standard italian is the version of the language spoken in
Italian language Italian is a Romance language, and is therefore a descendant of Vulgar Latin (the spoken form of non-classical Latin).[note 1] Standard Italian is based on Tuscan, especially its Florentine dialect, and is therefore an Italo-Dalmatian language, to which Sicilian and the extinct Dalmatian also belong, among a few others.
History of Italy The name Italia was in origin applied only to a portion of what is now Calabria, possibly from an Oscan name Víteliú, interpreted as "[land] of young cattle". It was not applied to the entire peninsula (now under Roman rule) until the 1st century BCE.[9]