Italian leid

Whar Italian is spoken in Europe.

Italian is a leid spoken bi aboot 70 million fowk, maistly fowk frae Italy, frae whaur it gets its name. It is an ofeecial leid in Italy, San Marino, Vatican Ceety, Swisserland an in some ceeties o Slovenie an Croatie. It is uised in some pairts o Monaco, Maltae, Albanie, Dodecaneso (Greece), Eritrea, Libie, Ethiopie, Somalie, Tunisie, Slovenie, Croatie an some ither places an aw.

It is maistly derived frae Laitin, wi some wirds frae Greek, Etruscan an ithergates. It is cried an inflectit leid - that means that the meanin o wirds can be chynged bi chyngin their endins. Italian noons is aither masculine or feminine (thir's grammatical terms, for ordinar anerly indirect adae dae wi gender).

Maist singular masculine noons ends in -o, an maist plural masculine noons ends in -i.

Maist singular feminine noons ends in -a, an maist plural feminine noons ends in -e.

Sae - gatto = male cat, gatta = female cat, gatti = male cats, gatte = female cats

The endin o verbs is awfu complicate, acause they lippen on the tense o the verb (past, praisent, futur an sae on) an on the person o the verb (A, ye , thay etc).

Frae that - parlo = A speak, parliamo = we speak, parlava = he wis speakin, parlarono = thay spak, parlerò = A will speak, parliamo = lat's speak!

There's gey mony o thir endins tae learn - it is a difficult pairt o Italian. But soondin is semple - there's anerly a puckle rules tae learn, an haurdly ony difficult soonds.

Mony Italian wirds haes entered the Scots language. Pizza, spaghetti an ravioli is juist some o the fuid wirds that we uise. Mony technical wirds in muisic is Italian, sic as forte an allegro. Mony muisical instruments' names air Italian an aw, sic as cello an tuba. Frae the daurker side o Italian life we get Mafia an vendetta.

Ither wabsites

• Italian grammar and interactive course (in Inglis)
• Italian proverbs(in Inglis)
• Italian Learning Tips(in Inglis)
• Italian Grammar Primer(in Inglis)
• Italian Online Dictionaries and Glossaries(in Inglis)

See Forby

• Romance leids
• Spainyie leid
• French leid
• Portuguese leid
• Laitin leid
• Italy