Italian (language)

Italian
Italiano, lingua italiana
Pronunciation	[itaˈljaːno]
Native to	Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, Slovenia (Slovene Istria) and Croatia (Istria County)
Region	Italy, Ticino and southern Graubünden, Slovene Littoral and western Istria
Native speakers	65 million native speakers in the EU. (c. 2012) 85 million, total number of speakers.
Language family	Indo-European Italic Romance Italo-Dalmatian Tuscan Italian
Writing system	Latin (Italian alphabet) Italian Braille
Signed forms	Italiano segnato "Signed Italian" italiano segnato esatto "Signed Exact Italian"
Official status
Official language in	Italy   Switzerland  San Marino   Vatican City  Sovereign Military Order of Malta  European Union
Recognised minority language in	Slovenia (Slovene Istria)  Croatia (Istria County)  Eritrea (Education and commercial)
Regulated by	Accademia della Crusca (de facto)
Language codes
ISO 639-1	it
ISO 639-2
ISO 639-3
Glottolog	ital1282
Linguasphere	51-AAA-q
The geographic distribution of the Italian language in the world: large Italian-speaking communities are shown in green; light blue indicates areas where the Italian language was used officially during the Italian colonial period.
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Italian ( italiano  [itaˈljaːno] or lingua italiana [ˈliŋɡwa itaˈljaːna]) is a Romance language. By most measures, Italian, together with Sardinian, is the closest to Latin of the Romance languages. Italian is an official language in Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City and western Istria (in Slovenia and Croatia). It used to have official status in Albania, Malta and Monaco, where it is still widely spoken, as well as in former Italian East Africa and Italian North Africa regions where it plays a significant role in various sectors. Italian is spoken by small minorities in places such as France (especially in Corsica), Montenegro, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Crimea and Tunisia and by large expatriate communities in the Americas. Many speakers are native bilinguals of both standardized Italian and other regional languages. Italian is the fourth most studied language in the world.