Italian

Italian is a natural and modern language belonging to the Italo-Romance subclass. It is a subject–verb–object, syllabic, and pro-drop language. The language utilizes the Italian alphabet for writing and possesses grammatical gender, distinguishing between masculine and feminine forms. It also features grammatical case, specifically the nominative case, and employs various moods including indicative, conditional, subjunctive, and imperative. Tenses in Italian include the imperfect, present tense, present perfect, and preterite.

The language is native to Italy, the Canton of the Grisons, the Canton of Ticino, and Istria County. It is also spoken in Croatia, San Marino, and Slovenia. The regulatory body for Italian is the Accademia della Crusca. The language is studied through Italian studies and has a native label of italiano. Approximately 64,819,790 people speak, write, or sign Italian. It is described in sources such as the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary and the Encyclopædia Britannica 11th edition.