This map shows the regions
of the world where Italian is commonly spoken (red circles).
Alfred C. Baugh has noted that Italian has the longest continuous
history in its original location of any of the Romance languages,
since Italian is in essence nothing more than a popular dialect
of street-Latin that has
been modified and adapted in a single location over 2,800 years.
Italian has its own linguistic offshoot, Sardinian, which is
spoken on the island of Sardinia. Another offshoot, Dalmatian,
is now a dead language. Italian is closely related to other
modern Romance languages like French,
Portuguese, Provençal,
Spanish, Galician,
Catalan, Romanian,
and Romansch.
| Daniel M. Short originally created this
map and the other Indo-European language charts for his website at http://www.danshort.com/.
I reproduce these images here with the author's permission, but they are
copyrighted by Daniel Short as of 2002. These charts should not be reproduced
or reused without Mr. Short's approval. You may contact him at danshort@gte.net
for more information. These images are not public domain. |