ABSTRACT
Belonging to the Italic branch of Indo-European, and a direct descendant of Latin, Italian is the official language of the Republic of Italy, and is one of the four official languages of Switzerland; in addition it is spoken in large émigré communities in North and South America, in North Africa and elsewhere. The total number of speakers is in excess of 60 million. Occupying the original homeland of Latin, Italian, of all the Romance languages, has, perhaps not surprisingly, departed the least from it. Nevertheless, the transformation has been radical: like the other Romance languages, Italian has undergone striking and far-reaching changes since the break-up of Latin, yet its Latin origins, particularly in the lexis, are clearer to discern than with its sisters. Its phonology is similarly a more transparent development from Latin than is the case with, for example, French, or even Spanish.
