How good is Italian for business?

By Sarah Gils

Italian is a Romance language and has approximately 70 million first language speakers. It is the official language of Italy and parts of Switzerland, as well as one of the official languages of the European Union.

Ialian is also used by minority communities in a number of countries including Malta, Libya, Somalia, Slovenia, Croatia, as well as by expatriate communities in the USA, UK, Argentina and Australia.

The Languages for the Future report of the British Council, the UK’s international cultural organisation, identified the ten languages most important and vital to the UK over the next 20 years:

Spanish, Arabic, French, Mandarin Chinese, German, Portuguese, Italian, Russian, Turkish and Japanese.

Italian has given many words to English

Last year, the British Council’s English Effect exhibition revealed the influence that languages such as Italian have upon the English language. English words such as ‘solo’, ‘balcony’, ‘studio’, ‘malaria’ and ‘umbrella’ were all derived or adopted from Italian. The exhibition showed how Italian influenced the development of the English language in the past, and now research suggests that it should be recognised as an important language for the future of the UK, too.