Italian language
Dante's native speech
Italian is a Romance language spoken primarily in Italy, Switzerland, and San Marino.
It descends from Latin and retains much of Latin's musicality and vowel-rich sound.
Italian serves as a major language in opera, classical music, and culinary arts, lending English words like piano, soprano, espresso, and al dente.
She's studying Italian before her trip to Rome.
- standard languageCodified, official linguistic form
- native speakerOne who grew up speaking it
- Romance languagesLatin-derived language family
- lingua francaShared tongue between peoples
- syntaxRules for arranging words
literary translation · Rosetta Stone · phonology · etymology · regional dialects · Dante · linguistics · pronunciation · lexicon · verb conjugation · Renaissance humanism · ciao · hand gestures · la dolce vita · mamma mia · romance · dolce · amore
- Italian StudiesDante, Machiavelli, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Michelangelo
- ItalyRome, Venice, Milan, Florence, Naples
- Italian LiteratureDante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Machiavelli, Dante Alighieri
- education historypublic schooling, education reforms, school reform, educational reforms, one-room school
- Italian InfluenceRomeo and Juliet, Othello, The Merchant of Venice, Venice, Verona
- elementary schoolclassroom, student, first grade teacher, reading skills, teacher
Romance language rivals
Italian languageFrench
Of or from Paris's nation
Spanish · Romanian · Portuguese · Catalan