Newsgroup: it.cultura.linguistica
Titolo: L'italiano è lingua artificiale?

 also their native dialect?
Yes. People who have learned Italian as a foreign language, but have not
learned to deal with different registers of speech. Otherwise Standard
Italian is a cultural artifact propagated by various institutions, the
most important being the schools, the government, and the media; it is not
identical, phonologically, grammatically, or lexically with the spoken
Italian which a person born anywhere in the Italian-speaking part of Italy
learns as his or her first, native, means of expressing him/herself
verbally. It is taught at school as a formal register. Depending upon the
part of Italy a person is from, this learning range from soemthing close
to learning a foreign language, as it would be in Naples or Calabria, to
something close to learning to avoid certain local usages (cf. New
Yorkers, who say 'foah', 'caah', 'woik', 'didja eatchet?`, but learn in
school to write and say 'four', 'ar', work', and 'did you eat yet?), as
would be the case with people living in and around Florence.
Source: 
http://www.sil.org/ethnologue/countries/Ital.html
<QUOTE>
ITALIAN [ITN] 30,000,000 in Italy excluding distinct 'dialects'; 906,000
in USA (1989); 1,500,000 in Argentina; 1,000,000 in France; 195,000 in
Switzerland (1990); 548,000 in Germany; 200,000 in United Kingdom; 79,000
in Uruguay; 21,000 in San Marino (1979 WA); 300,000 in Croatia; 3,000 in
Slovenia (1976); 280,000 in Belgium; 500,000 in Brazil; 538,360 in Canada
(1971 census); 500,000 in Australia; 5,435 in Israel (1961); 26,000 in
Paraguay; 1,556 in Puerto Rico (1970); 800 in Liechtenstein; 20,800 in
Luxembourg; 28,000 in Uruguay; 40,000,000 in all countries excluding
distinct 'dialects' (1983 estimate); 63,000,000 including second language
users (1995 WA). Also in Egypt, Eritrea, Libya, Monaco, Saudi Arabia,
Somalia, Tunisia. Indo-European, Italic, Romance, Italo-Western,
Italo-Romance. Dialects: TUSCAN, ABRUZZESE, PUGLIESE, UMBRIAN, LAZIALE,
CENTRAL MARCHIGIANO, CICOLANO-REATINO-AQUILANO, MOLISANO. Regional
varieties coexist with the standard language; some are inherently
unintelligible (Nida). Aquilano, Molisano, and Pugliese are very different
from the other Italian 'dialects'. Piemontese and Sicilian are distinct
enough to be separate languages (F.B. Agard 1981, personal communication).
Venetian and Lombard are also very different (Philippe Cousson 1981,
personal communication). Neapolitan is reported to be unintelligible with
Standard Italian. Northern varieties are closer to French and Occitan than
to standard or southern varieties (Agard, N. Vincent). Most Italians use
varieties along a continuum from standard to regional to local according
to what is appropriate. Possibly nearly half the population do not use the
standard as mother tongue. 89% lexical similarity with French, 87% with
Catalan, 85% with Sardinian, 82% with Spanish, 78% with Rheto-Romance, 77%
with Rumanian. National language. Typology: SVO. Braille NT. Bible
1471-1985. NT 1530-1981. Bible portions 1531-1984.
</QUOTE>
Regards,
Eugene Holman
-- 
____________________________________
Giancarlo Pillan  -  Ivrea  -  Italy
____________________________________

 also their native dialect?
    Yes. The vast majority of the population speaks "Italian". I've been in
many parts of the country, met people from every region of Italy, studied at
the university with mates from places I had never even heard of before. And
we all speak the same language, we understand each other, in spite of our
different accents.
    Except for some people belonging to linguistic minorities (French,
German, Greek, etc.), everyone is an Italian native speaker. I met some
people (a minority, mostly from rural areas) who are bilingual, their other
mother tongue being their local dialect. But I still haven't met an Italian
who can speak no Italian.
    Bye,
          Nicola
--
Multa non quia difficilia sunt non audemus, sed quia non audemus sunt
difficilia (Seneca).
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