Spoken by 68 million people in the world, Italian is the only official language of two countries (Italy and...can you guess the second one? The answer is at the end of this passage!) and one of the official languages of the European Union, the Vatican, and Switzerland.
As we have mentioned before, from a linguistic perspective Italian is a neo-Latin known as romance language, and its history is intertwined with poetry and literature. We owe to Dante Alighieri and his Divina Commedia - written in his native Florentine language - the standardisation of Italian, which soon became the commonly spoken language among educated people all over the not-yet-become country.
Despite its celebrity, Italian is not the only language spoken in Italy. The Italian state recognizes not less than 12 linguistic minorities, even though only three are actually in use in public schools in the areas of interest: French in the Vailed Aosta, German in the Bolzano province, and Slovenian in the Trieste province. In addition, Italy is the land of another great linguistic abundance: dialects. According to the UN, 29 dialects are spoken in the country, with the National Statistic Institute estimating that 14% of Italians only speak a local dialect, and another 32,2% alternatively use Italian and a dialect depending on context.
The mix of Italian and dialects is not only part of the daily lives of many Italians, but also influences a big part of Italian literature both of ancient and modern times. Some examples include Carlo Goldoni, Carlo Emilio Gadda or, more recently, Andrea Camilleri, author of the Commissario Montalbano saga.
And now, the solution to our riddle is... the little Republic of San Marino! Did you guess?