What is in Italian?

(lingua italiana), is a Romance language of the Italic branch. It is the official language of Italy,

San Marino, the Vatican City, Ticino (southern Switzerland), Istria (western Croatia and Slovenia),

and parts of Graubünden (eastern Switzerland). It is also widely spoken in Malta, where it is recognised

as a second official language, as well as in other communities around the world, particularly in parts of

the Americas and Europe.

Italian is descended from Vulgar Latin. It first appeared during the ninth century, developing from the various Latinian spoken during Late Antiquity

in different Italian geographical areas. Italian eventually replaced them to become the national language in the first half of the fourteenth century, though numerous variations of it survive throughout the peninsula; as such, Italian dialects form a continuum. Although Tuscan dialects form the basis of Standard Italian, it shares several characteristics with other Italo-Romance and

Gallo-Italic languages.

According to Ethnologue, 64 million people spoke Italian as of 2020 – of whom between 59,672,325 to 63.5 million are native speakers – making it the 21st most-spoken native language by population and the twelfth most spoken in the world by total number of speakers (including L2 users). Of those estimated 64 million users in 2020, slightly more than one-fourth or 17.2 million reside outside of Italy.