Italian is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. Italian is the least divergent language from Latin, together with Sardinian. Spoken by about 85 million people, including 67 million native speakers (2024), Italian is an official language in Italy, San Marino, Switzerland, and Vatican City. It has official minority status in Croatia, Slovenian Istria, and the municipalities of Santa Tereza and Encantado in Brazil.
Top of the pecking order with executive vice-president roles are the French, Finnish, Estonian, Italian, Romanian and Spanish..
