Italian language

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Italian, occasionally called Lingua di Sì (in its own language: italiano or rarely lingua di sì), is a Romance language spoken by 66,000,000 persons. Italian-speakers are mostly found in Italy, Switzerland (where it is an official language spoken by 6.5% of the population), France, Argentina, Canada, and United States of America.

Naming[edit]

Besides the usual name of the language, Italian (italiano), one sometimes sees the rare name Langua di Sì. It was spread from De vulgari eloquentia (1303-1305), the famous essay by Italian writer Dante Alighieri, where three Romance languages were identified by the way of saying “yes”: Lingua di Sì (“language of sì” or Italian), Lenga d'Òc (“language of òc” or Occitan) and Langue d'Oïl (“language of oïl” or French).

Sounds[edit]

Vowels[edit]

Triphthongs always contain at least one semivowel: noia and febbraio have the sequence vowel-semivowel-vowel. In miei the first i is a semivocalic 'y' sound, [j]; in tuoi, the u functions as a [w]; and the final i of such words can become semivocalic before a following vowel in the next word. The i is a semivowel also in the first person plural of some verbs: continuiamo, dissanguiamo. And in the four-vowel sequence of aiuola ('flowerbed') the [j] is pushing out the "u" semivowel, [w], so nowadays aiola is the usual spelling. A similar process appears in words like mariuolo ('rascal') and legnaiuolo ('woodcutter'): almost everybody uses them (if at all) in the form mariolo, legnaiolo etc.