The Italian alphabet is derived from the Latin one and consists of 21 letters and that includes five vowels and 16 consonants. Post that, many short texts in Italian with roots in Tuscan, were penned in literature. The first document in Italian was found to have been written in the 10th century. This was especially because most regions had their own dialect with no common language. At that time, Latin was the chosen language especially for literature but gradually, by the 16th century, Tuscan became prominent.Īs for the written word, Latin was used in most areas, especially literature. Tuscan came to be popularly known as Italian due to the economic and political power Tuscany held in medieval times. Thus, for example, the Tuscan dialect is considerably different from the one spoken in Sicily. Italy, in olden times, was a conglomeration of city-states with languages of their own. The language has many dialects that can be quite dissimilar to each other. However, what is popularly considered Italian is the Tuscan dialect. Of these, close to 65 million people consider it their native language. Approximately 85 million people are estimated to be speakers of the language worldwide. Italian is the third most widely spoken language in Europe. As with many other languages, migration of people to other countries like United States, Australia, South America, Canada, Monte Negro, and Malta has led to the spread of Italian in these regions too. Some areas of Africa were at one time colonised by Italy and the language is still used there. Many other countries such as Switzerland, San Marino, Slovenia, Vatican City, and Croatia too have Italian as one of their official languages. The Romance group of languages consists of many languages including French, Romanian, Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, Provençal, and Italian.