Skip to 0 minutes and 8 seconds Italian is definitely one of the most popular and beloved languages in the world it is the language of Dante’s Divine Comedy and the Opera [music] But did you know that Dante Alighieri did not speak Italian? Did anyone ever tell you that it was a Venetian poet who convinced everyone that the tuscan vernacular was the perfect language for all Italians? Would you ever have guessed that Italian was not the only official language of Italy?
Skip to 0 minutes and 40 seconds In our history of the Italian Language course we will tell you about this and much more. Together in the five-week course we will discover how the Italian language was born and how it has evolved from the Middle Ages to the present day [music] By taking part in our course you will learn what distinguishes language from a dialect, and understand why the Italian Peninsula is so linguistically fragmented We will question the relationship between political power and language We will do so by retracing the unique history of the linguistic unification of a country that remained politically divided for many centuries Together we will highlight the importance of poetry and literature in the formation of our national language, and we will try to explain why Italian was, for so long, a predominantly written language.
Skip to 1 minute and 41 seconds Are you ready to take this journey with us? Let’s go
