The Originality of the Italian Language
HUMA215
Kharyssa Rhodes
November 21, 2013

Italian is a Romance Language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, and Vatican City by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Somalia, Libya, Ethiopia, and
Eritrea and by expatriate communities in the Americas, and Australia. Many speakers are native bilinguals of both standardized Italian and other regional languages accordingly to the Bologna statistics of the European Union, Italian is spoken as a native language by 59 million people in the EU (13% of the EU population), mainly in Italy, and as a second language by 14 million (3%).Including the Italian speakers in non-EU European countries
(such as Switzerland and Albania) and on other continents, the total number of speakers is more than 85 million.
In Switzerland , Italian is one of four official languages it is studied and learned in all the confederation schools and spoken, as a native language, in the Swiss cantons of Ticino and
Grigioni and by the Italian immigrants that are present in large numbers in German- and French- speaking cantons. It is also the official language of San Marino, as well as the primary language of the Vatican
Italian is descended from Latin. Unlike most other Romance languages, Italian retains Latin's contrast between short and long consonants. As in most Romance language is distinctive. Among the Romance languages, the Italian is the closest to Latin in terms of vocabulary. The standard Italian language has a poetic and literary origin in the twelfth century, and the modern standard of the language was largely shaped by relatively recent events. However, Italian
I texts that can definitely be called Italian (or more accurately, vernacular, as distinct from its Predecessor Vulgar Latin) are legal formulae from the Province of Benevento that date from 960-963 Italian often was an official language of the various Italian states predating unification, slowly usurping Latin, even when ruled by foreign powers (such as the Spanish in the Kingdom of Naples , or the Austrians in the Kingdom of Lombardy- Venetia ), even though the masses spoke primarily vernacular languages and dialects. Italian was also one of the many recognized 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 the germination of initial consonants and the pronunciation of stressed "e", Due to heavy Italian influence during the Italian colonial period, Italian is still widely understood in the countries of Libya and Eritrea Although it was the primary language since colonial rule Italian greatly declined under the rule of Muammar Kaddafi who expelled the Italian Libyan population and made Arabic the sole official language of the country Nevertheless, Italian remains an important language in the education and economic sectors in Libya. In Eritrea, Italian is a principal language in commerce and the capital city Asmara still has an Italian-language school Italian was also introduced to Somalia through colonialism and was the sole official language of administration and education during the colonial period but declined after government, educational and educational and economic infrastructure was destroyed in theSomalia civil war. Italian remains spoken as a second language by the elderly and the educated and is also used in the new Federal Government of Somalia. I feel Latin has influenced the western languages because many of the words were adopted into others languages( special English) either directly or indirectly