Italian
italiano, lingua italiana
Pronunciation	[itaˈljaːno]
Native to	Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, Slovenia (Slovenian Istria), Croatia (Istria County), and the Italian diaspora
Region	(widely known among older people and in commercial sectors in Somalia, Eritrea, and Libya; used in the Federal Government of Somalia)
Native speakers	59 million Italian proper, native and native bilingual  (2007) 85 million all varieties
Language family	Indo-European Italic Romance Italo-Western Italo-Dalmatian Italian
Writing system	Latin (Italian alphabet) Italian Braille
Official status
Official language in	European Union  Italy  Switzerland  San Marino  Vatican City  Slovenia (Slovenian Istria)  Croatia (Istria County)  Brazil (Talian dialect in Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina)
Recognised minority language in	Albania  Argentina  Australia  Bolivia  Brazil  Brunei  Chile  Eritrea  Greece  Libya  Monaco  Papua New Guinea  Somalia  Solomon Islands  Tunisia
Regulated by	not officially by Accademia della Crusca
Language codes
ISO 639-1	it
ISO 639-2	ita
ISO 639-3	ita
Linguasphere	51-AAA-q
Where Italian is spoken in Europe
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The Italian language is a Romance language spoken in Italy. Other countries that use Italian as their official language are San Marino, Vatican City and Switzerland. Slovenia, and Croatia also use Italian as an official language, but only in some regions. Italian is spoken by about 70 million people in several countries, including some parts of Monaco, Malta, Albania, Montenegro, Dodecanese (Greece), Eritrea, Libya, Ethiopia, Somalia, Tunisia. The standard version from Tuscany is used for most writing but other dialects are sometimes written.