Modern Italian

Italian
italiano, lingua italiana
Pronunciation	[itaˈljaːno]
Native to	Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, Istria County (Croatia) and Slovene Istria (Slovenia)
Region	Italy, Ticino and southern Graubünden, Slovene Littoral and western Istria
Native speakers	64 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  Istria County (Croatia) Slovene Istria (Slovenia)  European Union
Recognised minority language in	Bosnia and Herzegovina  Croatia  Eritrea  Libya  Romania  Slovenia  Somalia
Regulated by	Accademia della Crusca (de facto)
Language codes
ISO 639-1	it
ISO 639-2	ita
ISO 639-3
Glottolog	ital1282
Linguasphere	51-AAA-q
The geographic distribution of the Italian language in the world: blue indicates where Italian is the main language; large Italian-speaking communities are shown in green dots; 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 also spoken by large expatriate communities in the Americas and Australia. It has official minority status in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia and Romania. Many speakers are native bilinguals of both standardized Italian and other regional languages. Italian is a major European language, being one of the official languages of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe and one of the working languages of the Council of Europe. It is the third most widely spoken first language in the European Union with 65 million native speakers (13% of the EU population) and it is spoken as a second language by 14 million EU citizens (3%). Including Italian speakers in non-EU European countries (such as Switzerland and Albania) and on other continents, the total number of speakers is around 85 million.