Italian 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 Romance language from Latin, together with Sardinian. Spoken by about 85 million people including 67 million native speakers (2024), Italian is an official language in Italy, San Marino, and Switzerland, and is the primary language of Vatican City. It has official minority status in Croatia and in some areas of Slovenian Istria.
Dante Alighieri (top) and Petrarca (bottom) were influential in establishing their Tuscan dialect as the most prominent literary language in all of Italy in the Late Middle Ages.
Venetian Pietro Bembo was an influential figure in the development of the Italian language from the Tuscan dialect, as a literary medium, codifying the language for standard modern usage.
Alessandro Manzoni set the basis for the modern Italian language and helping create linguistic unity throughout Italy.
Italian Secondary School in Rijeka/Fiume, Croatia
Vulgar Latin, also known as Popular or Colloquial Latin, is the range of non-formal registers of Latin spoken from the Late Roman Republic onward. Vulgar Latin as a term is both controversial and imprecise. Spoken Latin existed for a long time and in many places. Scholars have differed in opinion as to the extent of the differences, and whether Vulgar Latin was in some sense a different language. This was developed as a theory in the nineteenth century by Raynouard. At its extreme, the theory suggested that the written register formed an elite language distinct from common speech, but this is now rejected.
The Cantar de Mio Cid (Song of my Cid) is the earliest Spanish text