History of Italian Language
The Development of Written Italian and a Standardised Language
Written Italian language has been around since the 10th century. Today, most Italians speak a common language which has only been in existence for 147 years.
Although Italy has a long, ancient history and influential civilisation, it took its time to become a ‘nation’. Up until 1861, it consisted of a number of individual and separate states all with their own traditions and cultures. This ‘individualism’ included its language.
Historical Influences
Italian language is a member of the Romance group of languages and has numerous dialects. It derives from the Latin spoken by the Romans and of all the major Roman languages; Italian bears the most resemblance to ‘Vulgar Latin’. The Tuscan dialect is the most common, possibly due its central position, with Florence as its commercial city and its representation of classical Latin and therefore Italian culture. In the majority of cases, these languages and dialects were and still are, very different from one another and from standard written Italian.
Literary Influences
Written Italian has existed for centuries and the multitude of dialects resulted in fragmentation during the development of the language. Some documents as far back as the 10th Century are written in dialectal form, but three literary artists laid large parts of its foundations during the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance years. The first of these was Dante Alighieri, who wrote ‘Divine Comedy’ - considered one of the greatest works of literature. Petrarca Francesco was an early humanist and translator but was also a great poet and Boccacio who wrote commentary on Dante and was a friend of Petrarca.
As early as 1525, proposals were being produced for a standardised language and style but when Italy became a nation in 1861, it was estimated that only 2.5% of the nation spoke Italian as their mother tongue. The majority spoke various dialects or even minority languages at home and with friends. By the time television arrived and mass education programmes were made available, only a third spoke the language, often reserving it for more ‘formal’ occasions.
Modern Day Italian
The overwhelming majority of the population now speaks standard Italian, however, the dialects are still around. These can be heard on local radio stations, and websites have even been designed specifically to support the retention of the varying dialects.
Two thirds of Italians are now bi-lingual, with Italian as their mother tongue plus a dialect or other language. Since 1948, the minority languages have been protected under the Italian Constitution and include, Albanese, Catalan, Greek, Slovene, Croat, Franco-Provencal, Friulian, Ladino and Sardinia. French and German are specifically protected with plans to strengthen the safeguard and provide opportunities for teaching in local schools.
References
Today Translations website
Italianissimo, Denise De Rome, BBC, 2002
