130-585: Bedretto ( Lombard : Bidré ) is a municipality and a village in the Val Bedretto , the upper most part of the river Ticino . It belongs to the district of Leventina in the canton of Ticino in Switzerland . In 1906, pre-Roman graves and a Roman era villa and coins were discovered in Bedretto. The presumption, that it was originally part of Airolo, could not be confirmed by any available records. Bedretto
260-664: 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 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
390-420: A dash to prevent them from being confused with a long vowel: a-a in ca-àl "horse". Western long /aː/ and short /ø/ tend to be back [ ɑː ] and lower [ œ ] , respectively, and /e/ and /ɛ/ may merge to [ ɛ ] . There have been contemporary attempts to develop alternative spelling systems suitable for use by all variants of Lombard. Among these, there is the attempt to develop
520-435: A full-time student or one and a half to two years as a part-time student). There were 0 vocational students who were attending school full-time and 2 who attend part-time. As of 2000, there were 7 students from Bedretto who attended schools outside the municipality. Lombard language Switzerland Brazil The Lombard language (Lombard: lombard , lumbard , lumbart or lombart , depending on
650-550: 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
780-450: A linguistic minority. In Italy, that is the same as for most other minority languages, which have been for a long time incorrectly classed as corrupted regional dialects of Italian . However, Lombard and Italian belong to different subgroups of the Romance language family, and Lombard's historical development is not related to Standard Italian , which is derived from Tuscan . Historically,
910-464: 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
1040-645: 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
1170-462: A private car. As of 2009, there were 3 hotels in Bedretto with a total of 19 rooms and 45 beds. From the 2000 census, 65 or 90.3% were Roman Catholic , while 2 or 2.8% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church . There are 2 individuals (or about 2.78% of the population) who belong to another church (not listed on the census), and 3 individuals (or about 4.17% of the population) did not answer
1300-417: 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
1430-509: 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
SECTION 10
#17328456491191560-424: 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
1690-478: A standard language, authors in the 13th and 14th language created Franco-Lombard , a mixed language including Old French , for their literary works. The Lombard variety with the oldest literary tradition (from the 13th century) is that of Milan , but Milanese , the native Lombard variety of the area, has now almost completely been superseded by Italian from the heavy influx of migrants from other parts of Italy (especially from Apulia , Sicily and Campania ) during
1820-462: A standard school and a special school. In the municipality, students attended the standard primary schools and 0 students attended the special school. In the lower secondary school system, students either attend a two-year middle school followed by a two-year pre-apprenticeship or they attend a four-year program to prepare for higher education. There were 0 students in the two-year middle school and 0 in their pre-apprenticeship, while 1 students were in
1950-736: A traditional Milanese character from the commedia dell'arte , presents himself in court (Lombard on the left, Italian translation on the right): «E mì interrogatus ghe responditt. Sont Meneghin Tandœuggia, Ciamæ par sora nomm el Tananan, Del condamm Marchionn ditt el Sginsgiva; Sont servitor del sior Pomponi Gonz, C'al è trent agn che'l servj» E io interrogatus risposi: Sono Meneghino Babbeo chiamato per soprannome il Ciampichino del fu Marchionne detto il Gengiva; sono servitore del signor Pomponio Gonzo che servo da trent'anni — Meneghino appears in court in "The False Philosopher" (1698), act III, scene XIV The 17th century also saw
2080-408: A unified spelling (lomb. urtugrafia ünificada), which has not taken root due to the excessive complexity and lack of intuitiveness (as well as the lack of adaptability to the Italian keyboard) of the system, which uses symbols such as ç for /z/ and /ʧ/, or ə for unstressed /a/, /ə/ and /e/, as well as the obligation to mark the vowel length, despite the elimination of the accents on the first grapheme of
2210-504: 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
2340-427: 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
2470-729: 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
2600-771: Is called Greater Lombardy after them, and in other parts of the Italian Peninsula after the fall of the Western Roman Empire . Lombardic acted as a linguistic superstratum on Lombard and neighboring Gallo-Italic languages since the Germanic Lombards did not impose their language by law on the Gallo-Roman population, but they rather acquired the Gallo-Italic language from the local population. Lombardic left traces, mostly in lexicon and phonetics, without Germanicising
2730-406: Is either rivers or lakes and 42.06 km (16.24 sq mi) or 55.9% is unproductive land. Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 0.2% and transportation infrastructure made up 0.5%. Out of the forested land, 5.8% of the total land area is heavily forested and 2.3% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 1.8% is used for growing crops. All
SECTION 20
#17328456491192860-424: Is first mentioned in 1210 as Bedoledo and at that time it was a separate municipality. Already in 1227, when the alpine pastures of Leventina valley were divided among the communities, Bedretto had dependent, surrounding farms and hamlets. Bedretto was the only community that was not given any alpine pastures. In 1227, Bedretto is also mentioned as a separate parish . The parish church of SS Martiri Maccabei in
2990-475: 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
3120-455: 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
3250-544: Is no comparable institution in Italy. In December 2004, it released a dictionary in five volumes, covering all Lombard varieties spoken in the Swiss areas. Today, in most urban areas of Italian Lombardy, people under 40 years old speak almost exclusively Italian in their daily lives because of schooling and television broadcasts in Italian. However, in rural areas, Lombard is still vital and used alongside Italian. A certain revival of
3380-685: Is no shortage of translations of great literary classics; in fact, there are numerous versions in Lombard of works such as Pinocchio, The Betrothed, The Little Prince, the Divine Comedy and – in religious literature – of the Gospels. Lombard is considered a minority language that is structurally separate from Italian by both Ethnologue and the UNESCO Red Book on Endangered Languages . However, Italy and Switzerland do not recognize Lombard-speakers as
3510-410: 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
3640-576: Is offset in the summer months by the return of locals and offset in the winter by the influx of tourists and holiday guests. Bedretto is located in the Bedretto Valley running from the Nufenen Pass via the headwaters of the Ticino river down to Airolo . The municipality consists of the village of Bedretto and the hamlets of Ronco, Villa (site of the municipal administration) and Ossasco, and forms part of
3770-550: Is self-evident and so the Lombard language is classified as a Gallo-Italic language (from the ancient Roman name for the Celts, Gauls ). Roman domination shaped the dialects spoken in the area, which is called Cisalpine Gaul ("Gaul, this side of the mountains") by the Romans, and much of the lexicon and grammar of the Lombard language have their origin in Latin . However, that influence
3900-468: Is similar to Milanese and the varieties of the neighbouring provinces on the Italian side of the border. There is extant literature in other varieties of Lombard like La masséra da bé , a theatrical work in early Eastern Lombard, written by Galeazzo dagli Orzi (1492–?) presumably in 1554. Standard Italian is widely used in Lombard-speaking areas. However, the status of Lombard is quite different in
4030-575: 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 is the main working language of the Holy See , serving as the lingua franca (common language) in the Roman Catholic hierarchy as well as
Bedretto - Misplaced Pages Continue
4160-588: 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 the Grisons ), Corsica , and Vatican City . It has official minority status in Croatia , Slovenian Istria , and
4290-538: 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
4420-501: 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,
4550-936: 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 ),
4680-609: The Canton of Ticino and the Canton of Graubünden ) are Western, and both Western and Eastern varieties are found in the Italian areas. The varieties of the Alpine valleys of Valchiavenna and Valtellina ( Sondrio ) and upper- Valcamonica (Brescia) and the four Lombard valleys of the Swiss canton of Graubünden have some peculiarities of their own and some traits in common with Eastern Lombard but should be considered Western. Also, dialects from
4810-672: 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
4940-649: 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
5070-763: 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
5200-477: The Leventina district . The municipality has an area, as of 1997, of 75.23 square kilometers (29.05 sq mi). Of this area, 1.5 km (0.58 sq mi) or 2.0% is used for agricultural purposes, while 8.75 km (3.38 sq mi) or 11.6% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 0.67 km (0.26 sq mi) or 0.9% is settled (buildings or roads), 0.69 km (0.27 sq mi) or 0.9%
5330-960: 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 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
Bedretto - Misplaced Pages Continue
5460-655: The Piedmontese provinces of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola and Novara , the Valsesia valley ( province of Vercelli ), and the city of Tortona are closer to Western Lombard than to Piedmontese. Alternatively, following the traditional classification, the varieties spoken in parts of Sondrio , Trentino , Ticino and Grigioni can be considered as Alpine Lombard , and those spoken in southern Lombardy such as in Pavia, Lodi, Cremona and Mantova can be classified as Southern Lombard . Lacking
5590-539: 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
5720-516: The Swiss Italian-speaking broadcasting company in Lombard. Moreover, it is common for people to answer in Lombard in spontaneous interviews. Even some television advertisements have been broadcast in Lombard. The major research institution working on Lombard dialects is in Bellinzona , Switzerland ( CDE – Centro di dialettologia e di etnografia , a governmental (cantonal) institution); there
5850-560: The Ticino League (13.33%) and the SVP (8.33%). In the federal election, a total of 47 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 57.3%. In the 2007 Gran Consiglio election, there were a total of 83 registered voters in Bedretto, of which 58 or 69.9% voted. 1 blank ballot was cast, leaving 57 valid ballots in the election. The most popular party was the PPD +GenGiova which received 25 or 43.9% of
5980-452: 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
6110-621: The "arabesques" in the Accademia dei Facchini della Val di Blenio, a Milanese academy founded in 1560. At the beginning of the 17th century, the Ossola native Giovanni Capis published the Varon milanes de la lengua de Milan (eng. "Varrone Milanese on the language of Milan"), a sort of etymological dictionary was published. An example of a text in ancient Milanese dialect is this excerpt from Il falso filosofo (1698), act III, scene XIV, where Meneghino ,
6240-519: 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
6370-506: 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
6500-549: 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
6630-475: The Asti, Milanese and French dialects mixed with barbaric Latin") composed at the end of the 15th century. The Florentine humanist Leonardo Salviati , one of the founders of the Accademia della Crusca , an important Italian linguistic academy operating to this day, published a series of translations of a Boccaccian tale into various vernaculars (including Bergamo and Milanese) explicitly in order to demonstrate how ugly and awkward they were compared to Tuscan. At
SECTION 50
#17328456491196760-417: 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
6890-439: 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,
7020-406: The Lombard dialects have been classified into the Eastern, Western, Alpine and Southern Lombard dialects. The varieties of the Italian provinces of Milan , Varese , Como , Lecco , Lodi , Monza and Brianza , Pavia and Mantua belong to Western Lombard , and the provinces of Bergamo , Brescia and Cremona are dialects of Eastern Lombard . All varieties spoken in the Swiss areas (both in
7150-443: The Lombard language was widely and actively discredited in Italian literary circles. Tuscan writers and humanists such as Luigi Pulci and Benedetto Dei recorded aspects of the language spoken in Milan in the form of parodies; similarly, the Asti-born writer Giorgio Alione parodied Milanese in his Commedia e farse carnovalesche nei dialetti astigiano, milanese e francese misti con latino barbaro (eng. "Comedy and carnival farces in
7280-430: The Lombard language. One of the most important writers of the period was the Bergamo-based abbot Giuseppe Rota , author of a substantial (unpublished) Bergamo-Italian-Latin vocabulary and of several poetic works in the Orobic idiom, which he always called "lingua". In this period the linguistic characteristics of Lombard were well recognizable and comparable to the modern ones, except for some phonetic peculiarities and
7410-497: 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
7540-450: The PLRT (with 7 or 12.3%) and the PLRT (with 7 or 12.3%). As of 2007, Bedretto had an unemployment rate of 0.78%. As of 2005, there were 5 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 1 business involved in this sector. 10 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 2 businesses in this sector. 12 people were employed in the tertiary sector , with 4 businesses in this sector. There were 31 residents of
7670-428: The Passo di San Giacomo was a second station in the old mule track. Due to the steep slopes of Bedretto Valley, avalanches often hit the villages. The avalanche in 1863, destroyed half the village and killed 29 people, and the one in 1749 killed 13. In winter, the valley is often cut off and the connection of villages to each other and with Airolo may be interrupted for days. With the construction of avalanche barriers,
7800-412: The Swiss and Italian areas and so the Swiss areas have now become the real strongholds of Lombard. In the Swiss areas, the local Lombard varieties are generally better preserved and more vital than in Italy. No negative feelings are associated with the use of Lombard in everyday life, even with complete strangers. Some radio and television programmes, particularly comedies, are occasionally broadcast by
7930-433: The ancient Ligures . However, available information about the ancient language and its influence on modern Lombard is extremely vague and limited. That is in sharp contrast to the influence left by the Celts , who settled in Northern Italy and brought their Celtic languages and culturally and linguistically Celticised the Ligures. The Celtic substratum of modern Lombard and the neighbouring languages of Northern Italy
SECTION 60
#17328456491198060-444: 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
8190-455: 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
8320-418: The construction rate of new housing units was 0 new units per 1000 residents. The historical population is given in the following table: The entire villages of Bedretto and Villa are designated as part of the Inventory of Swiss Heritage Sites . In the 2007 federal election , the most popular party was the CVP which received 50.28% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the FDP (19.72%),
8450-405: 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
8580-408: 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
8710-446: 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
8840-415: 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
8970-464: 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
9100-420: 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
9230-403: The digraph (aa and not àa). Some examples are presented below: (IPA) /fjøl/ (east.) Italian language Italian ( italiano , pronounced [itaˈljaːno] , or lingua italiana , pronounced [ˈliŋɡwa itaˈljaːna] ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire . Italian
9360-472: 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
9490-448: The emergence of the first bosinade : popular poems written on loose sheets and posted in the squares or read (or even sung) in public; they were widely diffused until the first decades of the 20th century. Milanese literature in the 18th century was quickly developing: some important names which emerged in that period include Domenico Balestrieri , who was associated the famous poet Giuseppe Parini . The latter wrote some compositions in
9620-458: 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
9750-433: 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
9880-472: The foreign population remained the same. There was 1 Swiss woman who immigrated back to Switzerland. At the same time, there was 1 non-Swiss man who emigrated from Switzerland to another country. The total Swiss population change in 2008 (from all sources) was a decrease of 8 and the non-Swiss population change was a decrease of 1 people. This represents a population growth rate of -10.8%. The age distribution, as of 2009, in Bedretto is; 4 children or 6.0% of
10010-455: The four-year advanced program. The upper secondary school includes several options, but at the end of the upper secondary program, a student should be prepared to enter a trade or to continue to a university or college. In Ticino, vocational students may either attend school while working on their internship or apprenticeship (which takes three or four years) or may attend school followed by an internship or apprenticeship (which takes one year as
10140-468: 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
10270-483: 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
10400-631: 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
10530-420: The last 10 years (1997–2007) the population has changed at a rate of 7.8%. Most of the population (as of 2000) speaks Italian (91.7%), with German being second most common ( 4.2%) and French being third ( 4.2%). Of the Swiss national languages (as of 2000), 3 speak German, 3 people speak French, 66 people speak Italian. The remainder ( people) speak another language. As of 2008, the gender distribution of
10660-491: 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
10790-525: 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
10920-563: 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
11050-410: The local language in its structure and so Lombard preserved its Romance structure. From the 15th century onwards, literary Tuscan began to supplant the use of northern vernaculars such as Lombard, even regardless of the fact that Lombard itself began to be heavily influenced by the Tuscan vernacular. Prior to that, the Lombard language was widely used in administrative spheres. Among those who favoured
11180-467: The most prominent advocate of Lombard language was Bortolo Belotti , a lawyer, historian and minister in the liberal governments of the time. The Lombard language became known outside its linguistic borders thanks to I Legnanesi, a theatre company that performed comedies in the Legnanese dialect and which is the most famous example of travesti theatre in Italy. In their comic shows the actors propose to
11310-794: 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 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
11440-412: The municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 54.8% of the workforce. In 2000, there were 4 workers who commuted into the municipality and 16 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 4.0 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering. Of the working population, 3.2% used public transportation to get to work, and 38.7% used
11570-415: The municipality, and an average of 1.9 persons per household. In 2000 there were 126 single family homes (or 89.4% of the total) out of a total of 141 inhabited buildings. There were 8 two family buildings (5.7%) and 1 multi-family building (0.7%). There were also 6 buildings in the municipality that were multipurpose buildings (used for both housing and commercial or another purpose). The vacancy rate for
11700-447: The municipality, in 2008, was 0%. In 2000 there were 152 apartments in the municipality. The most common apartment size was the 5 room apartment of which there were 48. There were 7 single room apartments and 48 apartments with five or more rooms. Of these apartments, a total of 37 apartments (24.3% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 115 apartments (75.7%) were seasonally occupied and apartments (0.0%) were empty. As of 2007,
11830-412: 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
11960-564: The neighbouring regions, notably the far eastern side of Piedmont and the extreme western side of Trentino , and in Switzerland in the cantons of Ticino and Graubünden . The language is also spoken in Santa Catarina in Brazil by Lombard immigrants from the Province of Bergamo , in Italy . The most ancient linguistic substratum that has left a mark on the Lombard language is that of
12090-408: 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
12220-580: 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 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
12350-630: 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
12480-584: 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:
12610-524: The orthography; pronunciation: [lũˈbaːrt, lomˈbart] ) belongs to the Gallo-Italic group within the Romance languages . It is characterized by a Celtic linguistic substratum and a Lombardic linguistic superstratum and is a cluster of homogeneous dialects that are spoken by millions of speakers in Northern Italy and southern Switzerland . These include most of Lombardy and some areas of
12740-453: 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
12870-548: The population are between 0 and 9 years old and 1 teenager is between 10 and 19. Of the adult population, 5 people or 7.5% of the population are between 20 and 29 years old. 8 people or 11.9% are between 30 and 39, 11 people or 16.4% are between 40 and 49, and 8 people or 11.9% are between 50 and 59. The senior population distribution is 6 people or 9.0% of the population are between 60 and 69 years old, 9 people or 13.4% are between 70 and 79, there are 15 people or 22.4% who are over 80. As of 2000, there were 37 private households in
13000-406: 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
13130-402: The population was 52.2% male and 47.8% female. The population was made up of 26 Swiss men (38.8% of the population), and 9 (13.4%) non-Swiss men. There were 30 Swiss women (44.8%), and 2 (3.0%) non-Swiss women. In 2008, there were 2 live births to Swiss citizens and there were 3 deaths of Swiss citizens. Ignoring immigration and emigration, the population of Swiss citizens decreased by 1 while
13260-694: The presence of a remote past tense, replaced almost fully by the past perfect tense by 1875. The beginning of the 19th century was dominated by the figure of Carlo Porta , recognized by many as the most important author of Lombard literature, also included among the greatest poets of Italian national literature. With him some of the highest peaks of expressiveness in the Lombard language were reached, which clearly emerged in works such as La Ninetta del Verzee, Desgrazzi de Giovannin Bongee , La guerra di pret and Lament del Marchionn de gamb avert . Milanese poetic production assumed such important dimensions that in 1815
13390-518: 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
13520-528: 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
13650-520: The public satirical figures of the typical Lombard court; founded in Legnano in 1949 by Felice Musazzi, Tony Barlocco and Luigi Cavalleri, it is among the most famous companies in the European dialect theatre scene. The 21st century has also seen the use of Lombard in contemporary music, such as in the musical pieces of Davide Van De Sfroos and in the translations into Lombard of the works of Bob Dylan. There
13780-415: 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
13910-489: The question. In Bedretto about 61.3% of the population (between age 25–64) have completed either non-mandatory upper secondary education or additional higher education (either university or a Fachhochschule ). In Bedretto there were a total of 3 students (as of 2009). The Ticino education system provides up to three years of non-mandatory kindergarten and in Bedretto there were 0 children in kindergarten. The primary school program lasts for five years and includes both
14040-610: The rapid industrialization after the Second World War . Ticinese is a comprehensive denomination for the Lombard varieties that are spoken in Swiss canton Ticino (Tessin), and the Ticinese koiné is the Western Lombard koiné used by speakers of local dialects (particularly those diverging from the koiné itself) when they communicate with speakers of other Lombard dialects of Ticino , Grigioni or Italian Lombardy . The koiné
14170-529: 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
14300-455: The rise of the figure of the playwright Carlo Maria Maggi, who normalised the spelling of the Milanese dialect and who created, among other things, the Milanese mask of Meneghino. A friend and correspondent of Maggi was Francesco De Lemene, author of La sposa Francesca (the first literary work in modern Lodi dialect) and of a translation of Gerusalemme liberata . Moreover, the 17th century saw
14430-589: The same time, the 15th century saw the first signs of a true Lombard literature: in the eastern parts of Lombardy, the Bergamo-born Giovanni Bressani composed numerous volumes of satirical poetry and the Brescia-born Galeazzo dagli Orzi wrote his Massera da bé , a sort of theatrical dialogue; in the west of the region area, the Mannerist painter Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo lead the composition of
14560-451: The scholar Francesco Cherubini published an anthology of Lombard literature in four volumes, which included texts written from the seventeenth century to his day. In the first part of the 20th century, the greatest exponent of Lombard literature was the Milanese lawyer Delio Tessa , who distanced himself from the Portian tradition by giving his texts a strong expressionist tone. In Bergamo,
14690-618: The settlement of Villa was rebuilt after its destruction by an avalanche in 1594. The existing building dates from the 19th Century. The hospice in All'Acqua was the starting point to two famous mountain crossings: the Nufenen Pass , which leads to Ulrichen in the Upper Valais , and the Passo di San Giacomo , which leads to the Italian Formazza valley . The Hospice of Valdolgia or St. Nicholas on
14820-524: The situation has improved. The road between Airolo and Bedretto opened in 1924, was extended in 1932 to Ronco then in 1964 extended beyond Nufenen. The valley is also today still fairly isolated and without a constant connection with Valais, since a rail project to connect the valley to the Furka Oberalp Bahn as part of the Furka Base Tunnel project failed. Historically, the scarce resources of
14950-521: The sounds that are used in all Lombard dialects. alveolar In Eastern Lombard and Pavese dialect /dz/ , /z/ and /ʒ/ merge to [ z ] and /ts/ , /s/ and /ʃ/ merge to [ s ] . In Eastern Lombard , the last sound is often further debuccalized to [ h ] . In Western varieties , vowel length is contrastive ( Milanese andà "to go" and andaa "gone"), but Eastern varieties normally use only short allophones . Two repeating orthographic vowels are separated by
15080-553: The strengthening of Tuscan influences over Lombard culture was the Duke of Milan Ludovico il Moro; during his reign he brought numerous men of culture from the Republic of Florence to the Sforza court, the most famous of whom was certainly Leonardo da Vinci. At the same time, however, Lancino Curzio still wrote some works in Milanese dialect at the Sforza court. Between the 15th and 16th centuries,
15210-464: 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,
15340-463: 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
15470-529: 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 ),
15600-511: The use of Lombard has been observed in the last decade. The popularity of modern artists singing their lyrics in Lombard dialects (in Italian rock dialettale , the best known of such artists being Davide Van de Sfroos) is also a relatively-new but growing phenomenon involving the Swiss and the Italian areas. Lombard is spoken in Campione d'Italia , an exclave of Italy that is surrounded by Swiss territory on Lake Lugano . The following tables show
15730-420: The valley (cattle, dairy farming and cultivation of potatoes and rye) were insufficient to feed all of the inhabitants. So they were forced to seasonal migrate abroad (mainly in Italy and France) seeking work as chestnut roasters, waitresses or domestic servants. Since the seasonal migration ceased at the end of World War II, the valley has depopulated more rapidly. The decline of the permanent resident population
15860-638: The vast majority of Lombards spoke only Lombard, as "Italian" was merely a literary language, and most Italians were not able to read or write. After the Italian economic miracle , Standard Italian arose throughout Italy and Lombard-speaking Switzerland, wholly- monolingual Lombard-speakers became a rarity as time went by, but a small minority may still be uncomfortable speaking Standard Italian. Surveys in Italy find that all Lombard-speakers also speak Italian, and their command of both two languages varies according to their geographical position as well as their socio - economic situation. The most reliable predictor
15990-585: The vote. The next three most popular parties were; the SSI (with 13 or 22.8%), the PLRT (with 6 or 10.5%) and the LEGA (with 5 or 8.8%). In the 2007 Consiglio di Stato election, 1 blank ballot was cast, leaving 57 valid ballots in the election. The most popular party was the PPD which received 29 or 50.9% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were; the SSI (with 10 or 17.5%),
16120-401: The water in the municipality is flowing water. Of the unproductive areas, 19.1% is unproductive vegetation and 36.8% is too rocky for vegetation. The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Per pale Vert and Argent two larch trees issuant from the base counterchanged. Bedretto has a population (as of December 2020) of 102. As of 2008, 12.2% of the population are foreign nationals. Over
16250-548: 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
16380-516: 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
16510-469: Was found to be the speaker's age. Studies have found that young people are much less likely to speak Lombard as proficiently as their grandparents. In some areas, elderly people are more used to speaking Lombard than Italian even though they know both. Lombard belongs to the Gallo-Italic (Cisalpine) group of Gallo-Romance languages , which belongs to the Western Romance subdivision. Traditionally,
16640-443: 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
16770-549: Was not homogeneous since idioms of different areas were influenced by previous linguistic substrata, and each area was marked by a stronger or weaker Latinisation or the preservation of ancient Celtic characteristics. The Germanic Lombardic language also left strong traces in modern Lombard, as it was the variety of Germanic that was spoken by the Germanic Lombards (or Longobards), who settled in Northern Italy, which
16900-630: 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
#118881