Minoranze linguistiche: la situazione in Italia

The Italian linguistic landscape includes the national language (Italian), dialects, and a number of “minority languages” – or languages of linguistic minorities - of different families.. The most ancient group of languages – called “historic” linguistic minorities – come from the Romance, Germanic, Slavic, Greek, Albanian family and are spoken by autochthonous communities. Recently “new” languages have been introduced by communities of immigrants which are now scattered around in the country. Their rights are guaranteed by the Italian Constitution, the Law 15.12.1999, n. 482 and some regionals laws.