The ethnogenesis of the Italians is related to the migration of Indo-Germanic populations who immigrated to Italy between 3500 and 2500 B.C.
The ethnic separation into individual peoples from an originally Italian "whole people" took place in pre-Roman times, between 1500 and 900 BC.
The diversity of the Italic peoples and cultures dissolved in a long lasting process in which the Italians assimilated to the dominant culture of the Latins and their language. Most Italians - like the non-Italians and non-Indo-Germanic people in Italy - had already assimilated in the time of classical antiquity. They had become Romans and spoke Latin.