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112-723: The allegory is typically pictured in a flowing clothing, with a spear and a shield emblazoned with the Swiss flag , and commonly with braided hair and a wreath as a symbol of confederation . The name is a derivation of the ethnonym Helvetii , the name of the Gaulish tribe inhabiting the Swiss Plateau before the Roman conquest . The fashion of depicting the Swiss Confederacy in terms of female allegories arose in

224-436: A Berna of 1682. Over the next half-century, Merian's Abundantia would develop into the figure of Helvetia proper. An oil painting of 1677/78 from Solothurn, known as Libertas Helvetiae , shows a female Libertas allegory standing on a pillar. In 1672, an oil painting by Albrecht Kauw showed several figures labelled Helvetia moderna . These represent vices such as Voluptas and Avaritia , contrasting with

336-689: 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

448-581: A campaign to Besançon . Use of a white cross as a mark of identification of the combined troops of the Old Swiss Confederacy is first attested in the Battle of Laupen (1339), where it was sewn on combatants' clothing as two stripes of textile, contrasting with the red St. George's cross of Habsburg Austria, and with the St. Andrew's cross used by Burgundy and Maximilian I. The first flag used as

560-461: A feud against the lords of Landenberg . The Tagsatzung decided that the Swiss auxiliaries sent to Rottweil should receive "a red flag with a white upright cross". The first mention of the term Confederate Cross ( Eidgenossen Crütz ) dates to 1533. Because of the Swiss pledge of neutrality , there was no military conflict in which the Swiss confederate troops participated after 1540. Consequently,

672-486: A field sign representing the confederacy rather than the individual cantons may have been used in the Battle of Arbedo in 1422 (notably without the participation of the Canton of Schwyz ). This was a triangular red flag with an elongated white cross. The white cross was thus in origin a field mark attached to combatants for identification, and later also to cantonal flags. The Lucerne chronicle of 1513, in battle scenes of

784-565: 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

896-471: 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

1008-499: A national flag, but it prescribes the federal flag for all federal troops. The last flammé flags still used by Landwehr units were replaced by the modern design in 1865. In November 1889, the Federal Council published a "communication regarding the federal coat of arms", detailing the history of the use of the Swiss cross since the 15th century. Seals produced from 1815 onward, and cantonal coins minted from 1826 showed

1120-658: 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

1232-421: A proposal by Carl Stauffer, which was announced to the cantons on 11 October 1841. The 1841 flag shows a bold cross suspended in the center of the square field. The proportions of the cross arm are 1:1, i.e. the cross is composed of five squares. The absolute width of the flag is given as 4.5 feet (105 cm), that of the cross as 3 feet (90 cm), for a ratio of cross to flag width of 2:3 ≈ 66.7% (as opposed to

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1344-417: 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

1456-522: 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

1568-399: A simple circular Gothic ornament, on the outside of which the inscription 'Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft' with the year number MDCCCXV, and in an outer circle all XXII cantonal coat of arms in circular fields, according to their federal order of precedence; around all, a simple wreath". This decision remained in force after the formation of the federal state in 1848, as was recognized by

1680-479: 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

1792-513: 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

1904-449: Is 7:6. The size of the cross in relation to the field was set in 2017 as 5:8. Alongside the flag of Vatican City , the Swiss flag is one of only two square national flags in the world. The white cross has been used as the field sign (attached to the clothing of combatants and to the cantonal war flags in the form of strips of linen) of the Old Swiss Confederacy since its formation in the late 13th or early 14th century. Its symbolism

2016-427: 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

2128-530: Is also more common in Germany; the German-speaking Swiss use Helvetia or Helvetica as poetic synonyms for their country. Flag of Switzerland The national flag of Switzerland displays a white cross in the center of a square red field. The white cross is known as the Swiss cross or the federal cross . Its arms are equilateral, and their ratio of length to width

2240-759: 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

2352-690: 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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2464-816: Is faced with Atheysmus and Politicus while the old virtues leave her. In the final scene, Christ appears to punish the wayward damsel, but the Mother of God and Bruder Klaus intercede, and the contrite sinner is pardoned. Identification of the Swiss as "Helvetians" ( Hélvetiens ) becomes common in the 18th century, particularly in the French language , as in François-Joseph-Nicolas d'Alt de Tieffenthal's very patriotic Histoire des Hélvetiens (1749–1753) followed by Alexander Ludwig von Wattenwyl's Histoire de la Confédération hélvetique (1754). Helvetia appears in patriotic and political artwork in

2576-534: 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

2688-493: Is inappropriate or inconvenient. Thus, the name appears on postage stamps, coins, and other uses; the full name, Confœderatio Helvetica , is abbreviated for uses such as the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 and vehicle registration code CH, and the ccTLD , .ch . Notably, translations of the term Helvetia still serve as the name for Switzerland in languages such as Irish , in which the country is known as An Eilvéis , Greek , in which it

2800-408: Is known as Ελβετία ( Elvetia ) and Romanian , in which it is known as Elveția . In Italian , Elvezia is seen as archaic, but the demonym noun/adjective elvetico is used commonly as a synonym of svizzero . In French , Swiss people may be called Helvètes . The German word Helvetien is used as well as a synonym of Schweiz and has a higher poetic value. Helvetien

2912-460: 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

3024-462: 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

3136-594: 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

3248-428: Is the Swiss flag with switched colours. According to the 2017 flag law (SR 232.21), "the Swiss flag shows a Swiss cross on a square background". Special provisions are made for the naval ensign and for civil aircraft identification. The Swiss cross is defined as Swiss Standard German consistently uses Fahne (cognate with vane ) rather than the term Flagge used for national flags in Germany. The name of

3360-549: 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

3472-509: 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,

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3584-991: 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 ),

3696-455: The flammé military flag develops in the 17th century, which also came to be used by Swiss mercenary regiments by the end of the 17th century. The flammé design remained popular for military flags of the 18th and 19th centuries. A flammé flag was introduced as ordonnance for the Bernese troops in 1703. After the French invasion of Swiss territory in 1798 and the subsequent collapse of

3808-466: The Burgundy wars of the 1470s shows cantonal flags with an added white cross. In this context, the solid-red war flag of Schwyz with the addition of the white cross appears much like the later flag of Switzerland. Other depictions in the illustrated chronicles show a flag of Schwyz with an asymmetrical white cross, drawn in greater detail. The symbol of the confederation as it developed during 1450-1520

3920-702: 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

4032-674: 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

4144-773: 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

4256-1033: 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

4368-554: 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

4480-539: The Restored Confederacy as the white-on-red Swiss cross in a heraldic shield. The current design was used together with a cross composed of five squares until 1889, when its dimensions were officially set. The civil and state ensign of Switzerland , used by Swiss ships, boats and non-governmental bodies, is rectangular in shape and has the more common proportions of 2:3. The emblem of the Red Cross

4592-528: 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

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4704-532: 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

4816-510: 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

4928-428: The 17th century. This replaced an earlier convention, popular in the 1580s, of representing Switzerland as a bull ( German : Schweizer Stier ). In the first half of the 17th century, no single allegory was identified as Helvetia . Rather, several allegories represented both virtues and vices of the confederacy. On the title page of his 1642 Topographia , Matthäus Merian depicted two allegorical figures seated below

5040-562: 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

5152-551: The 7:6 ratio as official. The associated communication explains that "our heraldic cross is not a mathematical figure, but at the same the Christian cross symbol and the field sign of the Old Confederacy". The 1889 law explicitly avoids specification of the shape of the shield, which was to be left to the "tastes of the current time and practical necessity". The proposed legislation defining the Swiss federal coat of arms

5264-561: The Confederation , the authorities of the newly proclaimed Helvetic Republic confiscated all earlier flags, replacing them with a green-red-yellow tricolour. General Niklaus Franz von Bachmann used the white cross in a red field his campaigns of 1800 and 1815. The term Schweizer-Fahne (later spelling Schweizerfahne ) is in use for the flag from this time, recorded in a poem on the Battle of Näfels by one J. Hottinger published in 1808. The Tagsatzung (Swiss Diet) re-introduced

5376-591: The Federal Council in 1889. As opposed to the definition of an official seal or coat of arms, it was not, at the time, usual to specify a "national flag". However, the white cross in a red field had seen frequent use on flags flown by private organizations during the Regeneration period (1830s), especially shooting , singing and gymnastics associations which at the time were a pool for progressive or " radical " agitation. The canton of Aargau introduced

5488-417: 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

5600-489: 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,

5712-556: 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

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5824-843: The Red Cross , a red cross on white background, was the original protection symbol declared at the first Geneva Convention , the Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field of 1864. According to the ICRC the design was based on the Swiss flag by reversing of the colours of that flag, in order to honour Switzerland , where the first Geneva Convention

5936-446: The Swiss flag and the Swiss coat of arms based on an image, declared as authoritative in the text. The flag is flown around the year from private and commercial buildings as a display of patriotism, particularly in rural areas and often together with the cantonal and municipal flag. On Swiss National Day , 1 August, the streets and buildings are traditionally festooned in celebration with Swiss flags and banners. Prominent display of

6048-464: The Swiss flag on clothing and apparel has become more frequent with the "Swissness" fashion trend in the first decade of the 21st century, while such use of the flag had previously been largely limited to conservative and right-wing circles. The flag and coat of arms are also often used (frequently in contravention of federal law, see below) as design elements on merchandise, particularly on high-quality goods or on merchandise aimed at tourists; for example,

6160-436: The arms of the cross in the 7:6 length to width ratio. Later in the 19th century, there was a trend of depicting the cross as composed of five equal squares. The two competing designs were controversially discussed in the late 19th century, especially after the introduction of the new design for the five franks coin , which showed the Swiss coat of arms in a Baroque-style heraldic shield. The Federal Council in 1889 introduced

6272-444: 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

6384-455: 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

6496-414: The commercial use of the Swiss coat of arms (defined as "a Swiss cross in a triangular shield"). Use of the Swiss flag is generally permitted with the provision that such use "is neither misleading nor contrary to public policy, morality or applicable law". Provisions are made for a "right to continued use" for trademarks registered before 2010. The Red Cross symbol used by the International Committee of

6608-461: The confederate field sign fell out of use. At the same time, the former field sign develops into a representation of the Confederacy during this time, without achieving the full status as official heraldic emblem. The cross is shown as a symbol of the Swiss Confederacy on the Patenmedallie cast by Jacob Stampfer and given by the Confederacy as a baptismal gift to Princess Claude of France in 1547. The cross appears on similar medals and on throughout

6720-400: The context of the construction of a national history and identity in the early 19th century, after the disintegration of the Napoleonic Helvetic Republic , and she appears on official federal coins and stamps from the foundation of Switzerland as a federal state in 1848. The Swiss Confederation continues to use the name in its Latin form when using any or all of its four official languages

6832-405: 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

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6944-408: 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

7056-446: 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

7168-415: 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

7280-464: 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

7392-420: 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

7504-415: The early modern period, but most symbolic depictions of the Confederacy in the 17th century do without the federal cross. Beginning in the later 16th century, forces of the individual cantons adopted a type of flag which was based on a white cross design. These flags usually showed a white cross drawn to the edge of the field in front of a background striped in the respective cantonal colours. From this type,

7616-420: 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

7728-401: The emblem of Victorinox , manufacturer of Swiss Army knives and the sole purveyor of these knives to the Swiss army , is based on the Swiss coat of arms. The display of the flag on federal, cantonal and municipal public buildings follows no uniform pattern or regulation. Many public buildings are equipped with flag posts (most often one each for the federal, cantonal and municipal flag), but

7840-409: 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

7952-433: 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

8064-566: The federal penal code. The commercial use of the Swiss cross, Swiss flag or Swiss coat of arms was technically prohibited by the 1931 Federal Act for the protection of public coats of arms and other public insignia, but that prohibition was not enforced. Increasing commercial use of the Swiss coat of arms prompted a number of federal regulations, dubbed " Swissness regulation" ( Swissness-Verordnung ), in force since 2017. The "Coat of Arms Protection Act" of 2017 ( Wappenschutzgesetz , Loi sur la protection des armoiries , SR 232.21) now prohibits

8176-480: The flag for its troops in 1833. General Guillaume-Henri Dufour proposed use of the flag for all federal forces in 1839. The Tagsatzung on 2 September 1839 passed a resolution prescribing the use of a unified flag design for all cantonal infantry regiments. In a first circular sent to the cantonal authorities, the flag was described as a red flag with a cross touching the edges, but in 1841, the Tagsatzung opted for

8288-489: The flag law provides an image specifying that the margin is to be of the same width as the cross arms, so that the total height of the cross is fixed at 20:32 = 5:8 of the height of the flag (in other words, the width of the margin is 6:32 = 3:16). This ratio is also given as a " vexillological recommendation" in the flag regulation used by the Swiss Armed Forces . Flags with a cross of larger relative widths than

8400-534: The flag of the Swiss Confederation is a nominal compound , Schweizerfahne . The flag is emblazoned in English as, "Gules, a cross coupée argent." While the proportions of the cross have been fixed since 1889, the size of the cross relative to the flag (the width of the margin separating the cross couped from the edge of the flag) had not been officially fixed prior to 2017. The annex to

8512-543: The flag(s) may only be flown during part of the year or only on National Day. In Bern , the flag is flown on the cupola of the Federal Palace while the Federal Assembly is in session. Destruction, removal or desecration of a Swiss, cantonal or municipal flag or coat of arms that has been installed by a public authority is punishable by a monetary penalty or imprisonment of up to three years according to

8624-476: 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

8736-489: 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

8848-640: 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

8960-498: 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

9072-534: 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

9184-567: 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

9296-685: The lower fly, and a vignette with the commander's coat of arms in the centre. 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

9408-455: The modern 5:8 = 62.5%). The specifications include the flag pole and the ribbon with the cantonal colours attached to the pole (the example depicted is the flag of the Zürich battalion). The flag itself is described as of good silk cloth, four feet five inches squared, scarlet , in the center a white cross, arms measuring one foot by three feet. The Swiss constitution of 1848 did not name

9520-620: 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

9632-412: 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

9744-408: 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

9856-590: 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

9968-630: 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

10080-584: 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:

10192-458: 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

10304-406: 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

10416-432: The prescribed 20:32 = 62.5% remain in wide use; common ratios include 20:26 ≈ 76.9% and 20:28 ≈ 71.4%. For the ensign, the ratio of the size of the cross to the height is likewise 5:8, so that the ratio of cross to flag width is 5:12. The shade of red used in the flag was not defined by law prior to 2017. Since then, the colour of the flag is defined as pure red, with the color values as follows: The ultimate origin of

10528-523: 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

10640-528: 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

10752-415: 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

10864-542: 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

10976-473: 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,

11088-469: 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

11200-420: The title panel: one is the figure of an armed Eidgenosse , representing Swiss military prowess and sovereignty, the other is a female Abundantia allegory crowned with a city's ramparts. Female allegories of individual cantons predate the single Helvetia figure. There are depictions of a Respublica Tigurina Virgo (1607), a Lucerna shown in 1658 with the victor of Villmergen , Christoph Pfyffer , and

11312-542: 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 ),

11424-604: The virtues of Helvetia antiqua (not shown in the painting). On 14 September 1672, a monumental baroque play by Johann Caspar Weissenbach was performed in Zug , entitled Eydtgnossisch Contrafeth Auff- und Abnemmender Jungfrawen Helvetiae . The play is full of allegories illustrating the rise of Helvetia and her decadence after the Reformation. In the 4th act, the Abnemmende Helvetiae or "Waning Helvetia"

11536-569: The white cross in the red field for the seal of the Confederacy in 1814. The commission for drafting a federal constitution on 16 May 1814 recommended the adoption of a seal of the Confederacy based on the "field sign of the old Swiss". On 4 July 1815, the Diet accepted the design of the commission, adopted as the provisional seal described as "in the center, the federal red shield with the white cross as common federal heraldic emblem, surrounded by

11648-593: The white cross is attributed by three competing legends: to the Theban Legion , to the Reichssturmfahne (Imperial War Banner) attested from the 12th century, and to the Arma Christi that were especially venerated in the three forest cantons , and which they were allegedly allowed to display on the formerly uniformly red battle flag from 1289 by King Rudolph I of Habsburg at the occasion of

11760-561: 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

11872-525: 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

11984-660: Was described by the Swiss Federal Council in 1889 as representing "at the same the Christian cross symbol and the field sign of the Old Confederacy ". As a national ensign , it was first used during the Napoleonic Wars by general Niklaus Franz von Bachmann , and as regimental flag of all cantonal troops from 1841. The federal coat of arms ( eidgenössisches Wappen ) was defined in 1815 for

12096-667: Was held, and its inventor and co-founder, the Swiss Henry Dunant . The modern banner of the Pontifical Swiss Guard was designed in 1912–14 by commander Jules Repond . The design has a Swiss cross design based on the 18th-century regimental flags of the Swiss Guards , with the papal coat of arms of the reigning pope in the upper hoist and the Della Rovere coat of arms of Julius II in

12208-443: 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

12320-489: Was passed on 12 December 1889 ( SR 111). The rectangular variant of the flag is used as a naval ensign only, officially introduced with a federal law passed 23 September 1953. The current flag law of the Swiss Confederacy is the Wappenschutzgesetz ( WSchG , SR 232.21) of 2013 (in force since 2017). This law replaced the flag law of 1931 (last revised in 2008). The 2013 law for the first time defines both

12432-658: 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

12544-420: Was thus the white cross itself, not necessarily in a red field, but attached to existing flags, so that it appeared before a red background in those cantonal flags that contained red, notably the solid-red flag of Schwyz. The first explicit mention of a separate flag representing the Confederacy dates to 1540, in the context of an auxiliary force sent by the Swiss to aid their associate, the city of Rottweil , in

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