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What languages were spoken in Italy before the unification of Italy?
Where did Italian language come from?
What language was first written in Italy?
What language is spoken in Italy?
Most of Italy's variety of Romance languages predate Italian and evolved locally from Vulgar Latin, independently of what would become the standard national language, long before the fairly recent spread of Standard Italian throughout Italy.
- see "historical linguistic minorities"
- see "classification"
Languages of Italy. Standard Italian, as a written administrative and literary language, was in existence well before the unification of Italy in the 1860s. However, in terms of spoken language, Italians were slow to adopt the parlance of the new nation-state, identifying much more strongly with their regional dialects.
Dialects were spoken, but also used in writing: the earliest examples of vernacular writing in Italy date from the ninth century. The early 16th century saw the dialect used by Dante in his work replace Latin as the language of culture.
The origins and the 13 th century. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, for a long time, in Italy, Latin remained the only language used for written communication, for literature, documents and in the official sites. Latin was still spoken in 1600 in the universities in all of Europe.
Like many things regarding Italy, the history of Italian language starts with the ancient Roman Empire and the language in Ancient Rome, Latin. Latin was one of the two most influential, most important languages in the world, next to ancient Greek. Even today, you come across Latin in the fields of medicine, biology, and other sciences.
Feb 19, 2024 · Latin, the precursor of Italian, emerged as the dominant language in the Italian Peninsula as Roman legions conquered new territories and established a vast empire. However, the roots of the language's evolution reach further back in time.
Apr 10, 2024 · Early texts from Italy are written in dialects of the language that only later became standard Italian. Possibly the very first text is a riddle from Verona, dating from perhaps the 8th century, but its language is Latinized. More surely Italian are some 10th-century documents from Montecassino (testimonies in court—e.g., Placiti [decrees] of ...
