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137-479: Mount Etna , or simply Etna ( Italian : Etna [ˈɛtna] or Mongibello [mondʒiˈbɛllo] ; Sicilian : Muncibbeḍḍu [mʊntʃɪbˈbɛɖɖʊ] or 'a Muntagna ; Latin : Aetna ; Ancient Greek : Αἴτνα and Αἴτνη ), is an active stratovolcano on the east coast of Sicily , Italy , in the Metropolitan City of Catania , between the cities of Messina and Catania . It
274-563: A BBC News television crew, after magma exploded upon contact with snow. An eruption on 24 December 2018, following a dyke intrusion at shallow depth, spewed ash into the air, forcing the closure of airspace around Mount Etna. Two days later, a magnitude 4.9 earthquake shook the town of Fleri and surrounding towns and hamlets in the Province of Catania, damaging buildings and injuring four people. Beginning in February 2021, Mount Etna began
411-689: 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
548-526: A chairlift. Sapienza Refuge was the finish of Stage 9 of the 2011 Giro d'Italia and Stage 4 of the 2017 Giro . 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
685-416: A cylindrical vent. Unlike shield volcanoes , they are characterized by a steep profile and periodic, often alternating, explosive eruptions and effusive eruptions . Some have collapsed craters called calderas . The central core of a stratocone is commonly dominated by a central core of intrusive rocks that range from around 500 meters (1,600 ft) to over several kilometers in diameter. This central core
822-430: A few days to a few years. Of observed cinder cone eruptions, 50% have lasted for less than 30 days, and 95% stopped within one year. In case of Parícutin, its eruption lasted for nine years from 1943 to 1952. Rarely do they erupt either two, three, or more times. Later eruptions typically produce new cones within a volcanic field at separation distances of a few kilometers and separate by periods of 100 to 1,000 years. Within
959-420: A huge tsunami , which left its mark in several places in the eastern Mediterranean . The steep walls of the valley have suffered subsequent collapses on numerous occasions. The strata exposed in the valley walls provide an important and easily accessible record of Etna's eruptive history. The most recent collapse event at the summit of Etna is thought to have occurred about 2,000 years ago, forming what
1096-565: 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
1233-471: 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
1370-609: A new artificial channel, far from Zafferana, and it would have taken months to re-establish a long lava tube. Shortly after the blasting, the rate of lava emission dropped, and during the remainder of the eruption (until 30 March 1993) the lava never advanced close to the town again. Following six years (1995–2001) of unusually intense activity at the four summit craters of Etna, the volcano produced its first flank eruption since 1991–1993 in July–August 2001. This eruption, which involved activity from seven distinct eruptive fissures mostly on
1507-658: 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
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#17327942121151644-417: 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
1781-522: 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
1918-495: A series of explosive eruptions, which have had an impact on nearby villages and cities, with volcanic ash and rock falling as far away as Catania. As of 12 March 2021, the volcano has erupted 11 times in three weeks. The eruptions have consistently sent ash clouds over 10 km (33,000 ft) into the air, closing Sicilian airports. There have been no reports of injuries. In February 2022 there were two eruptions. On 11 February 2022, at 6 pm, there were lava fountains from
2055-409: 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: Volcanic cone Volcanic cones are among the simplest volcanic landforms . They are built by ejecta from a volcanic vent , piling up around the vent in
2192-479: 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
2329-1026: A single, typically cylindrical, vent. As the gas-charged lava is blown violently into the air, it breaks into small fragments that solidify and fall as either cinders, clinkers, or scoria around the vent to form a cone that often is noticeably symmetrical; with slopes between 30 and 40°; and a nearly circular ground plan. Most cinder cones have a bowl-shaped crater at the summit. The basal diameters of cinder cones average about 800 meters (2,600 ft) and range from 250 to 2,500 meters (820 to 8,200 ft). The diameter of their craters ranges between 50 and 600 meters (160 and 1,970 ft). Cinder cones rarely rise more than 50–350 meters (160–1,150 ft) or so above their surroundings. Cinder cones most commonly occur as isolated cones in large basaltic volcanic fields. They also occur in nested clusters in association with complex tuff ring and maar complexes. Finally, they are also common as parasitic and monogenetic cones on complex shield and stratovolcanoes. Globally, cinder cones are
2466-415: A slowly diminishing rate for 417 days, until 6 July 2009, making this the longest flank eruption of Etna since the 1991–1993 eruption that lasted 473 days. Previous eruptions, in 2001, 2002–2003, and 2004–2005 had lasted 3 weeks, 3 months, and 6 months, respectively. Lava flows advanced 6.5 km during the first few days of this eruption but thereafter stagnated at many minor distances from the vents; during
2603-399: A tuff cone have commonly been altered, palagonitized , by either its interaction with groundwater or when it was deposited warm and wet. The pyroclastic deposits of tuff cones differ from the pyroclastic deposits of spatter cones by their lack or paucity of lava spatter, smaller grain-size, and excellent bedding. Typically, but not always, tuff cones lack associated lava flows. A tuff ring
2740-513: 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
2877-480: A vent on the eastern side of the Southeast Crater in mid-August 2007. On 4 September 2007, a major episode of lava fountaining occurred from the new vent on the east side of the Southeast Crater, also producing a plume of ash and scoriae which fell over the east flank of the volcano. A lava flow travelled about 4.5 km (2.8 mi) into the uninhabited Valle del Bove. This eruption was visible far into
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#17327942121153014-525: A volcanic field, eruptions can occur over a period of a million years. Once eruptions cease, being unconsolidated, cinder cones tend to erode rapidly unless further eruptions occur. Rootless cones , also called pseudocraters , are volcanic cones that are not directly associated with a conduit that brought magma to the surface from a deep-seated magma reservoir. Generally, three types of rootless cones, littoral cones , explosion craters , and hornitos are recognized. Littoral cones and explosion craters are
3151-535: A zone known as Ripe della Naca. The village of Mascali , lying down-slope of the Ripe della Naca, was almost completely destroyed in two days. Only a church and a few surrounding buildings survived in the north part of the village, called Sant'Antonino or "il quartiere". During the last days of the eruption, the flow interrupted the Messina-Catania railway line and destroyed the train station of Mascali. The event
3288-427: 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
3425-637: Is a low, steep-sided hill or mound that consists of welded lava fragments, called spatter, which has formed around a lava fountain issuing from a central vent. Typically, spatter cones are about 3–5 meters (9.8–16.4 ft) high. In case of a linear fissure, lava fountaining will create broad embankments of spatter, called spatter ramparts, along both sides of the fissure. Spatter cones are more circular and cone shaped, while spatter ramparts are linear wall-like features. Spatter cones and spatter ramparts are typically formed by lava fountaining associated with mafic , highly fluid lavas, such as those erupted in
3562-408: Is a related type of small monogenetic volcano that is also produced by phreatic (hydrovolcanic) explosions directly associated with magma brought to the surface through a conduit from a deep-seated magma reservoir. They are characterized by rims that have a low, broad topographic profiles and gentle topographic slopes that are 25 degrees or less. The maximum thickness of the pyroclastic debris comprising
3699-666: Is a small monogenetic volcanic cone produced by phreatic (hydrovolcanic) explosions directly associated with magma brought to the surface through a conduit from a deep-seated magma reservoir. They are characterized by high rims that have a maximum relief of 100–800 meters (330–2,620 ft) above the crater floor and steep slopes that are greater than 25 degrees. They typically have a rim to rim diameter of 300–5,000 meters (980–16,400 ft). A tuff cone consists typically of thick-bedded pyroclastic flow and surge deposits created by eruption-fed density currents and bomb-scoria beds derived from fallout from its eruption column. The tuffs composing
3836-625: Is accessible. Ferrovia Circumetnea – Round-Etna railway – is a narrow-gauge railway constructed between 1889 and 1895. It runs around the volcano in a 110-km long semi-circle starting in Catania and ending in Riposto 28 km north of Catania. There are two ski resorts on Etna: one at the Sapienza Refuge, with a chairlift and three ski lifts, and a smaller one on the north, at Piano Provenzana near Linguaglossa , with three lifts and
3973-759: 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
4110-692: Is confusion between this eruption and an earthquake that devastated southeast Sicily (including Catania) 24 years later in 1693 . A study on the damage and fatalities caused by eruptions of Etna in historical times reveals that only 77 human deaths are attributable with certainty to eruptions of Etna, most recently in 1987 when two tourists were killed by a sudden explosion near the summit. Since 1750, seven of Etna's eruptions have had durations of more than 5 years, more than any other volcano except Vesuvius. As "Europe's most active volcano", eruptions occur frequently (with as many as 16 eruptions taking place in 2001). However, several eruptions of note have occurred over
4247-534: 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
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4384-586: Is known as the Piano Caldera. This caldera has been almost entirely filled by subsequent lava eruptions but is still visible as a distinct break in the slope of the mountain near the base of the present-day summit cone. Mount Etna is moving towards the Mediterranean Sea at an average rate of 14 mm (0.55 in) per year, the massif sliding on an unconsolidated layer above the older sloping terrain. The first known record of eruption at Etna
4521-698: Is located above the convergent plate margin between the African Plate and the Eurasian Plate . It is one of the tallest active volcanoes in Europe , and the tallest peak in Italy south of the Alps with a current height (September 2024) of 3,403 m (11,165 ft), though this varies with summit eruptions. For instance, in 2021 the southeastern crater reached a height of 3,357 m, but was then surpassed by
4658-460: 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
4795-410: 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
4932-594: 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
5069-414: Is surrounded by multiple generations of lava flows, many of which are brecciated , and a wide range of pyroclastic rocks and reworked volcanic debris. The typical stratocone is an andesitic to dacitic volcano that is associated with subduction zones . They are also known as either stratified volcano, composite cone, bedded volcano, cone of mixed type or Vesuvian-type volcano. A spatter cone
5206-551: Is that of Diodorus Siculus . In 396 BCE, an eruption of Etna reportedly thwarted the Carthaginians in their attempt to advance on Syracuse during the Second Sicilian War . A particularly violent explosive ( Plinian ) summit eruption occurred in 122 BCE, and caused heavy tephra falls to the southeast, including the town of Catania , where many roofs collapsed. To help with reconstruction after
5343-538: Is that the name is derived from the Phoenician word attuna meaning 'furnace' or 'chimney'. In Classical Greek , it is called Αἴτνη ( Aítnē ), a name given also to Catania and the city originally known as Inessa . In Latin it is called Aetna . In Arabic , it is called Jabal al-Nār ( جبل النار , 'the Mountain of Fire'). According to both Roman and Greek mythology, Vulcan / Hephaestus ,
5480-549: 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
5617-509: 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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5754-991: 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 ),
5891-702: 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
6028-674: 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
6165-773: 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
6302-1033: 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
6439-554: 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
6576-691: 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 the Grisons ), Corsica , and Vatican City . It has official minority status in Croatia , Slovenian Istria , and
6713-777: The Strait of Messina . Eruptions of Etna follow multiple patterns. Most occur at the summit, where there are five distinct craters: the Northeast Crater, the Voragine, the Bocca Nuova, and two at the Southeast Crater Complex. Other eruptions occur on the flanks, which have more than 300 vents ranging in size from small holes in the ground to large craters hundreds of metres across. Summit eruptions can be highly explosive and spectacular but rarely threaten
6850-528: 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
6987-532: 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
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#17327942121157124-510: 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
7261-511: The 1970s Etna erupted vortex rings , one of the first recorded events of this type, which are extremely rare. This happened again in 2000. Video footage of 8 June 2000 event was captured. Another event occurred on 11 April 2013. Other similar events occurred during the summer of 2023 (see photo) and 2024. The borders of ten municipalities ( Adrano , Biancavilla , Belpasso , Bronte (from two sides), Castiglione di Sicilia , Maletto , Nicolosi , Randazzo , Sant'Alfio , Zafferana Etnea ) meet on
7398-562: 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
7535-487: The 1983 eruption; it has now been rebuilt. Following a slow and non-destructive lava outflow on the upper southeastern flank between September 2004 and March 2005, intense eruptions occurred at the Southeast Crater in July–December 2006. These were followed by four episodes of lava fountaining, again at the Southeast Crater, on 29 March, 11 April, 29 April and 7 May 2007. Ash emissions and Strombolian explosions started from
7672-504: The 20th century. Since 2000, Etna has had four flank eruptions – in 2001, 2002–2003, 2004–2005, and 2008–2009. Summit eruptions occurred in 2006, 2007–2008, January–April 2012, in July–October 2012, December 2018, and again in February 2021. Volcanic activity first took place at Etna about 500,000 years ago, with eruptions occurring beneath the sea off the ancient coastline of Sicily. About 300,000 years ago, volcanism began occurring to
7809-535: The Etna Observatory (built in the late 19th century), destroyed the first generation of the Etna cable-car, and seriously threatened several small villages on Etna's east flank. In March 1981, the town of Randazzo on the northwestern flank of Etna narrowly escaped destruction by unusually fast-moving lava flows. That eruption was remarkably similar to one in 1928 that destroyed Mascali. The 1991–1993 eruption saw
7946-628: The European–North-African region west of the Black Sea. In Greek mythology , the deadly monster Typhon was trapped under this mountain by Zeus , the god of the sky and thunder and king of gods, and the forges of Hephaestus were said also to be underneath it. Mount Etna is one of the world's most active volcanoes and is in an almost constant state of activity. The fertile volcanic soils produced from this activity support extensive agriculture , with vineyards and orchards spread across
8083-512: The Hawaiian Islands. As blobs of molten lava, spatter, are erupted into the air by a lava fountain, they can lack the time needed to cool completely before hitting the ground. Consequently, the spatter are not fully solid, like taffy , as they land and they bind to the underlying spatter as both often slowly ooze down the side of the cone. As a result, the spatter builds up a cone that is composed of spatter either agglutinated or welded to each other. A tuff cone , sometimes called an ash cone ,
8220-417: 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
8357-439: The Italian language into a lingua franca used not only among clerks, nobility, and functionaries in the Italian courts but also by the bourgeoisie . Italian literature's first modern novel, I promessi sposi ( The Betrothed ) by Alessandro Manzoni , further defined the standard by "rinsing" his Milanese "in the waters of the Arno " ( Florence 's river), as he states in the preface to his 1840 edition. After unification,
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#17327942121158494-416: The Latin phrase in monte Gyber ('within Etna') to describe the location of Arthur's kingdom. The Fada de Gibel of the Castle of Gibaldar (Fairy of Etna) appears in Jaufre , the only surviving Arthurian romance in the Occitan language , the composition of which is dated to between 1180 and 1230. However, in Jaufre , while it is clear from her name that the fairy queen in question is Morgan le Fay,
8631-497: 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
8768-425: The Southeast Crater which became a single Strombolian eruption by 7 pm. Between 10 and 11 pm it had reached a height of almost 1,000 m and lava bombs were thrown at a considerable distance. Ash was blown west by the wind and then turned southeast. There was large lava flow in the western flank. On 19 February at 10.15 am there was an explosive eruption, again from the Southeast Crater, high lava fountains and lava flows,
8905-411: The Voragine crater after the summer 2024 eruptions. Etna covers an area of 1,190 km (459 sq mi) with a basal circumference of 140 km (87 miles). This makes it by far the largest of the three active volcanoes in Italy , being about two and a half times the height of the next largest, Mount Vesuvius . Only Mount Teide on Tenerife in the Canary Islands surpasses it in the whole of
9042-426: The calderas and volcanic cones of Ulysses Patera , Ulysses Colles and Hydraotes Chaos are argued to be cinder cones. Cinder cones typically only erupt once like Parícutin. As a result, they are considered to be monogenetic volcanoes and most of them form monogenetic volcanic fields . Cinder cones are typically active for very brief periods of time before becoming inactive. Their eruptions range in duration from
9179-444: 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
9316-455: 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
9453-405: 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
9590-408: 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
9727-446: 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
9864-525: 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
10001-422: The crater of a tuff ring generally has been excavated below the existing ground surface. As a result, water commonly fills a tuff ring's crater to form a lake once eruptions cease. Both tuff cones and their associated tuff rings were created by explosive eruptions from a vent where the magma is interacting with either groundwater or a shallow body of water as found within a lake or sea. The interaction between
10138-464: 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
10275-519: The devastating effects of the eruption, the Roman government exempted the population of Catania from paying taxes for ten years. The Roman poet Virgil gave what was probably a first-hand description of an eruption in the Aeneid . During the first 1500 years CE, many eruptions went unrecorded (or records have been lost); among the more significant are: (1) an eruption in about 1030 CE near Monte Ilice on
10412-588: The diffusion of Italian television in the country. Due to heavy Italian influence during the Italian colonial period , Italian is still understood by some in former colonies such as Libya. Although it was the primary language in Libya since colonial rule , Italian greatly declined under the rule of Muammar Gaddafi , who expelled the Italian Libyan population and made Arabic the sole official language of
10549-478: The educated gentlemen was to make the Grand Tour , visiting Italy to see its great historical monuments and works of art. It was expected that the visitor would learn at least some Italian, understood as language based on Florentine. In England, while the classical languages Latin and Greek were the first to be learned, Italian became the second most common modern language after French, a position it held until
10686-400: The eruption continued, and lava surmounted the barriers, heading directly toward Zafferana. Engineers then decided to use explosives near the source of the lava flow, to disrupt a very efficient lava tube system through which the lava travelled for up to 7 km (4 mi) without losing significant heat or fluidity. The main explosion on 23 May 1992 destroyed the tube and forced the lava into
10823-462: The establishment of Italian, and as such are sister languages to the Tuscan that was the historical source of Italian. They can be quite different from Italian and from each other, with some belonging to different linguistic branches of Romance. The only exceptions to this are twelve groups considered " historical language minorities ", which are officially recognized as distinct minority languages by
10960-433: 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
11097-527: The fire'), one of the Latin names of the god Vulcan. Today, the name Mongibello is used for the area of Mount Etna containing the two central craters , and the craters located southeast and northeast of the volcanic cone . The name Mongibel is found in Arthurian Romance , as the name of the otherworld castle (or realm) of Morgan le Fay and her half-brother, King Arthur , localised at Etna, according to traditions concerning them derived from
11234-403: The following days, with an ash plume that reached 7 km (23,000 ft) in height that forced Catania airport to shut down for a few hours. Volcanic gas emissions from this volcano are measured by a multi-component gas analyzer system , which detects pre-eruptive degassing of rising magmas, improving prediction of volcanic activity . An eruption on 16 March 2017 injured 10 people, including
11371-476: 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
11508-639: The god of blacksmithing, had his forge under mount Etna. The volcano is also known as Muncibbeḍḍu in Sicilian and Mongibello in Italian, generally regarded as deriving from the Romance word monte / munti plus the Arabic word jabal ( جبل ), both meaning 'mountain'. According to another hypothesis, the term comes from the Latin Mulciber ( qui ignem mulcet , 'he who placates
11645-404: The inhabited areas around the volcano. In contrast, flank eruptions can occur down to a few hundred metres altitude , close to or even well within inhabited areas. Numerous villages and small towns lie around or on cones of past flank eruptions. Since the year AD 1600, at least 60 flank eruptions and countless summit eruptions have occurred; nearly half of these have happened since the start of
11782-489: 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
11919-640: 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
12056-603: The last century. A major eruption took place in June 1923, lasting from 6 June until 29 June. A large lava flow from an eruption in 1928 led to the destruction of a population centre for the first time since the 1669 eruption. The eruption started high on Etna's northeast flank on 2 November. Then new eruptive fissures opened at decreasing elevations down the flank of the volcano. The third and most vigorous of these fissures opened late on 4 November at an unusually low elevation, approximately 1,200 m (3,937 ft) above sea-level, in
12193-399: The last months of the eruption lava rarely advanced more than 1 km downslope. Through January 2011 to February 2012, the summit craters of Etna were the site of intense activity. Frequent eruptions and ash columns forced the authorities to shut down the Catania airport on several occasions. The July 2011 episode also endangered the Sapienza Refuge, the main tourist hub on the volcano, but
12330-498: 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
12467-534: 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
12604-459: The lava flow was successfully diverted. In 2014, a flank eruption started involving lava flows and strombolian eruptions. This was the first flank eruption since 2008–09. On 3 December 2015, an eruption occurred which climaxed between 03:20 and 04:10 local time. The Voragine crater exhibited a lava fountain which reached 1 km (3,300 ft) in height, with an ash plume which reached 3 km (9,800 ft) in height. The activity continued on
12741-567: 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
12878-553: The longest of which went down the north-eastern flank towards the Bove Valley. On 29 May 2022 a sudden collapse of the Southeast Crater created a fracture on its northern flank at an elevation of circa 2,800 m (9,186 ft). A small lava flow emerged and headed in the direction of the Leone Valley, just above the much larger Bove Valley. It continued for three days and was accompanied by small and sporadic eruptions from two of
13015-546: The lower slopes of the mountain and the broad Plain of Catania to the south. Due to its history of recent activity and nearby population, Mount Etna has been designated a Decade Volcano by the United Nations . In June 2013, it was added to the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites . One view is that the word Etna is from the Greek αἴθω ( aíthō ), meaning "I burn", through an iotacist pronunciation . Another view
13152-424: The lower southeast flank, which produced a lava flow that travelled about 10 km, reaching the sea north of Acireale; the villages of Santa Tecla and Stazzo are built on the broad delta built by this lava flow into the sea; (2) an eruption in about 1160 (or 1224), from a fissure at only 350–450 m (1,148–1,476 ft) elevation on the south-southeast flank near the village of Mascalucia, whose lava flow reached
13289-638: The magma, expanding steam, and volcanic gases resulted in the production and ejection of fine-grained pyroclastic debris called ash with the consistency of flour . The volcanic ash comprising a tuff cone accumulated either as fallout from eruption columns, from low-density volcanic surges and pyroclastic flows, or combination of these. Tuff cones are typically associated with volcanic eruptions within shallow bodies of water and tuff rings are associated with eruptions within either water saturated sediments and bedrock or permafrost . Next to spatter (scoria) cones, tuff cones and their associated tuff rings are among
13426-548: The many vents at the top of this crater. Etna erupted once again on 4 July 2024 causing the Catania Airport to close due to volcanic ash in the air. The airport reopened the next day. On August 14, 2024, Mt. Etna erupted violently sending an ash cloud 9.5km into the atmosphere. Catania Airport was forced to close the following day. The Global Volcanism Program has assigned a Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) to all of Mount Etna's eruptions since January 1955: In
13563-756: The most common types of volcanoes on Earth. An example of a tuff cone is Diamond Head at Waikīkī in Hawaiʻi . Clusters of pitted cones observed in the Nephentes/Amenthes region of Mars at the southern margin of the ancient Utopia impact basin are currently interpreted as being tuff cones and rings. Cinder cones , also known as scoria cones and less commonly scoria mounds , are small, steep-sided volcanic cones built of loose pyroclastic fragments, such as either volcanic clinkers, cinders, volcanic ash, or scoria . They consist of loose pyroclastic debris formed by explosive eruptions or lava fountains from
13700-712: The most typical volcanic landform found within continental intraplate volcanic fields and also occur in some subduction zone settings as well. Parícutin , the Mexican cinder cone which was born in a cornfield on February 20, 1943, and Sunset Crater in Northern Arizona in the US Southwest are classic examples of cinder cones, as are ancient volcanic cones found in New Mexico's Petroglyph National Monument . Cone-shaped hills observed in satellite imagery of
13837-820: 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 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
13974-412: 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
14111-465: The north. Thousands of years ago, the eastern flank of the mountain experienced a catastrophic collapse, generating an enormous landslide in an event similar to that seen in the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens . The landslide left a large depression in the side of the volcano, known as 'Valle del Bove' (Valley of the Ox). Research published in 2006 suggested this occurred around 8,000 years ago, and caused
14248-408: 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
14385-590: 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
14522-630: 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
14659-584: 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:
14796-458: 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
14933-419: The plains of Sicily, ending the following morning between the hours of 5 to 7 a.m. local time. Catania-Fontanarossa Airport shut down operations during the night for safety precautions. An eruption on the morning of 13 May 2008, immediately to the east of Etna's summit craters was accompanied by a swarm of more than 200 earthquakes and significant ground deformation in the summit area. The eruption continued at
15070-406: 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
15207-469: 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
15344-528: 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
15481-415: 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
15618-542: 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
15755-494: The result of mild explosions that were generated locally by the interaction of either hot lava or pyroclastic flows with water. Littoral cones typically form on the surface of a basaltic lava flow where it has entered into a body of water, usually a sea or ocean. Explosion craters form where either hot lava or pyroclastic flows have covered either marshy ground or water-saturated ground of some sort. Hornitos are rootless cones that are composed of welded lava fragments and were formed on
15892-503: The rich underworld queendom of which she is the mistress is accessed not through a fiery grotto on the slopes of Etna, but through a 'fountain' (i.e., a spring ) – a circumstance more in keeping with Morgan's original watery, rather than fiery, associations, before her incorporation into the folklore of Sicily. Another Sicilian conception of the fairy realm or castle of Morgan le Fay is the Fata Morgana , an optical phenomenon common in
16029-421: The rim of a typical tuff ring is generally thin, less than 50 meters (160 ft) to 100 meters (330 ft) thick. The pyroclastic materials that comprise their rim consist primarily of relatively fresh and unaltered, distinctly and thin-bedded volcanic surge and air fall deposits. Their rims also can contain variable amounts of local country rock (bedrock) blasted out of their crater. In contrast to tuff cones,
16166-464: The sea just to the north of Catania, in the area now occupied by the portion of the city named Ognina. Rabban Bar Sauma , a Chinese traveller to the West, recorded the eruption of Etna on 18 June 1287. The 1669 eruption , Etna's most destructive since 122 BCE, started on 11 March 1669 and produced lava flows that destroyed at least 10 villages on its southern flank before reaching the city walls of
16303-436: The shape of a cone with a central crater. Volcanic cones are of different types, depending upon the nature and size of the fragments ejected during the eruption. Types of volcanic cones include stratocones , spatter cones , tuff cones , and cinder cones . Stratocones are large cone-shaped volcanoes made up of lava flows , explosively erupted pyroclastic rocks, and igneous intrusives that are typically centered around
16440-553: The south slope of the volcano, was well covered by the mass-media because it occurred at the height of the tourist season and numerous reporters and journalists were already in Italy to cover the G8 summit in Genoa . It also occurred close to one of the tourist areas on the volcano, and thus was easily accessible. Part of the "Etna Sud" tourist area, including the arrival station of the Etna cable car, were damaged by this eruption, which otherwise
16577-688: The southwest of the summit (centre top of the volcano), then activity moved towards the present centre 170,000 years ago. Eruptions at this time built up the first major volcanic edifice, forming a stratovolcano in alternating explosive and effusive eruptions. The growth of the mountain was occasionally interrupted by major eruptions, leading to the collapse of the summit to form calderas . From about 35,000 to 15,000 years ago, Etna experienced some highly explosive eruptions, generating large pyroclastic flows , which left extensive ignimbrite deposits. Ash from these eruptions has been found as far away as south of Rome 's border, 800 km (497 mi) to
16714-610: The stories told by the Breton conteurs who accompanied the Norman occupiers of Sicily. What were originally Welsh conceptions concerning a dwarf king of a paradisal , Celtic underworld became attached to the quasi-historic figure of Arthur as "Ruler of the Antipodes " and were then transplanted into a Sicilian milieu, by Bretons impressed by the already otherworldly associations of the great, volcanic mountain of their new home. Mediaevalist Roger Sherman Loomis quotes passages from
16851-482: The summit of Mount Etna, making this a multipoint of elevenfold complexity. Etna is one of Sicily's main tourist attractions, with thousands of visitors every year. The most common route is through the road leading to Sapienza Refuge ski area, lying at the south of the crater at elevation of 1,910 m. From the Refuge, a cableway runs uphill to an elevation of 2,500 m, from where the crater area at 2,920 m
16988-473: 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,
17125-469: 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
17262-542: 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 ),
17399-571: The tourist station Piano Provenzana, on the northeastern flank of the volcano, and part of the tourist station "Etna Sud" around the Rifugio Sapienza on the south flank. Footage from the eruptions was recorded by Lucasfilm and integrated into the landscape of the planet Mustafar in the 2005 film Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith . The Rifugio Sapienza is near the site of a cable car station which had previously been destroyed in
17536-463: The town of Catania five weeks later, on 15 April. The lava was largely diverted by these walls into the sea to the south of the city, filling the harbour of Catania. A small portion of lava eventually broke through a fragile section of the city walls on the western side of Catania and destroyed a few buildings before stopping in the rear of the Benedictine monastery, without reaching the centre of
17673-431: The town of Zafferana threatened by a lava flow, but successful diversion efforts saved the town with the loss of only one building a few hundred metres from the town's margin. Initially, such efforts consisted of the construction of earth barriers built perpendicularly to the flow direction; it was hoped that the eruption would stop before the artificial basins created behind the barriers would be completely filled. Instead,
17810-449: The town. Contrary to widespread reports of up to 15,000 (or even 20,000) human fatalities caused by the lava, contemporaneous accounts written both in Italian and English mention no deaths related to the 1669 eruption (but give very precise figures of the number of buildings destroyed, the area of cultivated land lost, and the economic damage). Therefore, it is uncertain where the enormous number of fatalities can be attributed. One possibility
17947-454: The works of Gervase of Tilbury and Caesarius of Heisterbach (dating from the late twelfth century) featuring accounts of Arthur's returning of a lost horse which had strayed into his subterranean kingdom beneath Etna. Caesarius quotes as his authority for the story a certain canon Godescalcus of Bonn, who considered it a matter of historical fact of the time of Emperor Henry 's conquest of Sicily circa 1194. Caesarius employs in his account
18084-539: Was a rather modest-sized event by Etna standards. In 2002–2003, a much larger eruption threw up a huge column of ash that could easily be seen from space and fell as far away as Libya , 600 km (370 mi) south across the Mediterranean Sea . Seismic activity in this eruption caused the eastern flanks of the volcano to slip by up to two metres, and many houses on the flanks of the volcano experienced structural damage. The eruption also completely destroyed
18221-561: 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
18358-525: 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
18495-443: 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
18632-658: 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
18769-430: Was used by Benito Mussolini 's fascist regime for propaganda purposes, with the evacuation, aid, and rebuilding operations being presented as models of fascist planning. Mascali was rebuilt on a new site, and its church contains the Italian fascist symbol of the torch, placed above the statue of Jesus Christ . Other major 20th-century eruptions occurred in 1949, 1971, 1979, 1981, 1983 and 1991–1993. In 1971, lava buried
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