Speaking Around The Boot: The Regional Languages of Italy

However, like most countries in Europe (or around the globe for that matter), Italy has a large number of local or regional languages that are actively spoken.

Often erroneously referred to as dialects, most of these regional languages take root in Vulgar Latin (the nonstandard form of Latin spoken after the classical Roman Empire) and are thus considered Romance Languages.

These languages are not simply dialects of Standard Italian. Most of them are quite distinct. Instead, they developed long before the spread of the standard Italian language in the 20^th century.

http://unitedlanguagegroup.com/stories/editorials/speaking-around-the-boot-the-regional-languages-of-italy/