Italian

This article deals with Italian as it relates to NationStates. For more general information, see the Wikipedia article on this subject.

Italian is an Italo-Dalmatian Romance language. In the real world, Italian is widely spoken, but is not one of the "Big Four" major languages (Mandarin, English, Spanish and German). In the NationStates world, the language also plays an important role, as many players claim that their nations have some Italian-speakers, or that it is their official languages. In some cases, the players behind these nations do so because they are fluent speakers of the language in RL, though in other cases they just do it because they have sympathy towards the language or because it fits their roleplaying background. Such nations may also have mottos or nation names in Italian.

Italian's Relevance in the NationStates World

There are solid numbers of roleplaying nations that have Italian as an official language, but Italian remains a rather modest presence in the NS forums.

Most people behind these nations are native Italian speakers, coming mainly from the most obvious place, RL Italy and, to a lesser extent, Switzerland.

Italian-Speaking Nations in Nationstates

These are the roleplaying nations that claim to have Italian as their official language, or one of their official languages.

Pacitalia speaks a unique language similar in form but separate in terms of language family and historical property. It is known as Pacitalian, and is arguably more widely spoken worldwide.

The Latin Union's ethnic minority of Italians speak Italian. Italian is also recognized as an official language by that nation.

New-Avalon uses a dialect known as Avalonic Italian as its only offical language.