This Is Italy
Whether you're just starting to learn the Italian language or you're already fluent, the following 21 facts about Italian are too fun not to read. For example, did you know that…?
1. The Italian alphabet
The Italian alphabet has 21 letters. The letters j, k, w, x and y do not exist in Italian, except in loanwords. But they can occur in some regional dialects, especially the 'j' and 'k'. That is why you see these letters in some proper names and place names.
2. Dialects?
Oops, did we really say 'dialects' there? Strictly speaking, that is wrong, because the regional variants of standard Italian are also languages in their own right. A dialect is merely a variant of the standard language, while a true language has developed independently. And this is the case with the many languages spoken in Italy besides Italian. They all developed from Latin, before the Italians thought it might be useful to have one common language.
3. Italian = Tuscan
The language we now call Italian comes from Tuscany of the 14th century. We then called it Florentine, after the capital of Tuscany. This was the result of several centuries of disputes between linguists. And especially the work of the greatest writers of that time (Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio).
Perhaps most crucial to the choice of Florentine as the Italian language was the person of Peter Bembo, a linguist who established the grammar of Florentine. With the rules in writing, it was an easy choice to promote Florentine as the national language, even though it was not the largest spoken language at the time.
4. Neapolitan
In addition to standard Italian, Neapolitan is the most commonly used. There are approximately 5 million speakers of this language in the region in and around Naples.
5. Molise's language
The smallest language in Italy is Molise's Croatian (lingua croata molisana). This language is spoken by an ethnic minority that hails from present-day Croatia and now in the region Molise lives. There are about 1.000 native speakers.
6. Other countries where Italian is spoken
In addition to being the official language of Italy, Italian is an official language in Switzerland (alongside German and French), in Vaticanin San Marino and in the Order of Malta (an international Roman Catholic knighthood based in Rome, with sovereign status, but without its own territory).
On the island of Malta itself, Italian was an official language until 1934. Since then, Maltese and English have been official languages. However, around two-thirds of the population still understands Italian well in Malta. Of course, Italian is also an official language of the European Union, just like Dutch.
7. Italian as a minority language
Italian is recognized as a minority language in 3 other countries: Slovenia, Croatia and Brazil.
8. Italian in the US
About one million people who speak Italian live in the United States. The number of Americans with Italian roots is even higher: around 17 million.
9. The first Italian writing
There is debate about which is the first document in Italian, because it is difficult to say where Vulgar Latin ended and Classical Latin began. They are the two main contenders Indovinello veronese – a riddle scribbled on a piece of parchment by a monk – and the Placiti Cassinesi, some legal documents about a property dispute.
Most linguists agree that the latter is the first true example of Italian, because the Veronese riddle has too many features that are ambiguous or obviously Latin.
10. The first novel in Italian?
That is The Promessi Sposi (by Alessandro Manzoni. Anyone who went to school in Italy has read it (or bluffed that they have read it). It is also a beautiful book that provides insight into Italy under Spanish rule, told from the perspective of a farmer's couple.
Manzoni spent about 4 years writing and rewriting it. It took him a long time to write it down in 'real' Italian. He succeeded by spending a lot of time in Florence.
11. Language purists
The purity of the Italian language is fiercely protected by the Bran Academy, an association of linguists from Florence.
12. Unification
At the unification of Italy in 1861, only 2,5% of the population could speak Italian. At that time, everyone still communicated in the many regional variants. Now more than 95% speak official Italian. About 5% only know a regional language.
13. Similarities with Other Languages
Italian has many similarities with other languages. The vocabulary is about 89% similar to French, about 88% to Catalan, 85% to Sardinian, 82% to Spanish and Portuguese and about 77% to Romanian.
14. Fourth most studied language in the world
Although Italy is not a particularly large country on a global scale, Italian is still the 4th most studied language in the world. And that is very special.
15. Longest words in Italian
Are you learning Italian and want to show off? One of the longest Italian words is precipitevollissimevolmente, which means something like 'hasty'. It is mainly used as a joke in Italy. Then there are of course also some medical terms that are just a little longer. As esophagodermatodigiunoplastica, a certain type of plastic surgery. And yes, this is a bit of cheating, but there are also written numbers that contain a whopping 64 letters. Quattrocentocinquantaquattromilacinquecentoquarantaquattresimo is the written form of the 454.544th. You know that again.
16. Eight consecutive vowels
Two words in Italian have 8 consecutive vowels: ghiaaiuolo en cuoiaiuolo. They refer respectively to someone who sells or produces gravel and someone who sells or produces leather goods.
17. Consecutive consonants
A few words contain 4 consecutive consonants, including substrate (substrate), Sanskrit (Sanskrit), inscription (registered) and instradare (lead). In Dutch we have many more words with more consecutive consonants, of which scream of terror (as many as 8 consonants) is probably the best known.
18. Double Consonants
Italian loves double consonants, but you will rarely find a word with a double 'q'. One of the few words that can do it ransacked. That can be translated as 'disorder' or 'junk'.
19. Love to double
When we say Italian loves double consonants, we mean it really loves them. Some words have as many as four pairs of consonants, including some conjugated forms of appallotlare (sorry) and disseppellire (dig up).
20. Lots of i's
But what is the greatest number of times a single letter appears in a single Italian word? The answer is 8: both indivisibilitylissimi as indistinguibilissimi (the superlative of 'indivisible' and 'indistinguishable' in the plural) both have no less than 8 i's!
21. Not a single word rhymes with…
A final fact about Italian. One for the poets among us. Not a single word in Italian rhymes with liver (liver). It is true that many words end in 'egato', but the emphasis at liver is on the first syllable. The same applies to despot (despot, dictator, autocrat). Are you planning to write an Italian poem about a dictator with liver problems? Then think again.
They were, 21 funny and interesting facts about the Italian language.
Do you want to learn Italian yourself? Then you can start one of the fun and educational courses very easily and easily This is Italian!
Sources: thelocal.it, Wikipedia
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