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How many Italian speakers are there? | ||
Tags: Number of speakers | Italian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| ashshea Newbie United States Joined 5381 days ago 19 posts - 19 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 1 of 17 24 July 2010 at 9:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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Anyone have any idea how many Italian speakers are in the world? According to Mango,
there are 70 million first language speakers and 125 million second language speakers. Does this seem right? Other estimates I've seen have always been much lower. If what Mango says is true, then I had no idea that Italian was such a widely spoken language. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6769 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes  Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 2 of 17 25 July 2010 at 8:41am | IP Logged | ||
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Italian is quite an important second language outside Italy for many reasons. Edited by Captain Haddock on 25 July 2010 at 8:42am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| YoshiYoshi Senior Member China Joined 5532 days ago 143 posts - 205 votes Speaks: Mandarin* | Message 3 of 17 25 July 2010 at 9:42am | IP Logged | ||
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Whether what Mango says is true or not, I'm very keen on the pronunciation and the rhythm of Italian, and frankly I don't think the number of native speakers or foreign learners would be the decisive factor for choosing to learn a new language. It might be better if this language were widely spoken, but if not, or less useful than any other languages in which I'm not quite interested, then I'd rather pick my favourite languages than force myself to follow the crowd.
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| ericspinelli Diglot Senior Member Japan Joined 5784 days ago 249 posts - 493 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Korean, Italian | Message 4 of 17 25 July 2010 at 12:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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Italian as we know it is a fairly young language. While it seems that most people in
modern day Italy speak or identify as speaking some form of the national, normative, and modern Italian language the same cannot be said about the diaspora. My ancestors came to the USA only one generation after Sicily became part of the Kingdom of Italy in 1860. When they came they spoke only Sicilian and their children learned only Sicilian and English. This story seems quite common, especially in the northeast (New York area) United States. Whether people like this would be included in a census regarding Italian is a complex matter. Even if one were to assume or assert that Sicilian is a dialect of Italian, would this 100+ year old dialect count? Would a businessman from Milano understand the archaic and perhaps Anglicized speech of a small community of Long Islanders whose forefathers came from the farms of Palermo? I assume issues like these are effecting the large discrepancy in the population of second language speakers. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| ashshea Newbie United States Joined 5381 days ago 19 posts - 19 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 5 of 17 25 July 2010 at 4:42pm | IP Logged | ||
True. But I'm not asking because I'm trying to decide on whether or not to learn Italian. I'm just curious. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| junjo Newbie United States Joined 5299 days ago 12 posts - 17 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 6 of 17 25 July 2010 at 6:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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I don't study Italian but just to point out one thing an Italian man told me was that there is a huge variance in how Italian is spoken in different parts of Italy. So even a native Italian speaker from one region can not understand someone from another part. It's far more than just the regional accents you get with English. Maybe some Italian speakers here could elaborate on that.
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| canada38 Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5496 days ago 304 posts - 417 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Japanese | Message 7 of 17 25 July 2010 at 11:43pm | IP Logged | ||
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There is Standard Italian, used on television, in newspapers, and I assume in formal
situations and for education. Then there are the dialects and other languages of Italy. Some are dialects of Italian, some are definitely other languages but still sound like Italian, and some have an arguable status. These are popularly called dialects of Italian, regardless of linguistic classification. This accounts for why people from different regions of Italy sometimes have a hard time understanding each other. For example, consider Venice: (example from Wikipedia) English: Marco is arriving Venetian: Marco xe drio rivar Venetian Italian: Marco (el) sta rivando Standard Italian: Marco sta arrivando The difference between Venetian and Venetian Italian is that the former is language itself, whereas the latter is the variant of Italian spoken in Venice (comparable to the English of the Southern USA, for example). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| vilas Pentaglot Senior Member Italy Joined 6961 days ago 531 posts - 722 votes Speaks: Spanish, Italian*, English, French, Portuguese | Message 8 of 17 26 July 2010 at 12:00pm | IP Logged | ||
Maybe this was true until 1950 . Then with the spreading of tv and movies , everybody speaks standard Italian. And almost every Italian can understand the most popular regional forms of Italian (not the "broad" dialects) that are often spoken even in the tv programs . Some regionalized forms of Italian (tuscan veneto roman neapolitan sicilian) are often spoken in gags and jokes in some humourous tv program and film and everyone laugh about it. (Boldi,Benigni ,Troisi ,Alberto Sordi etc etc famous actors that don't speak "plain "italian but understood by everyone...) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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