Editing Italian language (section)

=== Modern era ===
An important event that helped the diffusion of Italian was the conquest and occupation of Italy by [[Napoleon]] (himself of Italian-Corsican descent) in the early 19th century. This conquest propelled the unification of Italy some decades after and pushed the Italian language into the status of a [[lingua franca]], used not only among clerks, nobility, and functionaries in the Italian courts, but also by the [[bourgeoisie]].