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The italian language
Italian is a romance language spoken approximately by 63 million people, principally in Italy and Switzerland. In both of those countries, Italian is an official language. Latin was once the official language in a large part of Europe because the Romans ruled so much of the area. Before the Romans came, people spoke their own languages, and the mixture of these original tongues with Latin produced many of the languages and dialects that are still in use today.
Standard Italian language was strongly affected by the Tuscan dialect and is somewhat intermediate between Italo-Dalmatian languages of the South and Gallo-Italian languages of the North. As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive. Out of the Romance languages, Italian is usually considered to be the one most similar to the Latin in terms of vocabulary, though Romanian most closely preserves the declension system of Classical Latin while Sardinian is the most conservative in terms of phonology. Italy has 70 million speakers and is a major economic force in Europe and the world.
The Italian Language:
 Pronunciation
Phrasebooks and dictionaries
Glossary of artistic and architectural terms
Glossary of words and acronyms
Learn Italian:
Italian Courses in Italy
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