128-473: Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol ( Italian : Trentino-Alto Adige [trenˈtiːno ˈalto ˈaːdidʒe] ) is an autonomous region of Italy , located in the northern part of the country. The region has a population of 1.1 million, of whom 62% speak Italian as their mother tongue, 30% speak South Tyrolean German and several foreign languages are spoken by immigrant communities. Since the 1970s, most legislative and administrative powers have been transferred to
256-471: A favourite destination for tourists, both in winter for skiing in the high mountains and in summer to visit the wide valleys and many lakes (the largest being Lake Garda ). South Tyrol has an area of 7,398 square kilometres (2,856 square miles), all of it mountainous land and covered by vast forests. The climate is of the continental type, owing to the influence of the many mountain ranges which stand at well over 3,000 metres (9,800 feet) above sea level and
384-565: 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
512-601: A large part of the Dolomites and the southern Alps . The region is composed of two provinces, Trentino in the south and South Tyrol in the north. Trentino has an area of 6,207 km (2,397 sq mi), most of it mountainous land (20% is over 2,000 m (6,600 ft) and 70% over 1,000 m) and covered by vast forests (50% of the territory). The climate is various through the province, from an alpine climate to subcontinental one, with warm and variable summers and cold and quite snowy winters. The region has always been
640-471: 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
768-657: 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
896-736: A non-profit private association of small Italian towns of strong historical and artistic interest, that was founded on the initiative of the Tourism Council of the National Association of Italian Municipalities. The region has a population of about 1,072,276 people (541,098 in Trentino and 531,178 in South Tyrol). The population density in the region is low compared to Italy as a whole. In 2008, it equalled to 77.62 inhabitants per square kilometre (201.0/sq mi), whereas
1024-658: 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
1152-417: 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
1280-575: 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
1408-696: A second session of the assembly took place on 20 April, the Milan insurrection foiled the Viceroy's plan. In the riots, finance minister Count Giuseppe Prina was massacred by the crowd, and the Great Electors disbanded the Senate and called the Austrian forces to protect the city, while a Provisional Regency Government under the presidency of Carlo Verri was appointed. Eugène surrendered on 23 April, and
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#17327654257331536-490: 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: Kingdom of Italy (Napoleonic) Timeline The Kingdom of Italy ( Italian : Regno d'Italia ; French : Royaume d'Italie ) was a kingdom in Northern Italy (formerly
1664-479: A single language is that they have evolved so that they are no longer mutually intelligible ; this diagnostic is effective if mutual intelligibility is minimal or absent (e.g. in Romance, Romanian and Portuguese), but it fails in cases such as Spanish-Portuguese or Spanish-Italian, as educated native speakers of either pairing can understand each other well if they choose to do so; however, the level of intelligibility
1792-513: A united Italian state. Renaissance scholars divided into three main factions: A fourth faction claimed that the best Italian was the one that the papal court adopted, which was a mixture of the Tuscan and Roman dialects. Eventually, Bembo's ideas prevailed, and the foundation of the Accademia della Crusca in Florence (1582–1583), the official legislative body of the Italian language, led to
1920-427: 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
2048-597: Is German (62% of the population), although in the capital city Bolzano 73% of the population speaks Italian as its maternal language due to internal immigration from other regions of Italy. Italian speakers are also a significant component in other major urban centres of the province, such as in Merano (49% Italian as the mother language) and Brixen (26% mother language). More than 90% of the 120,000 Italian speakers live in Bozen/Bolzano, Merano, Leifers and Brixen, and
2176-691: Is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire . Italian is the least divergent language from Latin , together with Sardinian (meaning that Italian and Sardinian are 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
2304-461: Is a major exporter of hydroelectric power. The most important features of the region's economic structure are the strength of tourism and the special system of co-operation between agriculture and industry. In the last decade, tourism became a very important component of the province's economy. The region, which is a staging-post between the countries of northern Europe and central and southern Italy, has found its true vocation in this leading branch of
2432-759: 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
2560-484: Is divided into two autonomous provinces : Trentino (Autonomous Province of Trento) and South Tyrol (Autonomous Province of Bolzano). The Italian Republic recognised a certain degree of autonomy for the region and its two constituent provinces, which was the result of the Gruber–De Gasperi Agreement of 1946, as well as of the special status of autonomy approved by constitutional law in 1948. This statute gave
2688-534: 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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#17327654257332816-460: 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
2944-504: 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
3072-462: 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
3200-760: Is the additional official language in some municipalities and a majority in 8. According to the census of 2001, 103 out of 116 communes have a majority of German native speakers, eight of Ladin speakers and five of Italian. Today both German and Italian have the status of co- official languages in South Tyrol. The coat of arms quarters the arms of Trentino (black eagle) and the arms of South Tyrol (red eagle). 46°04′N 11°07′E / 46.067°N 11.117°E / 46.067; 11.117 Italian language Italian ( italiano , pronounced [itaˈljaːno] , or lingua italiana , pronounced [ˈliŋɡwa itaˈljaːna] )
3328-648: 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
3456-549: 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
3584-509: 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,
3712-991: 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 ),
3840-670: The Duchy of Bavaria received the remaining part. From the 11th century onwards, part of the region was governed by the prince-bishops of Trent and Brixen , to whom the Holy Roman Emperors had given extensive temporal powers over their bishoprics. Soon, they were overruled by the Counts of Tyrol and Counts of Görz , who also controlled the Puster Valley : in 1363 its last titular, Margarete, Countess of Tyrol ceded
3968-702: The Gallo-Italic linguistic panorama of Northern Italy , the Italo-Dalmatian , Neapolitan and its related dialects were largely unaffected by the Franco- Occitan influences introduced to Italy mainly by bards from France during the Middle Ages, but after the Norman conquest of southern Italy , Sicily became the first Italian land to adopt Occitan lyric moods (and words) in poetry. Even in
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4096-852: 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
4224-615: The Isonzo river. The conquered Republic of Ragusa was annexed in spring 1808 by General Auguste de Marmont . On 2 April 1808, following the dissolution of the Papal States , the Kingdom annexed the present-day Marches . At its maximum extent, the Kingdom had 6,700,000 inhabitants and was composed by 2,155 comunes. The final arrangement arrived after the defeat of Austria in the War of
4352-551: The Italian Republic ) that was a client state of Napoleon 's French Empire . It was fully influenced by revolutionary France and ended with Napoleon's defeat and fall. Its government was assumed by Napoleon as King of Italy and the viceroyalty delegated to his stepson Eugène de Beauharnais . It covered some of Piedmont and the modern regions of Lombardy , Veneto , Emilia-Romagna , Friuli-Venezia Giulia , Trentino , South Tyrol , and Marche . Napoleon I also ruled
4480-674: 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
4608-773: 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
4736-763: The Mòcheni Valley . There are also Ladin-speaking minorities living in the Fassa Valley and in Non Valley (3.5% of the population). While in Fassa Valley Ladin already enjoys official status, in Non Valley it still does not, despite there being more Ladin speakers in the latter than in the former. Sole Valley also historically belongs to the Ladin area. In South Tyrol the majority language
4864-554: 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
4992-528: 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
5120-532: 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
5248-510: 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
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5376-562: 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
5504-407: The Alpine Foothills and put it under the administration of Gauleiter Franz Hofer . The region was de facto annexed to the German Reich (with the addition of the province of Belluno ) until the end of the war. This status ended along with the Nazi regime and Italian rule was restored in 1945. Italy and Austria negotiated the Gruber-De Gasperi Agreement in 1946, put into effect in 1947 when
5632-410: The Austrian government. The issue became the cause of significant friction between the two countries and was taken up by the United Nations in 1960. A fresh round of negotiations took place in 1961 but proved unsuccessful, partly because of popular discontent and a campaign of terrorism and bombings by German-speaking autonomists and separatists led by the South Tyrolean Liberation Committee . The issue
5760-443: The Fifth Coalition : Emperor Napoleon and King Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria signed the Treaty of Paris on 28 February 1810, deciding an exchange of territories involving Italy too. On rewards in Germany, Bavaria ceded southern Tyrol to the Kingdom of Italy, which in turn ceded Istria and Dalmatia (with Ragusa) to France, incorporating the Adriatic territories into newly created the French Illyrian Provinces . Small changes to
5888-403: The Italian Republic: the former Duchy of Milan , Duchy of Mantua , Duchy of Modena , the western part of the Republic of Venice , part of the Papal States in Romagna , and the Department of Agogna ( it ) centred on Novara . After the defeat of the Third Coalition and the consequent Treaty of Pressburg , on 1 May 1806, the Kingdom gained from Austria the eastern and remaining part of
6016-417: 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
6144-439: 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,
6272-466: The Kingdom lost Istria/Dalmatia but got added Bolzano/Alto Adige and consisted of 24 departments. When Napoleon abdicated both the thrones of France and Italy on 11 April 1814, Eugène de Beauharnais was lined up on the Mincio river with his army to repel any invasion from Germany or Austria, and he attempted to be crowned king. The Senate of the Kingdom was summoned on 17 April, but the senators showed themselves undecided in that chaotic situation. When
6400-497: 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
6528-399: The Venetian territories, including Istria and Dalmatia down to Kotor (then called Cattaro), though it lost Massa and Carrara to Elisa Bonaparte 's Principality of Lucca and Piombino . The Duchy of Guastalla was annexed on 24 May. With the Convention of Fontainebleau with Austria of 10 October 1807, Italy ceded Monfalcone to Austria and gained Gradisca , putting the new border on
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#17327654257336656-403: The average figure for Italy was 201.50 per square kilometre (521.9/sq mi). The population density in Trentino was 86.56 inhabitants per square kilometre (224.2/sq mi), slightly higher than the one registered in South Tyrol that was equal to 70.14 per square kilometre (181.7/sq mi). As of 2011, the Italian national institute of statistics ISTAT estimated that 90,321 foreigners lived in
6784-405: The borders between Italy and France in Garfagnana and Friuli came in act on 5 August 1811. In practice, the Kingdom was a dependency of the French Empire. The Kingdom served as a theater in Napoleon's operations against Austria during the wars of the various coalitions . Trading with the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was forbidden under the Continental System . The kingdom
6912-407: The bravest troops of Europe." Only 1,000–2,000 Italians survived the Russian campaign , but they returned with most of their banners secured. In 1813, Eugène de Beauharnais held out as long as possible against the onslaught of the Austrians ( Battle of the Mincio ) and was later forced to sign an armistice in February 1814. Infantry: Cavalry: The administrative system of the Kingdom
7040-444: 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
7168-455: 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
7296-405: 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
7424-408: 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
7552-446: 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
7680-415: 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
7808-415: The defeat of Austria and the Treaty of Pressburg , Napoleon annexed to Italy the territory of former Republic of Venice , as announced on 30 March 1806, and ratified on 1 May. Seven new departments were created, six in the Venetian mainland, and one in Istria ( Capodistria ), whereas Dalmatia received special institutions led by the General Provider Mr. Dandolo, and maintained its own laws. On 14 July 1807,
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#17327654257337936-464: 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
8064-420: 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
8192-416: The duty of informing the king about the wishes of his most important subjects. The seventh Statute, on 21 September, created a new nobility of dukes, counts and barons; the eighth and the ninth, on 15 March 1810, established the annuity for the members of the royal family. In 1812, a Court of Accounts was added. The government had seven ministers: Originally, the Kingdom consisted of the territories of
8320-420: 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
8448-409: 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
8576-433: 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
8704-410: 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
8832-427: The government passed a decree that reduced the number of the comunes. Following the dissolution of the Papal States , the kingdom was extended along the Adriatic coast, and on 20 April 1808, three new departments were established. The final territorial change came in action on 10 June 1810, when, as announced by Napoleon on previous 28 May, Italy lost Istria and the never fully incorporated Dalmatia, gaining as reward all
8960-466: The greater part of the rest in the small towns south of the capital just north of the border with Trentino or scattered about in very small numbers throughout the rest of the province. The Italian language is a majority in 5 of 116 municipalities. Italian is the first language of 26% of the population (down from 35% in 1960) of the population of 453,000 recorded in the 2011 census, not counting the 51,000 who listed Language as 'Other' who are immigrants. Ladin
9088-431: 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
9216-577: The king. The Legislative Body, the old parliament, remained in theory, but it was never summoned after 1805; the Napoleonic Code was introduced on 21 March 1804. The fourth Statute, decided on 16 February 1806, indicated Beauharnais as the heir to the throne. The fifth and the sixth Statutes, on 21 March 1808, separated the Consulta from the Council of State, and renamed it the Senate, with
9344-818: The kingdom, inserted into the Grande Armée , took part in all of Napoleon's campaigns . In the course of its existence from 1805 to 1814 the Kingdom of Italy provided Napoleon I with roughly around 200,000 soldiers. In 1805 Italian troops served on garrison duty along the English Channel , during 1806–07 they took part in the sieges of Kolberg and Danzig and fought in Dalmatia. From 1808 to 1813 whole Italian divisions served in Spain , especially distinguishing themselves under Suchet at Tarragona and Saguntum . In 1809, Eugène 's Army of Italy formed
9472-577: 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
9600-640: 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
9728-498: 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
9856-534: 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
9984-567: 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
10112-412: 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
10240-553: The new King of Italy and his 24-year-old stepson Eugène de Beauharnais as his viceroy . Napoleon I was crowned at the Milan Cathedral , Milan on 23 May, with the Iron Crown of Lombardy . His title was "Emperor of the French and King of Italy" ( French : Empereur des Français et Roi d'Italie , Italian : Imperatore dei Francesi e Re d'Italia ), showing the importance of this Italian kingdom to him. Even though
10368-495: The new republican Italian constitution was promulgated, that the region would be granted considerable autonomy. German and Italian were both made official languages, and German-language education was permitted once more. The region was called Trentino-Alto Adige/Tiroler Etschland between 1947 and 1972. However, the implementation of the agreement was not seen as satisfactory by neither the German-speaking population nor
10496-408: 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
10624-630: 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
10752-452: The ordinary administration, helped by a City Secretary. The chief of biggest comunes was the royal Podestà , when in smaller comunes there was a prefectoral Mayor . All the city offices were held only by owners and traders, and the leadership of the owners was assured. During the kingdom's life, the administrative system of the State changed for domestic and international reasons. Following
10880-584: 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:
11008-458: 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
11136-601: The outbreak of the Second World War prevented them from fully carrying out the relocation. Nevertheless, thousands of people were relocated to Nazi Germany and only with great difficulties managed to return to their ancestral land after the end of the war. In 1943, when the Italian government signed an armistice with the Allies, the region was occupied by Germany, which reorganised it as the Operation Zone of
11264-497: The police and, differently from the republican era, had all the executive powers in its territory. The local legislative body was the General Council , composed by the representatives of the comunes. The departments were divided in districts, equivalent to the French arrondissements . The chief of the district was the vice-prefect, which had similar powers to the prefect, but over a smaller area. The local legislative body
11392-576: The political, legislative, administrative, and fiscal institutions. The second statute turned the region de facto into a loose commonwealth with devolved powers to the two autonomous provinces, with very limited legislative or executive competencies left. The capital city is Trento, although the two provincial capitals alternate biennially (the other being Bolzano ) as the site of the regional assembly. The region's fertile valleys produce wine , fruit, dairy products, and timber, while its industries include paper, chemical and metal production. The region
11520-406: 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
11648-523: The proliferation of Standard Italian. The Italians who emigrated during the Italian diaspora beginning in 1861 were often of the uneducated lower class, and thus the emigration had the effect of increasing the percentage of literates, who often knew and understood the importance of Standard Italian, back home in Italy. A large percentage of those who had emigrated also eventually returned to Italy, often more educated than when they had left. Although use of
11776-528: 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
11904-415: 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
12032-542: 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
12160-521: The regency, the Great Officials of the kingdom, and the oaths. The most important was the third, proclaimed on 5 June, being the real constitution of the kingdom: Napoleon I was the head of state and had the full powers of government; in his absence, he was represented by the Viceroy, Eugène de Beauharnais. The Consulta, Legislative Council, and Speakers were all merged into a Council of State, whose opinions became only optional and not binding for
12288-506: The region altogether, equal to 8.55% of the total regional population. The main language groups are Italian and German, with small minorities speaking Ladin , Lombard , Mòcheno and Cimbrian . The latter two of which are varieties of the Upper German Bavarian dialect. In Trentino the majority language is Italian, although there are Cimbrian minorities in the municipality of Luserna and four Mòcheno municipalities in
12416-648: The region in 15 BC. After the end of the Western Roman Empire , it was divided between the invading Germanic tribes in the Lombard Duchy of Tridentum (today's Trentino ), the Alamannic Vinschgau , and the Bavarians (who took the remaining part). After the creation of the Kingdom of Italy under Charlemagne , the Marquisate of Verona included the areas south of Bolzano , while
12544-415: The region the right to initiate its own laws on a wide range of subjects and to carry out respective administrative functions. In 1972, the introduction of the second Statute of Autonomy, which was in the centre of the discussions between the Italian and Austrian governments, meant the transfer of the main competencies from the region to the two provinces. The autonomy recognized by the special statute covers
12672-534: The region to the House of Habsburg . The regions north of Salorno were largely Germanized in the early Middle Ages , and important German poets like Arbeo of Freising and Oswald von Wolkenstein were born and lived in the southern part of Tyrol . The two bishoprics were secularized by the Treaty of Lunéville of 1803 and given to the Habsburgs. Two years later, following the Austrian defeat at Austerlitz ,
12800-578: The region was a key strategic objective. The collapse of the Austro-Hungarian war effort enabled Italian troops to occupy the region in 1918 and its annexation was confirmed in the post-war treaties, which awarded the region to Italy under the terms of the Treaty of Saint-Germain . Under the dictatorship of Benito Mussolini , the Fascist dictator of Italy (ruled 1922–1943), the German population
12928-560: The region was given to Napoleon's ally Bavaria ( Treaty of Pressburg , 1805). The new rulers provoked a popular rebellion in 1809, led by Andreas Hofer , a landlord from St. Leonhard in Passeier ; this rebellion was crushed the same year. At the resulting Treaty of Paris (28 February 1810), Bavaria ceded the southern part of Tyrol (Trentino and the city of Bolzano) to the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy . During French control of
13056-595: The region was part of the Austrian Empire and its successor Austria-Hungary from 1815 until its 1919 transfer to Italy in the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye at the end of World War I . Together with the Austrian state of Tyrol , it is part of the Euroregion Tyrol-South Tyrol-Trentino . In English language, the region is known as Trentino-South Tyrol or by its Italian name Trentino-Alto Adige . The Romans conquered
13184-610: The region, it was called officially Haut Adige (literally "High Adige ", Italian: "Alto Adige"; German: "Hochetsch") in order to avoid any reference to the historical County of Tyrol. After Napoleon's defeat, in 1815, the region returned to Austria. Under Austrian rule the territory of today's province of South Tyrol was called südliches Tirol or Deutschsüdtirol , but was occasionally also referred to as Mitteltirol , i.e. Middle Tyrol, due to its geographic position, while Südtirol ( Italian : Tirolo meridionale ), i.e. South Tyrol, indicated mostly today's province of Trentino. Trentino
13312-529: The republican constitution was never formally abolished, a series of Constitutional Statutes completely altered it. The first one was proclaimed two days after the birth of the kingdom, on 19 March, when the Consulta declared Napoleon I as king and established that one of his natural or adopted sons would succeed him once the Napoleonic Wars were over, and once separated the two thrones were to remain separate. The second one, dating from 29 March, regulated
13440-487: The rest of northern and central Italy in the form of Nice , Aosta , Piedmont , Liguria , Tuscany , Umbria , and Lazio , but directly as part of the French Empire (as departments ), rather than as part of a vassal state . The Kingdom of Italy was born on 17 March 1805, when the Italian Republic , whose president was Napoleon Bonaparte, became the Kingdom of Italy, with the same man (now styled Napoleon I) as
13568-474: The right wing of Napoleon I's invasion of the Austrian Empire , winning a considerable victory at Raab and having a respectable share in the victory at Wagram . In 1812, Eugène de Beauharnais marched 27,000 troops of the Kingdom of Italy into Russia . The Italian contingent distinguished themselves at Borodino and Maloyaroslavets , receiving the recognition: "The Italian army had displayed qualities which entitled it evermore to take rank amongst
13696-581: The separatist tensions soon eased. Matters were helped further by Austria's accession to the European Union in 1995, which has helped to improve cross-border cooperation. In May 2006, senator-for-life Francesco Cossiga introduced a bill that would allow the region to hold a referendum, in which the local electorate could decide whether to stay within the Italian Republic, become fully independent or return to Austria. All parties, including
13824-425: The separatists, rejected this measure as potentially causing a revival of ethnic tensions. The region is bordered by East and North Tyrol (Austria) to the north-east and north respectively, by Graubünden (Switzerland) to the north-west, and by the Italian regions of Lombardy to the west and Veneto to the south and southeast. It covers 13,607 km (5,254 sq mi). It is extremely mountainous, covering
13952-477: The services sector with all its spin-offs. The region has a higher concentration of hotels than any other region (6,178 establishments in 2001 with 236,864 hotel beds). The total accommodation capacity of the region counts for 651,426 beds available in hotels and other establishments. Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol has many small and picturesque villages, 16 of them have been selected by I Borghi più belli d'Italia (English: The most beautiful Villages of Italy ),
14080-588: The southern Tirol up to the city of Bolzano , creating the 24th and last department: Haut Adige . The language used officially in the Kingdom of Italy was Italian . The French language was used for ceremonies and in all relationships with France. Education was made universal for all children, which was also conducted in Italian. By decree of the governor Vincenzo Dandolo , this was so even in Istria and Dalmatia, where local populations were more heterogeneous. During its last maximum extension (from 1809 to 1814),
14208-473: 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,
14336-469: 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
14464-542: 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 ),
14592-573: The two self-governing provinces that make up the region: the province of Trento, commonly known as Trentino , and the province of Bolzano, commonly known as South Tyrol ( Alto Adige in Italian). In South Tyrol, German remains the sizeable majority language . From the 9th century until 1801, the region was part of the Holy Roman Empire . After being part of the short-lived Napoleonic Republic of Italy and Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy ,
14720-589: The wide valleys through which flow the main river, the Adige , from north to south and its numerous tributaries. In the city of Bolzano , capital of the province, the average air temperature stands at 12.2 °C (54.0 °F) and the average rainfall at 717.7 mm (28.3 in). The lowest pass across the Alps, the Brenner Pass , is located at the far north of the region on the border with Austria . The region
14848-659: 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
14976-582: Was also called Welschtirol (" Romance Tyrol", Italian: Tirolo italiano ) or Welschsüdtirol ("Romance South Tyrol", Italian: Tirolo meridionale italiano ). Sometimes Südtirol also indicated the whole of the Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol region. During the First World War, major battles were fought high in the Alps and Dolomites between Austro-Hungarian Kaiserjäger and Italian Alpini , for whom control of
15104-561: 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
15232-525: 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
15360-443: Was basically divided in 100 cents, and there were coins of 1 cent (2.1 grams of copper ), 3 cents (6.3 grams of copper), and 10 cents (2 grams of poor silver), but following the tradition, there was a division in 20 soldi , with coins of 1 soldo (10.5 grams of copper, in practice 5 cents), 5 soldi (1.25 grams of silver), 10 soldi (2.5 grams of silver), and 15 soldi (3.75 grams of silver). The army of
15488-850: Was exiled to Bavaria by the Austrians, who occupied Milan on 28 April. On 26 April, the Empire appointed Annibale Sommariva as Imperial Commissioner of Lombardy, while many taxes were abolished or reduced by the Provisional Regency. Finally, on 25 May, the Supreme Imperial Commissioner Count Heinrich von Bellegarde took all the powers in Lombardy, and former monarchies in Modena, Romagna and Piedmont were gradually re-established; on 30 May,
15616-411: Was firstly drawn by a law on 8 June 1805. The state was divided, following the French system, in 14 départements , the twelve ones inherited from the republican era plus Adda ( Sondrio ) and Adige ( Verona ). The chief of the department, the prefect , was the State's representative in each province, improved the administrative decisions of the central government, controlled the local authorities, led of
15744-596: Was given a new national currency, replacing the local coins circulating in the country: the Italian lira , of the same size, weight, and metal of the French franc . Mintage being decided by Napoleon with an imperial decree on 21 March 1806, the production of the new coins began in 1807. The monetary unit was the silver lira, which was 5 grams heavy. There were multiples of £2 (10 grams of silver) and £5 (25 grams of silver), and precious coins of £20 (6.45 grams of gold ) and £40 (12.9 grams of gold). The lira
15872-443: 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
16000-658: 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
16128-547: Was resolved in 1971, when a new Austro-Italian treaty was signed and ratified. It stipulated that disputes in South Tyrol would be submitted for settlement to the International Court of Justice in The Hague , that the province would receive greater autonomy within Italy, and that Austria would not interfere in South Tyrol's internal affairs. The new agreement proved broadly satisfactory to the parties involved and
16256-563: Was subjected to an increased forced programme of Italianization : all references to old Tyrol were banned and the region was referred to as Venezia Tridentina between 1919 and 1947, in an attempt to justify the Italian claims to the area by historically linking the region to one of the Roman Regions of Italy (Regio X Venetia et Histria ). Hitler and Mussolini agreed in 1938 that the German-speaking population would be transferred to German-ruled territory or dispersed around Italy, but
16384-530: Was the District Council, composed by eleven members. The districts were divided, as in France, in cantons , seats of Tax collectors and Justices of the peace . The cantons were divided in comunes . The comunes had a City Council ( Consiglio Comunale ) of fifteen, thirty or forty members, chosen by the king or the prefect depending by the comune size. The Council elected two, four or six Elders for
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