“That’s not real Italian!” and “My nonna doesn’t say it like that” are protests that Italian teachers have heard from students studying the “official” language of Italy. Personally, I never disputed their claims but simply explained there was a difference between standard Italian and what they heard at home from their Italian-American relatives.

For centuries, Italy was divided into many states, usually under foreign rule which led to a great diversity of languages spoken on the peninsula. When the country unified in 1861, the new government leaders decided to make Tuscan the official language of the country. When “standard Italian” was adopted as the only official language, several adaptations had to be made in grammar, lexicon and pronunciation.