1. Italian isn’t just spoken in Italy
Nope! Italian is an official or co-official language in Switzerland, San Marino, Slovenia, and Vatican City!
2. The longest word contains 29 letters
Not as long as the 34 letter word supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, but esofagodermatodigiunoplastica is an Italian word that refers to reconstructive surgery!
3. Writer Dante Alighieri provided rules for written Italian in the 14th century
Numerous grammatical rules of Italian come from Dante’s writings.
4. In Italy, there are 30 dialects at risk of extinction
Explanations for this risk of extinction include military, economic, cultural, and religious domination. Further, internal forces including negative attitudes younger generations have towards dialects also pose a threat.
5. Sicilian is actually a language of its own
Sicilian is a Romance language. Sicilian incorporates components of Greek, Arabic, French, Catalan, and Spanish. It is actually a distinct language and different dialects of it are spoken throughout the island.
6. The Italian alphabet has only 21 letters
J, K, W, X, and Y aren’t used in Italian words!
7. The word ‘America’ comes from Italian
America is named after Amerigo Vespucci who was the first was the first Europeana to recognize that North and South America were not part of Asia.
- Read Also: Sicilian VS Italian Language
