Italian Languages

Did you know that the national language of Italy is from Tuscany?  The Tuscan poet Dante Alighieri holds the credit of standardizing the Italian language. The Florence dialect fiorentino became the base for the language that we know as Italian.  This romance language is spoken in Italy by over 60 million people. There are also numerous regional languages spoken in the Italian peninsula such as Sicilian, Neapolitan, Venetian, Piedmontese, Calabrese, Emilian and Ligurian. Some of these other Italian languages are recognized by each region and few of them are co-official along with Italian (Tuscan).