian planes sent to aid the rebel faction reached Morocco since the plane commanded by Angelini crashed in the Mediterranean, that of Mattalia crashed near Saïda in French Morocco , and Lo Forte had to make an emergency landing near Berkane (also in French Morocco) and
14850-406: The population of Italy could speak Standard Italian. He reports that in 1951 that percentage had risen to 87%. The ability to speak Italian did not necessarily mean it was in everyday use, and most people (63.5%) still usually spoke their native dialects. In addition, other factors such as mass emigration, industrialization, and urbanization, and internal migrations after World War II , contributed to
14985-469: The proliferation of Standard Italian. The Italians who emigrated during the Italian diaspora beginning in 1861 were often of the uneducated lower class, and thus the emigration had the effect of increasing the percentage of literates, who often knew and understood the importance of Standard Italian, back home in Italy. A large percentage of those who had emigrated also eventually returned to Italy, often more educated than when they had left. Although use of
15120-528: The pronunciation of stressed "e", and of "s" between vowels in many words: e.g. va bene "all right" is pronounced [vabˈbɛːne] by a Roman (and by any standard Italian speaker), [vaˈbeːne] by a Milanese (and by any speaker whose native dialect lies to the north of the La Spezia–Rimini Line ); a casa "at home" is [akˈkaːsa] for Roman, [akˈkaːsa] or [akˈkaːza] for standard, [aˈkaːza] for Milanese and generally northern. In contrast to
15255-415: The publication of Agnolo Monosini 's Latin tome Floris italicae linguae libri novem in 1604 followed by the first Italian dictionary in 1612. An important event that helped the diffusion of Italian was the conquest and occupation of Italy by Napoleon in the early 19th century (who was himself of Italian-Corsican descent). This conquest propelled the unification of Italy some decades after and pushed
15390-487: The referendum that allowed France to annex Savoy and Nice, and a group of his followers (among the Italian Savoyards ) took refuge in Italy in the following years. Corsica passed from the Republic of Genoa to France in 1769 after the Treaty of Versailles . Italian was the official language of Corsica until 1859. Giuseppe Garibaldi called for the inclusion of the " Corsican Italians " within Italy when Rome
15525-412: The republican defenders. However, the Nationalists' attempt to capture Madrid had some serious tactical drawbacks. Their troops were outnumbered by over two to one by the defenders although the Nationalists were far better trained and equipped. Another disadvantage was their inability to surround Madrid and to cut it off from outside help. The Republicans had a geographical advantage in defending Madrid:
15660-596: The retreating troops to rally and die with him, rather than flee as cowards. Throughout the day, the city radio called upon the citizens to mobilise and support the front, with the rallying cry "¡No pasarán!" ('They shall not pass!') Late on 8 November, the XI International Brigade , numbering 1,900 men, arrived at the front, marching through the Gran Via in the city centre. Although few and with their training unfinished, since they had been hurried to
15795-558: The road between Madrid and Valencia , where the Republicans had moved their government. The results were inconclusive. Franco's troops managed to get onto the east bank of the Jarama but failed to sever communications between Madrid and Valencia. Casualties on both sides were heavy, estimates of losses ranging from 6,000 to 20,000 on each side. In March, the Battle of Guadalajara was fought about 60 km north-east of Madrid when Republican troops routed an attempt by Italian troops to cross
15930-495: The success of this first operation, Mussolini began sending a steady stream of munitions, personnel and supplies under the name of Aviación Legionaria or Aviazione Legionaria . Besides military targets, the Aviazione Legionaria carried out a great number of strategic bombings of cities in the Spanish Republican rear area. They were intended to terrify the civilian population into surrender. The most significant one
16065-473: The teachings of the Roman Catholic Church began to be understood from new perspectives as humanists —individuals who placed emphasis on the human body and its full potential—began to shift focus from the church to human beings themselves. The continual advancements in technology play a crucial role in the diffusion of languages. After the invention of the printing press in the 15th century,
16200-469: The title Divina , were read throughout the peninsula and his written dialect became the "canonical standard" that all educated Italians could understand. Dante is still credited with standardizing the Italian language. In addition to the widespread exposure gained through literature, the Florentine dialect also gained prestige due to the political and cultural significance of Florence at the time and
16335-542: The total population of the country. In Australia, Italian is the second most spoken foreign language after Chinese, with 1.4% of the population speaking it as their home language. The main Italian-language newspapers published outside Italy are the L'Osservatore Romano ( Vatican City ), the L'Informazione di San Marino ( San Marino ), the Corriere del Ticino and the laRegione Ticino ( Switzerland ),
16470-561: Was also introduced to Somalia through colonialism and was the sole official language of administration and education during the colonial period but fell out of use after government, educational and economic infrastructure were destroyed in the Somali Civil War . Italian is also spoken by large immigrant and expatriate communities in the Americas and Australia. Although over 17 million Americans are of Italian descent , only
16605-525: Was annexed to the Kingdom of Italy , but King Victor Emmanuel II did not agree to it. Italian is generally understood in Corsica by the population resident therein who speak Corsican , which is an Italo-Romance idiom similar to Tuscan. Francization occurred in Nice case, and caused a near-disappearance of the Italian language as many of the Italian speakers in these areas migrated to Italy. In Corsica, on
16740-579: Was betrayed and killed on order of the communists. Despite fierce counterattacks by the XI International Brigade and Spanish Republican units, the Nationalists kept their toehold in the University City and, by the end of the battle, were in possession of three quarters of the complex. However, their attempt to storm Madrid had failed in the face of unexpectedly-stiff Republican resistance. Franco stopped further infantry assaults, as he could not risk losing any more of his best regulares and legionnaire troops. Having failed to take Madrid by assault, Franco ordered
16875-544: Was condemned by the anarchist director of prisoners, Melchor Rodriguez . Colonel Romero had disagreements with anarchists, asked for the dismissal of Ricardo Sanz and proposed the dissolution of the Durruti Column and the distribution of their men among other units. On the 12th, the newly arrived XII International Brigade , under General Mate "Lukacs" Zalka with German, Scandinavian, French, Belgian and Italian troops, launched an attack on Nationalist positions on
17010-439: Was counter-productive, as the Republican population in Madrid was not cowed into surrender, and the aerial bombardment of civilians, one of the first in the history of warfare, was heavily criticised by foreign journalists such as Ernest Hemingway . The casualties from the aerial bombardment seems to have been relatively low, however. There is no definitive figure for the civilian casualties it caused, but according to Hugh Thomas ,
17145-410: Was launched by the Republicans in July with the intention of encircling the Nationalists. However, the Battle of Brunete again developed into a bloody stalemate. The initial Republican attack took Brunete and pushed back the Nationalist front some 12 km, but determined Nationalist counterattacks retook this territory by the end of the battle. Republican losses were significantly higher than those of
17280-443: Was mirrored by a decline in the use of the dialects. An increase in literacy was one of the main driving factors (one can assume that only literates were capable of learning Standard Italian, whereas those who were illiterate had access only to their native dialect). The percentage of literates rose from 25% in 1861 to 60% in 1911, and then on to 78.1% in 1951. Tullio De Mauro , an Italian linguist, has asserted that in 1861 only 2.5% of
17415-457: Was positive but also confirmed the commanders of the Regia Aeronautica of their mistaken belief that biplanes and triplanes were still valid in modern combat. In fact, the age of air warfare dominated by those aircraft was waning, and it was becoming evident that radio needed to be mounted on all aircraft and that targeting had to be done with special instruments, rather than by sight. Those errors of judgement would prove decisive when Italy entered
17550-658: Was replaced by the French. This was due to the annexation of the surrounding County of Nice to France following the Treaty of Turin (1860) . It formerly had official status in Montenegro (because of the Venetian Albania ), parts of Slovenia and Croatia (because of the Venetian Istria and Venetian Dalmatia ), parts of Greece (because of the Venetian rule in the Ionian Islands and by
17685-502: Was seized by the local authorities. The nine survivors of the Moroccan crashes were provided with Nationalist papers and transportation to the airport at Tetuan from which, over the following days, they helped escort the transport ships Araujo , Ciudad de Alicante and Ciudad de Ceuta . They together carried 4,000 men, four artillery batteries, two million cartridges and 12 tons of other munitions to mainland Spain. Encouraged by
17820-657: Was the 1936 bombing of Madrid , ordered by General Franco, in which the city's residential areas were subject to heavy bombardment with the exception of the upper-class Salamanca district, which was assumed to contain many Nationalist supporters. Three Italian bombers attacked the Renteria bridge on the outskirts of Guernica, prior to the Condor Legion's bombing of Guernica itself on 26 April 1937, followed by an attack on Almeria . In 1938, Italian planes carried out most of their large-scale bombing operations by striking
17955-471: Was their overall commander, General Yakov Smushkevich controlled the air forces sent from the Soviet Union and General Dmitry Pavlov commanded their armoured forces. About 90% of the Republican defenders of Madrid were militias raised by left-wing political parties or trade unions, which elected their own leaders. The Republican command had relatively little control over the units in the early phase of
18090-462: Was to become synonymous with the defense of Madrid and the Republican cause in general. General Joaquín Fanjul, the commander of the military garrison based in Montaña barracks in Madrid, was preparing to launch the military rebellion in the city. However, when he tried to march out of the barracks, his 2,500 troops were forced back inside the compound by hostile crowds and armed trade unionists. On
18225-539: Was to take the University City , just north of the city centre, to establish a bridgehead across the Manzanares. He also launched a diversionary attack towards the working-class suburb of Carabanchel , to the south-west of the city centre. However, on 7 November, the Republicans had captured plans of the attack on the body of an Italian officer found in a destroyed tank and so could concentrate their troops in
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