Italy is one of the most linguistically diverse areas in Europe.Maiden Parry, 1997, p.1:"Italy holds especial treasures for linguists. There is probably no other area of Europe in which such a profusion of linguistic variation is concentrated into so small a geographical area" About 45.9% of the Italian population speak primarily Italian at home, while another 32.2% speak a local language alongside Italian. Italian is the country's national and official language, and has a standard form and regional varieties. It is the most spoken language in Italy. In addition to Italian, numerous local and regional languages are spoken; most of these, like Italian, belong to the Romance language group. In Italy, these are commonly called dialetti ("dialects"). Most of the Romance varieties of Italy often labelled as "regional" form part of a continuum, with varying degrees of transition between neighbouring varieties across different areas, regardless of administrative boundaries; speakers can typically recognize the features that distinguish their own variety from others spoken nearby.
According to Italian linguist Tullio De Mauro, at the time of the unification of Italy in 1861, 2.5% of the population spoke Italian. The language later spread widely among the general population through compulsory education, urbanization, internal migration, bureaucracy, military service, and mass media (both print and audiovisual media) from the 1950s onwards. Italian was originally based on the Tuscan spoken in Florence during the 13th and 14th centuries. Most of the local languages () evolved independently from colloquial Latin, and are therefore not derived from Italian, but "sister languages" of Italian and other Romance varieties. Some local languages do not derive from Latin, but belong to other Indo-European branches. For example, Cimbrian is Germanic, Arbëresh varieties are Albanian, Slavomolisano is Slavic, and Griko is Hellenic. Other languages are spoken by more recent immigrant communities.
The second most spoken language in Italy is a dialect continuum known outside of Italy as Neapolitan language, spoken by about 11 million people in most of Southern Italy, excluding Sicily and Sardinia. The Neapolitan language was classified with this name by UNESCO as an endangered language, and it is also the term used by Ethnologue, while Glottolog uses "Continental Southern Italian". In Italy, the term Intermediate Southern Italian (meridionale intermedio) is preferred, as the word napoletano only refers to the varieties spoken in the city of Naples and its immediate surroundings.
Twelve languages are officially recognized as spoken by linguistic minorities: Albanian, Catalan, German, Greek, Slovene, Croatian, French, Franco-Provençal, Friulian, Ladin, Occitan and Sardinian.: "1. In attuazione dell'articolo 6 della Costituzione e in armonia con i princípi generali stabiliti dagli organismi europei e internazionali, la Repubblica tutela la lingua e la cultura delle popolazioni albanesi, catalane, germaniche, greche, slovene e croate e di quelle parlanti il francese, il franco-provenzale, il friulano, il ladino, l'occitano e il sardo." Sardinian is considered one of the largest of these, with approximately one million speakers, even though the number of speakers is overall declining.
Ancient languages of Italy
Numerous languages were spoken in ancient Italy. These included Etruscan and the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages, consisting of Latino-Faliscan and Osco-Umbrian languages. Furthermore, Celtic languages were spoken in Cisalpine Gaul and ancient Greek was spoken in Magna Graecia. Latin emerged out of the Latino-Faliscan group and replaced the other languages spoken in Italy following the Romanization of the whole peninsula; it is the ancestor of all the Romance languages, the only living subgroup of the Italic languages.
Language or dialect
Almost all of the Romance languages spoken in Italy are native to the area in which they are spoken. Apart from Standard Italian, these languages are often referred to as dialetti "dialects", both colloquially and in scholarly usage; however, the term may coexist with other labels like "minority languages" or "vernaculars" for some of them.; ; ; ; . The label "dialect" may be understood erroneously to imply that the native languages spoken in Italy are "dialects" of Standard Italian in the prevailing English-language sense of "varieties or variations of a language". This is not the case in Italy, as the country's long-standing linguistic diversity does not actually stem from Standard Italian. Most of Italy's variety of Romance languages predate Italian and evolved locally from Vulgar Latin, independently of what would become the standard national language, long before the fairly recent spread of Standard Italian throughout Italy.Tullio, de Mauro (2014). Storia linguistica dell'Italia repubblicana: dal 1946 ai nostri giorni. Editori Laterza, In fact, Standard Italian itself can be thought of as either a continuation of, or a language heavily based on, the Florentine dialect of Tuscan. Thus, the Romance languages of Italy that are commonly referred to as "dialects" are described as such in a sociolinguistic sense: they are languages that are socially subordinate to Standard Italian, which is the politically and culturally dominant language.
The indigenous Romance languages of Italy are therefore classified as separate languages that evolved from Latin just like Standard Italian, rather than "dialects" or variations of the latter. Conversely, with the spread of Standard Italian throughout Italy in the 20th century, local varieties of Standard Italian have also developed throughout the peninsula, influenced to varying extents by the underlying local languages, most noticeably at the phonological level; though regional boundaries seldom correspond to isoglosses distinguishing these varieties, these variations of Standard Italian are commonly referred to as regional Italian (italiano regionale).
Twelve languages have been legally granted official recognition as of 1999, but their selection to the exclusion of others is a matter of some controversy. Daniele Bonamore argues that many regional languages were not recognized in light of their communities' historical participation in the construction of the Standard Italian language: Giacomo da Lentini's and Cielo d'Alcamo's Sicilian, Guido Guinizelli's Bolognese, Jacopone da Todi's Umbrian, Neapolitan, Carlo Goldoni's Venetian and Dante's Tuscan are considered to be historical founders of the Standard Italian linguistic majority; outside of such epicenters are, on the other hand, Friulian, Ladin, Sardinian, Franco-Provençal and Occitan, which are recognized as distinct languages.Bonamore, Daniele (2006). Lingue minoritarie Lingue nazionali Lingue ufficiali nella legge 482/1999, Editore Franco Angeli, p.16 Michele Salazar found Bonamore's explanation "new and convincing".Michele Salazar (Università di Messina, Direttore Rivista giuridica della scuola) - Presentazione: (…) La spiegazione datane nell'opera sotto analisi appare nuova e convincente (…) il siciliano (…) il bolognese (…) l'umbro (…) il toscano (…) hanno fatto l'italiano, sono l'italiano - Bonamore, Daniele (2008). Lingue minoritarie Lingue nazionali Lingue ufficiali nella legge 482/1999, Editore Franco Angeli
Legal status of Italian Italian was first declared Italy’s official language during the Fascist period, more specifically through a Royal Decree-Law (R.D.L.) that applied to the entire Italian empire. It was adopted on 15 October 1925, under the title: "Sull'Obbligo della lingua italiana in tutti gli uffici giudiziari del Regno, salvo le eccezioni stabilite nei trattati internazionali per la città di Fiume."
The first Italian Constitution of 1948 establishes Italian as the official national language. Article 1 of Law 482/1999 states: "La lingua ufficiale della Repubblica è l’italiano" ("The official language of the Republic is Italian") Since the constitution was penned, some laws and articles have been written on the procedures of criminal cases passed that explicitly state that Italian should be used: Statute of the Trentino-South Tyrol (constitutional law of the northern region of Italy around Trento): "... " (Statuto Speciale per il Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, Art. 99, "... [the language] Italian ... is the official language of the State.") Code for civil procedure: "" (Codice di procedura civile, Art. 122, "In all procedures, the use of the Italian language is required.") Exception: In the Autonomous Province of Bolzano/Bozen, German are entitled in equal status in legal proceedings under Art. 99–100 of the Special Statute for Trentino-Alto Adige and Presidential Decree D.P.R. 574/1988, that allows parties to use German or request bilingual proceedings. Code for criminal procedure: "" (Codice di procedura penale, Art. 109 [169-3; 63, 201 att.], "The acts of the criminal proceedings are carried out in the Italian language.") Exception: Citizens in the Province of Bolzano have the right to use their mother tongue (German or Italian) during criminal proceedings, with trial acts generated bilingually or in the language of the defendant (D.P.R. 574/1988).
Historical linguistic minorities Recognition by the Italian state
Art. 6 of the Italian Constitution was drafted by the Founding Fathers to show sympathy for the country's historical linguistic minorities, in a way for the newly founded Republic to let them become part of the national fabric and distance itself from the Italianization policies promoted earlier because of nationalism.
Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the use of standard Italian became increasingly widespread and was mirrored by a decline in the use of the dialects. An increase in literacy was one of the main driving factors (one can assume that only literates were capable of learning standard Italian, whereas those who were illiterate had access only to their native dialect). The percentage of literates rose from 25% in 1861 to 60% in 1911, and then on to 78.1% in 1951. Tullio De Mauro, an Italian linguist, has asserted that in 1861, only 2.5% of the population of Italy could speak standard Italian. He reports that in 1951, that percentage had risen to 87%. The ability to speak Italian did not necessarily mean that it was in everyday use, and most people (63.5%) still usually spoke their native dialects.
During Fascism, which even carried out a persecution of alloglots minorities,Alberto Raffaelli, Lingua del fascismo, Treccani.it, Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 2010. URL consultato il 25 ottobre 2025. since especially from the 1930s onward, the regime began to view local varieties as a threat to the country’s cultural and linguistic unity and as a potential encouragement of autonomist claims. Yet, initially, the Fascist education reform enacted in 1923 by Giovanni Gentile, whose curricula were drafted by Giuseppe Lombardo Radice, set aside the prevailing anti-dialectal attitude in schools, aiming instead to combat illiteracy starting from the student’s linguistic background before moving on to the national language (according to the “from dialect to language” method).Francesco Avolio, Tra lingua e dialetto, in Lingue e dialetti d’Italia, Roma, Carocci, 2009, pp. 86–87. It was instead with the 1934 school programs (“Ercole programs”) that “dialects” once again came to be regarded solely as sources of errors to be sanctioned, as had been the case in the 1905 programs and as would be in those of 1955.Silvia Demartini (2010). Dal dialetto alla lingua negli anni Venti del Novecento. Pisa-Roma, Fabrizio Serra Editore; p.78