Editing Dialect (section)

===Italy===
{{main|Languages of Italy|Regional Italian}}
Italy is an often quoted example of a country where the second definition of the word "dialect" (''dialetto''<ref name="battaglia" />) is most prevalent. Italy is in fact home to a [[Languages of Italy|vast array of separate languages]], most of which lack [[mutual intelligibility]] with one another and have their own local varieties; twelve of them ([[Arberesh language|Albanian]], [[Catalan language|Catalan]], [[German language|German]], [[Greek language|Greek]], [[Slovene language|Slovene]], [[Croatian language|Croatian]], [[French language|French]], [[Franco-Provençal language|Franco-Provençal]], [[Friulian language|Friulian]], [[Ladin language|Ladin]], [[Occitan language|Occitan]] and [[Sardinian language|Sardinian]]) underwent [[Italianization]] to a varying degree (ranging from the currently [[Endangered language|endangered state]] displayed by Sardinian and [[Southern Italy|southern Italian]] Greek to the vigorous promotion of Germanic [[South Tyrolean dialect|Tyrolean]]), but have been officially recognized as [[Languages of Italy#Historical linguistic minorities|minority languages]] (''minoranze linguistiche storiche''), in light of their distinctive historical development. Yet, most of the [[regional language]]s spoken across the peninsula are often colloquially referred to in non-linguistic circles as Italian ''dialetti'', since most of them, including the prestigious [[Neapolitan language|Neapolitan]], [[Sicilian language|Sicilian]] and [[Venetian language|Venetian]], have adopted [[Vernacular|vulgar]] [[Tuscan dialect|Tuscan]] as their [[Abstand and ausbau languages|reference language]] since the [[Middle Ages]]. However, all these languages evolved from [[Vulgar Latin]] in parallel with Italian, long prior to the popular diffusion of the latter throughout what is now [[Italy]].<ref name="Cerrato">{{cite web|url=http://www.treccani.it/magazine/chiasmo/lettere_e_arti/1_identita_ssas_lingua_italiano.html|title=Che lingua parla un italiano?|publisher=Treccani.it|author=Domenico Cerrato}}</ref>

During the ''[[Risorgimento]]'', Italian still existed mainly as a literary language, and only 2.5% of Italy's population could speak Italian.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=ita |title=Lewis, M. Paul (ed.), 2009. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Sixteenth edition |publisher=Ethnologue.com |access-date=2010-04-21}}</ref> Proponents of [[Italian nationalism]], like the Lombard [[Alessandro Manzoni]], stressed the importance of establishing a uniform [[national language]] in order to better create an Italian [[national identity]].<ref>An often quoted paradigm of Italian nationalism is the ode on the [[Revolutions of 1820|Piedmontese revolution of 1821]] ([https://it.wikisource.org/wiki/Marzo_1821 ''Marzo 1821'']), wherein the Italian people are portrayed by Manzoni as "one by military prowess, by language, by religion, by history, by blood, and by sentiment".</ref> With the [[unification of Italy]] in the 1860s, Italian became the official national language of the new Italian state, while the other ones came to be institutionally regarded as "dialects" subordinate to Italian, and negatively associated with a lack of education.

In the early 20th century, the [[conscription]] of Italian men from all throughout Italy during [[World War I]] is credited with having facilitated the diffusion of Italian among the less educated conscripted soldiers, as these men, who had been speaking various regional languages up until then, found themselves forced to communicate with each other in a common tongue while serving in the Italian military. With the popular spread of Italian out of the intellectual circles, because of the mass-media and the establishment of [[public education]], Italians from all regions were increasingly exposed to Italian.<ref name="Cerrato" /> While [[dialect levelling]] has increased the number of Italian speakers and decreased the number of speakers of other languages native to Italy, Italians in different regions have developed variations of standard Italian specific to their region. These variations of standard Italian, known as "[[regional Italian]]", would thus more appropriately be called dialects in accordance with the first linguistic definition of the term, as they are in fact derived from Italian,<ref>{{cite book| last= Loporcaro | first= Michele | year= 2009 | title= Profilo linguistico dei dialetti italiani | location= Bari | publisher= Laterza | language=it }}; {{cite book | last= Marcato | first= Carla | year= 2007 | title= Dialetto, dialetti e italiano | location= Bologna | publisher= Il Mulino | language=it}}; {{cite book| last= Posner | first= Rebecca | year= 1996 | title= The Romance languages | location= Cambridge | publisher= Cambridge University Press }}</ref><ref name=maiden/><ref name=repetti>{{cite book |last=Repetti |first=Lori |title=Phonological Theory and the Dialects of Italy|date=2000|publisher=John Benjamins Publishing |isbn=9027237190 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=z1f5fIrtw58C&q=dialects+of+italy}}</ref> with some degree of influence from the local or regional native languages and accents.<ref name="Cerrato" />

The most widely spoken languages of Italy, which are not to be confused with regional Italian, fall within a family of which even Italian is part, the [[Italo-Dalmatian languages|Italo-Dalmatian group]]. This wide category includes:
* the complex of the [[Tuscan dialect|Tuscan]] and [[Central Italian|Central Italian dialects]], such as [[Romanesco dialect|Romanesco]] in [[Rome]], with the addition of some distantly [[Corsican language|Corsican]]-derived varieties ([[Gallurese dialect|Gallurese]] and [[Sassarese language|Sassarese]]) spoken in Northern [[Sardinia]];
* the [[Neapolitan language|Neapolitan group]] (also known as "Intermediate Meridional Italian"), which encompasses not only [[Naples]]' and [[Campania]]'s speech but also a variety of related neighboring varieties like the [[Irpinian dialect]], [[Abruzzo|Abruzzese]] and Southern [[Marche]]giano, [[Molisan]], [[Calabrian language#Northern Calabrian (Cosentino)|Northern Calabrian or Cosentino]], and the [[Bari dialect]]. The [[Cilentan dialect]] of [[Salerno]], in [[Campania]], is considered significantly influenced by the Neapolitan and the below-mentioned language groups;
* the [[Sicilian language|Sicilian group]] (also known as "Extreme Meridional Italian"), including [[Salentino dialect|Salentino]] and centro-southern [[Calabrian languages|Calabrian]].
Modern Italian is heavily based on the [[Florentine dialect]] of [[Tuscan dialect|Tuscan]].<ref name="Cerrato" /> The Tuscan-based language that would eventually become modern Italian had been used in poetry and literature since at least the [[12th century]], and it first spread outside the Tuscan linguistic borders through the works of the so-called ''tre corone'' ("three crowns"): [[Dante Alighieri]], [[Petrarch]], and [[Giovanni Boccaccio]]. Florentine thus gradually rose to prominence as the ''volgare'' of the [[literate]] and [[upper class]] in Italy, and it spread throughout the peninsula and Sicily as the ''[[lingua franca]]'' among the Italian [[educated]] class as well as Italian travelling merchants. The economic prowess and cultural and artistic importance of [[Tuscany]] in the [[Late Middle Ages]] and the [[Renaissance]] further encouraged the diffusion of the Florentine-Tuscan Italian throughout Italy and among the educated and powerful, though local and regional languages remained the main languages of the common people.

Aside from the [[Italo-Dalmatian languages]], the second most widespread family in Italy is the [[Gallo-Italic languages|Gallo-Italic group]], spanning throughout much of [[Northern Italy]]'s languages and dialects (such as [[Piedmontese language|Piedmontese]], [[Emilian-Romagnol language|Emilian-Romagnol]], [[Ligurian (Romance language)|Ligurian]], [[Lombard language|Lombard]], [[Venetian language|Venetian]], [[Gallo-Italic of Sicily|Sicily's]] and [[Gallo-Italic of Basilicata|Basilicata's]] Gallo-Italic in [[southern Italy]], etc.).

Finally, other languages from a number of different families follow the last two major groups: the [[Gallo-Romance languages]] ([[French language|French]], [[Occitan language|Occitan]] and its [[Vivaro-Alpine dialect]], [[Franco-Provençal language|Franco-Provençal]]); the [[Rhaeto-Romance languages]] ([[Friulian language|Friulian]] and [[Ladin language|Ladin]]); the [[Ibero-Romance languages]] ([[Sardinia]]'s [[Algherese dialect|Algherese]]); the [[Germanic language|Germanic]] [[Cimbrian language|Cimbrian]], [[Southern Bavarian]], [[Walser German]] and the [[Mòcheno language]]; the [[Albanian language|Albanian]] [[Arbëresh language]]; the [[Hellenic language|Hellenic]] [[Griko language]] and [[Calabrian Greek]]; the [[Serbo-Croatian]] [[Slavomolisano dialect]]; and the various [[Slovene language]]s, including the [[Gail Valley dialect]] and [[Istrian dialect]]. The [[Sardinian language|language indigenous to Sardinia]], while being Romance in nature, is considered to be a [[Southern Romance|specific linguistic family]] of its own, separate from the other Neo-Latin groups; it is often subdivided into the [[Campidanese Sardinian|Centro-Southern]] and [[Logudorese dialect|Centro-Northern]] dialects.

Though mostly mutually unintelligible, the exact degree to which all the Italian languages are mutually unintelligible varies, often correlating with geographical distance or geographical barriers between the languages; some regional Italian languages that are closer in geographical proximity to each other or closer to each other on the [[dialect continuum]] are more or less mutually intelligible. For instance, a speaker of purely [[Eastern Lombard dialects|Eastern Lombard]], a language in [[Northern Italy]]'s [[Lombardy|Lombardy region]] that includes the [[Bergamasque dialect]], would have severely limited mutual intelligibility with a purely Italian speaker and would be nearly completely unintelligible to a [[Sicilian language|Sicilian]]-speaking individual. Due to Eastern Lombard's status as a Gallo-Italic language, an Eastern Lombard speaker may, in fact, have more mutual intelligibility with an Occitan, [[Catalan language|Catalan]], or French speaker than with an Italian or Sicilian speaker. Meanwhile, a Sicilian-speaking person would have a greater degree of mutual intelligibility with a speaker of the more closely related Neapolitan language, but far less mutual intelligibility with a person speaking Sicilian Gallo-Italic, a language that developed in isolated Lombard emigrant communities on the same island as the Sicilian language.

Today, the majority of Italian nationals are able to speak Italian, though many Italians still speak their regional language regularly or as their primary day-to-day language, especially at home with family or when communicating with Italians from the same town or region.