Italian Benghazi (called "Bengasi italiana" in Italian language) was the name used during the Italian colonization of Libya for the port-city of Benghazi in Italian Cyrenaica .
109-626: Italian Libyans ( Italian : Italo-libici ) are Libyan -born citizens who are fully or partially of Italian descent, whose ancestors were Italians who emigrated to Libya during the Italian diaspora , or Italian-born people in Libya. Most of the Italians moved to Libya during the Italian colonial period . The Italian population virtually disappeared after the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi ordered
218-580: A Western conception of Eastern architecture. An example of this is the Municipal palace built in 1924, which stands in Maydan al-Hurriya (Freedom Square). The building combines Moorish arches with Italianate motifs on the facade. Italians even did the first architectural plan of Benghazi in the 1930s, with a new railway station and large promenade. The first Italian infrastructures in Benghazi dated at
327-565: 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
436-471: 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
545-657: 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
654-658: 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
763-417: 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
872-575: 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
981-537: 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: Italian Benghazi On October 19, 1911, the Ottoman city of Benghazi was occupied by the Italians during the Italo-Turkish War . Even if Benghazi city accepted
1090-479: 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
1199-513: 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
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#17327660802481308-427: 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
1417-759: 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
1526-534: 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
1635-460: 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
1744-504: 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 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
1853-462: 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
1962-648: Is the main working language of the Holy See , serving as the lingua franca (common language) in the Roman Catholic hierarchy as well as the official language of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta . Italian has a significant use in musical terminology and opera with numerous Italian words referring to music that have become international terms taken into various languages worldwide. Almost all native Italian words end with vowels , and
2071-549: 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
2180-509: 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,
2289-991: 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 ),
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#17327660802482398-702: 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
2507-852: 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 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
2616-664: 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 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
2725-674: 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
2834-773: 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
2943-554: 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
3052-528: 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
3161-407: The bubonic plague ). In the next twenty years they built all these infrastructures and by the early 1930s a new port and a railways station were created in Benghazi. In the 1920s in the Benghazi province was created a railway between Benghazi and Barce: a 750 mm (2 ft 5 1⁄2 in) (later 950 mm) gauge railway was built east from Benghazi; the main route was 110 km long to Marj and
3270-525: The city in December 1942- nearly 85% of the city was damaged or destroyed. Benghazi was then governed by the British until independence in 1951. Under the terms of the 1947 peace treaty with the Allies , Italy relinquished all claims to Libya. After WWII the era of international decolonization fostered an exodus of Italians from Benghazi, especially after Libya became independent in 1953. After 1970
3379-505: The "Punta Saline" in the West, where arose the "Industrial basin and Docking area", and the saline Ain es-Selmani eastward. The main axis on which the Plan was based were the "Via Scerif" and the street parallel, obtained by the extension of "Corso Italia". The goal was to merge in an organic unity the distinct areas of the city incorporating the existing structures: although the trend, at least for
Italian settlers in Libya - Misplaced Pages Continue
3488-532: 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
3597-510: 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
3706-583: The 1920s. This is evident in his "Albergo Italia" as well as the "Berenice Theatre" in central Benghazi. Piacentini was later made project manager of all Italian building works in Cyrenaica. In 1928 the Milan Studio of architecture owned by Alpago Novello, Cabiati and Ferrazza, got the task of studying a "Plan of Benghazi", where they had already designed the Cathedral (built in 1928–34), located in
3815-562: 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
3924-750: The Elementary and Middle School and the Sports Club. King's Square was connected by the axis of "Via Roma" and "Via Generale Briccola", the Town Hall Square, located within the ancient city, in which stood the Town Hall built in the Moorish style . The Benghazi Municipal Hall was built in 1924 and was considered one of the best colonial buildings in Africa. While the facades were designed by
4033-541: The Italian colonies of Tripolitania , Cyrenaica and the Fezzan into one single country named "Libia" in Italian. Libya was considered the new "America" for the Italian emigrants in the 1930s, substituting the United States . The Italians in Libya numbered 108,419 (12.37% of the total population) at the time of the 1939 census. They were concentrated in the coast around the city of Tripoli (they constituted 37% of
4142-438: The Italian consulate in Benghazi was closed following protests after Minister Roberto Calderoli appeared on television wearing a T-shirt depicting one of the caricatures of Muhammad . The protests resulted in the deaths of 11 Libyans and the wounding of 60 others, as well as damage to the Italian consulate. According to official figures, in 2007 there were 598 Italians in Libya. Almost all the Italians in Libya were evacuated at
4251-417: 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
4360-492: The Italian government - reached a temporary population of nearly 80,000 inhabitants, due to the arrival of many Italians from Cyrenaica who took refuge from the British army attacks during WWII . As a consequence Benghazi was in that year -for the first time since the Arab conquest in 643 AD- a city mostly Christian . Population of the main urban centers of Italian Libya , according to the census of 1939/40: "Bengasi italiana"
4469-489: 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,
Italian settlers in Libya - Misplaced Pages Continue
4578-623: The Italian population of the city -reduced to a few hundred inhabitants- practically disappeared when Libyan president Muammar Gaddafi ordered the expulsion of all Italians from his Libya. At present, the Libyan Italians (and the few "Bengasini" still living) are organized in the Associazione Italiani Rimpatriati dalla Libia . Italian Benghazi was located in northern Italian Libya , in Cyrenaica . It
4687-463: The Italians and some members (mainly Jews ) of the local community collaborated with the Italian government, in the interior nearly half the local population of Cyrenaica under the leadership of Omar Mukhtar resisted the Italian occupation. Many local Arabs -under the Senussi leadership- suffered oppression, particularly from the fascist dictator Mussolini in the late 1920s. In the early 1930s,
4796-406: The Libyan census. At present, the Libyan Italians are organized in the Associazione Italiani Rimpatriati dalla Libia . They are involved in a struggle to have their confiscated properties returned. Italian language Italian ( italiano , pronounced [itaˈljaːno] , or lingua italiana , pronounced [ˈliŋɡwa itaˈljaːna] ) is a Romance language of
4905-500: The Libyan people during the period of colonial rule. " and went on to say that this was a "complete and moral acknowledgement of the damage inflicted on Libya by Italy during the colonial era". Only a few hundred Italians were allowed to return to Libya between 2000 and 2010. In 2006 the Italian embassy in Tripoli calculated that there were approximately 1,000 original Libyan Italians in Libya, mostly elderly people and assimilated Muslim living in Tripoli and Benghazi. On 16 February 2006,
5014-497: 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
5123-436: The Romans controlled and colonized Libya for a period of more than five centuries prior to the fall of the Roman Empire and its takeover by Arab and Turkish civilizations. But predominantly Italian heritage in Libya refers to modern-day Italians. In 1911, the Kingdom of Italy waged war on the Ottoman Empire and captured Libya as a colony. Italian settlers were encouraged to come to Libya and did so from 1911 until
5232-412: The Square "Martiri Fascisti" (Fascist Martyrs). Furthermore, in the 1930s many architects came from Italy to work and create the new "Bengasi italiana": Limongelli, Alpago Novello, Cabiati, Ferrazza, Di Fausto , Rava, Piccinato, Pellegrini, Gennari and Di Segni were the most famous The new Benghazi therefore was developed between the old city and the suburb of Berca through the isthmus situated between
5341-399: The United Kingdom of Libya, a constitutional and hereditary monarchy. The Italian population virtually disappeared after the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi ordered the expulsion of remaining Italians (about 20,000) in 1970 . After the nationalization of Italian companies, only a small number of Italians remained in Libya. In 1986, after the political crisis between the United States and Libya,
5450-416: The architect Ivo Lebboroni, the interior frescoes are the work of Guido Cadorin, and the chandeliers are by Umberto Bellotto. The furniture inside the town hall was designed by the company Ducrot. The portico of the facade and the interiors were designed by Roman architect Marcello Piacentini : the style of his buildings is characteristic of the Neo-Moorish period of Italian colonial architecture in Libya in
5559-406: The border of Egypt . The car tag for the Italian province of Benghazi was "BE". In the late 1930s in the Benghazi province were settled thousands of Italians as farmers in special villages. Most of the Italians were concentrated in the city of Benghazi, where they were in 1939 nearly one third of the population. Those Italians brought to the city the Italian passion for soccer and sports: in
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#17327660802485668-444: 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
5777-581: The city's population) and Benghazi (31%). In 1938, Governor Balbo brought 20,000 Italian farmers to colonize Libya, and 26 new villages were founded for them, mainly in Cyrenaica. In 1938 20,000 Italian colonists settled in coastal Libya. Italian authorities created 26 new agricultural villages for them: Olivetti, Bianchi, Giordani, Micca, Tazzoli, Breviglieri, Marconi, Garabulli, Crispi, Corradini, Garibaldi, Littoriano, Castel Benito , Filzi, Baracca, Maddalena, Aro, Oberdan, D’Annunzio, Razza, Mameli, Battisti, Berta, Luigi di Savoia and Gioda. On 9 January 1939,
5886-436: The coast) in Libya. The construction of the railway Tripoli- Bengazi was blocked by the start of WW2 : only a few dozen kms were built between Tripoli and Misurata. In 1940 World War II broke out between Italy and Great Britain . The defeat of the Axis forces in the North African Campaigns of World War II meant Italy lost Libya to British and French control. After these Western Desert Campaign defeats in 1943, Italy
5995-455: 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
6104-405: The colony of Libya was incorporated into metropolitan Italy and thereafter considered an integral part of the Italian state. Libya, as the Fourth Shore , was to be part of the Imperial Italy , desired by the Italian irredentists . By 1939 the Libyan Italians had built 400 km of new railroads and 4,000 km of new roads (the largest and most important was the one from Tripoli to Tobruk, on
6213-405: 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
6322-408: 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
6431-446: 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
6540-415: 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
6649-454: The creation of new farm villages). Catholicism experienced a huge growth in those years, with many new churches built for the growing Italian community: in the late 1920s the two catholic Cathedrals of Tripoli and Benghazi were built. The one in Benghazi was considered the biggest in north Africa. The governor Italo Balbo is attributed with the creation of modern Libya in 1934, when he convinced Italian leader Benito Mussolini to unite
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#17327660802486758-464: 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
6867-420: 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
6976-420: 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
7085-475: The end of the nineties. Only a few hundred of them were allowed to return to Libya in the 2000s. On 30 August 2008, Gaddafi and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi signed a historic cooperation treaty in Benghazi. Under its terms, Italy would pay $ 5 billion to Libya as compensation for its former military occupation. In exchange, Libya would take measures to combat illegal immigration coming from its shores and boost investments in Italian companies. The treaty
7194-409: 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
7303-609: The expulsion of Italians in 1970 . After the nationalization of Italian companies, only a small number of Italians remained in Libya. On 30 August 2008, Gaddafi and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi signed a historic cooperation treaty in Benghazi. Only a few hundred Italians were allowed to return to Libya between 2000 and 2010. In 2006 the Italian embassy in Tripoli calculated that there were approximately 1,000 original Libyan Italians in Libya, mostly elderly people and assimilated Muslim living in Tripoli and Benghazi. Italian heritage in Libya can be dated back to Ancient Rome , when
7412-433: 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
7521-410: 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
7630-413: The initial period with the Military barracks "Generale Torelli", the Military "Autogruppo" and other equipments & infrastructures of this type. The heart of the Italian city was constituted by the "King's Square", former Ottoman Salt Square that was called in Italian "Piazza del Re", with the central part arranged as a garden park. On it overlooked the Palace Government, a Moorish-style building, later
7739-431: 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
7848-577: 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 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
7957-640: 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
8066-498: 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
8175-448: The late 1930s was created the "Stadio Municipale", one of the first stadiums in Libya. Benghazi came under Italian rule in the early part of the 20th century: some examples of Italianate , as well as modernist colonial architecture from this period remain today. Under the governorships of Generals Ernesto Mombelli and Attilio Teruzzi in the 1920s, the buildings commissioned in Benghazi had an eclectic architectural language that embodied
8284-534: 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
8393-567: 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
8502-412: 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
8611-515: The number of Italians decreased even further, reaching an all-time low of 1,500 people, that is, less than 0.1% of the population. In the 1990s and 2000s, with the end of the economic embargo, some Colonial-era Italians (a few dozen pensioners) returned to Libya. In 2004 there were 22,530 Italians in Libya, almost the same number as in 1962, mainly skilled workers in the oil industries (principally in Eni , which has been present in Libya since 1953) arrived at
8720-408: 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
8829-557: The old section, was always that of separation from the Italian-populated city, as demonstrated with the enlargement of Aghib street and the expansion planned for the axis of Via Roma and Via Generale Briccola, where in some buildings were built huge arcades (as in northern Italy). The largest colonial building from this Italian period is the Benghazi Cathedral in "Maydan El Catedraeya" (Cathedral Square), which
8938-630: 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
9047-584: 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:
9156-458: 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
9265-610: The outbreak of World War II . In less than thirty years (1911–1940), the Italians in Libya built a significant amount of public works (roads, railways, buildings, ports, etc.) and the Libyan economy flourished. They even created the Tripoli Grand Prix , an international motor racing event first held in 1925 on a racing circuit outside Tripoli (it lasted until 1940). Italian farmers cultivated lands that had returned to native desert for many centuries, and improved Italian Libya's agriculture to international standards (even with
9374-406: 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
9483-469: 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
9592-528: 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
9701-415: 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
9810-542: 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
9919-559: The revolt was over and the Italians—under governor Italo Balbo —started attempts to assimilate the local population with pacifying policies: a number of new villages for local Cyrenaicans were created with health services and schools. Additionally Cyrenaica was populated by more than 20,000 Italian colonists in the late 1930s, mainly around the coast of Benghazi. Benghazi population was made up of more than 35 per cent of Italians in 1939. In 1941 Italian Benghazi -according to estimates of
10028-730: The seat of the "Parliament of Cyrenaica", which housed the Library and the Civil Court, and other remarkable architectural buildings. In the square there was the "Corso Italia", lined with palm trees, the main artery of the city leading to the new "Benghazi Train Station"; on it stood the main facade of the Governor's Palace (built in 1928–34), designed by the famous architects Alpago Novello, Cabiati and Ferrazza, overlooking "Piazza XXVIII October". Here were lined up various buildings such as
10137-498: The start of the first Civil War in 2011, on special flights and by ship. A few Italians returned to Libya after 2012, mainly oil technicians, humanitarian workers and diplomats, but most of these left at the start of the second Civil War in 2014. There are also many descendants (probably 10,000, according to estimates of Italian historian Vidali) of Italian settlers who married Arabs and/or Berbers, and Libyans of mixed Italian and Arab/Berber blood may be considered Arabs or Berbers in
10246-473: 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,
10355-472: The time of the conquest, in late 1911, when was done the enlargement of the small Ottoman port that was greatly improved and when was created the communication network with the interior through the construction of two railway lines. Between 1922 and the early thirties the Italian government was organizing an Italian-populated center in the area that overlooked the harbour, encircling the Arab city, as it happened in
10464-469: 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
10573-542: 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 ),
10682-659: 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 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
10791-561: 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
10900-525: 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
11009-501: Was connected to Italy and other Libyan airports, but the main flight was the worldwide famous Linea dell'Impero . This line of Ala Littoria was considered the most prestigious line of early Italian civil aviation era: it was opened after the Italian conquest of Ethiopia in 1936 and was followed by the first air links with the Italian colonies in Italian East Africa , which began in a pioneering way since 1934. The route
11118-580: Was conquered by the British Army in February 1941, but after only 2 months (when Australian troops harassed the civilian population ) the Italians reconquered the city with the help of Rommel 's Afrika Korps . The British definitively occupied the city after the Battle of El Alamein . Benghazi was heavily bombed during World War II (more than one thousand times) and -when the British finally occupied
11227-504: Was enlarged to 6,379 km and initially joined Rome with Addis Ababa via Syracuse , Benghazi , Cairo , Wadi Halfa , Khartoum , Kassala , Asmara , Dire Dawa . There was a change of aircraft in Benghazi and the passengers could relax and stay in the modern " Albergo Berenice ". In the coast of the province was built in 1937-1938 a section of the Via Balbia , a road that went from Italian Tripoli and Tunisia's frontier to
11336-641: Was forced to abandon its colonial intentions and projects, but most of the Italian settlers remained in Libya. From 1947 to 1951, Tripolitania and Cyrenaica were under British administration, while the French controlled Fezzan. Under the terms of the 1947 peace treaty with the Allies, Italy relinquished all claims to Libya. On 21 November 1949, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution stating that Libya should become independent before 1 January 1952. On 24 December 1951, Libya declared its independence as
11445-443: 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
11554-470: Was opened in stages between 1911 and 1927. Benghazi also had a 56 km branch to Suluq opened in 1926. In the late 1920s was created the Benghazi airport (now called Benina International Airport ) and was greatly enlarged the Port of Benghazi . Inside the greater Port in the 1930s was created a modern "Idroscalo" ( seaplane station) for the flights between "Bengasi italiana" and Italy. The Benghazi airport
11663-580: Was ratified by Italy on 6 February 2009, and by Libya on 2 March, during a visit to Tripoli by Berlusconi. Co-operation ended in February 2011 as a result of the Libyan Civil War which overthrew Gaddafi. At the signing ceremony of the document, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi recognized historic atrocities and repression committed by the state of Italy against the Libyan people during colonial rule, stating: In this historic document, Italy apologizes for its killing, destruction and repression of
11772-658: 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
11881-674: Was the administrative center of the Italian Benghazi Province , on the Mediterranean coast. In 1911 Ottoman Benghazi had less than 5,000 inhabitants, and nearly one half of them were Jews , who welcomed the Italians. Indeed, the Italians conquered from the Ottomans in 1911 a region in coastal Cyrenaica that was very poor and underdeveloped: it had no asphalted road, no telegraph services, no sewages system and no hospitals (in 1874 Benghazi had been depopulated by
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