Italo-Australian[1] is an Australian-based dialect of Italian that is spoken by Australians of Italian descent.[2]

Italo-Australian dialect
Native to	Australia
Ethnicity	Italian Australians
Language family	Indo-European Italic Romance Italo-Western Italo-Dalmatian Italian Italo-Australian dialect
Early forms	Old Latin Classical Latin Vulgar Latin Tuscan Florentine
Writing system	Italian alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
IETF	it-AU
People with Italian ancestry as a percentage of the population in Australia divided geographically by statistical local area, as of the 2011 census.

Characteristics

The exact number of speakers is unknown, but it is highly speculated that the language is mainly spoken by the younger generations, passed on by the elder ancestors, who created the language.[3] Some researchers^[who?] think that the dialect might have been spoken by nearly 900,000 Italian Australians in 2012.

Origin

The foundation of this dialect is modern Italian, which was brought to Australia following the Italian diaspora in the post World War I era. It wasn't until the years after the second diaspora after World War II that the dialect came into note.^{[according to whom?]}

The language was simply created with modern Italian words being influenced by the vocabulary of the English language, to create Italian/English words. Some words follow the rules of Italian spelling, changing to an English one only with a few character changes to make it sound Italian.[4] Italian linguist Tullio De Mauro has noted the dialect in his famous book 'Storia Della Lingua' as "developing dialect that is still enduring the modern influences of English".

De Mauro also claims the language is growing with the vocabulary being passed onto the younger generations of Italian Australians.

Common words

Italian is said to be the foundation, and English is said to be the influence, according to De Mauro.

See also

• Italian Australians
• Languages of Australia

References