There are currently 61.7 million people with Italian as their first language, and it is spoken in 34 countries around the world including the United States, Brazil, Argentina, Australia and former Italian colonies such as Somalia and Libya. It is the official language of Italy, but also San Marino, Switzerland, parts of Slovenia and the Vatican City as well.

Modern-day Italian evolved from Latin but also contains elements from ancient regional (and some now extinct) languages spoken across southern Europe, such as Dalmatian, Tuscan and Sicilian. It is thought to be one of the easiest European languages for English speakers to learn as it shares about 85% of its vocabulary with Spanish and French.

Italian is one of the major six languages in the European Union and is present in business affairs not only in Europe but globally. There are over 28.8 million Italian-speaking people online worldwide with about 10 million living in Italy. Italian speaking users represent 2.7% of all worldwide internet users today.