Name used by its speakers (Endonym): Italiano
Native speakers (estimated): 64 million
Total speakers, including second-language (estimated): 67 million
Where it’s spoken: In addition to being the national language of Italy, Italian is also official and spoken by a majority of the population in San Marino and Vatican City. It is the third most spoken of Switzerland’s four official languages (following German and French); Swiss Italians live primarily in the cantons of Ticino (in which Italian is the primary language) and in the Grisons or Graubünden, where they are a minority in the southernmost border regions.
Elsewhere in Europe, there are significant Italian-speaking minorities in neighboring France and Monaco, and Italian is officially recognized as a minority language within Romania, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Slovenia. For historic reasons, Italian is widely spoken (though no longer official) in Malta, and commonly learned as a second language in Albania. Italian was introduced to the African former colonies of Libya, Eritrea and Somalia but is now used by only a minority of the population in each.
Large numbers of Italians have immigrated from to North America, South America and Australia. Around 18 million Americans, 1.5 million Canadians, and one million Australians claim Italian heritage, though the majority of these do not report speaking Italian. Similarly, there are significant communities established by Italian immigrants throughout South America, notably in Venezuela, southeast Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and especially Argentina—where Italian is the second most spoken native language (after Spanish) and over 60% of the population have Italian roots.
Language family: Indo-European, Romance branch. Italian is the second most spoken Romance language in Europe, but only the fourth most spoken Romance language worldwide, due to the extensive spread of Spanish and Portuguese to their former New World colonies.
Related languages: Like all Romance languages, Italian is descended from spoken Latin, but it is considered the language that retains the most similarity to its original source. It is related to French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanian, as well as to the multiple Italian regional languages which include Sardinian, Sicilian, Ligurian, Lombard, Piedmontese, and Friulian. While the island of Corsica is part of France, the Corsican language is more closely related to Italian.