Italian language in the United States

The Italian language has been a widely spoken language in the United States of America for more than one hundred years, due to large-scale immigration beginning in the late 19th century. Today it is the eighth most spoken language in the country.

Italian speakers in the US
Year	Speakers
1910^a	1,365,110
1920^a	1,624,998
1930^a	1,808,289
1940[1]	3,755,820
1960^a	1,277,585
1970[2]	4,144,315
1980[3]	1,618,344
1990[4]	1,308,648
2000[5]	1,008,370
2010[6]	807,010
^a Foreign-born population only[7]

History

In Little Italy, Chicago, some Italian language signage is visible (e.g. Banca Italiana)

The first Italian Americans began to immigrate en masse around 1880. The first Italian immigrants, mainly from Sicily and other parts of Southern Italy, were largely men, and many planned to return to Italy after making money in the US, so the speaker population of Italian was not always constant or continuous.

Between 1890 and 1900, 655,888 Italians went to the United States, and more than 2 million between 1900 and 1910, though around 40% of these eventually returned to Italy. All told, between 1820 and 1978, some 5.3 million Italians went to the United States. Like many ethnic groups, such as the Germans in Little Germany, French Canadians in Little Canadas, and Chinese in Chinatowns, who emigrated to the Americas, the Italians often lived in ethnic enclaves, often known as Little Italies, especially in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Chicago, and St. Louis, and continued to speak their original languages.

This poster discourages the use of Italian, German, and Japanese.

During World War II

During World War Two, use of Italian languages in the U.S. was discouraged. In addition, many Italian Americans were interned,[8] property was confiscated,[8] and Italian-language periodicals were closed.

The language today

Current distribution of the Italian language in the United States.

Italian speakers by states in 2000[9]
State	Italian speakers	% of all Italian speakers
New York	294,271	29%
New Jersey	116,365	12%
California	84,190	8%
Pennsylvania	70,434	7%
Florida	67,257	6%
Massachusetts	59,811	6%
Illinois	51,975	5%
Connecticut	50,891	5%

Today, 15,638,348 American citizens report themselves as Italian Americans, and about 708,966 of these report speaking Italian at home according to the 2009-2013 American Community Survey.[10] Cities with Italian and Sicilian speaking communities include Buffalo, Chicago, Miami, New York City, Philadelphia, and St. Louis. Assimilation has played a large role in the decreasing number of Italian speakers today. Of those who speak Italian at home in the United States, 361,245 are over the age of 65, and only 68,030 are below the age of 17.

Despite it being the fifth most studied language in higher education (college & graduate) settings throughout America,[11] the Italian language has struggled to maintain being an AP course of study in high schools nationwide. AP Italian exams were not introduced until 2006, and they were dropped soon afterward, in 2009.[12] The organization which manages these exams, the College Board, ended the AP Italian program because it was "losing money" and had failed to add 5,000 new students each year. After the program's termination in the spring of 2009, various Italian organizations and activists organized to revive the course of study. Organizations such as the National Italian American Foundation (NIAF) and Order Sons of Italy in America conducted fundraising campaigns, to aid in the monetary responsibility any new AP Italian program would bring with it. The AP Italian exam was then reintroduced, with the first new tests administered in 2012.[13]

Moreover, web-based Italian organizations, such as ItalianAware, have begun book donation campaigns to improve the status and representation of Italian language and Italian/ Italian American literature in New York Public Libraries. According to ItalianAware, the Brooklyn Public Library is the worst offender in New York City.[14] It has 11 books pertaining to the Italian language and immigrant experience available for checkout spread across 60 branches. That amounts to 1 book for every 6 branches in Brooklyn, which (according to ItalianAware) cannot supply the large Italian/Italian American community in Brooklyn, New York. ItalianAware aims to donate 100 various books on the Italian/ Italian American experience, written in Italian or English, to the Brooklyn Public Library by the end of 2010.

1917 multilingual poster in English, Italian, Hungarian, Slovene, Polish, and Yiddish, advertising English classes for new immigrants in Cleveland.

Forms of Italian

Early waves of Italian American immigrants typically did not speak the form of Italian which originated from the Tuscan language, or spoke it as a second language acquired in school. Instead they typically spoke other Italo-Romance languages, particularly from Southern Italy, such as Sicilian language and Neapolitan language. Both of these languages have wide variety of dialects within them, including Salentino, Calabrese, etc. Additionally many villages may have spoken other non Italo-Romance minority languages such as Griko or the Arbëresh language. Today, the Italian language, which is most similar to the Tuscan (although not the same), is widely taught in Italian schools. Although many other minority languages have official status in Italy neither Sicilian language nor Neapolitan language are recognized by the Italian Republic. Although Italy is a signatory to the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, it has not ratified the treaty. Thus limiting Italy's responsibility in the preservation of regional languages that it has not chosen to protect by domestic law.

Media

Although the Italian language in the United States is much less used today than it has been previously, there are still several Italian-only media outlets, among which are the St. Louis newspaper Il Pensiero and the New Jersey daily paper America Oggi and ICN Radio.

Il Progresso Italo Americano was edited by Carlo Barsotti (1850–1927).[15]

Arba Sicula (Sicilian Dawn) is a semiannual publication of the society of the same name, dedicated to preserving the Sicilian language. The magazine and a periodic newsletter offer prose, poetry and comment in Sicilian, with adjacent English translations.

See also

• Italian American internment
• Languages of the United States

References

1. "Mother Tongue By Nativity, Parentage, County of Origin, and Age, for States and Large Cities" (PDF). United States Census Bureau. Retrieved November 29, 2017.
2. "1970 Census, Tables 17-20 and Appendices" (PDF). United States Census Bureau. Retrieved December 26, 2017.
3. "Appendix Table 2. Languages Spoken at Home: 1980, 1990, 2000, and 2007". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved August 6, 2012.
4. "Detailed Language Spoken at Home and Ability to Speak English for Persons 5 Years and Over --50 Languages with Greatest Number of Speakers: United States 1990". United States Census Bureau. 1990. Retrieved July 22, 2012.
5. "Language Spoken at Home: 2000". United States Bureau of the Census. Archived from the original on February 12, 2020. Retrieved August 8, 2012.
6. "Detailed Languages Spoken at Home 2006-2008". Missing or empty |url= (help)
7. "Mother Tongue of the Foreign-Born Population: 1910 to 1940, 1960, and 1970". United States Census Bureau. March 9, 1999. Retrieved August 6, 2012.
8. Archived July 9, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
9. "Table 5.Detailed List of Languages Spoken at Home for the Population 5 Years and Over by State: 2000" (PDF). United States Census Bureau. February 25, 2003. Retrieved October 3, 2012.
10. "Detailed Languages Spoken at Home and Ability to Speak English for the Population 5 Years and Over for United States: 2009-2013". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved 6 January 2018.
11. "Languages Spoken and Learned in the United States". Vistawide.com. Retrieved 2015-10-26.
12. Pilon, Mary (2010-05-10). "Italian Job: Resurrect the AP Exam". The Wall Street Journal.
13. Lewin, Tamar (10 November 2010). "Italian Studies Regains Spot on the List of AP Courses". New York Times. Retrieved 2 October 2017.
14. "Literature Donations". Italianaware.com. Retrieved 2015-10-26.
15. "Verdi Monument - Historical Sign". Nycgovparks.org. Retrieved 2010-03-11.

Further reading

• "Publications in Foreign Languages: Italian", Ayer & Son's American Newspaper Annual, Philadelphia: N. W. Ayer & Son, 1907
  • 1884 ed., 1921 ed.
• Peter R. Eisenstadt, Laura-Eve Moss, ed. (2005). "Ethnic Press: Italian". Encyclopedia Of New York State. Syracuse University Press. ISBN 9780815608080.