A lot of people are surprised to hear that Italian is spoken in Italy. [Rewind] Only
kidding – obviously everyone knows that Italian is spoken in Italy. But
too often, Italian isn't considered by language learners to be an international language in the
same way that English, Arabic, French, Spanish, and Chinese are. Because of this, it's overlooked
as a useful language to learn because many people think that Italian is spoken only in Italy.
In this video, we'll travel through 7 unexpected places where Italian is spoken.
The first one might not be much of a surprise due to it's proximity to Italy,
but Switzerland is a pretty unique country because they have not only one official language
or two official languages but four official languages: German, French, Italian, and Romansh
(more about this one in another video). Italian is spoken by about 8% of the Swiss population
who predominantly reside in the southern cantons of the country, close to the Italian border.
The next two are also countries near Italy. Slovenia borders the Eastern part of Italy,
and Croatia is just south of Slovenia. An important italian-speaking region is called
Istria which is a peninsula that is predominantly in Croatia, but also contains
the only coastal part of Slovenia, and the region surrounding Italy's eastern most city, Trieste.
Istria has historically been quite linguistically diverse.
In fact, the Croatian part of Istria has the lowest percentage of first language Croatian
speakers in comparison with any other region of Croatia. Also, Italian is the second most spoken
language with almost 7% of the Istrian population in Croatia speaking Italian as a mother tongue.
In total, approximately 16% of Croatians speak Italian as a first or second language.
This next one technically doesn't border with Italy, but Italy is the closest country to Malta.
Malta's official languages are Maltese and English.
Maltese belongs to the Semitic languages of the Afro-Asiatic language family,
but there are many borrowed words from Italian and Sicilian in Maltese.
So, when you hear Maltese spoken, you may hear Italian words come up if you listen hard enough.
In addition to this, due to Malta's close relationship with Italy, many Maltese
residents are able to speak Italian. In a survey conducted by the European Union on languages,
66% of Maltese citizens said that they could hold a conversation in Italian.
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Next on the list brings us to the Northern African nation of Libya. If you know anything
about modern Italian history, particularly from Italy's reunification in 1861 to the World Wars,
you might know that Italy attempted to colonize some regions of Africa to match
the colonial power of other European nations like France, Belgium, Portugal, and Britain.
Italy occupied Eritrea (/ˌɛrɪˈtriːə/), Libya, Somalia (/səˈmɑːliə/), and finally Ethiopia.
Today, Italian is not widely spoken in these countries, except by smaller populations of
older adults. Libya still has a substantial Italian-speaking population, so it is included
here; but the majority of speakers are older adults, so the likelihood of Italian being
heard during a visit to Libya may be low. While Romania isn't geographically that
close to Italy, Italian is a popular second language for people to learn in Romania.
Romania and Italy have had a close relationship over the years due to a shared Latin identity.
Romanian is the only major language in eastern Europe which is a Romance language,
originally descended from Latin. Because of the similarities between Romanian and Italian,
it is a popular choice for students in particular to learn.
Our final place where you will encounter a large number of Italian speakers takes us
all the way across the globe to South America. Argentina has the largest population of Italian
speakers outside of Europe and the second largest Italian-speaking population outside of Italy.
Also, a significant portion of the Argentinian population has Italian ancestry.
In the latter half of the 19th century, the newly independent nation of Argentina sought to
promote immigration to help populate the country, predominantly from Europe. The majority of people
who immigrated to Argentina came from Spain and Italy during this time where 55% of all immigrants
were of Italian origin. In total, nearly 3% of Argentina's population are Italian speakers.
Italian has influenced Argentinian Spanish to such a degree that you can hear many Italian
words used in Argentinian Spanish that aren't used in other varieties of Spanish around the world.
In addition to that, this mass immigration of Italians to Argentina brought not only
the Italian language but also Italian cuisine and Italian culture, both of which have had an impact
on Argentina's unique cultural identity. Let me know in the comments which of these
countries you'd like to visit to practice your Italian and if you agree or disagree with any of
the countries included in this video. Subscribe to my channel to learn more about the world's
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