WEBVTT 00:00:00.120 --> 00:00:05.200 Italian is certainly not a global language spoken by hundreds of millions of people, 00:00:05.200 --> 00:00:10.640 like English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Russian. However, contrary 00:00:10.640 --> 00:00:15.600 to what many might think, Italian is not only spoken in Italy. Today I want 00:00:15.600 --> 00:00:23.040 to talk to you about the countries where Italian is widespread outside Italy, starting with Europe. 00:00:23.040 --> 00:00:29.000 My name is Davide and this is Podcast Italiano, a channel for those who love or learn the Italian language. 00:00:29.000 --> 00:00:33.640 If you learn Italian, consider turning on subtitles. You will find the transcript of this 00:00:33.640 --> 00:00:39.160 video on my site. Link in description. Italy was born in the 12th century as a state, 00:00:39.160 --> 00:00:43.760 but the Italian language has a much longer history. All the states that merged into the 00:00:43.760 --> 00:00:49.880 Kingdom of Italy had for a long time a common concept of a cultured language, what we now call 00:00:49.880 --> 00:00:55.440 Italian and comes from literary Tuscan, as you know. Let's understand, in those days only a 00:00:55.440 --> 00:01:00.480 very minority elite cared about these things and people spoke their own regional language. But 00:01:00.480 --> 00:01:05.200 that minority elite was at the same time the one who held power, who produced 00:01:05.200 --> 00:01:11.000 literature, who taught and therefore had great influence. Why am I telling you all 00:01:11.000 --> 00:01:16.840 this? Because some Italian states, such as Naples and Sicily, Genoa, Piedmont, Lombardy and 00:01:16.840 --> 00:01:21.960 above all Venice had a presence in many places that today do not form part 00:01:21.960 --> 00:01:28.200 of Italy, which means that where their people arrived, their concept of 00:01:28.200 --> 00:01:33.680 cultured language, which is why today Italian is present in some form outside Italy. 00:01:33.680 --> 00:01:39.320 In some cases the language historically spoken in these territories was not even Italian, 00:01:39.320 --> 00:01:44.880 but rather another Italian language or dialect, as we say in Italy. However, being 00:01:44.880 --> 00:01:50.280 in the Italian cultural orbit, the regional language has been lost in favor of 00:01:50.280 --> 00:01:56.840 Tuscan literary Italian, as has happened or is happening in many parts of Italy. 00:01:56.840 --> 00:02:03.240 So let's find out what places we are talking about. Our journey begins from Switzerland. 00:02:03.240 --> 00:02:08.480 I actually already talked about the Italian of Switzerland in a recent exciting video. Haven't 00:02:08.480 --> 00:02:13.560 you seen it? Very bad. I'm very offended. But to summarize, Italian is one of the four 00:02:13.560 --> 00:02:18.080 official languages ​​of the country, along with French, Romansh and German. The 00:02:18.080 --> 00:02:24.720 Italian-speaking population consists of approximately 670,000 speakers, just over 8% of the 00:02:24.720 --> 00:02:30.640 country's population. Italian is mainly spoken in the Canton of Ticino, one of the Swiss cantons, 00:02:30.640 --> 00:02:35.680 where in the past, however, Ticino, a variant of Lombard, was spoken. Schooling, 00:02:35.680 --> 00:02:40.720 the media and prestige have meant that Italian has slowly taken the place of 00:02:40.720 --> 00:02:45.960 Ticino, specifically a regional Italian very similar to the one spoken in Lombardy. 00:02:45.960 --> 00:02:52.240 So I really invite all Ticinese to do it. The sooner many of us are vaccinated, 00:02:52.240 --> 00:02:56.920 the sooner this Canton will emerge from the crisis that we are all starting to no longer tolerate. 00:02:56.920 --> 00:03:01.520 That said, watch the video about Italian in Switzerland after this of course. Among other things, 00:03:01.520 --> 00:03:07.000 I also recently published a podcast with Gabriele Chierici, a true Swiss about life 00:03:07.000 --> 00:03:12.320 in Italian-speaking Switzerland. Have you already listened to it? I'll leave you the link in the description. We leave 00:03:12.320 --> 00:03:18.280 Switzerland behind and enter Italian territory to exit again almost immediately. We are 00:03:18.280 --> 00:03:25.280 in Slovenia, on the Istrian peninsula. Italian is a recognized minority language in Slovenia and 00:03:25.280 --> 00:03:31.480 is co-official, together with Slovenian, in some places. Specifically, four: Piran, 00:03:31.480 --> 00:03:37.280 Koper, Isola d'Istria and Ankaran. These are Italian toponyms. In Slovenian they would be 00:03:37.280 --> 00:03:45.720 Piran, Koper, Izola and Ankaran respectively. According to a 2002 census — I haven't found 00:03:45.720 --> 00:03:51.200 any more recent ones — 3,762 people believed their native language was Italian, 00:03:51.200 --> 00:03:57.440 or 0.2% of the population. Despite the low figure, 15% say they speak 00:03:57.440 --> 00:04:02.000 Italian as a second language, the second highest figure in the entire European Union, 00:04:02.000 --> 00:04:07.080 surpassed only by Malta, and 5% say they use Italian in daily life, 00:04:07.080 --> 00:04:12.200 the highest percentage in the European Union after Italy itself. The vast majority of 00:04:12.200 --> 00:04:17.060 them live along the Slovenian coast, where daily contacts with Italy are very frequent. 00:04:17.060 --> 00:04:20.840 To go beyond what has been, there have been the events of history, 00:04:20.840 --> 00:04:26.720 the even painful events of the twentieth century, to reunite in a 00:04:26.720 --> 00:04:31.080 European perspective aimed at the present and the future. We remain in Istria but go slightly 00:04:31.080 --> 00:04:38.520 south and enter Croatian territory. Italian is also official in 00:04:38.520 --> 00:04:44.200 Croatian Istria. Among other things, almost the entire peninsula belongs to Croatia. According to the latest census 00:04:44.200 --> 00:04:52.520 of the Croatian National Institute of Statistics, in 2022 5.4% of Istriots declared they spoke 00:04:52.520 --> 00:04:58.240 Italian. In the region there are eleven primary schools and four secondary institutes where 00:04:58.240 --> 00:05:03.200 the primary language is Italian. In addition to the language, the survey also asked who felt 00:05:03.200 --> 00:05:07.320 Italian and this is interesting. We saw that the percentage of 00:05:07.320 --> 00:05:13.720 Italian speakers in Istria was 5.4% and is slightly higher than the percentage of people who 00:05:13.720 --> 00:05:19.200 consider themselves Italian, which represents 5.1% of the region's population. 00:05:19.200 --> 00:05:24.697 Italian is co-official with Croatian in 19 municipalities of the country, all obviously in Istria. 00:05:24.697 --> 00:05:29.520 …the last Wednesday of February was celebrated as pink shirt day, 00:05:29.520 --> 00:05:34.560 the day to fight against bullying. The students of Istrian schools sent 00:05:34.560 --> 00:05:39.040 a clear message: stop the violence. Therefore the Italian presence in Istria, 00:05:39.040 --> 00:05:45.080 both in Slovenia and in Croatia, is relatively numerous. Why? Thanks for the question. Istria 00:05:45.080 --> 00:05:50.600 was for a long time under the political orbit of first Venice and then Italy. The 00:05:50.600 --> 00:05:56.360 Istrian population was a mix of Italians and Slavs divided almost equally, but coexistence both here and 00:05:56.360 --> 00:06:01.960 in nearby Dalmatia, where there was also a certain but smaller Venetian presence, was not 00:06:01.960 --> 00:06:07.080 exactly peaceful, to put it mildly, as we will see soon. However, the language spoken 00:06:07.080 --> 00:06:11.880 in Istria by the majority of the population of Venetian-Italian origin, as often happens, 00:06:11.880 --> 00:06:17.120 was not Italian but Venetian. Today the younger generation of Croatians from 00:06:17.120 --> 00:06:22.680 Italian families learns Italian at school and uses it with other descendants of Italians. But the Venetian, 00:06:22.680 --> 00:06:28.640 it seems, still survives. How vital it is I don't know, so let me know if you live 00:06:28.640 --> 00:06:34.560 in those parts, leave me a comment. The fact is that the Croatian government in 2021 and apparently 00:06:34.560 --> 00:06:39.920 also the Slovenian one a few years earlier, in 2016, even recognized the 00:06:39.920 --> 00:06:45.840 Istro-Venetian variety, the Venetian of Istria, in fact, which is expected to be taught in schools in the future and 00:06:45.840 --> 00:06:50.760 will have the own official media. From this point of view, Slovenia and Croatia are ahead of 00:06:50.760 --> 00:06:55.560 Italy, where historically very important but now at risk languages, including 00:06:55.560 --> 00:07:00.320 Veneto, have no recognition. As for Dalmatia, although the Republic 00:07:00.320 --> 00:07:04.320 of Venice has historically controlled many territories in this region too, 00:07:04.320 --> 00:07:09.040 Italian never became the lingua franca of the area, but only that of the governing elite, 00:07:09.040 --> 00:07:14.720 because the local elite spoke Dalmatian, a Romance language now extinct, and the population, 00:07:14.720 --> 00:07:20.960 based on their ethnic affiliation, Latin or Slavic, spoke either Dalmatian or Slavic languages. 00:07:20.960 --> 00:07:25.840 After the Second World War the area was handed over to Tito's communist Yugoslavia and there 00:07:25.840 --> 00:07:31.840 was a huge emigration of Italians from Istria and Dalmatia to Italy, known as the 00:07:31.840 --> 00:07:36.520 Julian Dalmatian exodus. It is an extremely complicated and controversial topic. Simplifying 00:07:36.520 --> 00:07:42.080 as much as possible, it is estimated that 300,000 Italians were forced to emigrate following the massacres of 00:07:42.080 --> 00:07:47.760 Tito's government, which in turn were a sort of revenge for the persecutions that had occurred at the hands 00:07:47.760 --> 00:07:53.360 of the Italian army a few years earlier and for the forced Italianization occurred during the 00:07:53.360 --> 00:07:57.880 twenty years of fascist government. In short, as you can imagine, it is still an 00:07:57.880 --> 00:08:03.400 open wound today as well as an extremely politicized topic. Since this is not the place to delve into it, 00:08:03.400 --> 00:08:06.920 let's cross the Adriatic Sea to enter the Republic of San Marino. 00:08:06.920 --> 00:08:11.400 But first… If you like learning Italian through my 00:08:11.400 --> 00:08:17.720 content, you probably embrace my philosophy of learning through input and immersion in the 00:08:17.720 --> 00:08:23.920 language. And this is the philosophy behind StoryLearning. Learn a language through 00:08:23.920 --> 00:08:29.640 stories. A methodology that I really like. StoryLearning offers its 00:08:29.640 --> 00:08:34.640 series of “Italian Uncovered” courses to those learning Italian and if you follow my videos you will probably be interested in 00:08:34.640 --> 00:08:39.960 the upper-intermediate and advanced levels. I'll leave you the link below. All of their 00:08:39.960 --> 00:08:45.720 courses are built around a story that unfolds over several chapters. And this 00:08:45.720 --> 00:08:51.160 is a great way to learn about the story because we become attached to the characters, we want to find out 00:08:51.160 --> 00:08:56.280 what happens next and this gives us a lot of motivation. I really like the idea of ​​learning through 00:08:56.280 --> 00:09:02.160 a story, a context, and this applies to both vocabulary and grammar. But every now and then 00:09:02.160 --> 00:09:08.360 it also makes sense to have a slightly more analytical approach. And in fact the course is structured and 00:09:08.360 --> 00:09:13.920 also has lessons on grammar, vocabulary, culture and colloquial language. So it's not just 00:09:13.920 --> 00:09:20.200 input, but it's a whole structured path with insights into various aspects of the language. 00:09:20.200 --> 00:09:24.400 In addition to this, by purchasing the course you will also have access to a community of teachers and students 00:09:24.400 --> 00:09:29.760 who will guide you and give you assistance in your learning journey. Their courses 00:09:29.760 --> 00:09:35.400 are perfect for those who embrace my philosophy, so I really invite you to go and discover them at the 00:09:35.400 --> 00:09:42.560 links in the description and if you buy through my links you will have a €200 discount on both, so 00:09:42.560 --> 00:09:51.960 €97 instead of €297. Not bad as an offer. Thank you all for the support and let's continue. 00:09:51.960 --> 00:09:57.440 Located on the border between Emilia Romagna and Marche, the Republic of San Marino, with its 61 00:09:57.440 --> 00:10:02.200 square km and 34,000 inhabitants is a real state. It is worth a visit, if only for the 00:10:02.200 --> 00:10:07.160 fact that it is the oldest Republic in Europe, presided over by two heads of state called Captains 00:10:07.160 --> 00:10:12.360 Regent, who are changed every six months. The traditional language spoken by the 00:10:12.360 --> 00:10:24.040 local San Marino population is Romagnolo. [clip in Romagna] 00:10:24.040 --> 00:10:28.520 ... Gallo-Italic language, therefore a language of northern Italy that shares many 00:10:28.520 --> 00:10:34.080 traits with Veneto, Ligurian, Lombard and so on. But the official language, the only 00:10:34.080 --> 00:10:40.040 official language, is Italian. All administration, education, means of communication are in 00:10:40.040 --> 00:10:46.720 Italian. The relationship between the local language and the administrative and high language is in fact the same one that 00:10:46.720 --> 00:10:51.320 has developed in many parts of Italy, with the younger generations 00:10:51.320 --> 00:10:57.440 increasingly abandoning Romagna in favor of Italian. I can assure you, because partly due to my 00:10:57.440 --> 00:11:03.840 activity in the Council I have, let's say, quite prepared myself on this topic. I can tell you, 00:11:03.840 --> 00:11:09.960 without fear of contradiction, that the DC is the most democratic party that exists in San Marino. 00:11:09.960 --> 00:11:15.440 We now cross Marche, Umbria and Lazio and arrive in the Eternal City, in the city: 00:11:15.440 --> 00:11:20.760 Rome. But we stay there for a short time because we cross a new border that takes us inside the 00:11:20.760 --> 00:11:28.080 Vatican City. Yes, sometimes we forget, but Italian is also spoken in the Vatican which, 00:11:28.080 --> 00:11:33.400 although tiny, indeed the smallest state in the world, is a sovereign country in which the head of state 00:11:33.400 --> 00:11:38.360 is the bishop of Rome. Many people think that Latin is the official language of the state, 00:11:38.360 --> 00:11:42.400 but the truth is that the Vatican does not have an official language. Latin is certainly the 00:11:42.400 --> 00:11:48.080 most prestigious language for the Church, as well as the official language of the Holy See, and is still 00:11:48.080 --> 00:11:55.400 sometimes used in some liturgies, translations and writings of various kinds. The Holy See is the seat 00:11:55.400 --> 00:12:01.400 of an organization, the Catholic Church, which is located in a state, the Vatican City. Yes, 00:12:01.400 --> 00:12:07.720 it's a little complicated. However, the Holy See is not the Vatican. They are two separate entities. Although the 00:12:07.720 --> 00:12:14.320 Vatican has no official language, it has promulgated its laws and regulations in Italian since 1929. 00:12:14.320 --> 00:12:19.520 And then the Pope in Italy at least speaks Italian, not Latin. Italian is the language most used 00:12:19.520 --> 00:12:23.720 by popes who are at the head of a confession with more than 1,000,000,000 faithful. And this, 00:12:23.720 --> 00:12:27.720 in a world that speaks more and more English, is in my opinion a very relevant fact. 00:12:27.720 --> 00:12:36.000 The next few months will lead us to the opening of the Holy Door with which we will begin the Jubilee. 00:12:36.000 --> 00:12:43.720 I ask you to intensify your prayers to prepare us to live this event of grace well. 00:12:43.720 --> 00:12:48.200 As for the population, what language do the Vaticanians speak? Well, 00:12:48.200 --> 00:12:53.680 people with Vatican citizenship are not, for obvious reasons, born in the Vatican. It deals with 00:12:53.680 --> 00:12:58.320 of priests, officials and workers from many countries, even if 00:12:58.320 --> 00:13:03.840 the majority is Italian and this is the vehicular language most used by the population. 00:13:03.840 --> 00:13:08.640 We leave the Vatican and say goodbye to the Holy See, but we remain in Rome, where 00:13:08.640 --> 00:13:16.240 another very interesting organization is based. Nice name, right? Well, this is the official name of 00:13:16.240 --> 00:13:21.960 what is popularly known as the Order of Malta, an order of knights (yes, you 00:13:21.960 --> 00:13:28.280 heard correctly) founded in the 12th century, almost 1000 years ago. And who, after the era of the Crusades, 00:13:28.280 --> 00:13:34.880 after having passed through Jerusalem, Rhodes and Cyprus, settled permanently in Malta thanks 00:13:34.880 --> 00:13:41.440 to King Charles I of Spain, aka Charles V of Habsburg, the one of the empire on which the 00:13:41.440 --> 00:13:47.240 Sun. Maybe you remember something. You will tell me "Davide, but it is not a country, it is a subject of 00:13:47.240 --> 00:13:53.400 international law". Dear pedantic legal friends who are writing, yes, I know, its 00:13:53.400 --> 00:13:58.840 legal status is strange. However, its official language is Italian. So that's what matters 00:13:58.840 --> 00:14:03.760 to me . And by the way most countries have ambassadors in the order of Malta. 00:14:03.760 --> 00:14:08.800 And why did this order of noble knights choose Italian as their official language? You 00:14:08.800 --> 00:14:12.720 ask yourself. The first official language was obviously Latin. French followed, 00:14:12.720 --> 00:14:17.680 which was the language most used in European diplomacy in the Middle Ages. However, during the late 00:14:17.680 --> 00:14:22.840 Middle Ages Italian acquired some importance in the Mediterranean. It was the language of trade and 00:14:22.840 --> 00:14:29.160 banking and when the order moved to Rhodes, this island had a strong Venetian and 00:14:29.160 --> 00:14:34.800 Tuscan influence, which is why the Italian language became increasingly common among the knights and in the 12th century 00:14:34.800 --> 00:14:39.800 the official language of 'order. Then, due to Napoleon, the order had to leave Malta 00:14:39.800 --> 00:14:44.960 where it had settled in the meantime and after various wanderings, it ended up settling in Rome in 00:14:44.960 --> 00:14:51.600 1834. Currently the order no longer has a military character and is dedicated to charitable works and 00:14:51.600 --> 00:14:57.000 humanitarian activities. The Grand Master, its leader, now presides over a Council of State and Government 00:14:57.000 --> 00:15:02.480 that administers the Order's diplomatic relations and its activities around the world. 00:15:02.480 --> 00:15:06.760 All decisions, advice and actions are, yes, in the Italian language. 00:15:06.760 --> 00:15:16.640 I John Timothy Dunlap only promise and swear on this most sacred Wood of the 00:15:16.640 --> 00:15:27.160 Cross and on the holy Gospels of God to observe the Constitutional Charter, the codes and rules 00:15:27.160 --> 00:15:34.920 and the laudable customs of our order. And speaking of Malta, we take a plane from Rome 00:15:34.920 --> 00:15:41.680 which we do first and land on the island, once the land of our dear knights. 00:15:41.680 --> 00:15:47.120 The Republic of Malta has two official languages, Maltese and English. Nothing Italian. By the way, 00:15:47.120 --> 00:15:51.600 I highly recommend you watch a video of people speaking Maltese. Obviously 00:15:51.600 --> 00:15:57.000 after this video. It is a Semitic language, an Arabic language but full of loanwords from Sicilian and 00:15:57.000 --> 00:16:05.080 Italian. A wonder for the ears. [maltese clip] 00:16:08.000 --> 00:16:14.080 According to a 2022 Maltese government survey, 96% of the population speaks English, 00:16:14.080 --> 00:16:20.200 90 Maltese, 62 Italian and twenty French. It is interesting to compare this statistic with 00:16:20.200 --> 00:16:28.520 another made in 1995: 98% of the population then spoke Maltese, 76 English, 36 00:16:28.520 --> 00:16:33.520 Italian and ten French. The use of Italian has therefore almost doubled in just under 30 00:16:33.520 --> 00:16:39.960 years. From the 14th to the 19th century the island was under the control of our friends, knights of the Order 00:16:39.960 --> 00:16:44.960 of Malta, as we said earlier. Most of them were French and French 00:16:44.960 --> 00:16:49.920 was certainly a rather used and important language, but the official language of the order 00:16:49.920 --> 00:16:55.200 was Italian. To this we must add that the majority of the population spoke Maltese with 00:16:55.200 --> 00:17:00.040 Sicilian linguistic influence, because the island had been controlled by the Kingdom of Sicily in the 00:17:00.040 --> 00:17:05.480 Middle Ages, during the Napoleonic wars, as we have seen just now, the island rented to the 00:17:05.480 --> 00:17:11.840 Knights of Ordine was occupied by the French and in 1814 became part of the British Empire, 00:17:11.840 --> 00:17:17.240 which started a process of anglicisation of the island. Italian lost its status as an 00:17:17.240 --> 00:17:22.120 official language and its use became increasingly restricted. Curiously, since the 1960s, 00:17:22.120 --> 00:17:27.480 with the advent of television, because Italian TV was also seen in Malta, the language began 00:17:27.480 --> 00:17:33.200 to come back into fashion among young people. Do you live in Malta? I'm curious to know how much and how 00:17:33.200 --> 00:17:39.280 Italian is used on the island and what coexistence with English, Maltese and French is like. So let me know. 00:17:39.280 --> 00:17:46.120 For many of us Maltese, Italy represents our second home, a country with which we share 00:17:46.120 --> 00:17:54.880 not only geography, but also a large part of our history, culture and even language. 00:17:54.880 --> 00:17:59.880 Italian is also an official language in the European Union. Italy's cultural importance, 00:17:59.880 --> 00:18:05.800 both in the past and today, means that many Europeans study Italian as a second or third language and 00:18:05.800 --> 00:18:10.960 maybe you are one of them. In any case, the journey through Italian-speaking Europe ends here, 00:18:10.960 --> 00:18:15.560 thanks to which we passed from the mountains of Switzerland to a Mediterranean island 00:18:15.560 --> 00:18:20.080 ruled by medieval knights. Not bad, right? Stay tuned for the second 00:18:20.080 --> 00:18:28.320 part where we will talk about Italian in the rest of the world. Try StoryLearning and see you. HI!