Verscio is a former municipality in the district of Locarno in the canton of Ticino in Switzerland . The municipalities of Cavigliano , Tegna and Verscio merged on 14 April 2013 into the new municipality of Terre di Pedemonte .
100-452: Before the merger, Verscio had a total area of 3.1 km (1.2 sq mi). Of this area, 0.47 km (0.18 sq mi) or 15.7% is used for agricultural purposes, while 1.96 km (0.76 sq mi) or 65.3% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 0.33 km (0.13 sq mi) or 11.0% is settled (buildings or roads), 0.12 km (30 acres) or 4.0% is either rivers or lakes and 0.25 km (0.097 sq mi) or 8.3%
200-563: A full-time student or one and a half to two years as a part-time student). There were 7 vocational students who were attending school full-time and 23 who attend part-time. The professional program lasts three years and prepares a student for a job in engineering, nursing, computer science, business, tourism and similar fields. There were 3 students in the professional program. As of 2000, there were 16 students in Verscio who came from another municipality, while 65 residents attended schools outside
300-550: 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
400-464: 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
500-657: 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
600-645: 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
700-417: 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
800-558: 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
900-446: 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: Christian Democratic People%27s Party of Switzerland The Christian Democratic People's Party of Switzerland ( German : Christlichdemokratische Volkspartei der Schweiz , CVP), also called
1000-474: 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
1100-428: A standard school and a special school. In the village, 77 students attended the standard primary schools and 2 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 56 students in the two-year middle school, while 35 students were in
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#17330941800791200-471: A total of 372 apartments (79.1% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 89 apartments (18.9%) were seasonally occupied and 9 apartments (1.9%) were empty. As of 2007, the construction rate of new housing units was 4.6 new units per 1000 residents. The historical population is given in the following table: The entire village of Verscio is designated as part of the Inventory of Swiss Heritage Sites . In
1300-504: 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
1400-499: Is 141 people or 12.7% of the population are between 60 and 69 years old, 86 people or 7.7% are between 70 and 79, there are 44 people or 3.9% who are over 80. As of 2000, there were 375 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2.4 persons per household. In 2000 there were 238 single family homes (or 72.3% of the total) out of a total of 329 inhabited buildings. There were 43 two family buildings (13.1%) and 32 multi-family buildings (9.7%). There were also 16 buildings in
1500-427: 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
1600-668: 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
1700-729: 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
1800-528: 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
1900-455: 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
2000-498: 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
2100-458: 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
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#17330941800792200-626: 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
2300-434: Is unproductive land. Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 7.3% and transportation infrastructure made up 1.3%. Power and water infrastructure as well as other special developed areas made up 1.3% of the area Out of the forested land, 58.7% of the total land area is heavily forested and 5.0% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 4.0% is used for growing crops, while 4.3%
2400-534: Is used for orchards or vine crops and 7.3% is used for alpine pastures. All the water in the municipality is flowing water. Of the unproductive areas, 7.3% is unproductive vegetation. Verscio had a population (as of 2011) of 1,091. As of 2008, 14.3% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years (1997–2007) the population has changed at a rate of 25%. Most of the population (as of 2000) speaks Italian (76.7%), with German being second most common (16.5%) and French being third (3.2%). Of
2500-538: 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
2600-501: 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,
2700-936: 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 ),
2800-680: The 2007 federal election the most popular party was the FDP which received 32.68% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SP (23.05%), the Ticino League (14.16%) and the CVP (14.13%). In the federal election, a total of 359 votes were cast, and the voter turnout was 49.4%. In the 2007 Gran Consiglio election, there were a total of 715 registered voters in Verscio, of which 478 or 66.9% voted. 9 blank ballots were cast, leaving 469 valid ballots in
2900-610: The Christian Democratic Party ( French : Parti démocrate-chrétien , PDC), Democratic People's Party ( Italian : Partito Popolare Democratico , PPD) and Swiss Christian Democratic Party ( Romansh : Partida cristiandemocratica Svizra , PCD), was a Christian democratic political party in Switzerland . On 1 January 2021, it merged with the Conservative Democratic Party of Switzerland (BDP/PBD) to form The Centre , which now operates at
3000-672: 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
3100-816: 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
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3200-649: 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
3300-763: 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
3400-539: 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
3500-514: 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
3600-467: The political spectrum , advocating Christian democracy , the social market economy and moderate social conservatism . The party was strongest in Catholic rural areas, particularly Central Switzerland and Valais . The Catholic-Conservative Party of Switzerland ( German : Katholisch-Konservative Partei der Schweiz ) was founded in 1912. From 1919 on, the party occupied two out of the seven seats in
3700-428: The tertiary sector , with 34 businesses in this sector. There were 401 residents of the municipality who were employed in some capacity, of which females made up 36.4% of the workforce. In 2000, there were 202 workers who commuted into the municipality and 294 workers who commuted away. The municipality is a net exporter of workers, with about 1.5 workers leaving the municipality for every one entering. About 21.8% of
3800-519: 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
3900-506: 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
4000-515: The 1950s, having three members of the Federal Council (1954–1958) before agreeing to the magic formula . It adopted its current name in 1970. From 1979 to 2003 , the party's vote declined, mostly in the favour of the Swiss People's Party (SVP/UDC); the party was reduced to one Federal Councillor at the 2003 Federal Council election . The party sat in the centre to centre-right of
4100-549: 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
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4200-579: The 1990s, conservative voters from former strongholds of the CVP switched to vote for the right-wing populist Swiss People's Party . From the 1995 election to the 2019 election , the CVP's vote share decreased from 16.8% to 11.4%. After the 2003 election , Ruth Metzler of the CVP, was replaced by Christoph Blocher of the Swiss People's Party on the Federal Council , leaving the CVP with only one seat in
4300-476: The CVP uphold rather centrist policies, stands in contrast to the traditional role of the CVP as the leading party in rather Catholic -dominated cantons of central Switzerland and the cantons of Valais . There, the electorate was mostly socially conservative . The CVP had three main policies in the political centre : Following continuing losses in the federal parliamentary elections until 2003, in December 2003,
4400-618: The Center" ( German : Die Mitte , CVP; French : Le Centre , PDC; Italian : il Centro , PPD; Romansh : il Center ) which is the name of the parliamentary group that the CVP shares with the other center-right parties, the Conservative Democratic Party of Switzerland and the Evangelical People's Party of Switzerland . The merger was ratified by a vote of the entire party in November 2020. Cantonal parties were not required to adopt
4500-508: The Conservative-Christian-Social People's Party ( German : Konservativ-Christlichsoziale Volkspartei ) and to its current name in 1970. In the ensuing decades, the Catholic voter base dissolved somewhat. The reduction of the voter base, in addition to less cohesion among politicians in the party, led to six successive losses in federal elections after 1980. The party lost its support over a number of years. Beginning in
4600-417: 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
4700-485: 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,
4800-550: 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
4900-582: The Swiss Federal Council (executive body). In 2005, it held 20.7% of the seats in the Swiss Cantonal governments and 16.7% in the Swiss Cantonal parliaments (index "BADAC", weighted with the population and number of seats). At the last legislative national elections , 22 October 2007, the party won 14.6% of the popular vote and 31 out of 200 seats in the National Council lower house. This
5000-684: The Swiss national languages (as of 2000), 146 speak German, 28 people speak French, 680 people speak Italian, and 6 people speak Romansh . The remainder (27 people) speak another language. As of 2008, the gender distribution of the population was 48.9% male and 51.1% female. The population was made up of 453 Swiss men (40.7% of the population), and 92 (8.3%) non-Swiss men. There were 500 Swiss women (44.9%), and 69 (6.2%) non-Swiss women. In 2008 there were 9 live births to Swiss citizens and 1 birth to non-Swiss citizens, and in same time span there were 5 deaths of Swiss citizens. Ignoring immigration and emigration,
5100-445: The cabinet. Aided by the political climate of the postwar period, the party experienced its peak in the 1950s: It was represented by the biggest parliamentary delegation in the Federal Council , and from 1954 to 1958 the party occupied three out of seven seats in the cabinet. Nonetheless, the party had to relinquish the third seat in favor of the ' magic formula ', which was introduced to the cabinet in 1959. In 1957 it changed its name to
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#17330941800795200-444: 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
5300-572: The census), and 31 individuals (or about 3.49% of the population) did not answer the question. In Verscio about 77.8% 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 Verscio there were a total of 242 students (as of 2009). The Ticino education system provides up to three years of non-mandatory kindergarten and in Verscio there were 39 children in kindergarten. The primary school program lasts for five years and includes both
5400-630: 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
5500-563: 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
5600-408: 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
5700-417: The country's executive. CVP President Gerhard Pfister and BDP President Martin Landolt , the leader of the Conservative Democratic Party, had ongoing discussions about a merger throughout 2020. In 2020, Pfister announced that the national CVP would undergo a change in branding with a new name and logo as part of a merger with the BDP. The party proposed to change the name to "The Center" or "The Alliance of
5800-446: 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
5900-415: 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
6000-464: 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
6100-420: 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
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#17330941800796200-420: 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
6300-427: The election. The most popular party was the PLRT which received 104 or 22.2% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were; the PS (with 99 or 21.1%), the SSI (with 87 or 18.6%) and the LEGA (with 72 or 15.4%). In the 2007 Consiglio di Stato election, 4 blank ballots and 5 null ballots were cast, leaving 469 valid ballots in the election. The most popular party was the PS which received 110 or 23.5% of
6400-409: 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
6500-433: 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
6600-436: The federal level. The Christian Democratic People's Party will continue to exist at the cantonal level as individual local and regional parties determine their status. Its 28 seats in the National Council and 13 seats in the Council of States were transferred to the new party, as was its sole seat on the Federal Council , held by Viola Amherd . The party was founded as the Catholic Conservative Party in 1912. It peaked in
6700-456: The four-year advanced program. The upper secondary school includes several options, but at the end of the upper secondary program, a student will be prepared to enter a trade or to continue on 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
6800-410: 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
6900-431: 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
7000-451: 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
7100-531: 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
7200-491: 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
7300-525: 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
7400-563: 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
7500-408: The municipality that were multipurpose buildings (used for both housing and commercial or another purpose). The vacancy rate for the municipality, in 2008, was 0%. In 2000 there were 470 apartments in the municipality. The most common apartment size was the 4 room apartment of which there were 166. There were 16 single room apartments and 121 apartments with five or more rooms. Of these apartments,
7600-487: The municipality. Verscio is the site of the Scuola Teatro Dimitri , a small performing arts college in the Swiss national higher education system with emphasis on physical theatre , founded as a clown school by the Swiss clown Dimitri . Italian language Italian ( italiano , pronounced [itaˈljaːno] , or lingua italiana , pronounced [ˈliŋɡwa itaˈljaːna] )
7700-412: 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
7800-475: The new name if they do not wish to do so. Pfister estimated that a new center-right party could obtain up to 20% of the vote in future elections. In its party platform , the CVP described itself as a centrist party. The CVP fostered a social market economy in which a balance is struck between economic liberalism and social justice . The expansion of the party in the Protestant -dominated cantons, in which
7900-467: 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
8000-630: 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
8100-584: 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:
8200-453: 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
8300-627: The party lost one of its two seats in the four-party coalition government, the Swiss Federal Council , to the Swiss People's Party . The CVP holds roughly 12% of the popular vote. After the national election in late 2003, it held 28 seats (out of 200) in the Swiss National Council (first chamber of the Swiss parliament); 15 (out of 46) in the Council of States (second chamber, and the largest party in this chamber) and 1 out of 7 seats in
8400-406: 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
8500-428: The population of Swiss citizens increased by 4 while the foreign population increased by 1. There was 1 Swiss man and 1 Swiss woman who immigrated back to Switzerland. At the same time, there was 1 non-Swiss man who immigrated from another country to Switzerland. The total Swiss population change in 2008 (from all sources, including moves across municipal borders) was an increase of 13 and the non-Swiss population change
8600-518: 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
8700-528: 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
8800-415: 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
8900-479: 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
9000-464: 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,
9100-463: 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
9200-529: 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 ),
9300-593: The vote. The next three most popular parties were; the LEGA (with 109 or 23.2%), the PLRT (with 106 or 22.6%) and the SSI (with 66 or 14.1%). As of 2007, Verscio had an unemployment rate of 2.4%. As of 2005, there were 12 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 5 businesses involved in this sector. 72 people were employed in the secondary sector and there were 8 businesses in this sector. 126 people were employed in
9400-465: The workforce coming into Verscio are coming from outside Switzerland. Of the working population, 7.5% used public transportation to get to work, and 65.3% used a private car. From the 2000 census, 629 or 70.9% were Roman Catholic , while 99 or 11.2% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church . There are 128 individuals (or about 14.43% of the population) who belong to another church (not listed on
9500-588: 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
9600-548: 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
9700-517: Was an increase of 6 people. This represents a population growth rate of 1.7%. The age distribution, as of 2009, in Verscio is; 130 children or 11.7% of the population are between 0 and 9 years old and 141 teenagers or 12.7% are between 10 and 19. Of the adult population, 99 people or 8.9% of the population are between 20 and 29 years old. 119 people or 10.7% are between 30 and 39, 209 people or 18.8% are between 40 and 49, and 145 people or 13.0% are between 50 and 59. The senior population distribution
9800-516: 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
9900-443: 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
10000-630: 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
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