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Linguistic map of Italy
Map of Italy linguistic. Linguistic map of Italy (Southern Europe - Europe) to print. Linguistic map of Italy (Southern Europe - Europe) to download. The main language of Italy is Italian (a recent proposal aims to declare it the official language), a descendant of the Tuscan dialect and a direct descendant of Latin, but several regional languages are also spoken to varying degrees. Other non-indigenous languages are spoken by a substantial percentage of the population due to immigration. According to the UNESCO Atlas of the World Languages in Danger, there are 31 endangered languages in Italy as its shown in the linguistic map of Italy. The degree of endangerment is classified in different categories ranging from 'safe' (safe languages are not included in the atlas) to 'extinct' (when there are no speakers left). The source for the languages' distribution is the Atlas of the World Languages in Danger unless otherwise stated, and refers to Italy exclusively.
All languages indigenous to Italy are part of the Indo-European language family. The source is the SIL Ethnologue unless otherwise stated. Language classification can be a controversial issue, when a classification is contested by academic sources, this is reported in the 'notes' column. Sardinian, according to Ethnologue, is a dialect continuum with significant differences among its dialects as its mentioned in the linguistic map of Italy. Ethnologue considers four of these as independent languages (two of which to be part of Corsican rather than Sardinian), though being all included, according the same source, in a hypothetical sub-group named Southern Romance.