Italian ( italiano (help·info), or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 60 million people in Italy, and by a total of around 70 million in the world.[1] In Switzerland, Italian is one of four official languages. It is also the official language of San Marino, as well as the primary language of Vatican City.[2] Standard Italian, adopted by the state after the unification of Italy, is based on Tuscan (in particular on the dialects of the city of Florence) and is somewhat intermediate between the Italo-Dalmatian languages of the South and the Gallo-Romance Northern Italian languages. Its development was also influenced by the other Italian dialects and by the Germanic language of the post-Roman invaders.
Italian derives diachronically from Latin and is the closest national language to Latin. Unlike most other Romance languages, Italian has retained the contrast between short and long consonants which existed in Latin. As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive. In particular, among the Romance languages, Italian is considered to be the closest to Latin in terms of vocabulary.[3] Lexical similarity is 89% with French, 87% with Catalan, 85% with Sardinian, 82% with Spanish, 78% with Rhaeto-Romance and 77% with Romanian.[1][4]
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Arizona Daily Wildcat
We're going to have short talks, not do scholarly presentations, said Fabian Alfie, an associate professor in the French and Italian department and the ...
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of the Italian language italian for business professional terminology in commerce and the use of spoken and written Italian in business Italian commercial letter writing labour contracts banking
