BBC – Languages – Languages. Italian is the official language of Italy, and 93% of population are native Italian speakers. Around 50% of population speak a regional dialect as mother tongue.

Italian peasants wore practical clothing for their daily activities, with simple pants and shirts for the men and blouses and skirts for the women, sometimes with a bodice. Most items were made from simple fabrics, wool being very common. Color selection was limited to inexpensive gray and black dyes.

Labor struggles were not the only conflicts Italian immigrants faced. During the years of the great Italian immigration, they also had to confront a wave of virulent prejudice and nativist hostility.

After the American Civil War, which resulted in over a half million killed or wounded, some immigrant workers were recruited from Italy and elsewhere to fill the labor shortage caused by the war. In the United States, most Italians began their new lives as manual laborers in eastern cities, mining camps and farms.

Italian emigration was fueled by dire poverty. Life in Southern Italy, including the islands of Sicily and Sardinia, offered landless peasants little more than hardship, exploitation, and violence. Even the soil was poor, yielding little, while malnutrition and disease were widespread.

Around the world, between 63.4 million and 85 million people speak Italian as their first language. According to Ethnologue, Italian is 21 on the list of the world’s most widely spoken languages. As you might expect, most Italian speakers (around 58 million) live in Italy.

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