Italian language

Italian is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Colloquial 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 statistically ranks 21st as the most spoken language in the world, but depending on the year it ranks fourth or fifth as the most studied cultural language, especially in higher cultural institutes, academies, and universities.