The 20 Most Important Verbs in Italian

Verbs are a category of words that instead of indicating a thing or a quality such as a noun or an adjective, specify an action. The presence of verbs is recognised as what linguists call an absolute linguistic universal, or in other words, a pattern that exists across all languages. In the Italian language, some …

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The Different Dialects and Languages of Italy

Italy is a country brimming with hundreds of local and minor languages and dialects. These linguistic entities began to arise soon after the fall of the Roman Empire. And since then, they have sculpted and modelled a society which, after many years, finally adopted a single standard language: Italian. Nevertheless, local dialects have survived the …

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A Brief History of the Italian Language

The Standard Italian Language, or more simply Italian, is the official language of Italy. It is spoken by approximately 70 million people who mostly reside on the Mediterranean Peninsula or its islands such as Sicily and Sardinia. However, it is also used in the southern areas of Switzerland – specifically in the Ticino and Graubünden …

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Italian vs Sicilian – What are the main differences?

Sicilian, which in Sicily is known as sicilianu, is a Romance language like all the dialects distributed across the Italian Peninsula. With more than five million native speakers, mainly located in Sicily, this dialect descends from a variety of historical languages. This is owing to the geographical position of the island, located strategically in the …

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Italian vs Neapolitan – What are the differences?

When one thinks of Italy, the first language that undoubtably comes to mind is Italian, but did you know that multiple dialects and regional languages are spoken throughout the peninsula even to this day? This is because, up until the year 1861, Italy wasn’t a single unified nation but rather a conglomerate of states, each …

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