IN MAPS: A brief introduction to Italy's many local dialects
Are the Italians around you speaking a completely different language? Why are local dialects often so far removed from modern Italian? Here's what you need to know.
It's a problem Italian language learners have always faced.
You've diligently studied your Italian grammar, and carefully practiced your phrases ahead of your first visit to Italy, only to realise upon arrival that the Italians around you seem to be speaking a different language entirely.
READ ALSO: Ten of the most common Italian language mistakes you should avoid
Italy's dialects are more than just heavily-accented Italian. They seem like totally different languages because, in fact, that's exactly what they are.
It's not quite correct to call them 'dialects', which are variants on a standard language. These are different languages altogether, many of which evolved separately from modern-day Italian and may have their roots in German, French, Greek, Slovenian, Catalan, or something else.
Even when they switch to Italian, speakers of these dialects or languages often speak with a heavy accent, much to the dismay of anyone still getting to grips with with basic Italian.
Even in a big city like Florence or Rome, Italian spoken in a thick local accent can be hard to decipher - and that's not just for foreigners, as native Italian speakers from other areas can tell you.
As the map below shows, every region - and many provinces within those regions - has a local language. Some have more than one, and each town within a province may also have a variation.
Many of these are part of language 'families' and some are more closely related to Italian, or to Latin, than others.
The map below classifies Italy's dialects further and also shows how languages in different regions are connected.
Map: Antonio Ciccolella/Wikimedia Commons
This might look complicated, but anyone who lives in a small Italian town may be thinking that a more detailed map is needed: there are actually many more, smaller variations within these categories.
Do people in Italy really still speak all of these dialects?
The language we know as standard Italian derives from 13th-century Florentine. Until then, there had been no written rules, and the languages of what is now Italy had mainly evolved by being spoken.
When Italy was unified in 1861, only 2.5 percent of the population could actually speak the Italian language. All spoke their regional languages. Now, that figure is in the high 90s, though around five percent still speak only or predominantly in their regional language.
While you might imagine that these dialects or languages are mainly used by older people and are slowly dying out, that's not usually the case.
While they'll also speak standard Italian, you'll find young Italians proudly speaking their local lingo everywhere from central Naples to the valleys of South Tyrol.
Some are far more widely used than others. In fact the most widely spoken is Neapolitan, with over five million speakers today.
The least widely-used is Croato. This dialect is used by an ethnic minority from a region corresponding to present-day Croatia and is spoken in the southern region of Molise. Today it only around 1,000 speakers.
In the southernmost parts of Italy, such as Salento and Calabria, Griko dialects are thought to derive from ancient Greek.
Meanwhile, Sardinian is classified as an "endangered" language by Unesco, Like Italian, Sardinian has roots in Latin – in fact, some linguists argue that, of all the modern Romance languages, Sardinian is the closest to Latin – but it also displays much older influences. Today, particularly younger people on the island speak a mix of both languages, a sort of "Sarditalian".
For more details, here are our guides to getting started with some of Italy's regional languages:
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It's a problem Italian language learners have always faced.
You've diligently studied your Italian grammar, and carefully practiced your phrases ahead of your first visit to Italy, only to realise upon arrival that the Italians around you seem to be speaking a different language entirely.
READ ALSO: Ten of the most common Italian language mistakes you should avoid
Italy's dialects are more than just heavily-accented Italian. They seem like totally different languages because, in fact, that's exactly what they are.
It's not quite correct to call them 'dialects', which are variants on a standard language. These are different languages altogether, many of which evolved separately from modern-day Italian and may have their roots in German, French, Greek, Slovenian, Catalan, or something else.
Even when they switch to Italian, speakers of these dialects or languages often speak with a heavy accent, much to the dismay of anyone still getting to grips with with basic Italian.
Even in a big city like Florence or Rome, Italian spoken in a thick local accent can be hard to decipher - and that's not just for foreigners, as native Italian speakers from other areas can tell you.
As the map below shows, every region - and many provinces within those regions - has a local language. Some have more than one, and each town within a province may also have a variation.
Many of these are part of language 'families' and some are more closely related to Italian, or to Latin, than others.
The map below classifies Italy's dialects further and also shows how languages in different regions are connected.
Map: Antonio Ciccolella/Wikimedia Commons
This might look complicated, but anyone who lives in a small Italian town may be thinking that a more detailed map is needed: there are actually many more, smaller variations within these categories.
Do people in Italy really still speak all of these dialects?
The language we know as standard Italian derives from 13th-century Florentine. Until then, there had been no written rules, and the languages of what is now Italy had mainly evolved by being spoken.
When Italy was unified in 1861, only 2.5 percent of the population could actually speak the Italian language. All spoke their regional languages. Now, that figure is in the high 90s, though around five percent still speak only or predominantly in their regional language.
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