Italian

Where it’s spoken

Italian is the official language of Italy, San Marino, the Vatican City, and one of four national languages of Switzerland (where it dominates the canton of Ticino). It is also widely spoken by descendants of Italian emigrants in Argentina, Brazil, the United States, Australia, and Canada. Regional dialects — Sicilian, Neapolitan, Venetian, Lombard — are sometimes classified as separate Italo-Romance languages.

What it sounds like

Italian has seven vowels, with phonemic vowel length largely lost. Geminate (double) consonants are distinctive: pala (shovel) versus palla (ball). Stress is usually penultimate but can shift, and word-final vowels in most positions give Italian its open, melodic flow.

How it’s written

Italian uses the Latin alphabet plus accented vowels (à, è, é, ì, ò, ù). It is one of the most phonemic European orthographies — once spelling rules and stress conventions are known, pronunciation is highly predictable.

History

The Tuscan dialect rose to prominence through the Florentine literary trio of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio in the 14th century. Italian unification in 1861 promoted a national standard, but as of unification only about 2.5% of Italians spoke it fluently — dialects dominated.