The Italian language, spoken by about 63 million people, is at the 21st place in the special ranking of the most spoken idioms in the world. Although these numbers are decidedly far from other languages, the Italian language is considered one of the most important from a cultural point of view, so much to be also spoken, as a second language, by millions of people, including Italian immigrants abroad and their relatives, in a non-indifferent role in the commercial and industrial field. Yet, there are many fun facts of the Italian language and details concerning this rich language, that remain little known. Let’s see the main ones.
Fun facts of the Italian language you may not know
1. The Latin origins
Among the fun facts of the Italian language, the main one certainly concerns its origins: Italian is a language that derives from Latin. Not everyone knows, however, that the language that was spoken in ancient Rome – and that is studied at school – does not represent its direct origin. The Italian spoken today, in fact, derives from the so-called “vulgar Latin”, which is the language that was spoken in Rome and Italy in the Republican era, and which represented a sort of idiom of the plebs. The latter, in fact, was spoken by soldiers, peasants and inhabitants of the provinces of the Empire. The “vulgar Latin”, then, was contaminated by the languages of the “barbarian” invaders who repeatedly came to Italy, giving life to the “vulgar”, which replaced the Latin.
The Italian standard has evolved starting from Tuscan. Why Tuscan? It is soon said: thanks to the prestige and the success of authors in vulgar such as Dante, Boccaccio and Petrarch (as we know, also the Milanese Manzoni went to rinse his cloths in the Arno centuries later meaning that he followed the canons of the language spoken in Florence). After the unification of Italy this mainly literary language spoken by a small percentage of the population spread thanks to compulsory education and, above all, television. In short, just think: if Jacopone da Todi had been luckier today another Italian would resonate in the whole peninsula!
2. The oldest document in Italian
The second fun fact about Italian concerns the notarial deed called Placito Capuano, dating back to the year 960 which represents the oldest document written in the Italian language. In this document some parts written in vulgar have been inserted in a text still entirely in Latin.
An inscription traced in the Catacombs of Commodilla, in Rome, is instead the oldest text written in Italian. In fact, it dates back to a period between the sixth and ninth centuries, and represents the invitation of a religious to recite the prayers in a low voice.
3. The territorial dialects and languages
Among the fun facts f the Itaian language, the regional aspects deserve to be mentioned. Italy has to be divided into three large dialect areas. The number of dialects, in fact, is so high that it really makes the full census difficult.
The panorama of the territorial languages can be divided into three areas that group together, according to a criterion of grammatical and phonetic similarity, the great number of dialects that have been developed and rooted in the peninsula and which, until not long ago, were used more than the national language. This also led to the term “popular Italian” with reference to the part of the population whose “imperfect” speech reflects an education received almost exclusively in local speech. Among the so-called “territorial dialects”, Neapolitan and Sicilian are the most widespread, each being spoken fluently by about 5 million people.
The diatribe on the definition of language and dialect is long and arduous and in Italy it becomes particularly complicated for the wide variety of local languages, some with a long literary or political tradition. The Italian Government officially recognizes the Sardinian, Friulano and Ladin as languages, while UNESCO also recognizes Neapolitan and Sicilian. The debate between protecting the cultural heritage and the normal evolution of languages is still a long one.
4. Scholastic and neostandard variety of Italian
The Italian variety taught in the schools is called “Standard Italian”, while the most widespread is the “Neostandard”, which is then the colloquial version of the national language.
5. The first Italian vocabulary
The last of our fun facts of the Italian language concerns the first publication of a Vocabulary of the Italian language, that dates back to 17th century. It is in that period, in fact, that Italian becomes definitively the national language, then recognized and accepted by all. For this reason, only since then, Italian also entered by right in scientific texts and official documents, definitively supplanting the use of Latin.
Featured image: Mr Porter