Italian is a Romance language that arose from spoken Latin, particularly from the archaic Tuscan variant, which managed to impose itself in an area much larger than the dialectal region itself. The Tuscan dialect was spoken in Florence, Pisa and Siena. It was from the 16th century onwards that it became, together with Latin, the main literary and cultural language, thanks to the prestige obtained for being the language in which Dante Alighieri wrote The Divine Comedy, considered the first literary work written in modern language. From the 16th to the 19th century, it was, together with Latin, the main language of the administration of all the former pre-unitary Italian states, establishing itself as the official language of an Italy reunified into a single state in 1861. After Italian, the second language is Neapolitan (dialect). This is spoken in Campania and several neighboring regions of central and southern Italy. Italian is spoken in conjunction with some of its numerous dialects used in the different geographical areas. In southern and northeastern Italy, mainly in the Veneto region, there are more dialects, but they are only used among family and friends.
Italian is a beautiful, musical-sounding and easy-to-learn language. Italians are very proud of their culture, their rich history and the importance of their language, inherited from the ancient Romans.