what language was spoken in italy before italian
Italian language During the Middle Ages, the established written language in Europe was Latin. With the great majority of people being illiterate, however, only a handful were well versed in the language. In the Italian peninsula, as in most of Europe, the majority would instead speak a local vernacular. These dialects (as they are commonly referred to as) were born to Vulgar Latin over the course of centuries, evolving naturally unaffected by formal standards and teachings, and are not truly "dialects" of Standard Italian, that itself started off being one of these local tongues. Since they often provide poor mutual intelligibility with standard Italian, they are better classified as distinct languages.[22]:13