In Italy, there is not only the Italian language. Did you know that in Italy "Italian" is not the only language spoken? When we use the word “Italian” we’re referring to a very specific language: the Florentine dialect from the 12th to 13th centuries, later standardized in the 16th century. When Italy was born in 1861, only 2.5% of the people spoke Italian. Italy has mainly two linguistic boundaries, one that divides the northern Gallo-italic languages from the southern italo-Dalmatian languages and one that divides the Sardinian language from the rest of the peninsula. If you go through the Italian education system you will learn Italian, but the language spoken at home will not be the same. If a man from Venice speaks the Venetian language to a man from Naples who will also speak Neapolitan, they will not understand each other. But why do we talk about language and not dialect? Because, using the same example, Venetian and Neapolitan both developed separately from Latin just like Italian. So what are dialects? Venetian, Neapolitan and Italian both have several dialects that devolved due to the natural evolution of language. There are about 25 spoken languages in Italy, but only 11 have statewide recognition. Regional languages are becoming less common, people drop their local language, especially in the northern region, because they don’t see the utility of it. Here are some of the languages: Lombard, Ligurian, Piedmontese, Sicilian… and the list goes on.