Where is Italian Spoken? Just Italy?
Everyone knows that Italian is spoken in Italy. Many people learn Italian, insinuating it’s a popular enough language that must be spoken in more than just Italy. Otherwise, why would so many people want to speak Italian if just one country spoke it? Right? So, where is Italian spoken? In some countries is has been declared a national language, but many other courtiers have a strong presence of Italian speakers, making it useful to know the language.
A “national language” usually refers to a language that has government recognition for being the country’s official language. Some countries do declare more than one language to be the official language. Italian is the official language of
Italy
Switzerland
San Marino
Vatican City
Sovereign Military Order of Malta
Croatia (Istria County)
Slovenia (Istria)
This doesn’t mean Italian is the only language allowed in these countries. It just means the government sees Italian as a widely spoken language and should be recognized for it.
Where is Italian spoken besides where it is declared the official language?
There are noticeable immigrant communities (sometimes called ‘little Italy’) and descendants in Canada, United States, Argentina, Australia, Uruguay, Venezuela, Brazil, Germany, France, Belgium, United Kingdom, Luxembourg and Monaco that all speak Italian. Other countries that people are known to speak Italian in are Libya, Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Greece.
Where is Italian spoken right around the country of Italy?
Some African nations have given official status to the Italian language, as they were once colonies of Italy, but hardly anyone speaks Italian in these countries. Italian never spread in Africa mostly due to the colonial period being too brief to have any real impact on the African culture. This is similar to how few Vietnamese speak French even though Vietnam is a colony of France.
Italian is spoken in the southern region of Switzerland, along the Italian border. Many Swiss learn Italian as a second language, but also be aware that there are many places in Switzerland where Albanian is more widely understood than Italian since many people emigrated from Albania.
As you can see, there a many other places besides Italy where people speak Italian. This goes to show how truly global the world is becoming. National languages could be a thing of past since some countries are so diverse that they haven’t even declared one. One could even say asking where is Italian spoken today is a mute point because Italian speakers are virtually everywhere thanks to easily attainable overseas travel and the internet.
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