The Italian Language

Learn about the Italian language, grammar, vocabulary and culture

Speakers of Italian in the World

The population of Italy is 57,200,000, but, according to statistics, there are 7,000,000 Italians who live outside Italy.

Speakers of Italian as a first language in countries where Italian it is an official language:

These speakers are “displaced” mainly because when the borders of the Italian state were drawn they were already part of another country or empire.

The Swiss cantons of Ticino and Grigioni, were originally constituents of the Holy Roman Empire, which, in order to escape the wars between Guelfs and Ghibellines had formed joined the new Helvetic Confederation (Switzerland) before there ever was a modern Italian state. The latest expansion took place in the XVIII century, when some parts of the Duchy of Lombardy, around Lake Como, decided to join Switzerland, with the exception of the city of Campione, which is to this day Italian, renamed by the Fascists Campione d'Italia.

The Republic of San Marino escaped the Italian unification due to its giving refuge to Garibaldi in 1849, which led to good feelings between him and the country. These ties were further cemented in 1862, when a treaty of friendship and economic co-operation was signed with the growing Italian state.

The Vatican is the last remnant of the once powerful Papal States, which had been seized by the army of Victor Emmanuel in 1871 and granted independence by the Italian government in 1929. Even though Latin is the official language, Italian is used in everyday speech.

Istria, an extremely diverse region, where live Serbs, Croats, Italians and other peoples, is now divided between Croatia, Slovenia and Italy. It belonged to the Republic of Venice, passed into Hapsburg hands in 1797 and was part of Austro-Hungary till the end of the I World War, when it was ceded to Italy. After World War II it was mostly handed over to the Republic of Yugoslavia. Istria is now almost wholly Croatian, with Slovenia sharing a smaller slice (the two successor states to Yugoslavia) and Italy only a minimal part around Trieste.

There are still some Italian speakers in what used to be Italian East Africa. This colony was created in 1936, soon after the conquest of Ethiopia by Mussolini's troops, lasting till 1941, when the Italians were expelled by allied troops during WWII. This colony incorporated, besides Ethiopia, Italian Somalia, colonised since the 1880s, and Eritrea, a colony since 1890. Before the Civil War, Italian was a main language in Somalia, but has since decreased in importance. In Eritrea Italian speakers tend to be from the older generation, though many Italian words, like forchetta, macchina and cancello have made their way into Tigrinya, one of the languages of Eritrea.

In another former Italian colony, Libya, Italian tends to be spoken in major centres, usually by the older generations.

There is an large number of Italian speakers who live overseas, mainly descendants of the emigrants who left Italy in large numbers in the latter half of the XIX and early XX centuries. Now they are mostly second or third generation Italians, but still emotionally attached to their country of origin. The main countries Italians immigrated to are:

Many Italians emigrated to European countries, but, as distances are shorter, they tend to keep straighter ties with their country: