142-576: The Italian language in Italian Switzerland or Swiss Italian ( Italian : italiano svizzero , Italian: [itaˈljano ˈzvittsero] ) is the variety of the Italian language taught in the Italian-speaking area of Switzerland . While this variety is mainly spoken in the canton of Ticino and in the southern part of Grisons (about 270,000 native speakers), Italian is spoken natively in
284-715: A long-lasting reign (with its capital in Pavia ) that gave the medieval name to the whole northern Italy and the current name to the Lombardy region. After the initial struggles, relationships between the Lombard people and the Latin-speaking people improved. In the end, the Lombard language and culture assimilated with the Latin culture, leaving evidence in many names, the legal code and laws, and other things. The end of Lombard rule came in 774, when
426-683: A big contributor to pollution. It delivers more than 40 per cent of Italy's milk production, for example, while over half of the Italian pig production is located in the Po Valley. According to a research, published in The Lancet Planetary Health in January 2021, which estimates the death rate associated with fine particulate matter (PM 2.5 ) and nitrogen dioxide (NO 2 ) pollution in 1,000 European cities, Brescia and Bergamo in Lombardy have
568-500: A huge number of civil servants and soldiers recruited from all over the country introduced many more words and idioms from their home languages— ciao is derived from the Venetian word s-cia[v]o ("slave", that is "your servant"), panettone comes from the Lombard word panetton , etc. Only 2.5% of Italy's population could speak the Italian standardized language properly when
710-464: A little over one million people in the United States speak Italian at home. Nevertheless, an Italian language media market does exist in the country. In Canada, Italian is the second most spoken non-official language when varieties of Chinese are not grouped together, with 375,645 claiming Italian as their mother tongue in 2016. Italian immigrants to South America have also brought a presence of
852-657: A local vernacular. These dialects, as they are commonly referred to, evolved from Vulgar Latin over the course of centuries, unaffected by formal standards and teachings. They are not in any sense "dialects" of standard Italian, which itself started off as one of these local tongues, but sister languages of Italian. Mutual intelligibility with Italian varies widely, as it does with Romance languages in general. The Romance languages of Italy can differ greatly from Italian at all levels ( phonology , morphology , syntax , lexicon , pragmatics ) and are classified typologically as distinct languages. The standard Italian language has
994-526: A major example is the Gran Paradiso National Park , between Aosta Valley and Piedmont , which is the oldest national park in Italy. The first two most visited regions of Italy are Veneto and Trentino-Alto Adige , while the fourth and fifth are Emilia-Romagna and Lombardy . Northern Italy has many major tourist attractions, many of which are protected by UNESCO. Northern Italy is the home of
1136-530: A new Kingdom of Italy , made of all of northern Italy but Piedmont that was annexed to France , was established with Milan as capital and Napoleon as head of state. In the congress of Vienna , the Kingdom of Sardinia was restored, and furthermore enlarged by annexing the Republic of Genoa , contravening the principle of restoring the legitimate governments and monarchies of the old Republic. The rest of northern Italy
1278-645: A poetic and literary origin in the works of Tuscan writers of the 12th century, and, although the grammar and core lexicon are basically unchanged from those used in Florence in the 13th century, the modern standard of the language was largely shaped by relatively recent events. However, Romance vernacular as language spoken in the Italian Peninsula has a longer history. In fact, the earliest surviving texts that can definitely be called vernacular (as distinct from its predecessor Vulgar Latin) are legal formulae known as
1420-515: A population of 27.4 million as of 2022, the region covers roughly 40% of the Italian Republic and contains 46% of its population. Two of Italy's largest metropolitan areas, Milan and Turin , are located in the region. Northern Italy's GDP was estimated at € 1 trillion in 2021, accounting for 56.5% of the Italian economy. Northern Italy has a rich and distinct culture. Thirty-seven of the fifty-nine World Heritage Sites in Italy are found in
1562-527: A possible name for an independent state in northern Italy, giving the term has carried strong political connotation. For statistical purposes, the Italian National Institute of Statistics uses the terms northwest Italy and northeast Italy for two of Italy's five statistical regions in its reporting. These same subdivisions are used to demarcate first-level Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) regions ("NUTS 1 regions") within
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#17328978270841704-417: A renewed interest in linguistics in the 16th century, sparked a debate that raged throughout Italy concerning the criteria that should govern the establishment of a modern Italian literary and spoken language. This discussion, known as questione della lingua (i.e., the problem of the language ), ran through the Italian culture until the end of the 19th century, often linked to the political debate on achieving
1846-558: A result. Starting in late medieval times in much of Europe and the Mediterranean, Latin was replaced as the primary commercial language by languages of Italy, especially Tuscan and Venetian. These varieties were consolidated during the Renaissance with the strength of Italy and the rise of humanism and the arts . Italy came to enjoy increasing artistic prestige within Europe. A mark of
1988-399: A seven-vowel system, consisting of /a, ɛ, e, i, ɔ, o, u/ , as well as 23 consonants. Compared with most other Romance languages, Italian phonology is conservative, preserving many words nearly unchanged from Vulgar Latin . Some examples: Northern Italy Northern Italy ( Italian : Italia settentrionale , Nord Italia , Alta Italia ) is a geographical and cultural region in
2130-474: A single language is that they have evolved so that they are no longer mutually intelligible ; this diagnostic is effective if mutual intelligibility is minimal or absent (e.g. in Romance, Romanian and Portuguese), but it fails in cases such as Spanish-Portuguese or Spanish-Italian, as educated native speakers of either pairing can understand each other well if they choose to do so; however, the level of intelligibility
2272-504: A united Italian state. Renaissance scholars divided into three main factions: A fourth faction claimed that the best Italian was the one that the papal court adopted, which was a mixture of the Tuscan and Roman dialects. Eventually, Bembo's ideas prevailed, and the foundation of the Accademia della Crusca in Florence (1582–1583), the official legislative body of the Italian language, led to
2414-453: A year at 2,000 m (6,600 feet); on the highest peaks of the Alps , snow may fall even during mid-summer, and glaciers are present. Because of high industrialization and the lack of wind due to being closed between mountain ranges air pollution remains a severe problem in northern Italy. Even if smog levels have decreased dramatically since the 1970s and 1980s, in 2005 a team of researchers at
2556-427: Is 89% with French, 87% with Catalan , 85% with Sardinian , 82% with Spanish, 80% with Portuguese , 78% with Ladin , 77% with Romanian . Estimates may differ according to sources. One study, analyzing the degree of differentiation of Romance languages in comparison to Latin (comparing phonology , inflection , discourse , syntax , vocabulary , and intonation ), estimated that distance between Italian and Latin
2698-668: Is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire . Italian is the least divergent language from Latin , together with Sardinian (meaning that Italian and Sardinian are the most conservative Romance languages). Spoken by about 85 million people, including 67 million native speakers (2024), Italian is an official language in Italy , San Marino , Switzerland ( Ticino and
2840-729: Is also spoken by a minority in Monaco and France, especially in the southeastern part of the country. Italian was the official language in Savoy and in Nice until 1860, when they were both annexed by France under the Treaty of Turin , a development that triggered the " Niçard exodus ", or the emigration of a quarter of the Niçard Italians to Italy, and the Niçard Vespers . Giuseppe Garibaldi complained about
2982-872: Is for humans to live in polluted environments, Chicago Energy Policy Institute has recently developed the Air Quality Life Index (AQLI), a system capable of analyzing air pollution worldwide. According to AQLI findings, Po Valley air pollution affects inhabitants so hard that it cuts off about half a year of their life expectancy. The main reasons why there's a big stain of air pollution over the Po Valley are strictly connected to livestock and factories. The so-called "NPK fertilizers", made of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, along with manure emissions from intensive breeding and high levels of nitrogen dioxide released by diesel and petrol engines are all accountable for this disastrous air condition in northern Italy. The region of Lombardy produces also vast amounts of animal waste,
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#17328978270843124-528: Is higher than that between Sardinian and Latin. In particular, its vowels are the second-closest to Latin after Sardinian . As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive. Italian is the official language of Italy and San Marino and is spoken fluently by the majority of the countries' populations. Italian is the third most spoken language in Switzerland (after German and French; see Swiss Italian ), although its use there has moderately declined since
3266-455: Is markedly lower between Italian-Spanish, and considerably higher between the Iberian sister languages of Portuguese-Spanish. Speakers of this latter pair can communicate with one another with remarkable ease, each speaking to the other in his own native language without slang/jargon. Nevertheless, on the basis of accumulated differences in morphology, syntax, phonology, and to some extent lexicon, it
3408-498: Is neither a co-official nor a protected language in these countries. Some speakers of Italian are native bilinguals of both Italian (either in its standard form or regional varieties ) and a local language of Italy , most frequently the language spoken at home in their place of origin. Italian is a major language in Europe, being one of the official languages of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and one of
3550-410: Is not difficult to identify that for the Romance varieties of Italy, the first extant written evidence of languages that can no longer be considered Latin comes from the ninth and tenth centuries C.E. These written sources demonstrate certain vernacular characteristics and sometimes explicitly mention the use of the vernacular in Italy. Full literary manifestations of the vernacular began to surface around
3692-463: Is now northern Italy became a Roman province with the name of Gallia Cisalpina ("Gaul on the inner side (with respect to Rome) of the Alps"). In 49 BC, with the Lex Roscia , Julius Caesar granted to the populations of the province full Roman citizenship. The Rubicon River marked its southern boundary with Italia proper. By crossing this river in 49 BC with his loyal XIII Legion , returning from
3834-626: Is the main working language of the Holy See , serving as the lingua franca (common language) in the Roman Catholic hierarchy as well as the official language of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta . Italian has a significant use in musical terminology and opera with numerous Italian words referring to music that have become international terms taken into various languages worldwide. Almost all native Italian words end with vowels , and
3976-564: Is the use of the word germanico to refer to German people, instead of tedesco . However, as in Italy, the word tedesco is used to refer to the German language. In Italy, the word germanico is used in the same sense as the word "Germanic" in English, referring, for example, to Germanic languages in general. Radiotelevisione Svizzera di lingua Italiana is the main Swiss public broadcasting network in
4118-538: Is used, and the town of Chipilo near Puebla, Mexico; each continues to use a derived form of Venetian dating back to the 19th century. Other examples are Cocoliche , an Italian–Spanish pidgin once spoken in Argentina and especially in Buenos Aires , and Lunfardo . The Rioplatense Spanish dialect of Argentina and Uruguay today has thus been heavily influenced by both standard Italian and Italian regional languages as
4260-964: The Alpine regions of Italy, consisting of all of north Italy except for Emilia-Romagna . The regions of northern Italy were exposed to different historical influences, which were due to the peoples and dominations that settled there, such as the Ligures , the Veneti , the Celts , the Etruscans , the Romans , the Byzantines , the Lombards , the Spanish and the Austrians . Some of its woodlands and mountains are preserved in several National Parks ;
4402-501: The Il Globo (Australia) and the La gazzetta del Sud Africa (South Africa). Italian is widely taught in many schools around the world, but rarely as the first foreign language. In the 21st century, technology also allows for the continual spread of the Italian language, as people have new ways to learn how to speak, read, and write languages at their own pace and at any given time. For example,
Swiss Italian - Misplaced Pages Continue
4544-936: The La Voce del Popolo ( Croatia ), the Corriere d'Italia (Germany), the L'italoeuropeo (United Kingdom), the Passaparola ( Luxembourg ), the America Oggi (United States), the Corriere Canadese and the Corriere Italiano (Canada), the Il punto d'incontro (Mexico), the L'Italia del Popolo ( Argentina ), the Fanfulla (Brazil), the Gente d'Italia ( Uruguay ), the La Voce d'Italia ( Venezuela ),
4686-634: The Canton of St. Gallen , is chosen as a subject by only 5% of high school students. In February 2011, the parliament of this German-speaking canton came to have to express itself on the almost total abolition of Italian as a foreign language in high schools. The proposal was ultimately rejected with consequent relief from the Council of State of Ticino. Italian language Italian ( italiano , pronounced [itaˈljaːno] , or lingua italiana , pronounced [ˈliŋɡwa itaˈljaːna] )
4828-609: The Della Scala of Verona or the Visconti of Milan , and conquered neighbouring cities threatening to unify northern Italy into one kingdom, a revived Lombard empire. In the end, a balance of power was reached in 1454 with the Peace of Lodi and northern Italy ended up divided between a small number of regional states, the most powerful were the Duchies of Savoy , Milan , Mantua , Ferrara and
4970-584: The European Union , and the Italian constituencies for the European Parliament . In pre-Roman centuries it was inhabited by different peoples among whom the Ligures , the ancient Veneti , who prospered through their trade in amber and breeding of horses, the Etruscans , attested in northern Italy at least since the early Iron Age during the Villanova period , founded the city of Bologna and spread
5112-611: The Frankish king Charlemagne conquered Pavia , deposed Desiderius , the last Lombard king, and annexed the Lombard Kingdom to his empire changing the name in Kingdom of Italy . The former Lombard dukes were mostly replaced by Frankish counts, prince-bishops or marquises. In the 10th century, north Italy, although formally under the rule of the Holy Roman Empire , was included in the kingdom of Italy , of which Pavia remained
5254-672: The Gallo-Italic linguistic panorama of Northern Italy , the Italo-Dalmatian , Neapolitan and its related dialects were largely unaffected by the Franco- Occitan influences introduced to Italy mainly by bards from France during the Middle Ages, but after the Norman conquest of southern Italy , Sicily became the first Italian land to adopt Occitan lyric moods (and words) in poetry. Even in
5396-816: The Grisons ), Corsica , and Vatican City . It has official minority status in Croatia , Slovenian Istria , and the municipalities of Santa Tereza and Encantado in Brazil . Italian is also spoken by large immigrant and expatriate communities in the Americas and Australia . Italian is included under the languages covered by the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Romania , although Italian
5538-573: The Gulf of Trieste is occasionally affected by the cold bora winds in winter and spring. The coldest month is January: the Po valley 's mean temperature is between −1 and 1 °C (30 and 34 °F). Winter morning lows can occasionally reach −30 to −20 °C (−22 to −4 °F) in the Alps and −14 to −8 °C (7 to 18 °F) in the Po valley, with records close to −30 °C (−22 °F) near Bologna during some of
5680-437: The Italian Riviera , including Portofino , Sanremo , and of Cinque Terre . There are many historic cities in this part of Italy: Turin , the manufacturing capital of Italy, Milan , the business and fashion capital of the country and the important port of Genoa are the most popular tourist destinations of the area. Other cities like Aosta , Bergamo , Brescia , Como and Mantua have a rich cultural heritage, which shares
5822-408: The Italian front where many large battles such as the Battles of the Isonzo and the Battle of Monte Grappa took place. Italy would be victorious over Austria-Hungary but at a high price. Between 1943 and 1945, during the Second World War , northern Italy was part of the Fascist Italian Social Republic and the main theatre of the anti-fascist partisan activity . Between April 19 and 25, 1945
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5964-399: The Kingdom of Italy in the Dodecanese ). Italian is widely spoken in Malta , where nearly two-thirds of the population can speak it fluently (see Maltese Italian ). Italian served as Malta's official language until 1934, when it was abolished by the British colonial administration amid strong local opposition. Italian language in Slovenia is an officially recognized minority language in
6106-698: The Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia ), although the masses kept speaking primarily their local vernaculars. Italian was also one of the many recognised languages in the Austro-Hungarian Empire . Italy has always had a distinctive dialect for each city because the cities, until recently, were thought of as city-states . Those dialects now have considerable variety . As Tuscan-derived Italian came to be used throughout Italy, features of local speech were naturally adopted, producing various versions of Regional Italian . The most characteristic differences, for instance, between Roman Italian and Milanese Italian are syntactic gemination of initial consonants in some contexts and
6248-430: The Mediterranean climate profile. In the Alpine foothills, characterised by an Oceanic climate ( Köppen Cfb ), numerous lakes exercise a mitigating influence, allowing the cultivation of typically Mediterranean crops (olives, citrus fruit ). A peculiarity of the regional climate is the thick fog that covers the plains between October and February, especially in the central Po Plain. The east coast, particularly on
6390-423: The North Sea through the basin of the Rhine . On the foothills of the Alps, there are a number of subalpine moraine-dammed lakes, the largest of which is Garda . Other well known of these subalpine lakes are Lake Maggiore , whose most northerly section is part of Switzerland , Como , Orta , Lugano , Iseo , Idro . The climate of northern Italy is mainly humid subtropical ( Köppen Cfa ), especially in
6532-452: The Occitan and Arpitan valleys in western Piedmont, and the Rhaeto-Romance group which includes Friulian and Ladin . Non-Romance languages are also spoken: Germanic languages such as "standard" German and Bavarian in South Tyrol , small Walser communities in Piedmont and Valle d'Aosta, and Cimbrian and mocheno in Veneto, Friuli and Trentino. Slavic languages are spoken in Friuli-Venezia Giulia: there are Slovenian minorities in
6674-423: The Placiti Cassinesi from the province of Benevento that date from 960 to 963, although the Veronese Riddle , probably from the 8th or early 9th century, contains a late form of Vulgar Latin that can be seen as a very early sample of a vernacular dialect of Italy. The Commodilla catacomb inscription is also a similar case. The Italian language has progressed through a long and slow process, which started after
6816-434: The Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute reported that northern Italy was one of Europe's most polluted areas in terms of smog and air pollution due to its climatic and geographic conditions, which cause the stagnation of pollutants. In March 2019, the European Space Agency (ESA) published images took from their satellites. These images show a big stain, made of nitrogen dioxide and fine particles, situated above
6958-505: The University of Bologna , the world's oldest university in continuous operation . The increasing richness of the city-states made them able to defy the traditional feudal supreme power, represented by the German emperors and their local vassals. This process led to the creation of different Lombard Leagues formed by allied cities of Lombardy that defeated the Hohenstaufen Emperor Frederick I , at Legnano , and his grandson Frederick II , at Parma , and becoming virtually independent from
7100-406: The Western Roman Empire's fall in the 5th century. The language that came to be thought of as Italian developed in central Tuscany and was first formalized in the early 14th century through the works of Tuscan writer Dante Alighieri , written in his native Florentine . Dante's epic poems, known collectively as the Commedia , to which another Tuscan poet Giovanni Boccaccio later affixed
7242-483: The empire collapsed in 476 . After the fall of the Western Empire , northern Italy suffered heavily from destruction brought about by migration from Germanic peoples . In 493 the Ostrogoths managed to create a stable and prosperous kingdom , with its capital first in Ravenna and then in Pavia , but the Gothic War caused the kingdom to fall and devastated the region. In the 570s the Germanic Lombards , or Longobardi, entered northern Italy from Friuli and founded
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#17328978270847384-417: The mother tongue or mother tongues of bilingual subjects. In Ticino , the Italian language continued to enjoy good health, recording, among other things, a slight increase from the 1990 census to the 2000 census. However, the decline in the teaching of Italian as a foreign language in the French- and German-speaking cantons is particularly striking. By way of example, it should be remembered that Italian, in
7526-472: The southern part of Grisons ). It is an official language both at the federal level and in the two cantons mentioned. Italian is also one of the most spoken languages in German-speaking Switzerland and is in fact used as an idiom by Italian immigrants and their children, or as a lingua franca between foreign workers of different nationalities, including Portuguese, Spanish, etc. At the time of post-World War II Italian immigration to Switzerland , Italian
7668-406: The 111 Italian lecturer sections belonging to foreign schools where Italian is taught as a language of culture. As of 2022, Australia had the highest number of students learning Italian in the world. This occurred because of support by the Italian community in Australia and the Italian Government and also because of successful educational reform efforts led by local governments in Australia. From
7810-458: The 13th century in the form of various religious texts and poetry. Although these are the first written records of Italian varieties separate from Latin, the spoken language had probably diverged long before the first written records appeared since those who were literate generally wrote in Latin even if they spoke other Romance varieties in person. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the use of Standard Italian became increasingly widespread and
7952-438: The 1970s. It is official both on the national level and on regional level in two cantons : Ticino and Grisons . In the latter canton, however, it is only spoken by a small minority, in the Italian Grisons . Ticino, which includes Lugano , the largest Italian-speaking city outside Italy, is the only canton where Italian is predominant. Italian is also used in administration and official documents in Vatican City . Italian
8094-429: The German emperors. Although having the military purpose as preponderant, the Lombard League also had its own stable government, considered one of the first examples of confederation in Europe. The Leagues failed to develop from an alliance to a lasting confederation and subsequently, among the various local city-states, a process of consolidation took place; most of them became lordships ruled by powerful families like
8236-417: The Italian dialects has declined in the modern era , as Italy unified under Standard Italian and continues to do so aided by mass media from newspapers to radio to television, diglossia is still frequently encountered in Italy and triglossia is not uncommon in emigrant communities among older speakers. Both situations normally involve some degree of code-switching and code-mixing . Notes: Italian has
8378-439: The Italian language into a lingua franca used not only among clerks, nobility, and functionaries in the Italian courts but also by the bourgeoisie . Italian literature's first modern novel, I promessi sposi ( The Betrothed ) by Alessandro Manzoni , further defined the standard by "rinsing" his Milanese "in the waters of the Arno " ( Florence 's river), as he states in the preface to his 1840 edition. After unification,
8520-514: The Italian speaking regions of Switzerland. The University of Lugano is the major university of the Italian speaking part of Switzerland. There are almost no differences in the vowels of Swiss Italian and mainland Italian. Swiss Italian, similar to varieties of Italian in northern Italy and San Marino , lacks syntactic gemination . Some examples of Ticinese words that are different from Italian are: There are about 720,000 residents who declare Italian as their main language, partly residing in
8662-428: The Italian-speaking linguistic area located south of the Alps and the rest scattered throughout the rest of the national territory, amounting to around 8.4% of the national population. Furthermore, 15% of the Swiss population uses it every day. Added to the latter are the more than two million people who, with often variable skills, speak or understand Italian as second language or foreign language. The data relating to
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#17328978270848804-497: The Mediterranean. The increasing political and cultural relevance of Florence during the periods of the rise of the Medici Bank , humanism , and the Renaissance made its dialect, or rather a refined version of it, a standard in the arts. The Renaissance era, known as il Rinascimento in Italian, was seen as a time of rebirth, which is the literal meaning of both renaissance (from French) and rinascimento (Italian). During this time, long-existing beliefs stemming from
8946-410: The Po Valley area, which incorporates the city of Milan , Turin , and Bologna . Milan and Turin share high levels of ozone and nitrogen oxides , which are mainly produced by cars diesel and petrol engines. The big stain analyzed by ESA is the main reason why Po Valley air pollution levels are so high it is considered nowadays the worst area in Europe for air quality. To shed light on how dangerous it
9088-526: The Po Valley suffer the most serious impact at the European level due to poor air quality, first of all, the metropolitan area of Milan, thirteenth in the ranking in terms of fine particulate impact, where any year 3967 premature deaths – approximately 9% of the total. Northern Italy is dominated by the Gallo-Italic family of languages , as opposed to the rest of the country where the Italo-Romance languages are spoken, and they include Emilian , Ligurian , Lombard , Piedmontese , and Romagnol . Venetian , on
9230-413: The Republics of Genoa and Venice , which had begun to extend its influence in the mainland from the 14th century onwards. In the 15th century, northern Italy became one of the centres of the Renaissance whose culture and works of art were highly regarded. The enterprising class of the communes extended its trade and banking activities well into northern Europe and " Lombards ", the term that designated
9372-442: The area around Milan . More recently, the term Alta Italia (Italian for 'High Italy') became widely used, for such by the Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale Alta Italia during the Second World War . In the 1960s, the term Padania began to be sometimes used as a geographical synonym of the Po Valley . The term appeared sparingly until the early 1990s, when Lega Nord , then a secessionist political party, proposed Padania as
9514-399: The canal-filled city of Venice , the cities of Verona , Vicenza , Padua , Trento , Bolzano , Cremona , Bologna , Ferrara , Parma , Ravenna , Cesena , Rimini and Trieste . There are also several mountain ranges such as the Dolomites, the Carnic and Julian Alps and first-class ski resorts like Cortina d'Ampezzo and Madonna di Campiglio. Ligurian cuisine consists of dishes from
9656-411: The capital until 1024, however, gradually, starting from the last decades of the 11th century was in fact divided in a multiplicity of small, autonomous city-states, the medieval communes and maritime republic . The 11th century marked a significant boom in northern Italy's economy, due to improved trading and agricultural innovations, culture flourished as well with many universities founded, among them
9798-444: The case of Northern Italian languages, however, scholars are careful not to overstate the effects of outsiders on the natural indigenous developments of the languages. The economic might and relatively advanced development of Tuscany at the time ( Late Middle Ages ) gave its language weight, although Venetian remained widespread in medieval Italian commercial life, and Ligurian (or Genoese) remained in use in maritime trade alongside
9940-418: The cities of northern Italy began an insurrection against Fascist and Nazi forces that led to the liberation of northern Italy by Allied forces. Economic differences between northern Italy and the rest of the country, as well as the short history of Italy as a single nation, led in the 1990s to the emergence of Padanian nationalism , as Lega Nord promoted either secession or larger autonomy for Padania,
10082-543: The city of Senigallia in province of Ancona ) and Tuscany (most of the province of Massa-Carrara and the northernmost areas of Garfagnana in the province of Lucca , but also some parts of the Metropolitan City of Florence ), so these areas are considered linguistically part of northern Italy. In southern Italy Gallo-Italic languages are spoken in some language islands in Basilicata ( Gallo-Italic of Basilicata ) and Sicily ( Gallo-Italic of Sicily ). Other Gallo-Romance languages spoken are Occitan, Arpitan spoken in
10224-525: The coldest winters. Summer is usually more stable, although quite stormy near the Alps, with July temperatures in the range 22–24 °C (72–75 °F) near the Alps or by the sea, like in Milan or Venice , whereas in southern Po plain 24–25 °C (75–77 °F) can be reached, like in Bologna . The number of days with lows below 0 °C (32 °F) is usually from 60 to 90 a year, with peaks of 100–110 days in
10366-630: The colonial period. In the early 19th century, Eritrea was the country with the highest number of Italians abroad, and the Italian Eritreans grew from 4,000 during World War I to nearly 100,000 at the beginning of World War II. In Asmara there are two Italian schools, the Italian School of Asmara (Italian primary school with a Montessori department) and the Liceo Sperimentale "G. Marconi" (Italian international senior high school). Italian
10508-614: The conquest of Gaul , Julius Caesar precipitated the civil war within the Roman Republic which led, eventually, to the establishment of the Roman Empire . To this day the term "crossing the Rubicon" means, figuratively, "reaching the point of no return". In late antiquity, the strategic role of northern Italy was emphasized by the moving of the capital of the Western Empire from Rome to Mediolanum in 286 and later to Ravenna from 402 until
10650-513: The country (some 0.42% of the total population). Their numbers dropped dramatically after World War II following the Istrian–Dalmatian exodus , which caused the emigration of between 230,000 and 350,000 Istrian Italians and Dalmatian Italians. Italian was the official language of the Republic of Ragusa from 1492 to 1807. It formerly had official status in Albania due to the annexation of
10792-508: The country to the Kingdom of Italy (1939–1943). Albania has a large population of non-native speakers, with over half of the population having some knowledge of the Italian language. The Albanian government has pushed to make Italian a compulsory second language in schools. The Italian language is well-known and studied in Albania, due to its historical ties and geographical proximity to Italy and to
10934-446: The country. A few hundred Italian settlers returned to Libya in the 2000s. Italian was the official language of Eritrea during Italian colonisation . Italian is today used in commerce, and it is still spoken especially among elders; besides that, Italian words are incorporated as loan words in the main language spoken in the country (Tigrinya). The capital city of Eritrea, Asmara , still has several Italian schools, established during
11076-515: The country. The official census, carried out in 2002, reported 2,258 ethnic Italians ( Istrian Italians ) in Slovenia (0.11% of the total population). Italian language in Croatia is an official minority language in the country, with many schools and public announcements published in both languages. The 2001 census in Croatia reported 19,636 ethnic Italians (Istrian Italians and Dalmatian Italians ) in
11218-466: The culinary tradition of Liguria , a region of northwestern Italy , which makes use of ingredients linked both to local production (such as preboggion , a mixture of wild herbs), and to imports from areas with which, over the centuries, the Ligurians have had frequent trade (such as pecorino sardo , one of the ingredients of pesto ). Venetian cuisine , from the city of Venice , or more widely from
11360-464: The design and fashion industries, in some sports such as football and especially in culinary terms. In Italy, almost all the other languages spoken as the vernacular —other than standard Italian and some languages spoken among immigrant communities—are often called " Italian dialects ", a label that can be very misleading if it is understood to mean "dialects of Italian". The Romance dialects of Italy are local evolutions of spoken Latin that pre-date
11502-572: The diffusion of Italian television in the country. Due to heavy Italian influence during the Italian colonial period , Italian is still understood by some in former colonies such as Libya. Although it was the primary language in Libya since colonial rule , Italian greatly declined under the rule of Muammar Gaddafi , who expelled the Italian Libyan population and made Arabic the sole official language of
11644-438: The duchies of Spoleto and Benevento . During the late Middle Ages , after the fall of the northern part of the Lombard Kingdom to Charlemagne , the term Longobardia was used to mean northern Italy within the medieval Kingdom of Italy . As the area became partitioned into regional states, the term Lombardy subsequently shifted to indicate only the area of the Duchies of Milan , Mantua , Parma and Modena and later only to
11786-690: The eastern Mediterranean and the discoveries of sea routes to Asia around Africa and the Americas led to the decline of the Venetian Republic. While the Republic of Genoa managed to become the main banking base of the Spanish Empire. Pestilences, like that of 1628/1630 , and the generally declining conditions of Italy's economy in the 17th and 18th centuries halted the further development of northern Italy. The only polity that managed to thrive in this period
11928-584: The eastern regions (including Lombardy) have since become wealthier than Piedmont and Liguria . With a 2021 nominal GDP estimated at €1.0 trillion, northern Italy accounts for 56% of the Italian economy , despite having just 46% of the population. In 2023, the population resident in northern Italy amounts to 27,497,280 inhabitants divided as follows: The most populous cities (with over 100,000 inhabitants) as of 31 July 2021, estimates were: Aosta Valley , Piedmont , Veneto , Trentino Alto-Adige , Liguria , Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Lombardy are known as
12070-472: The educated gentlemen was to make the Grand Tour , visiting Italy to see its great historical monuments and works of art. It was expected that the visitor would learn at least some Italian, understood as language based on Florentine. In England, while the classical languages Latin and Greek were the first to be learned, Italian became the second most common modern language after French, a position it held until
12212-458: The establishment of Italian, and as such are sister languages to the Tuscan that was the historical source of Italian. They can be quite different from Italian and from each other, with some belonging to different linguistic branches of Romance. The only exceptions to this are twelve groups considered " historical language minorities ", which are officially recognized as distinct minority languages by
12354-696: The exception of part of Liguria all of northern Italy lies in the drainage basin of the Adriatic Sea (with rivers Po, Piave , Adige , Brenta , Tagliamento , Reno ) though the waters from some border municipalities ( Livigno in Lombardy, Innichen and Sexten in Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol) drain into the Black Sea through the basin of the Danube , and the waters from the Lago di Lei in Lombardy drain into
12496-433: The fact that it was linguistically an intermediate between the northern and the southern Italian dialects. Thus the dialect of Florence became the basis for what would become the official language of Italy. Italian was progressively made an official language of most of the Italian states predating unification, slowly replacing Latin, even when ruled by foreign powers (such as Spain in the Kingdom of Naples , or Austria in
12638-468: The free website and application Duolingo has 4.94 million English speakers learning the Italian language. According to the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs , every year there are more than 200,000 foreign students who study the Italian language; they are distributed among the 90 Institutes of Italian Culture that are located around the world, in the 179 Italian schools located abroad, or in
12780-578: The greater ease of learning in informal contexts and also by the fact that the knowledge of Italian by German-Swiss and French-Swiss is generally much higher than in Germany or France . Nowadays, the use of Italian as a lingua franca among workers in Switzerland is in decline. It is not always the same Italian spoken in Italy. If on the one hand it is taken for granted that the use of local minority languages and above all of dialects leads to differences between
12922-645: The highest death rate from fine particulate matter (PM 2.5 ) in Europe. Vicenza ( Veneto ) and Saronno (Lombardy) are respectively in fourth and eighth place in the top ten of ten cities. Turin and Milan are also at the top of the European ranking – 3rd and 5th respectively – in terms of increased mortality from nitrogen dioxide, a gas that derives mainly from traffic and in particular from diesel vehicles, while Verona , Treviso , Padova , Como and Venice rank eleventh, fourteenth, fifteenth, seventeenth and twentythird respectively. The data show that many cities in
13064-483: The island of Corsica (but not in the neighbouring Sardinia , which on the contrary underwent Italianization well into the late 18th century, under Savoyard sway: the island's linguistic composition, roofed by the prestige of Spanish among the Sardinians , would therein make for a rather slow process of assimilation to the Italian cultural sphere ). The rediscovery of Dante's De vulgari eloquentia , as well as
13206-563: The language has a 7-vowel sound system ('e' and 'o' have mid-low and mid-high sounds). Italian has contrast between short and long consonants and gemination (doubling) of consonants. During the Middle Ages , the established written language in Europe was Latin, although the great majority of people were illiterate, and only few were well versed in the language. In the Italian Peninsula , as in most of Europe, most would instead speak
13348-631: The language to that continent. According to some sources, Italian is the second most spoken language in Argentina after the official language of Spanish, although its number of speakers, mainly of the older generation, is decreasing. Italian bilingual speakers can be found scattered across the Southeast of Brazil as well as in the South. In Venezuela , Italian is the most spoken language after Spanish and Portuguese, with around 200,000 speakers. In Uruguay , people who speak Italian as their home language are 1.1% of
13490-491: The late 18th century when it tended to be replaced by German. John Milton , for instance, wrote some of his early poetry in Italian. Within the Catholic Church , Italian is known by a large part of the ecclesiastical hierarchy and is used in substitution for Latin in some official documents. Italian loanwords continue to be used in most languages in matters of art and music (especially classical music including opera), in
13632-525: The late 19th to the mid-20th century, millions of Italians settled in Argentina, Uruguay, Southern Brazil and Venezuela, as well as in Canada and the United States, where they formed a physical and cultural presence. In some cases, colonies were established where variants of regional languages of Italy were used, and some continue to use this regional language. Examples are Rio Grande do Sul , Brazil, where Talian
13774-563: The law. On the other hand, Corsican (a language spoken on the French island of Corsica ) is closely related to medieval Tuscan , from which Standard Italian derives and evolved. The differences in the evolution of Latin in the different regions of Italy can be attributed to the natural changes that all languages in regular use are subject to, and to some extent to the presence of three other types of languages: substrata, superstrata, and adstrata . The most prevalent were substrata (the language of
13916-514: The mainly rural zones. In the colder winters, the Venice Lagoon may freeze, and in the coldest ones even enough to walk on the ice sheet. Precipitation is evenly distributed during the year, more abundant in spring and autumn at low altitudes and in summer at high elevations; it is more intense in the Prealpine zone, up to 1,500 to 2,000 mm (59 to 79 inches) annually, but is abundant also in
14058-475: The merchants or bankers coming from northern Italy, were present in all of Europe. The Italian Wars between 1494 and 1559 ended the north Italian Renaissance and brought the region to be fought between France and the Spanish and Austrian House of Habsburg . After the decisive Battle of Pavia , most of present-day Lombardy became under the direct or indirect control of Spain . At the same time Ottoman control of
14200-728: The name chosen to represent northern Italy. Northern Italy is made of the basin of the River Po , which comprises the whole of the broad plain extending from the foot of the Apennines to that of the Alps , together with the valleys and slopes on both sides of it, the Venetian Plain and the Ligurian coast. Northern Italy has the Alps as the northern and western boundary and the Apennine Mountains as
14342-412: The nation was unified in 1861. Italian is a Romance language , a descendant of Vulgar Latin (colloquial spoken Latin). Standard Italian is based on Tuscan , especially its Florentine dialect , and is, therefore, an Italo-Dalmatian language , a classification that includes most other central and southern Italian languages and the extinct Dalmatian . According to Ethnologue , lexical similarity
14484-405: The northern part of Italy . The Italian National Institute of Statistics defines the region as encompassing the four northwestern regions of Piedmont , Aosta Valley , Liguria and Lombardy in addition to the four northeastern regions of Trentino-Alto Adige , Veneto , Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Emilia-Romagna . With a total area of 120,311 km (46,452 sq mi), and
14626-408: The number of printing presses in Italy grew rapidly and by the year 1500 reached a total of 56, the biggest number of printing presses in all of Europe. This enabled the production of more pieces of literature at a lower cost and Italian, as the dominant language, spread. Italian became the language used in the courts of every state in the Italian Peninsula , as well as the prestige variety used on
14768-630: The openness of vowels, the length of the consonants, and influence of the local language (for example, in informal situations andà , annà and nare replace the standard Italian andare in the area of Tuscany, Rome and Venice respectively for the infinitive "to go"). There is no definitive date when the various Italian variants of Latin—including varieties that contributed to modern Standard Italian—began to be distinct enough from Latin to be considered separate languages. One criterion for determining that two language variants are to be considered separate languages rather than variants of
14910-584: The original inhabitants), as the Italian dialects were most probably simply Latin as spoken by native cultural groups. Superstrata and adstrata were both less important. Foreign conquerors of Italy that dominated different regions at different times left behind little to no influence on the dialects. Foreign cultures with which Italy engaged in peaceful relations with, such as trade, had no significant influence either. Throughout Italy, regional varieties of Standard Italian, called Regional Italian , are spoken. Regional differences can be recognized by various factors:
15052-453: The other hand, almost everyone still speaks the Corsican idiom , which, due to its linguistic proximity to the Italian standard language, appears both linguistically as an Italian dialect and therefore as a carrier of Italian culture, despite the French government's decades-long efforts to cut Corsica off from the Italian motherland. Italian was the official language in Monaco until 1860, when it
15194-561: The other hand, has different origins. Its precise place within the Romance language family remains somewhat controversial. Both Ethnologue and Glottolog group it into the Gallo-Italic branch. Devoto , Avolio and Ursini reject such classification, and Tagliavini places it in the Italo-Dalmatian branch of Romance. The Gallo-Italic languages also reach the north of the Marche region in central Italy ( province of Pesaro and Urbino and
15336-477: The plains and Alpine zones, with an average of 600 to 850 mm (24 to 33 inches) annually. The total annual rainfall is on average 827 mm (32.6 inches). Snow is quite common between early December and early March in cities like Turin, Milan and Bologna, but sometimes it appears in late November or late March and even April. Both the Alps and the Apennine can see up to 500–1,000 cm (200–390 inches) of snow in
15478-435: The plains. Winter in northern Italy is normally long, relatively dry and rather cold. In addition, there is a high seasonal temperature variation between summer and winter. In the mountains, the climate is humid continental ( Köppen Dfb ). In the valleys it is cold but usually with low humidity, while it can be severely cold above 1,000 metres (3,300 ft), with copious snowfalls. The coastal areas of Liguria generally fit
15620-406: The population of Italy could speak Standard Italian. He reports that in 1951 that percentage had risen to 87%. The ability to speak Italian did not necessarily mean it was in everyday use, and most people (63.5%) still usually spoke their native dialects. In addition, other factors such as mass emigration, industrialization, and urbanization, and internal migrations after World War II , contributed to
15762-469: The proliferation of Standard Italian. The Italians who emigrated during the Italian diaspora beginning in 1861 were often of the uneducated lower class, and thus the emigration had the effect of increasing the percentage of literates, who often knew and understood the importance of Standard Italian, back home in Italy. A large percentage of those who had emigrated also eventually returned to Italy, often more educated than when they had left. Although use of
15904-528: The pronunciation of stressed "e", and of "s" between vowels in many words: e.g. va bene "all right" is pronounced [vabˈbɛːne] by a Roman (and by any standard Italian speaker), [vaˈbeːne] by a Milanese (and by any speaker whose native dialect lies to the north of the La Spezia–Rimini Line ); a casa "at home" is [akˈkaːsa] for Roman, [akˈkaːsa] or [akˈkaːza] for standard, [aˈkaːza] for Milanese and generally northern. In contrast to
16046-487: The province of Trieste, in the eastern parts of those of Udine and Gorizia, and Istria , where the main languages today are Slovene and Croatian but Italian is recognized as a minority language due to the presence of the Istrian Italians . During the Middle Ages , mainly between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, an illustrious vulgar was in use, by the name of "Lombard-Venetian koiné". In medieval sources, it
16188-415: The publication of Agnolo Monosini 's Latin tome Floris italicae linguae libri novem in 1604 followed by the first Italian dictionary in 1612. An important event that helped the diffusion of Italian was the conquest and occupation of Italy by Napoleon in the early 19th century (who was himself of Italian-Corsican descent). This conquest propelled the unification of Italy some decades after and pushed
16330-479: The referendum that allowed France to annex Savoy and Nice, and a group of his followers (among the Italian Savoyards ) took refuge in Italy in the following years. Corsica passed from the Republic of Genoa to France in 1769 after the Treaty of Versailles . Italian was the official language of Corsica until 1859. Giuseppe Garibaldi called for the inclusion of the " Corsican Italians " within Italy when Rome
16472-463: The region of Veneto , has a centuries-long history and differs significantly from other cuisines of northern Italy (notably Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol ), and of neighbouring Austria and of Slavic countries (notably Slovenia and Croatia ), despite sharing some commonalities. Cuisine in Veneto may be divided into three main categories, based on geography: the coastal areas,
16614-413: The region's visitors with beautiful landscapes such as the lakes Garda (with Grottoes of Catullus and Gardone Riviera ), Como (with Bellagio and Varenna ) and Maggiore (with Borromean Islands and Angera ). There are also important ski resorts like Sestriere , Courmayeur , Breuil-Cervinia , Livigno and Bormio . This part of Italy also boasts several important tourist attractions, such as
16756-490: The region. Rhaeto-Romance and Gallo-Italic languages are spoken in the region, as opposed to the Italo-Dalmatian languages spoken in the rest of Italy. The Venetian language is sometimes considered to be part of the Italo-Dalmatian languages, but some major publications such as Ethnologue (to which UNESCO refers on its page about endangered languages) and Glottolog define it as Gallo-Italic. Northern Italy
16898-646: The southern one. In between the two mountain ranges lies a large plain made of the Venetian Plain and the valley of the Po , the largest river in Italy, which flows 652 km (405 miles) eastward from the Cottian Alps to the Adriatic Sea and receives all the waters that flow from the Apennines northwards, and all those that descend from the Alps towards the south. The Po Valley is the largest plain in Italy and holds
17040-546: The standard registers of the Italian language used in Italy and Switzerland. An example would be the words for driving licence: in Italy, it is called a patente di guida but in Swiss Italian, it becomes licenza di condurre , from the French permis de conduire . Another example is the interurban bus: in Italy it would be autobus or corriera but in Switzerland, it is the Autopostale or posta . Another notable difference
17182-464: The teachings of the Roman Catholic Church began to be understood from new perspectives as humanists —individuals who placed emphasis on the human body and its full potential—began to shift focus from the church to human beings themselves. The continual advancements in technology play a crucial role in the diffusion of languages. After the invention of the printing press in the 15th century,
17324-463: The title Divina , were read throughout the peninsula and his written dialect became the "canonical standard" that all educated Italians could understand. Dante is still credited with standardizing the Italian language. In addition to the widespread exposure gained through literature, the Florentine dialect also gained prestige due to the political and cultural significance of Florence at the time and
17466-529: The total population of the country. In Australia, Italian is the second most spoken foreign language after Chinese, with 1.4% of the population speaking it as their home language. The main Italian-language newspapers published outside Italy are the L'Osservatore Romano ( Vatican City ), the L'Informazione di San Marino ( San Marino ), the Corriere del Ticino and the laRegione Ticino ( Switzerland ),
17608-468: The use of writing; later, starting from the 5th century BC, the area was invaded by Celtic – Gallic tribes . These people founded several cities like Turin and Milan and extended their rule from the Alps to the Adriatic Sea. Their development was halted by the Roman expansion in the Po Valley from the 3rd century BC onwards. After centuries of struggle, probably officially around 81 BC, the entire area of what
17750-609: The various areas, it must be said that in the Swiss Confederation Italian shows such striking peculiarities as to leave clear traces even in the language written and in any case in formal contexts. Moreover, some Helvetisms have recently been included in the dictionaries of the Italian language. Misunderstandings between Italians and Swiss Italians, if due to different meanings of a word, are quite rare, but possible. The presence of calques from French and German means that there are some differences in vocabulary between
17892-453: The vast majority of the north Italian population. The Alps are home to some worldwide-known mountains like the Matterhorn (Cervino), Monte Rosa , Gran Paradiso in the western Alps, and Bernina , Stelvio and Dolomites along the eastern side of the Alps. The highest peak in Europe is Mont Blanc , at 4,810 m (15,780 feet) above sea level, located at the border with France . With
18034-542: The whole country by about 700,000 people: Swiss Italians, Italian immigrants and Swiss citizens with Italian citizenship. The Swiss variety of Italian is distinct from the traditional vernaculars of the Italian-speaking area, which are classified as varieties of the Gallo-Italic Lombard language . Italian, as the third Swiss national language, is spoken in Italian-speaking Switzerland ( Ticino and
18176-637: The working languages of the Council of Europe . It is the third-most-widely spoken native language in the European Union (13% of the EU population) and it is spoken as a second language by 13.4 million EU citizens (3%). Including Italian speakers in non-EU European countries (such as Switzerland, Albania and the United Kingdom ) and on other continents, the total number of speakers is approximately 85 million. Italian
18318-545: The years 2013 and 2014 exceeds 100% because the interviewees had the possibility to indicate several languages spoken; for the same reason, a comparison with the previous data is not possible. The 2013 survey is the result of the new approach of the Federal Statistical Office, which by implementing the new population census plan integrates the decennial censuses with the structural surveys, to be carried out every three to five years. The aforementioned survey focuses on
18460-497: Was also introduced to Somalia through colonialism and was the sole official language of administration and education during the colonial period but fell out of use after government, educational and economic infrastructure were destroyed in the Somali Civil War . Italian is also spoken by large immigrant and expatriate communities in the Americas and Australia. Although over 17 million Americans are of Italian descent , only
18602-516: Was annexed to the Kingdom of Italy , but King Victor Emmanuel II did not agree to it. Italian is generally understood in Corsica by the population resident therein who speak Corsican , which is an Italo-Romance idiom similar to Tuscan. Francization occurred in Nice case, and caused a near-disappearance of the Italian language as many of the Italian speakers in these areas migrated to Italy. In Corsica, on
18744-427: Was called by different terms in different periods of history. During ancient times the terms Cisalpine Gaul , Gallia Citerior or Gallia Togata were used to define that part of Italy inhabited by Celts ( Gauls ) between the 4th and 3rd century BC. Conquered by the Roman Republic in the 220s BC, it was a Roman province from c. 81 BC until 42 BC, when it was merged into Roman Italy . Until that time, it
18886-663: Was considered part of Gaul , precisely that part of Gaul on the "hither side of the Alps " (from the perspective of the Romans), as opposed to Transalpine Gaul ("on the far side of the Alps"). After the fall of the Roman Empire and the settlement of the Lombards the name Langobardia Maior was used, in the early Middle Ages , to define the domains of the Lombard Kingdom in northern Italy with capital Pavia . The Lombard territories beyond were called Langobardia Minor, consisting of
19028-443: Was mirrored by a decline in the use of the dialects. An increase in literacy was one of the main driving factors (one can assume that only literates were capable of learning Standard Italian, whereas those who were illiterate had access only to their native dialect). The percentage of literates rose from 25% in 1861 to 60% in 1911, and then on to 78.1% in 1951. Tullio De Mauro , an Italian linguist, has asserted that in 1861 only 2.5% of
19170-630: Was replaced by the French. This was due to the annexation of the surrounding County of Nice to France following the Treaty of Turin (1860) . It formerly had official status in Montenegro (because of the Venetian Albania ), parts of Slovenia and Croatia (because of the Venetian Istria and Venetian Dalmatia ), parts of Greece (because of the Venetian rule in the Ionian Islands and by
19312-476: Was simply called "written language" or Lombard, because the toponym "Lombardy" was then used to indicate the entire region of northern Italy. This literary koiné manifested itself with authors such as Bonvesin da la Riva , Giacomino da Verona , Uguccione da Lodi , Girardo Patecchio , etc. Northern Italy is the most developed and productive area of the country, with one of the highest GDPs per capita in Europe . It
19454-448: Was substantially reduced. However, from the late 19th century and especially with the economic boom of the 1950s–1960s , northern Italy and especially the cities of Turin, Genoa, and Milan was the most important region in the Italian industrialization and sharpened its status of richest and most industrialized part of Italy. During World War I Italian and Austro-Hungarian fought in brutal Mountain warfare between 1915 and 1918 on
19596-527: Was the Savoy's state which, thanks to military and diplomatic victories in 1720, managed to acquire the island of Sardinia , through which the then Dukes gained legitimacy as a proper Kingdom and increased Turin's importance as a European capital. After the French Revolution in the late 18th century northern Italy was conquered by the French armies, many client republics were created by Napoleon and in 1805
19738-430: Was the first part of Italy to become industrialised in the last half of the 19th century; the so-called industrial triangle was formed by the manufacturing centres of Milan and Turin , as well as the seaport of Genoa . Since then, the industrial core of the area has shifted eastward; the current industrial triangle consists of Lombardy , Veneto , and Emilia-Romagna . A similar shift happened for GDP per capita, and
19880-479: Was the state that launched Italy's unification in 1859–1861. After defeating the Austrians in 1859 and annexing northern Italy the new state proceeded to launch a campaign to conquer southern and central Italy and Turin briefly became the capital of the almost whole of Italy . After Italian unification the capital was moved from Turin to Rome and the administrative and institutional importance of northern Italy
20022-513: Was transmitted as a lingua franca in the factory and on construction sites to ethnic groups of foreign workers who subsequently settled in Switzerland. This happened because they were the pre-existing majority linguistic group and the process started with Spanish immigrants, who had a particular ease in learning Italian, even if with inevitable simplification phenomena. Later, Italian was also acquired by populations of other ethnic groups, for example by Greek speakers or from Yugoslavia , encouraged by
20164-547: Was under Austrian rule , either direct like in the Lombardo-Venetian Kingdom or indirect like in the Duchies of Parma and Modena . Bologna and Romagna were given to the Papal State . The Austrian imperial government was unpopular because of their anti-liberal politics and northern Italy became the intellectual centre leading the Italian unification process . Piedmont and the Kingdom of Sardinia, in particular,
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