Latin is the forefather of Italian, French, Portuguese, Spanish and Romanian and the language of Italy can be traced back to somewhere in the later part of the tenth century. However, it was only four centuries later that the Italian language was formalized and a standard language began to take shape.
Now, over 70 million people speak Italian. While there are numerous communities of speakers in Croatia, Slovenia, Malta and North and South America, the core group of Italian speakers lives in the Vatican, San Marino, Switzerland, and of course, Italy.
The Italian language is well known for its beautiful and diverse dialect. Some of the many linguists have even made statements about their being different types of languages spoken throughout each Italian city. Infact, the Neapolitan and Sicilian languages are nearly indiscernible as an Italian language, while the Tuscan, Romanesco, Umbrian, and Laziale dialects hold true to what is believed to be the Italian standard.
The Italian alphabet consists of twenty-one main letters, with an additional five being used solely in foreign names. Most of the vocabulary for this language comes from Latin, however Italian manages to refresh simply by the borrowing of words from German, French and English. Other countries have also been known to borrow words from the Italian language, using them to describe art, music, and foods.
Italian grammar is also Latin based and therefore shares its main features with the other Romance languages. As with these languages, word order most often follows the order Subject-Verb-Object and so on with nouns determined by gender and number, finding agreement with adjectives, while verbs agree with their subjects and are placed based on person and number.
Learning Italian is simple if one of the Romance languages is already part of your arsenal because there are numerous likenesses. However, learning to speak Italian seems to be very popular with those who speak English as well as other Germanic languages.
Learn More : Italian Phrases
