It used to be that the mark of a good education was to know the dead tongue Latin, but, nowadays, why not learn the very much living language Italian. Italian is a direct descendant of Latin and the closest to it of any current language. There are 75 million native speakers of Italian with around 45 million others who have learnt it as a second language. Worldwide, Italian is the fifth most taught foreign language and is spoken in many more places than Italy alone. Italian if an official language in Italy, San Marino, Switzerland, Malta, and regionally in Croatia and Slovenia. Italian is an official EU language and is the main language of the Vatican city.


Study Italian Abroad!The first documents which appear to distinguish Italian as it’s own language against Vulgar Latin are legal writing from Benevento which are dated in the 960s. Italian was by no means a unified language. With Italy’s long history of city-states there were marked and distinctive dialects of Italian for a number of cities and these were all to develop along their own lines for a few hundred years. It was the genius of Dante Alighieri, and his Divine Comedy, that lead to a unifying of the Italian language. Dante was from Florentine but he mixed his dialect with the influences of southern ones, particularly Sicilian. His works were so widely read and influential that they became the standard by which all educated Italians could communicate.


In 1612, after mounting debates, efforts were taken to codify a common Italian language and the Accademia della Cusca in Florence was formed and the first Italian dictionary was published. Italian had to adapt dramatically on two other occasions leading up to modern times. When, in the mid-sixteenth century, Spain conquered and occupied Italy the grammar was simplified a great deal to make it more like Spanish. Napoleon’s occupation in the early nineteenth century forced the unification of Italy from city-states to more of a national identity where standard Italian was increasingly used for communications across the entire country. Despite the increasing demand to learn Italian, many native speakers know it along with their particular regional dialect.


Studying Italian is generally fairly accessible to English speakers. Italian uses the same alphabet but does away with 5 letters: j, k, w, x, and y. They appear occasionally in loanwords such as “whisky” or “taxi” but everything originally Italian uses only 21 letters. Italian has all the same vowel letters but “e” and “i” both have alternate pronunciations to learn. Italian verbs are inflected like many Romance languages. Verbs are inflected depending on mood, person, tense, number and sometimes gender. The vast majority of verbs, however, fall into one of three verb endings(-are, -ere and -ire) that can be predictably conjugated. Adjectives also operate interestingly in Italian because they can be placed in front or after the noun. To put it in front as in “un buon uomo” (a good man) it suggests an everyday goodness. To put the adjective after the noun, however, places a certain emphasis and importance: “un uomo buono” (a man that is good). Adjectives can also be made into adverbs quickly with the addition of “-mente”. Therefore, “lente” (slow) can give rise to “lentamente” (slowly).


There are a number of words in English that are Italian in origin with many in particular referring to music, architecture and cuisine. There are many common words as well like “graffiti” which comes from the the Italian “graffiato” meaning scratched. “Studio” comes from the Italian word for study. “Motto” is the Italian word for pledge and “bankrupt” derives from “banco” (bench) and “rotto” (broken).