Talk:Italian language

ITALIAN AND SWITZERLAND

Switzerland has got only three official languages: German, French and Italian. Romansh is only a regional language, official only for Romansh people, not an official language of State (article 70 of Constitution). Then, I don't understand why in the map of Italian language Switzerland is coloured only in Ticino and some valleys. Italian is OFFICIAL IN THE WHOLE CONFEDERATION, is taught at school, and all public things are written in 3 languages, ALL!!! In Switzerland only people speaking Italian AS MOTHERTONGUE out of Ticino are 216,000 (in whole confederation they are 471,000), according to 2000 Census! That is WITHOUT considering people who know Italian as SECOND LANGUAGE, who use it among friends or relatives, or at job, and studied it at school! So Switzerland out of Ticino has more speakers of Italian than Corsica, or Istria, or Albania, or Lybia... In the map the whole Switzerland (except Ticino and some valleys) should be coloured at least with the blue of secondary language.--Pascar 23:21, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Hello there. As far as Romansh is concerned, I see your pointt, but this contradicts what is written in all Swiss-themed articles (including Switzerland), and since that is really a Switzerland-related matter, please discuss it in those articles, and if you obtain consensus necessary to change them, then we'll change this one too. As for the map you're referring too, the area coloured is only where Italian is the language of the majority; the remaining Italian-speakers are scattered throughout the rest of Switzerland. --Nehwyn 06:54, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

In "not-Italian Switzerland" Italian is an official language, and all official documentations and road signs are ALWAYS written in 3 languages (German, French, Italian), by law. Besides, Italian is teached at school. Here it is REALLY a secondary language (but also official), a lot more than in Albania and Nice! Who could deny this? It is so, it cannot be contested. Then, if Romansh is official language of Switzerland, Sardinian is official language of Italy, Corse official language of France, and Scots official language of United Kingdom!? No, it isn't exact, they are REGIONAL languages, not official language of State.--Pascar 11:54, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I can remember distinctly traveling in many German-speaking parts of Switzerland and only reading German street signs. It is hogwash to say that road signs are always written in 3 languages in Switzerland! Official documents are the only place you see this or in officially bi-lingual cities and they are only German-French in the west. Italian is not the second language in Switzerland, it is an official national language but it is taught and spoken as a native regional language in Italian-speaking Switzerland and that is about it. French, and or German and or English are the Second language of all Swiss. The person before is too busy promoting Italian and this could not be further from the truth. And yes I've been to Ticano and know that yes there the signage in southern Grison is in Italian. And yes I like Italian but this is hogwash! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.84.185.246 (talk) 14:53, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

""Italian is NOT regulated...

by the Accademia della Crusca nor by any other instutition. The reference should be removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.51.20.120 (talk) 20:27, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

yes, it's false, the Accademia della Crusca is an important institute of studies about the correct use of the italian language, the most important, but has no official role. Unfortunely I', not able to change it -.- --Sumail (talk) 10:12, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

This is not completely true... Italian is regulated by "Centro di studi di grammatica italiana" (Italian grammar study center). This institution is located physically INSIDE the Accademia della Crusca in Firenze (Florence). It was born as a department of the Accademia della Crusca in 1630, and in July 8, 1937 a royal decree law of the Kingdom of Italy recognized this specific department as the only and unique subject able to change and define grammar and syntactic rules concerning Italian language; this is the "official role". Other departments in Accademia della Crusca work on lexicon, vocabularies, pronounces and other related stuff but are only influent as you said, they haven't an official commission or mandate.84.222.56.89 (talk) 03:37, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

H changes pronunciation

I wrote how H changes pronunciation in word "ho" (I have) which is pretty different from "o" (or). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.147.178.233 (talk) 12:55, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Online Italian Help

I have a pretty useful resource I'd like to add to the external links. It's called Online Italian Help. It's much more than an Italian-English Dictionary because it has flash cards, games, lots of audio, and things like that. I'd appreciate it if someone would second this proposal and add it to the external links. Thanks! --Adjwilli (talk) 17:52, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Speakers in the UK

Ethnologue says there are 200,000 mother tongue speakers of Italian in the UK. This is not true, as according to the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs there are only 175,796 Italian nationals resident in the UK (http://www.esteri.it/MAE/IT/Italiani_nel_Mondo/PrincipaliAttivita/Anag_Consolare/Europa.htm), many of which do not speak Italian as they are 3rd or 4th generation Italians, or because they are South Americans who have claimed Italian citizenship through ancestry and have little or no knowledge of the language. The number of mother tongue speakers is therefore considerably less. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.148.63.17 (talk) 12:51, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Cicolano-Reatino-Aquilano

Can anyone please check the new article Cicolano-Reatino-Aquilano? It is not referenced. Thanks in advance. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 17:02, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Greetings

I think that "Buon pomeriggio" is not an unusual greeting. Can I correct it? --Mendelssohn (talk) 15:43, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm Italian and I use it. It's quite common (you can hear it in afternoon televison programs everyday). --151.51.57.32 (talk) 13:21, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

110-120 million total, source

The provided source, http://www.italia.fi/NR/rdonlyres/F057F198-FEEE-4304-BA26-D777AD7F4116/15279/Rapportotecnico1.pdf, prompts me for a username and password when I try to download it. Is there a way to get round this, or another source for this information? --Baryonic Being (talk) 10:58, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

That figure is obviously grossly inflated. Where do the extra 60 million speakers come from? (MJDTed (talk) 10:08, 9 January 2009 (UTC))

The source appears to be the Italian embassy to Finland. That's certainly an official source, but can hardly be considered authoritative on these matters, at least not when no one can access it. As this site appears to be nothing but a rehash of this article, it appears that there are currently no reliable sources to support the 120 million figure for second language speakers. Even if you add all the estimates for immigrant communities in the Americas and the 3% of the European population, you get nowhere near 120 million.

This has been challenged long enough to consider the statement dubious. I'm removing until someone produces a credible citation.

Peter ^Isotalo 23:28, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

China

My dear britishes, I am italian. In a point of the text, there is something about our vowels. Someone has written the word "China". What does it mean? Maybe the State whit Beijing or Pechino. In that case, we Italian write it simply as "Cina" not reading it as ciai-na (my phonetics is horrible). Goodbye. --Domyinik (talk) 19:53, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

China in Italian is a type of ink, and in fact the pronunciation given for that word is ['kina], not ['tʃaɪnə]. The country has nothing to do with that, there is no mistake. Lupo Azzurro (talk) 21:39, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

...or a slope (china as a noun), or a female who is bent (china as feminine form of the adjective chino). Goochelaar (talk) 23:51, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Italian co-official in Alpes-Maritimes?

If yes, is there a source?--Pascar (talk) 22:53, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

No, it's not. I removed the claim, no idea who came up with that idea but that person cannot know much about the department of Alpes-Maritimes.JdeJ (talk) 11:39, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

milanese italian and roman italian

i edited the links to milanese italian leading to milanese which deals with the article about a dialect of the lombard language (spoken in milan and its province) and to roman italian leading to romanesco, a dialect of the italian language spoken in rome. milanese italian is the italian language whose lexicon is influenced in some cases and in some idioms by the local variety of the lombard language, spoken with a milan typical accent. roman italian is not romanesco (a dialect of italian), but the italian languaged (strongly) influenced by romanesco. --87.17.43.7 (talk) 12:47, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Pronunciation of the word "casa"

I know that under some technical discussion, one may be able to designate the "official" pronunciation of "casa" as [kasa] but I could swear on my mother that anyone speaking "standard italian" will say [kaza]. This from old films, current television, almost anything except dialectical speakers or those with regional accents.

I grew up back-and-forth between America and Italy and about everyone I know says [kaza]. This is driving me crazy! Haha. I don't see how the "standard" pronunciation could be otherwise.

Where in the article does it say anything about that at all? Anyway, most dictionaries you will find will give both pronunciations as acceptable. The pronunciation with a voiceless "s" is common in Tuscany, where so-called standard Italian originated from in the first place. LjL (talk) 14:23, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for this, it's been driving me crazy, too. Kathleen Speight's Teach Yourself Italian says explicitly (p.213. EUP edition) that "casa" is an exception to the normal "z" sound (along with cosa, cosí, mese, risa, Pisa and inglese); but now I'm in a college course, and the teacher says "caza". Paul Magnussen (talk) 15:51, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I believe it's far from the only "exception" of this kind, although there isn't a huge number; still, most of them are pretty regional, I definitely pronounce "kaza", "kozì", "meze", "riza", "Piza" and "ingleze", although for instance i say "prèside" and not "prèzide" like I hear other people from my city say, so there is some free variation in some words, I guess. I'd say the pronunciations with "z" are overall more common than those with "s", although that's just my impression of course. --LjL (talk) 16:26, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

the presence of a phoneme that ends in a vowel is the exception (the pre- in preside) for the "z" sound made by the letter "s." I've heard variation in speaking but while I have heard other Italians say that Casa said with a hissing "s" is wrong I've never heard one say that the "z" sound is wrong. That's just my input.Charles F Ross (talk) 19:41, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Standard Italian, adopted by the state after the unification of Italy,

This sentence is false. Italian was official in Kingdom of Sardinia (the state who anexed the others) since XVI century. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.19.87.179 (talk) 15:55, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Istanbul?

It is perhaps irrelevant to the point illustrated in the article, but the word Istanbul is pronounced with the stress on the penultimate syllable in Turkish, due to a stress shift regularly observed in toponyms: the stress doesn't fall on the last syllable as suggested in the text. 92.140.120.171 (talk) 12:31, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, the explanation in the article is malapropos: practically all Turkish toponyms have a recessive accent, and Istanbul is accentuated on the penultimate syllable by native speakers. The accent shift in Italian is perhaps best explained by want of a final vowel in the toponym or may have arisen due to contamination from English, but these should be verified before incorporating such information into the article. In any case, I deem it best to remove the present pseudo-explanation. --88.172.163.21 (talk) 11:51, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Quick question

Does anyone know why the hell beard, "la barba" is feminine in Italian!? Normally women can't grow beards... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.90.55.168 (talk) 04:27, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Likely because of its connection to 'i baffi,' which are masculine.Charles F Ross (talk) 19:35, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Not all words of Latin origin have maintained an obvious natural gender. Barba was a first declension Latin noun which was masculine despite its placement in a feminine declension. It's a similar case to "agricola" which was masculine but first declension as well. Barba, because of the ending, not because of the natural gender of the word, was inherited through Vulgar Latin by Italian with the increasing use of definite pronouns. W Auckland (talk) 19:28, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Silly classification

I just want to say it is totally silly to point out in the info box where italian is spoken. It is useless... in this case im sure pretty much every important language such as English, Spanish, Chinese or French are spoken in pretty much every country in the world!!!.... Italian is official almost only in Italia, lets point out that important fact instead !

--91.67.216.18 (talk) 00:33, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Italian in Switzerland

In the map there is a mistake: Italian is official in the whole Switzerland, not only in the Italophone part. Someone should correct the colors there, such as they corrected in the similar map for the French language. German, French and Italian are the administrative language of the whole country, Romansh is a regional language instead.--Pascar (talk) 22:34, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

By this logic French should cover all of Canada and German all of Belgium!!?? Or maybe Irish all of Ireland?? The map is fine and relax Italian is doing fine too in Switzerland just the way it is without unnecessary nationalism! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.84.185.246 (talk) 14:57, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

I just want to tell you how much I miss you —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.246.131.85 (talk) 20:48, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Italian Language

I fully realize that it is only natural to be proud of one's language. I also realize that speakers of any language have a natural tendency to exaggerate its importance and present-day value. However, i really do feel that I have to point a few things out in relation to the Italian Wiki article. First off, one would be extremely hard pressed to find 150 million "cultural" speakers of Italian across the globe (I'm having a difficult even time grasping what this means). 60 to 70 million native speakers, yes. But then magically NINETY million more Italophones appear ? Please, enlighten me, from where ? Switzerland ? Hardly. I'm sure there are fewer than 1 million Italian speakers there, and the numbers aren't exactly soaring (I lived in Geneva for two years). Slovenia and Croatia ? Again, wishful thinking. The United States ? The language has fallen into a "Jersey Shore"-like state of disrepair. And I'd venture that there aren't too many more Italian speakers in the "Ionian Islands during the Septinsular Republic".

Now, on to the former Italian African possessions. I can't speak from personal experience concerning Libya (though the number of Italian speakers can't have faired too well under Gaddafi's European purging), but I did work in Addis and Asmara shortly after university. I met a select few (albeit very, very old) citizens in Eritrea who had a fair grasp of the language, but next to nobody in Ethiopia. And in Somalia, the government barely has control over the capital city - there aren't millions of Somalians running around poring over Aleramo and Comisso to learn a "cultural" language in the midst of civil strife.

And the only source anywhere on the Internet backing up these (unmistakably inflated) numbers is a password-protected PDF file from the Italian Consulate in Helsinki ? In short, while Italian is a beautiful language with a renowned literary tradition and culture to boot, I find it extremely hard to believe that there are so many people speak the language. Perhaps we could make a few changes to these figures (or to the misleading language distribution map) reflecting the Ethnologue entry [1] along with other more reliable sources ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.169.62.105 (talk) 02:32, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

There were 520,122 Italian citizens resident in Switzerland in 2007, then you should add all italophone Swiss citizens, so you can understand that all italophone residents in Switzerland are almost 1 million.--Pascar (talk) 15:42, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Hi - I am not "professional" wikipedia writer but I can tell you two things for sure: Italian is spoken in Albania as second language (also due to television influence; you can easily check that with every Albanian); Italian is still spoken widely in Dodecanese (almost as a first language amongs old generation - I can testimony during my last trip over there every aged people wanted to speak Italian to me; especially on smaller islands); Italian is spoken widely in Romania - some Romanians have also Italian as first language (maybe you don't know but there is also an historical Italian Minority in Romania with a presence in the Parliament granted by law - check the official site of them www.roasit.ro) Italian is spoken widely also in USA (especially Boston area than New York area - my direct experience), Australia (as my relatives born there could testify), Argentina (as my relatives born there could testify), France, East Europe. In general I always had the opportunity to speak extensively Italian in every country I have been so far - except Asia. If I can find a useful statistic link for that I will post it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.14.112.200 (talk) 16:13, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Consonants

I think a further italian consonant should be added in the table "Consonants of Italian", namely a velar nasal ŋ, invariably represented by letter n. In fact, this is even used later when listing the pronunciation of some numbers: venticinque /ventiˈtʃiŋkwe/. The distinction may be subtle for some, since both dialectal and personal variants include slightly different pronunciation of n, for instance with /veŋtiˈtʃiŋkwe/. --Roberto La Ferla (talk) 22:24, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Can't it be considered an allophone? —Tamfang (talk) 06:50, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

[ŋ] IS an allophone for /n/ in Italian. (I'm Italian) 03:15, 31 December 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.222.56.89 (talk)

Modern era

It's quite a claim to say that Italian grammar was influenced by Spanish overlordship. Normally when one culture dominates another, there is borrowing of words and expressions, but for the grammar to change would be bizarre. (Examples: the Welsh and Irish have been thoroughly dominated by the English for centuries but retain their own grammar.)

However there is a lot that is strange but true in this world so if someone can come up with a reliable source for this claim then please provide it, otherwise it should be removed. Asnac (talk) 11:04, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

English grammar didn't change during the Norman reign? —Tamfang (talk) 06:53, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

When Italians recognized they do not speak Latin?

When Italians recognized they do not speak Latin?--MathFacts (talk) 08:41, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand what you are trying to say. Please be more clear with your question/statement. Thanks. BalticPat22Patrick (talk) 19:20, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, he was only asking (or 'trying to ask', if you insist...): given that Italian had developed continuously from Latin, at what time did Italians begin to feel that their form of speech was already a different language system than is Latin? My guess would be: about AD 700. Similarly, when did English become aware that their tongue was a different language than had been that of Beowulf, say. Caxton in the 14th century complained that, confronted of with Olde Englysshe Manuscryptes (which he was supposed to type-set), he could not 'brynge them to bee vndirstonden', and that they were, in his eyes, 'more lyke Dutche than Englysshe'. And yet, Caxton's English was 'the same language' as was Beowulf's, only 'slightly' changed across generations. 193.206.225.58 (talk) 14:24, 17 December 2010 (UTC) Wojciech Żełaniec

No. It's actually matter of convention or of national pride. Throughout the middle ages and renaissance and even later the term "latin" was used to refer to every languages of the romance world (Italian, Venetian, Occitan, French, Spanish, ......) along with many other phrases depending on the circumstances, even today there are a few languages which are called "latin" by their native speakers. So the question wants either a HUGE answer or a very deep redesign :) --130.245.203.91 (talk) 18:26, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

But beyond national pride: when did Italians start feeling that their form of speech, however they called it, was a different language than the language of Cicero, say? When did a common man from Campania, say, realise that 'he coulde not brynge them to bee vndirstonden' them there classical Latin texts? My guess would be some time about 700-800 AD. 89.77.89.216 (talk) 07:19, 26 May 2011 (UTC) Wojciech Żełaniec

First of all, I'm Italian, I was born in Firenze (Florence, Tuscany) and lived there for almost 28 years before move to Australia a few months ago; my English isn't so good yet (corrections are welcome :D). Of course there isn't a specific point on the timeline, spoken Italian began to evolve into deeper dialects from IV-V century, the definitive fall of the Western Roman Empire. People of the Italian peninsula always referred to their native language as "Latin" during the following centuries. The point is that starting from fifth century there was been an harder and harder fracture between spoken latin and written latin. The first one changed gradually, year by year, century by century; the second one never changed. e.g. Around AD 1000 people of Florence were already speaking what now we call "latino volgare" (Vulgar Latin), but no-one wrote anything really important in this language essentially before Dante's "Comedìa". We had a big poetic production from several sicilian artists too. After AD 1250ca writings in "vulgar" become common, mutual influences between Tuscany and Sicily granted the new "written vulgar" a minimum threshold of coherence through the peninsula. XIV-XVI centuries meant a period of dramatical Florentine cultural hegemony over the whole peninsula due to the Renaissance, and this is when the Italian was definitively born, this is when Accademia Della Crusca has been founded and when florentine people began to refer to their native language as Italian. Today, if a Milan-born Italian hears a recitation of Comedìa can understand everything; but if a no-matter-where-born Italian hears a poem written around AD 1200 in Milan can't understand anything. This is also one of the main motivation for which in Italy there is a Latin course for students during the secondary school; Latin is very different from both Volgare and Italian, but is still the basis of the whole grammar. The principle behind this study is that the history of the Italian language is well-documented, and if you can understand HOW the transiction from Latin to Italian happened you can have a great teaching in terms of knowledge of your language, your country, your culture and your identity. LorenzoIlMagnifico (talk) 02:02, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Vowel quantity in Italian

Transcriptions like these: /natˈtsjoːne/ suggest that Italian knows long and short vowels. My guess would be, that it in fact does, in spite of what most grammars and such tell you, but only in the ears of those whose native tongue knows this contrast too, e. g. in those of English speakers. I'd venture to say that Italian does not really have long and short vowels (vowels being, phonemically, length-neutral in that language), except that there is a certain tendency to sometimes slightly drawl the vowel of the stressed syllable. But this tendency is restricted to and by various circumstances, such as speaking rate, emotion, logical emphasis and similar. Foreigners who always say /natˈtsjoːne/ tend to sound funny. Do they not? 193.206.225.58 (talk) 16:14, 16 December 2010 (UTC) Wojciech Żełaniec

Long and short vowels are ONLY in the head and in the ears of people who try to speak Italian. It's not rare that people who learned Italian very well still think at Italian vowels as short ones and long ones. Short/long distinction is present in Latin, in Italian we have a form of typical/forced accent which can remind something similar, but NO, in Italian there are no short vowels as there are no long ones. (There are SEVERAL Italian grammar books for foreign students that says that we have short and long vowels.... nononono, IT'S NOT TRUE). Italian is a language with mid length terms and where single syllables are usually shorter than other languages such as English, this means that Italian is full of vowels. Typically the tonic syllable is the second last in a word, as in "nazione" /natˈtsjoːne/. There's no difference between the "a" and the "o" in terms of length, the only noticeable thing the that the "o" is the vowel of the tonic syllable of the word, its barycenter. It's quite similar to what happens in English, the only difference is that in English the tonic accent is usually focused on the first vowel of the word, and the words are made by less longer syllables. Foreigners are often funny when try to pronounce italian terms, but I'm pretty sure that English-speaking people would laugh too if they could hear how italians pronounce some of their common terms. E.g. "performance" which becomes "per formance", italians tends to move the tonic accent a little toward the end and put it on "o" or "a" (I've heard both versions). Putting the tonic accent on the first "e" is really asking to much :D LorenzoIlMagnifico (talk) 02:34, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

availability

The Italian language adopted by the state after the unification of Italy is based on the Tuscan dialect, which beforehand was only available to upper class Florentine society.

Is "available" the best word here? —Tamfang (talk) 20:42, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Errors

It must be made clear that the idea that Italian was unknown in Italy except by the Florentine upper classes til 1861 is a silly groundless prejudice spread by ignorant and biased people.

Italian was known and spoken also by everybody in the territories of the Stati Pontifici (Lazio, Umbria, Marche, Emilia Romagna) as it was learnt at primary school which was compulsory there.

Upper classes in all Italy were able to express themselves in Italian as it was the only language used in education besides Latin. The University of Turin adopted it officially in 1536: note the local dialect is the most removed from Tuscan by linguistic standards.Aldrasto11 (talk) 13:59, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

It would also look unbelievable to any reasonable person that most literary production since the 13th century had been done in a language that was not understandable to the literate ones.Aldrasto11 (talk) 05:29, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

In schools

While there is a subsection "Education" that addresses classes worldwide that teach Italian, there is nothing that I can find about Italian as the language of instruction in the schools in Italy. I think this article needs a (perhaps brief) section called "In education in Italy". It would answer these questions: Where in Italy is Italian, as opposed to one of the other languages of Italy, spoken by the teachers in all the classes? Do the teachers always speak in the standard language, or do they use the local dialect when teaching non-language courses such as history, etc.? Duoduoduo (talk) 14:19, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

In Italy teachers use standard Italian. Of course, the language inflection of a teacher in Milan is not the same of the teacher in Rome, but both teacher speaks always in standard Italian. It's not different from what happens with every other language, the English of Glasgow isn't the same English you can hear in London or in Brisbane... but it's still British English. Every Italian citizen speak most of time in standard Italian, people who speaks different dialects all the time are few, especially old countrymen. Don't confuse language inflection, which differs from province to province, region to region, with true dialects which sometimes have particular lexical forms, grammar rules and other similar stuff. True dialects are used only in particular situations, sometimes within the family, sometimes with some friends, traditional celebrations etc. Different dialects were a true problem about 50-60 years ago, but the country-wide radio and TV transmissions had a teaching and leveling function on the populations of different regions of Italy. In a sense, news radio bulletins and soccer running commentary on national radio channels "taught" Italians how to speak Italian correctly. Today strict dialects still exist, but everyone speak Italian.LorenzoIlMagnifico (talk) 03:02, 31 December 2011 (UTC)