Indo-European · ISO 639-3 ita · it
Italian Language italiano
Italian is an Indo-European language spoken by about 65 million people in 16 countries. It is an official language of Italy, Switzerland, San Marino and Vatican City. It is written in the Latin script.
Where Italian is spoken
- Official language
- Regional official
- Spoken by 10%+
- 1–10%
- Smaller communities
Countries that speak Italian
Language family
- Indo-European
- Classical Indo-European
- Italic
- Latino-Faliscan
- Latinic
- Imperial Latin
- Romance
- Italo-Western Romance
- Italo-Dalmatian
- Italian Romance
- Central Italian Romance
- Italian
Writing system
Latin script
Related languages
All 16 countries
| Country | Speakers | Share | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
 Italy | 57,916,655 | 95% | Official |
 Germany | 5,888,337 | 7% | — |
 Switzerland | 1,329,085 | 15% | Official |
 United States | 1,162,674 | 0.34% | — |
 France | 1,162,368 | 1.7% | — |
 Austria | 807,118 | 9% | — |
 Brazil | 616,145 | 0.28% | — |
 Canada | 581,922 | 1.5% | — |
 Australia | 508,603 | 1.9% | — |
 Malta | 263,048 | 56% | — |
 United Kingdom | 136,918 | 0.2% | — |
 Croatia | 66,401 | 1.6% | Regional official |
 San Marino | 31,234 | 89% | Official |
 Luxembourg | 24,165 | 3.6% | — |
 Slovenia | 3,985 | 0.19% | — |
 Vatican City | 820 | 82% | De facto official |
About the Italian language
Italian (italiano) is spoken by about 65 million people, which makes it the 29th most spoken language in the world — just behind Filipino (66 million) and ahead of Jinyu Chinese (63 million). It belongs to the Indo-European language family and, more precisely, to the Central Italian Romance group within the Italic branch.
Where is Italian spoken?
Italian is used in 16 countries. The largest communities live in Italy (58 million), Germany (5.9 million), Switzerland (1.3 million), United States (1.2 million) and France (1.2 million). More than half of the population speaks it in Italy, San Marino, Malta and Vatican City — the places where travellers will hear it everywhere.
Share of the population that speaks Italian: Italy 95% (58 million), Germany 7% (5.9 million), Switzerland 15% (1.3 million), United States 0.3% (1.2 million), France 1.7% (1.2 million) and Austria 9% (807,118).
Italian is an official language in 4 countries: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino and Vatican City. It also has regional official status in Croatia.
Writing system and status
Italian is written in the Latin script. It is a safe, widely transmitted language: children still learn it at home as their first language.
Its closest relatives in the same branch of the family are Neapolitan, Sicilian, Venetian, Spanish, Portuguese, French and 2 more.
ISO codes: ISO 639-1 it, ISO 639-3 ita.
Frequently asked questions about Italian
How many people speak Italian?
Where is Italian spoken?
In which countries is Italian an official language?
What language family does Italian belong to?
What is Italian called in Italian?
Is Italian an endangered language?
Data: Languages of the World dataset (MIT) — ISO 639-3, Glottolog (CC BY 4.0), Unicode CLDR, Google LinguaMeta (CC BY 4.0) and Wikidata; country lists: samayo/country-json (MIT). Speaker numbers include first- and second-language speakers where sources report them.