Italian language
Italian Language
The Italian language (Italiano /itaˈljaːno/ (listen)) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family. Italian descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, and together with Sardinian, is by most measures the closest language to it of the Romance languages. Italian is an official language in Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, and Vatican City. It has an official minority status in western Istria (Croatia and Slovenia). It formerly had official status in Albania, Malta, Monaco, Montenegro (Kotor), Greece (Ionian Islands and Dodecanese) and is generally understood in Corsica (due to its close relation to the Corsican language).
Etymology
The term Italiano comes from the Latin word Italicus, meaning "of Italy" or "from Italy". The word Italy (Italia) itself is derived from Italus, the name of a king of the Enotrians, an ancient people of Southern Italy.
Pronunciation
Italian is a phonetic language, which means it is spoken the way it is written. Italian and the related Romance languages also use the Latin alphabet.
Related Terms
- Romance languages: A group of languages evolving from Vulgar Latin in the regions of Western Europe.
- Vulgar Latin: A nonstandard form of Latin from which the Romance languages descended.
- Indo-European language family: A large family of related languages and dialects including most major languages of Europe, Iran, and northern India, and historically also predominant in Anatolia and Central Asia.
This WikiMD.org article is a stub. You can help make it a full article.