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Aren't we looking through this with an anachronistic modern lense?

I noticed Archimedes is listed as *Italian*. That's like calling Jesus, Israeli. As an ethnolinguistic community Italian has only existed for a relatively brief time. There totally exists *Italians* now, but to project that background way into the past seems really nationalist and revisionist. Thoughts?Paolorausch (talk) 04:53, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

Agreed, that seems patently incorrect. Maturkiz (talk) 05:13, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

We have already discussed about. All links and talks are in this page. Please take a view of them. It is totally false. Italian nation has its roots already in the middle ages, documents and works are perfectly reported in Italian from the North to the South. Dante Alighieri and his studies on the Sicilian School are one of so many examples of the Italian cultural birth throughout the Italian region. Archimedes was Greek and here he is not considered Italian at all "Archimedes" --93.36.0.14 (talk) 07:28, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
Ps: be care with using "sockpuppets" to endorse your ideas, because wikipedia does not allow them :)--93.36.0.14 (talk) 08:01, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
Sockpuppets?
I think you're starting to understand my point. If Archimedes is "Greek", despite having been born in Sicily, how do you Define *Italian*? Firstly Sicily isn't in the Italian peninsula it's a separate geographic and political entity. Sicily has been hellenised, romanised, rehellenised, arabicised, latinised, italianised. Al-Idrisi worked in Arabic, under Roger, on an island that was primarily Greek Speaking in the East, Arabic Speaking in the southwest was he actually Italian? Cielo d'Alcamo wrote in Sicilian[1] an already well developed separate romance language by then. There are loads of texts in Old Sicilian, well before the development of modern Italian. Was Siculo-Arabic actually just an "Italian" dialect? To say that that Sicilians we're always part of some undefined "Italy" when they were for example part of the Eastern Roman Empire, Fatimid Caliphate, Crown of Aragon, or their own independent kingdoms is indeed nationalism and revisionism. To provide you an example of this line of thought, the Province of Agrigento was before Mussollini called Girgenti. It was "Italianised" to make it more similar to the Latin name Agrigentum. Are we to pretend the other 1500 or so years after the fall of Rome are irrelevant? That the city of Girgenti always had some latent unmanifested italianness? At what point do we decide that people became part of a nation and lost their ethnic respected ethnic identities when the vast majority still spoke another language as their first language? One can say that "The concept of collective Italian identity" began to appear since the middle ages, but one can't that there didn't and still does not still exist a diversity of ethnic groups in Italy. I don't think anyone would argue that the ethnic groups of Italy are not *related* but to say they are the same is akin to saying Kurds are just "Western Persians". Or in Turkey they are often referred to as "Modern Turks". I personally know many older people in the south who learned Italian language as adults. Not to mention the other ethnolinguistic minorities of Italy. This is a nationalist and unitary interpretation of the history, if we wanted to interpret it fairly we would express all of these nuances rather than protecting the concept of unitary Italianness. We should allow people to maintain ethnic groups pages and also reference the relationship between Italianness and their respected Ethnic group. There are a variety of recognised languages in Italy, both officially by the government and unofficial but recognised internationally as minority languages. If there exists any disagreement on the topic we should include rather than exclude perspectives. There is no harm in allowing Sicilians to have their own ethnic group page and also an Italian ethnic group page that explains the nuances of national vs ethnic identity. There is only harm in excluding a group with an internationally recognised language from being acknowledged in Wikipedia an open platform from being allowed to assert their existence. How can an ethnic group have their own Wikipedia, but also simultaneously not exist? Suppressing the existence of an identity is inconsistent with values of Wikipedia.Paolorausch (talk) 08:51, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
Hello. May you provide please numbers. In Sicily, there are 5 million people, may you provide us a reliable source who specifies how many of them are ethnically Sicilian and how many are ethnically Italian. Thank you.--Walter J. Rotelmayer (talk) 10:03, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
I'll see if such study has been performed. That said on this article my actual goal was not to discuss contemporary identity. As I think that is fluid and complex. But rather attributing ancient Sicilians or Preunification or Italian language speaking people to "Italians".Paolorausch (talk) 10:42, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
Yes got it. The formation of the Italian ethnic group since the end of the Roman Empire is already discussed in the rest of the article :). Greetings.--Walter J. Rotelmayer (talk) 10:49, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
I actually didn't expect it to be this high: 54% Identify first as Sicilian.[2]. So, approximately 2,700,000 in sicilian alone. This is a pretty substantial number that I think invokes some serious questions.Paolorausch (talk) 10:57, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
As a Sardinian, I agree with your point. A necessary and central factor to define a certain community as ethnically "Italian" is in fact the usage of Italian (at least by the upper class) as a language of choice. That's why defining someone who lived in the contemporary Italian borders as "Italian" before this condition ever occured is a plain anachronism and would also, as you already said, give away the author's fascist/nationalist stance (which unfortunately, I have to admit, is very widespread in Italy, given that they even removed the page about Sardinians from the Italian wikipedia for it being "not compatible" with the common vulgata about the rise of the Italian nation). The same Muhammad al-Idrisi you've been referring to is, with reason, not listed as Italian, nor is the Sardinian Vicente Bacallar when the island was still an integrated part of the Spanish empire and the local elites used Catalan and Spanish along with Sardinian (a practice that would cease only in the late XIX° century). Thus, according to many scholars (Umberto Cerroni, "l'identità civile degli italiani"; Giacomo Devoto, "il linguaggio d'Italia", etc.) the concept of Italians as a distinct ethnic group inhabiting the Italian peninsula was actually "born" much later, in the Middle Ages. However, I checked the article about Archimedes and is not defined as Italian.--Dk1919 (talk) 11:01, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
To clarify, he's listed as Italian on this page, "Italians". I think we could resolve the entire problem by just calling him "Greek Speaking from Sicily". Why do we need to proscribe identity in everything? Thank you very much for your post. I think it's easy for people to lose perspective about how much of modern italian history as taught currently is highly focused on the narratives created during Fascism. I'm really grateful to a famous Sardinian/Arbereshe Antonio Gramsci for developing the concept of the subaltern and the idea that not just the élites are relevant to history. I feel like particularly in Italian history the perspective of Italian, Catalan, Spanish, Aragonese, Arabic, French etc, speaking élites are considered the only valid history. Sometimes even to the point of denying that the subaltern had a separate identity worth acknowledging that could constitute a valid ethnic group.Paolorausch (talk) 11:11, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
Your source is a survey and not an ethnic census. Paolorausch, could you please write down your questions in one article and not everywhere in wikipedia. You are not leading an attack ;) lol. Otherwise I can't answer all your questions, and I hope this is not what you wish, as far as I believe in your good faith. Greetings--Walter J. Rotelmayer (talk) 11:37, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
These started as separate threads and have begun to converge. We can discuss here if you'd prefer. I may be offline for a few hours though.Paolorausch (talk) 11:52, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
I answered in the other page.--Walter J. Rotelmayer (talk) 12:00, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

Paolorausch said I think it's easy for people to lose perspective about how much of modern italian history as taught currently is highly focused on the narratives created during Fascism. FALSE. Again, you pretend to be informed about Italy and Sicily when actually you aren't at all. Fascism propaganda is forbidden in Italy by law (legge 20 giugno 1952, n. 645 Delitto di Apologia di Fascismo, Crime of Defense of Fascism); Consequently, the public and private education system bans all fascist texts and documents. We study Italian writers and poets such as Dante Alighieri, Giosuè Carducci, Leopardi, Alfieri, Pirandello, Deledda, Machiavelli, Petrarca... from all Italian periods from Middle ages to Renaissance, from Enlightenment to Romanticism and Risorgimento until nowadays. Please get informed about Italy instead of offending continuously by telling lies. If you believe to work on wikipedia by relying on these false info and personal believes, you are in the wrong place. There will be dialogue only if you calm down and bring reliable sources and numbers without your wrong believes and pov.--Walter J. Rotelmayer (talk) 15:38, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

Can you please stop personally attacking me, I feel that it's abusive. Also, please stop delegitimising our perspectives towards our ethnic identity, there are people here who have a different interpretation of our Sicilian ethnic identity than you do. This doesn't mean we're not also Sicilian. You keep refocusing on the current situation in Sicily, the one that your perspective comes from. I respect your perspective but you interpret mine as entirely invalid. You forget that many of us identify strongly as ethnic Sicilians. My grandparents, and my mother have no functional comprehension of Italian language, but are native fluent in Sicilian. We were never Italianised, we are not ethnically Italian if language is the principal gauge of language. We are not poor quality Italians as I was taught to believe, we actually speak a different language. That said, we are also subaltern and there is a valid perspective that the formation of the Italian ethnic group started with the upper classes and its perpetuation down was inevitable. This is however not a critical interpretation of history. The very term subaltern and cultural hegemony was invented by Gramsci, who I would believe would be sympathetic to this interpretation with the same information available. Sicilian-Americans are a large ethnic group and this implies that at one time our immediate families identified as only Sicilian. They then applied the national identity *American*. In Italian culture many Sicilians were absorbed into the unitarian and ethnonationalist perspective that all inhabitants of the modern Italian state with certain exceptions are part of one ethnic group. This perspective also implies that Sicilian is a dialect of Italian. That said ethnic group identification is flexible and evolving, many Sicilians including (I believe) yourself would identify as principally Italian (almost 50% I think we found in our survey). There is lots of research on identify formation and how different groups assimilate differently in different places in different areas. I would absolutely agree with you that Sicilians in Italy are much much more likely to have assimilated into a unified Italian ethnic group. Many are even likely to not be able to speak Sicilian language. This I want included in any such article I wish to see allowed to exist, which includes ALL perspectives on the issue. Many of us growing up in the diaspora don't have the privilege of believing that we've always been ethnic Italians, as we have to learn a separate foreign language other than the language we speak to our families in order to have access to the modern Italian culture. This makes us realise at a young age that there's more complex processes at work in Italy than the official narrative dictates. I am not alone in this interpretation and it came from a body of formal academic research I've done on the topic. I've reached out to several researchers in the field and have purchased some books specifically on Sicilian-American identity formation. In about a month or so I should have a large enough body of citations to propose my case more formally for an inclusive article regarding the nuances of Sicilian ethnic identity and its relationship to the various national identities that it has either coexisted with or merge into. I respect and understand your opinion on the issue, I simply want a collaborative process where we can document for our readers the nuances of ethnic identity formation in Italy that includes critical perspectives.Paolorausch (talk) 05:24, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

I will stop to be less aggressive when you will be less offensive. If you say I think it's easy for people to lose perspective about how much of modern italian history as taught currently is highly focused on the narratives created during Fascism. implicitly saying that my education is fascist I will be aggressive, because of all the victims of Fascism. Get informed about the education system and the law system in Italy in order to avoid to write similar grotesque things here. And I see that you keep going to offend We are not poor quality Italians as I was taught to believe. First of all none of us Sicilians is a poor quality Italian! Keep in mind that Sicilians made the history of modern Italy, reaching the highest positions in the national economic, social and political life. Just mentioning that the first president of the first Italian senate was Sicilian. Second of all, speak for yourself, because I have been to US, and my uncles live in NY and I attended to a Sicilian festival, where all people had Italian flags and Sicilian flags put together (honestly much more Italian than Sicilian flags). Moreover there was no such great assimilation after the Unification. Historically speaking, Italian was already the official language of Sicily, the Sicilian Constitution of 1812 in Sicily was written in Italian for instance. The works of the composer Vincenzo Bellini were in Italian as well, and when he performed his works in Milan in the early '800, he was treated like a prince and symbol of Italian unity before the Unification (as you said, we were poor quality Italians, yes sure!). And also, your parents didn't speak Sicilian. They spoke a dialect of Sicilian. I speak Sicilian, the original one of Pirandello and Martoglio, because here we are not afraid of our languages, and I don't need to have Sicilian official language, when I can speak it and I can watch movies and performances and comedies in original Sicilian. If you feel frustrated, please, do not mix your feelings with the ones of us and the other Sicilian-Americans because in reality there is not this fight between being Italian and Sicilian, here in Italy and there in the US. I can assure you that you are part of a minority, most of people don't see differences or clashes between the two things. Because, as I can see, you are also interested in Nationalism here on Wikipedia... so it is a matter of fact that if even half of Sicilians perceived themselves as a separated entity probably we were already another nation, while these pseudo-nationalist movements are totally minorities in Sicily. Finally, reading the last part, it is clear that you want to do a research based on your personal believes, so it is impossible here. We are an encyclopaedia. not a research institute so I can't be collaborative if you don't respect the wikipedia community [[1]]. --Walter J. Rotelmayer (talk) 20:59, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Rosa_fresca_aulentissima
  2. ^ http://www.fatti.it/newsfocussicilia.php?subaction=showfull&id=1257953167&

Italian language

I'd like to point out an element in the opening paragraph which stands out as incorrect to me. The "Italians" as nation are defined, among other things, as those who "speak the Italian language as a mother tongue". This cannot be considered true, historically and culturally. The statement points at three quotes. The first, the "Enciclopedia Treccani" in fact does not refer to "Italian language" as a "mother tongue" of Italians, rather it refers that "their primary social-professional identity has to do with feeling a part of a cultural koiné that communicates through the Italian language". But the same Enciclopedia reports an esteem that at the beginning of 19th century the number of Italians who would use Italian language to communicate in normal life is to be placed between 2,5% (De Mauro, 1963) and 9,5% (Castellani, 1983). In other words, the number of native users of Italian language was extremely small, Italian was a language for elites. A larger number (about 1/4 by the unification of Italy) was believed to be able to talk Italian as second language in social context. All this points out that the place of Italian language within the "Italian nation" was thought as a lingua franca, not as a native speech. Meanwhile, the current Italian Constitution does not refer to "Italian language" among the symbols of the Nation; art. 111 of Constitution, explaining how trials should be condicted, mentions that trial proceedings should be translated into the language spoken by the person under trial, from "the language in which the trial is conducted", therefore implying that trials (or official activities by the State) are not necessarily done in Italian language. Italy by now has about 13 official languages, and several other languages are acknowledged as "nativ languages" (not variants of Italian) although they lack official recognition, even though Italian is the only language that is official on the whole territory. As for the second quote (the site http://www.worldology.com) still the site doesn't report Italian as a "the native language" of the Italian nation. It says something not particularly accurate though: "Upon unification in 1860, the various regions within Italy also unified the Italian language, which is the modern Italian language spoken today". This is wrong because the unification of Italian language already existed, actually dates back centuries earlier than 1860: the unified language already existed, only it was not a native tongue but a lingua franca derived from Florentine and was used only by elites. Aki 001 (talk) 01:57, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

Wrong. Today, the Italian language is the mother tongue of most of Italians. The percentage of Italian speakers before the unification was as low as the percentage of French speakers before French revolution. Moreover, you did another terrible mistake: in Italy the only official language is Italian through the law 482 "Article 1 of law 482/1999 – "La lingua ufficiale della Repubblica è l'italiano." (Legge 482/1999, Art. 1 Comma 1, "The official language of the Republic is Italian.")"; also indirectly it can be considered official as seen the Constitution is written in Italian; moreover the Statute of Trentino-Alto Adige (that is considered part of the National Constitution, so it is a constitutional law) also says that Italian is the language of the State "[...] [la lingua] italiana [...] è la lingua ufficiale dello Stato." (Statuto Speciale per il Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, Art. 99, "[...] [the language] Italian [...] is the official language of the State.")". German, Ladin, Slovene and French are co-official only in the corresponding regions. Other minorities are only recognised but not official.--93.36.9.246 (talk) 07:39, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
Thank you for your comment Aki. You've kind of stumbled into a kind of heated discussion here. I recommend reading the archived talk pages. I agree with your position, I'm not a big fan of the linguistic policies of the Italian Republic. What we really need to evolve this article in a more nuanced direction is some good citations. I encourage you to find some good sources for your position and work it into an article in a way that can help a reader better understand the variety of opinions on this issue without disrespecting the more ethnonationalist perspectives here. If you'd like to collaborate I have some material you can start with. Feel free to PM me.Paolorausch (talk) 10:04, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Lega Nord

I don't know the subject but it seems that at least some Italians believe they are different than people from Southern Italy and at least sometimes they want a secession from Italy. Xx236 (talk) 06:42, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

The thing is, many people *all over Italy* don't self-identify as "Italians". What about many Sardinians (definitely not Northern Italians, but whose inclusion within the South is also controversial), South Tyroleans (who may classify themselves more as Austrians than either Northern or Southern Italians), Venetians, Sicilians etc.? Many foreigners take into account the Lega Nord, which once was indeed a Northern Italian federalist/separatist party but has nowadays ironically become one of the most fierce Italian nationalist parties ever in the political spectrum.--Dk1919 (talk) 13:06, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
What if we just make a subsection about "Challenges to Italian ethnic identity" or something. There are dozens of books on this topic.I'm sure there are enough primary sources to explain this situation to readers so they can understand the diversity of opinions on the matter.Paolorausch (talk) 10:08, 18 July 2016 (UTC)
I think that this could be a wonderful way to start lengthy edit wars between neofascists, nationalist, irredentists, etc., on one side, and regionalists, autonomists, independentists, and so on, on the other side. Good luck! Alex2006 (talk) 12:43, 18 July 2016 (UTC)
Agree with user above and with Dk1919 about Lega Nord being no more a separatist party (mostly related to Bossi era). Personally, i think wikipedia doesn't need a thread like that plus we have already articles about regional nationalism. Separatists, independentists movements etc... are a minor (if not inexistent) problem in Italy nowadays compared to other countries and are limited only to web communities, blogs and other similar things. In few words, irrelevants irl.MarcusVetus✠ 13:06, 18 July 2016 (UTC)
You guys are both right. I do think we should keep this conversation going though because it's a topic that comes up a lot here. Italian national identity has challenges, that is a really well documented fact in academia. I fully agree with you MarcusVetus that right now there are much bigger political movements in contemporary italy, and with you Alessandro that there are definitely some elements I'd rather not deal with. But pretending that this is a consensus I don't think will bring the reader better awareness to the nuance of the topic. I also think there may be substantial differences in the perspectives of different individuals and their communities. Here is a place that I wish to learn more from your perspectives. MarcusVetus, you made the point that challenges to Italian political unity are very limited. I would agree with you fully that challenges to Italian administration are currently politically minimal, but to Italian identity I think the situation is a bit different. And I can reference a lot of literature on that topic. I think it was not clear that I was talking about identity rather than sovereignty, I apologise.

I am very curious on your opinions on this topic. Most of my time in Italy is spent in communities where Italian identity is quite weak, and this naturally biases me. However, I realise that Italian identity can be quite robust elsewhere. What are your experiences and thoughts?Paolorausch (talk) 18:50, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Against the subsection, totally useless: separatism or regionalism in Italy is a very small minority, as some user previously said, it is a topic of a small group of people, it is a very small "elite" (with so many different views inside such as federalism or separatism or autonomism ... to make the whole group further fragmented and so meaningless) . I am from Catania, Sicily and Italian identity here is really strong. I have been almost everywhere in Italy, I have friends almost in each Italian region, and never seen separatism.--Walter J. Rotelmayer (talk) 00:02, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

Hello. I have previously answered a weird question about the Italian language. I think that today talking about challenges to Italian identity is totally misleading. I am from Belluno in the Veneto region, but I am currently studying in Milan. Here in Milan, there are Italian flags everywhere and everybody speak Italian (if not, second languages are often English, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese or Russian). About my city Belluno, just mentioning that during the 150th anniversary of Italian Unification it was full of people making parties with tricolours and singing the Italian anthem, in a period (2011) where Lega Nord was still strong both in Belluno and Milan. The fact is that people who previously supported Lega Nord, most of them didn't believe in the independence of North Italy, but they voted the party, because actually at the beginning it was very efficient. In the last 4 years party morality has been literally killed and now in Milan, Lega Nord has almost disappeared. In Belluno Lega is very weak and currently a minority party at the opposition. My girlfriend is from Bari in Apulia, and I din't see at all challenges to Italian identity there: speaking frankly, the city is full of monuments to Italy and Italian history, and people speak Italian there, even among them. I could see that the local barese dialect is spoken mixing it with Italian, and most of the times it is used just to be funny eheh. I don't know, but personally I don't see these challenges, I have been also in Turin, Brescia, Venice, Rome, Agrigento, Lecce, Olbia ... and no separatism traces, according to my personal experience. If I can talk about separatism, I just think about Catalonia: I have been there, and let me tell you that, there I have perceived something like that. 3/4 of my Catalan friends were separatist, and even if I am fluent in Spanish, it was not that uncommon to find people who dislike you ask them something in that language. In Italy, never seen something like that.--93.36.0.49 (talk) 11:12, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

I now understand where I'm doing a poor job of communicating my point, and particularly the difference between separatism, regionalism, autonomism (etc etc) and identity. I realise now that the schemas through which you seem to be interpreting my point are different from my own and I need to do a better job of providing context. Let me consider ways to better communicate myself and follow-up. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Paolorausch (talk • contribs) 07:29, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

Italians native speakers of the Italian language

http://www.istat.it/en/archive/136517 This source states the following: In 2012, 91.3% of the population aged 18-74 claimed to be Italian native speakers. I would kindly ask to keep in mind the importance of the source and the fact that a user is continuously removing a reliable source.--93.36.8.64 (talk) 23:13, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Problematic User

This user @Madreterra is continuously removing reliable sources and changing the intro without a reason apparently.--93.36.7.58 (talk) 07:06, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Diaspora populations

I do not think that every American, Argentinian or Brazilian with any Italian ancestor should be counted as ethnic Italians. The definition "share a common culture, ancestry and speak the Italian language as a native tongue" is not true for many of them. How many of the 17 million Italo-Americans really speak Italian and practice Italian cultural traditions? Many of them are assimilated into the English-speaking mainstream culture. Same applies to Italo-Brazilians and -Argentines, respectively. --RJFF (talk) 15:38, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

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Vandalism

This user @Madreterra keeps removing sources.--93.36.1.200 (talk) 23:39, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

I have not removed sources, but rather I have attempted to reflect what is said in the sources more accurately. It is clear by now that any of my attempts to address the misrepresentation of the sources in the article will continue to be blanketly reverted through repeated anonymous sockpuppetry, so (as I admittedly should've done sooner) I'll discuss my proposed edits here.
First, I simply tried to change the lead sentence from an unnecessarily rigid definition of "Italians" to one that reflects that which is stated in the sources. Currently, the lead sentence states unequivocally that Italians "speak the Italian language as mother tongue." Now, I know to many people it may seem silly to argue over whether Italians speak Italian as mother tongue, but it is in fact a legitimate argument to say that not all ethnic Italians or even Italian nationals speak Italian as a mother tongue. At the very least, the language factor should not be placed in the lead sentence as an unqualified, strict defining feature of what constitutes an "Italian". I certainly understand the argument that, because the concept of "Italians" as an ethnic group and unified national group is a relatively recent invention used to encompass various peoples from the peninsula who historically speak other languages, use of Standard Italian language is therefore one of the few things that actually unifies Italians, and, as such, use of the Standard Italian language could be viewed as a defining or essential feature of "Italians". I get that, I really do. However, this is a very nuanced and debatable argument that, in my opinion, belongs elsewhere in the article (with a source), not in the lead sentence as some universally agreed upon essential feature of "Italians". Furthermore, even if one were to argue that the use of the Italian language is part of what defines the Italians as a unified group, this still does not support the assertion in the lead sentence that a person must speak Italian as a "mother tongue" to be considered an "Italian". Even if we disregard the fact that "Italians", as a descriptor of a people, can also include ethnic Italians in other countries (e.g. Istrian Italians, Italian-Americans, Swiss Italians) who do not necessarily speak Standard Italian as a "mother tongue", and even if we are simply using "Italians" to refer to Italian nationals only, the inclusion of "speaking the Italian language as a mother tongue" as one of the main defining traits of the Italian people is needlessly strict and simply not true according to the provided sources.
In reality, the sources here seem to state the contrary to what is now asserted in the lead, or they at least provide more nuanced stances as opposed to what is currently stated. Rather than being a prerequisite factor in defining an "Italian", speaking the Italian language as a mother tongue has historically been a quite rare phenomenon among Italian nationals. The one source, Miti e simboli della rivoluzione, explicitly states that, in the period following Unification, only between 2.5% and 9.5% of the population spoke the Italian language. Yet, despite the fact that these people did not speak Italian as a "mother tongue," they nonetheless would be considered Italians, no? Even if we were to assume that, immediately following the Unification, every Italian national began speaking Standard Italian, and even if we disregard the post-Unification period as being too far in the past to reflect the current definition of "Italians", this still means that there were Italian nationals born during Unification and living into at least the 1950s that did not speak Italian language as a mother tongue.
With all that said, the fact is that, quite simply, none of the sources define Italians as only those who "speak Italian as a mother tongue". Regardless of any other arguments, it remains the case that the assertion in the lead sentence that Italians are unequivocally defined as native speakers of Italian is unsourced or at least the result of heavy synthesizing or editorializing. The funny part is, I don't even want to completely remove the mention of the Italian language from the lead! I just wanted to put: "and generally speak the Italian language". Or even: "are associated with the Italian language". That was all I wanted.
Finally, I also phrased the one sentence in the opener as: "While the majority of Italian nationals are native speakers of Standard Italian, many Italians also speak other languages native to Italy (often colloquially referred to as 'Italian dialects')." This is constantly reverted to: "The majority of Italian nationals are native speakers of Standard Italian, though some Italians are also proficient in other languages native to Italy (often colloquially referred to as 'Italian dialects')." In regards to this second edit, it is unnecessary and a borderline violation of neutral POV to put "proficient in" rather than to simply put "speak". Nowhere in the source does it mention the "proficiency" of those Italians that speak other languages native to Italy. By using "speak", we cover both those who are just "proficient in" and those who natively speak other Italian languages (colloquially known as "dialects"). Also, the use of "some" rather than "many" is simply not accurate as per the source. It seems that nearly half of Italians speak mostly "dialect" rather than the Italian language when talking with their families. In other words, nearly half of Italians speak other Italian languages (i.e. "dialects") with family, and this percentage does not even include those who can speak other Italian languages but usually choose not to do so when speaking with their family. Accordingly, the number of Italians that can speak "dialects" could be even larger than half. In what way does any of this suggest that only "some Italians" speak other Italian languages (i.e. "dialects")? Madreterra (talk) 19:44, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
There are sources which support the initial statement: moreover "are also proficient" fits the sourced content on the ground of the fact that who speaks the regional languages (most of the time contaminated of words coming from Standard Italian, so the border between Regional Language and Regional Italian is really unstable) is not able to write or to read it, so we are talking about "proficiency" or "fluency" because the knowledge of the Regional Language is almost always incomplete.--79.12.107.189 (talk) 10:48, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
This is getting a little circular here. I explained why the sources do not in fact support the assertion that Italians are strictly defined as people who speak Italian as a mother tongue. None of the sources include or even heavily imply a definition of Italians that would support the assertion that "Italians [are people who] speak the Italian language as a mother tongue." This is a needlessly strict and simply unsourced definition. You have not yet addressed how these sources support your edits. (And yes, I have read the sources.)
Also, nowhere in the source is "proficiency" mentioned. Without a reliable source, your definition of "proficiency" and your personal evaluation as to whether many Italians are simply "proficient" in or actually "speak" regional languages is original research. This also applies to your assertions that regional languages are "most of the time" "contaminated" by Standard Italian. Furthermore, referring to "proficiency" is also unnecessary; the source talks about "speaking", which covers both low proficiency and high fluency.
As I said in response to your comments on my own talk page, NO ONE is denying that the majority of Italian nationals in Italy speak Italian. While today the majority of Italian nationals certainly speak Italian as a mother tongue, this has not always been the case and, as stated in the sources, it was definitely not the case until fairly recently. Yet, according to the definition you currently are putting in the lead sentence, the Italian nationals that spoke regional languages as a mother language and did not speak Standard Italian would not be included under the definition of "Italians" simply because they did not "speak Italian as a mother tongue."
Furthermore, the addition of "speak the Italian language as a mother tongue" is also unnecessary and needlessly specific because the Italian language would already be included under the definition of a shared Italian culture. The prior part of the lead sentence thus already includes the Italian language when it mentions "culture" ("who share a common culture, history and ancestry"). The definition of Italians as those "who share common culture" already addresses the Italian language, and placing the unsourced and needlessly strict requirement that Italians must be those "who speak the Italian language as a mother tongue" is unnecessary. Madreterra (talk) 19:33, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
Response to third opinion request :
I would have to agree with Madreterra that the lead shouldn't specify that Italians speak Italian as their mother language. I base this on the third source currently listed, "The usage of Italian language, dialects and other languages in Italy." It says: "In 2012, 91.3% of the population aged 18-74 claimed to be Italian native speakers; 3% had two native languages ​​(including Italian) and 5.8% were not Italian native speakers. As a consequence of the presence of immigrants and linguistic minorities within the resident population, the share of those who spoke a mother tongue other than Italian was 8.8%." YoPienso (talk) 18:05, 3 September 2017 (UTC)
91.3% is actually an overwhelming majority (almost the totality) that's why the above source says actually the same that the current sources explain in the incipit of the article. Ethnically Italians are native speakers, while the 5.8% are the migrant communities living in Italy. The third opinion actually confirms the current incipit--93.37.89.141 (talk) 21:17, 3 September 2017 (UTC)
You make a good point. I've also consulted the Italian Wikipedia article, which states: Gli italiani sono un popolo che si riconosce nella stessa cultura, lingua e storia ed è definito da un'unica e comune radice nazionale italiana. [Added emphasis.] I'm going to edit the lead (the preferred term for "incipit) in a way I hope will be an acceptable compromise. YoPienso (talk) 01:04, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

Do we need this gallery of mugshots at all? How does it really add to our understanding of Italians? Batternut (talk) 15:38, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Most definitely not. Removed. Vaselineeeeeeee★★★ 17:20, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
Well, that moved it back down, thanks, but do we need a gallery of musicians at all, or architects, authors, judges etc? One or two pictures per section lighten up the article, fine, but this article has 8 or 9 galleries, most of them pretty dull police-lineups. Batternut (talk) 20:51, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
Yeah, that'll need for discussion. But it definitely didn't belong in the lead, that's for sure. Vaselineeeeeeee★★★ 21:16, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

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Image depicting Proto-Indo-European branches in Ukraine and the Kurgan

I really fail to see how this image is one bit relatable to modern Italian identity, which existed long before the discovery of the Indo-European language family. Sure this may be where Italic came from although interestingly the map promotes the now outdated Italo-Celtic hypothesis. But that has little to do with how modern day Italians are perceived and perceive themselves. --Calthinus (talk) 17:36, 3 December 2017 (UTC)


Re Calthinus's removal of the map captioned "Italo-Celts (I-C) homeland above the black sea ...", his comment being all these cultures were in the Kurgan and Ukraine. WP:OR that these having anything to do with modern Italian identity. Sure there may be ancestry but that is not identity.
Given that this was in the section entitled ethnogenesis (ie the formation and development of an ethnic group), which talks about the arrival of the "Italo-Celts, with the appearance of the Proto-Celtic Canegrate culture and Proto-Italic Terramare culture" (subsection "Indo-European"), is this map not pertinent as it shows where they came from? If the Canegrate and Terramare cultures are not relevant they shouldn't be mentioned in the text either. Batternut (talk) 17:45, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
I would respond with two points -- (1) Italo-Celtic is a hypothesis which is far from universally accepted by the historical linguistic community -- actually last I heard it was considered outdated, so having a map promote this comes off as POV if anything. (2) Most people would hold that the ethnogenesis of modern-day Italians occurred in Italy, much later, during the Roman Empire or even afterward, as the result of merging of Latin and non-Latin speaking Italic peoples, Etruscans, and perhaps Greek, Venetic and Celtic speaking peoples as well. This has nothing to do with Proto-Indo-Europeans in Ukraine except cultural and linguistic descent. By the logic used to place this map here, we should also have a map depicting human origins in Uganda and Kenya.--Calthinus (talk) 17:58, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
If you argue that the Italo-Celtic theory is considered outdated then you should change the text say so and mention the other theories you consider better. That would achieve WP:Balance would it not? If the theory is not just contested but dead and buried, the Proto-Italic cultures shouldn't be mentioned at all. Batternut (talk) 18:17, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
Well, there is the other issue, as I mentioned, that I have doubts about how on-topic this is. Maybe it could belong on Italic peoples--maybe. But I've never heard of this idea that Italians formed as an ethnic group some time more than 4 millennia ago. The typical view is that the ethnogenesis would have occurred roughly 1-2 millennia go, not like 6. I think the map definitely belongs on Italo-Celtic and Proto-Indo-Europeans. --Calthinus (talk) 18:40, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
Ah, the bigger picture! Yes this whole ethnogenesis section seems out of place to me, and Italic peoples is a better place for it. It can easily be moved, following Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia. Batternut (talk) 21:55, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

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Italians as an ethnic group

Italians are one of the most multiethnical nations in the world, not a unique and homogeneous ethnic group. Liviojavi (talk) 09:46, 30 June 2018 (UTC)


What do you mean?

Well, Italians are an ethnic group and nation. It is pretty much a cultural a political tie one can have with Italy. Yes they are actually homogeneous because even though they have diverse cultures among the regions of Italy, they can always relate to each other. You are pretty much saying Italy is like the United States in terms of diversity and so on. This is very inaccurate. However, in theory, since Italian citizenship pretty much makes you "Italian" then I can see why you say it would be "multi ethnic." --Scarslayer01 (talk) 17:12, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

The problem here is that people in general but definitely more specifically Italians have a serious misunderstanding regarding the difference between Ethnic identity vs National identity. Italy has always had a problem with assimilationism, most terribly exemplified during fascism. The fact that notions of Italian identity are so uncritical on Wikipedia is very problematic, and it's very frustrating we can't get a more inclusive definition of Italian identity here without constant reversions. To help explain, Switzerland has four indigenous ethnolinguistic identities, and one national identity. They are not mutually conflicting, but to ignore the four communities is deeply problematic. But in the case of Italy, fragile notions of national identity seem to be rigidly protected here from criticism. We have dozens of languages in Italy and dozens of identities, all of which are older than the creation of the Italian nation-state.Paolorausch (talk) 21:29, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
I have updated the article to reflect the linguistic diversity of the Italian nationality identity. If anyone has anything to add I would appreciate it! Thanks! Paolorausch (talk) 12:19, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Now someone is trying to say that there are 60 million Italians living in Italy. If this article is speaking of ethnic Italians, then this would be false because there are also others living in the country who are either immigrants or descendants of immigrants that are not ethnic Italians. In regards to Italians in Italy, it should say 55 million because it's talking about ethnicity and citizenship (Not all Italian citizens are ethnic Italians) according to ISTAT. Not really sure why everyone is just putting info in without taking a quick look to verify what they see actually makes sense. Just because someone lives in Italy or was born there does not always mean they are Italians. --Scarslayer01 (talk) 01:20, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Is it fine now? The source clearly states 55,551,000 are citizens while the other ~5,000,000 are foreigners. Vaselineeeeeeee★★★ 01:42, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, a lot of people have been playing around with the population of Italians and it is no longer funny. I still find it strange because while this article refers to ethnic Italians, most statistics done in Italy only refer to Italian (citizen of Italy) and foreigner (those who are not citizens of Italy). So technically you can be an ethnic Italian but if you do not have Italian citizenship, most organizations such as ISTAT would regard you as a foreigner. I believe we should add that somewhere in this article to prevent the confusion and misleading references. - signed by anon IP

An estimated 800,000 Chileans have any Italian ancestry, considering neighboring Argentina has over half their population of Italian ancestry (same with Uruguay) and 1,400,000 Peruvians in a country further north are of Italian ancestry as well. The total percentage of Italian-Paraguayans are 20% and Italians are known to settled in Bolivia, but about 2 to 5 percent of Bolivians are their descendants. 67.49.85.100 (talk) 04:23, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

Not more multiethnical than, for example, UK, France or Germany. We live in a multiethnical era, which countries are homogeneous? Only smaller ones like San Marino (ethnic Italian) perhaps. Just a little reminder, Italians from, for example, Tuscany, aren't ethnically different than, for example, Marche or Abruzzo like some people think. Ethnicities in Italy are: Italians AND minority ones like Germans in Trentino, Croats in Molise, or Griko and Arbëreshë in the South plus obviously recent immigrants from North African countries or others. --MarcusVetus✠ 16:44, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

More precise definition of Italian identity

Many people have brought up the question of Italian ethnonational identity. Namely the underlying problem that Italian is a national identity, and ethnonational identity and also a heritage identity.

For example, let's discuss the issue of the large Italo/Siculo-Arbëresh diaspora. Are these an Albanian Diaspora? An Italic Diaspora? An Arbëresh diaspora? Yes. The answer is simple yes because nationality and ethnicity are patently different identities being confused here in this article in a misleading way. We need to be precise and inclusive in our definition of Italianness in order to not intentionally or unintentionally engage in the nationalisation of history. Italian identity has been well studied, it is clear that it has for most of history in some ways existed and in other ways not existed and as of now is currently in a process of evolution and development. The presence of many separatist, federalist, regionalist and autonomist parties and identities show that we must be critical of Italian identity to make a fair assessment of it's complexities and nuances to readers making their first acquaintance with the complexities of the Italian Republic.Paolorausch (talk) 16:59, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

I don't understand where you see those "many" separatist etc... parties. Those few parties left (if there are still left) are all basically inactive. Once again there is an attempt to make Italy like the United States, more identically diverse that what actually is. Regionalism is present in Italy like it's present in France, Germany and other parts of Europe. That being said regional differences like food or folkloristic feasts don't compromise Italian cultural unity like many people think but strengthen it in fact, many national dishes are made with products took from different regions. About languages, in my family i've people who also speak a dialect but they feel fully Italian. For personal experience the only people i hear to speak dialect only are the older ones who live in smaller settlements around the mountains, where media and informations still have problems to reach the houses. This is a line took from the Italian Wikipedia about Italian language: "Secondo i più recenti dati statistici (La lingua italiana, i dialetti e le lingue straniere, Istat, 2012) l'84,8% degli italiani parla in modo esclusivo o prevalente l'italiano, il 10,7% lo alterna con una lingua locale, mentre solo il 1,7% si esprime esclusivamente nell'idioma locale". Translated: According to the most recent statistical data 84,8% speak Italian exclusively, 10,7% speak Italian with a local language and only 1,7% with only local language. --MarcusVetus✠ 15:22, 5 August 2019 (UTC)
Best to keep it simple. ETHNIC Italians are people declaring themselves Italian regardless of homeland (e.g. diasporans from Tuscany in the US, some locals to Croatian Istria, and likewise, diasporans in the US from Croatia's ethnic Italian minority). NATIONALITY is the relationship with state, namely citizenship, so this would be anyone with an Italian passport or in some other way viewed by the Italian government as being one of its subjects. For this, ethnicity and heritage are not relevant. My uncle (i.e. I am from Bulgaria) has had an Italian passport since the early 1990s and he has been able to renew it every ten years without fail after returning permanently to Bulgaria in 1995. So the Albanians/Croats from Italy-proper are Italians by nationality but not in how they identify ethnically. That's the simplest description for the discrepancy. --Edin balgarin (talk) 13:22, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
Well said. Alex2006 (talk) 14:48, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

Italians Abroad

Vaselineeeeeeee (talk · contribs), you updated the number of Italians abroad to 87 million from the 82 million in the article, this based on an addition of all the other figures. I am wary of totalling such figures because different countries count these things differently, so a simple addition looks like WP:SYNTH. There is a source beside the total figure, but it turns out the figure in the article does not match the source. It says between 60 and 80 million of Italian descent live abroad. However, it also adds 5 million Italian citizens abroad, so how about a compromise. Based on the source we could say "up to 85 million" or something similar. -- Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 16:44, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

The source [2] from 2010 is outdated - it even says Brazil has 25 million ancestral Italians, while it is currently 32 million. Given the current sources for each country listed, I don't see an issue with giving the approx total of 87 million. Since other countries would also have Italian citizens included in the stats is fine because they are diaspora which is included in "Italian diaspora and ancestry: c. 87,000,000"—that 4-5 million is not included in the c. 55 million of Italians, so I don't think we're duplicating anything. Regards, Vaselineeeeeeee★★★ 17:35, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

This now brings back the problem on who do we identify as Italian and who is not. The page currently has the number of Italians in Italy being over 55 million. We have to understand that this is very likely referring to citizens of Italy regardless of one's country origin since Italian census do not ask any questions regarding one's ethnic background or culture. We can agree that the majority of Italian citizens are also Italians by ethnicity. We can definitely also say that we have no more than 80 million people with Italian origins (regardless if from one relative or has complete origins from Italy) abroad without citizenship and about 4 to 5 million individuals with Italian citizenship (without regards to birthplace and are registered with the A.I.R.E.). So by looking at it, we can say ~84 million people abroad who either emigrated from Italy or is a descendant of one plus give or take 55 million people who are very likely to be the majority of ethnic Italians currently living in the Italian homeland. After doing the calculation (like also the Italian Wikipedia) I get a total of ~139,000,000-140,000,000 people who currently live on earth that have some sort of connection to Italy (whether it would be by citizenship or origins). Feel free to debate this or to take it into consideration when editing the Italian population in Italy and abroad. --Scarslayer01 (talk) 17:42, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Well 80 million based on the 2010 source, 87 million based on the current individual country statistics. Vaselineeeeeeee★★★ 17:55, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
This source is dated 2018 and is the one beside the figure in the infobox. That is where I got 60-80 million from, athough it is not clear where they got their numbers from. -- Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 18:53, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
I see...Yeah, although that is probably a reliable website, I don't think it's reliable for this purpose, especially since 60 million is way off. Vaselineeeeeeee★★★ 19:18, 11 March 2020 (UTC) Vaselineeeeeeee★★★ 19:18, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Overestimated numbers for some Latin American countries

Dear users,

Please do not manipulate official numbers or with sources.

I see a constant history of changes related to the number of Argentines of Italian descent. Stay with the source data and stop manipulate numbers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2804:14C:5BD5:B863:407B:5E6B:6460:8660 (talk) 15:06, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

Manzoni missing

There Is a Manzoni's picture but he is missing in the text. Sitofausto (talk) 11:59, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

Italians are not an ethnicity

“Italians” never existed as an united people but they are many different ethnicities, with different languages, cultures, histories, traditions and origins 5.91.22.177 (talk) 12:19, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Gauls in Italy

The existence of Gallic populations in the coastal strip of the Marches is not anectdotal. The place name Senigallia comes from Sena Gallica, so named after the Galli Senoni, and the Regio VI of Augustus was called Umbria and Ager Gallicus. However, the vast majority of Gallic populations in Italy lived in northern Italy (the Ager Gallicus is a tiny part of central Italy), so the expression "mainly in northern Italy" describes the situation well. If someone still wants to point out the existence of the Ager Gallicus in central Italy, he/she can add a note.Alex2006 (talk) 07:32, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

For me it's anecdotal, because we are talking about a tiny piece of the coast, but in honor of the accuracy "Mainly in Northern Italy" for me is valid. Venezia Friulano (talk) 16:43, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

Photo-heavy

I feel that the philosophy, music, sport etc. sections are a bit photo-heavy and was thinking about removing the strip of photos at the bottom of them. Any opinions about this before I do it? Vesuvio14 (talk) 13:48, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

OR Map removed

I just removed a newly created map, for the following reasons:

  • The map has no sources supporting it;
  • In the map there are macroscopic errors. Among them:
    • In Corsica and Nice nowadays there is no native Italian speaking minority anymore;
    • In Central Italy, Italian has been traditionally spoken by minorities in Tuscany (Florence, Siena) and Rome;

If someone wants to restore the map, please before doing that bring sources which support it (at best on Common). Thanks, Alex2006 (talk) 10:53, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Hello,

User:Rhaetianlombard and I are currently in a dispute over whether Gallo-Italics should be included as a "related ethnic group" in the infobox. I don't want this to turn into a full-blown edit war, so I'm making this a discussion in Talk, so everyone can contribute.

On 2 October 2022, Rhaetianlombard added Gallo-Italics to the infobox, using as a reference a UNESCO-sourced list of endangered languages. I disputed that neither the linked article (Gallo-Italic languages) nor the source make it clear that Gallo-Italics are a bona fide ethnic group, rather than just a linguistic one. Later, on 29 December, Rhaetianlombard rolled back my deletion, giving the following as their reasoning:

The reference you erased from the Guardian mentions clearly that UNESCO recognize several ethnic languages which includes gallo italics (lombards, ligurians, emilians and piedmontese) speakers)) and sicilians. Secondly, there are several "Italian" surnames derived from Gallo Italic. What differentiates historical minorities from Gallo Italics is a piece of paper that can be made by anyone.

This is the undoctored edit summary text — I don't want to misrepresent Rhaetianlombard or their position, and I hope they join this discussion.

To be fair, I was making dubious edits to this infobox section at this time, such as an unsourced addition of the Romansh people (though it could be argued that they are linguistically related).

What does everybody here say about this? So you support or oppose the inclusion of Gallo-Italics in the infobox? Marisauna (talk) 21:01, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

First, Romansh are not related to Italians. They are related to Ladins, Friulians, and Lombards due to a common Raetic origin. In fact, Rhaetians were a tribe that inhabited parts of Austria, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Trentino-Sudtirol, and Northern Lombardy.
Secondly, this reference also includes many languages that are recognized by the Italian government and other countries such as Arberesh, Friulian, Ladin, Mocheno, Griko, Romansh, Sicilian and so on.... Gallo Italics have a language, food, history, folk and music like these ethnicities. It sounds racist to me when someone claims that a group of people isn't an ethnicity just because most people of a region lost their language and spoke another one instead (Italian). There are people who still speak Gallo Italic languages and are close to history, food, music and traditions of these people.
The Italian language is derived from the Tuscan dialect in Central Italy. Before Unification of Italy, Italian was only spoken by the elites across the peninsula. In contrast, people who were not part of the elite in the North (Emilia, Lombardy, Liguria) spoke varieties of Gallo Italic which is derived from Latin with Celtic and Germanic influences. Rhaetianlombard (talk) 22:10, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
By the addition of Gallo Italics in the infobox i see at least two problems:
Thanks for opening this thread, @Marisauna:. No I personally don't agree with the inclusion, for the following reason: the Gallo-Italics are not an "external" ethnic group related to the Italians, they are part of the Italian ethnic group (BTW, the four "homeland's fathers" of Italy were all gallo-italics). Even if we forget what I just wrote above, putting only the gallo-italics in the infobox is WP:UNDUE against all the others ethnic groups, like Neapolitans, Sicilians, Venetians, etc. I think that behind this inclusion there is some confusion about the definition of the Italian ethnic group: it is not true that "Before Unification of Italy, Italian was only spoken by the elites across the peninsula". Italian was spoken by the elites only in Florence and Rome. But Italian was the language of the administration, of the church (in its relationship with the people), of the "high" literature and the lingua franca used for interregional comunication across the peninsula. The use of Italian in these fields is a defining feature of being part of the Italian ethnic group. So, the solution in my opinion is not to add gallo-italics to the infobox, but to remove the recognized language minorities from the infobox. Alex2006 (talk) 09:17, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Nothing impedes you to add these ethnic group you mentioned. In fact, Neapolitan, Sicilians.. are Italo-Dalmatians. This Italian identity you are talking about is artificial. It was built after unification. The Piedmontese conquered all the territory with the help of the French and imposed a history that everyone is a pure descendant from the Romans. Governments and the church speaking Italian is not a proof of ethnicity. The Piedmontese elite (governments, businessmen, etc...) spoke French. It doesn't make the people French. Rhaetianlombard (talk) 15:17, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

I would not say that is artificial, but rather conventional. The Italian identity has been defined focusing on some characters, and existed long before the unification, but only related to them. It is a pure cultural identity, not ethnical.

The meaning of Italy is purely cultural, and not racial: the Roman heritage, a language spoken (at least on a literary level) by both Cielo d'Alcamo and Bonvesin della Riva, the presence of the church, the natural barrier of the Alps, a political ideal that began with Dante, Petrarca and Machiavelli, one hundred and forty years of state unity that has spread a certain homogeneity of behavior throughout the "stivale", for better or for worse

I think that this sentence by Umberto Eco summarizes well the characters used along the centuries to define the Italian people. Alex2006 (talk) 16:09, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
I am actually the one who originally added the linguistic minorities to the inbox, but I'm very open to supporting Alex2006's proposal to remove them. Indeed, "Italian" is a cultural and national identity, not so much an ethnic one — making this explicit could be good for the health of the article, since it would make it harder for regional nationalists and separatists to slant the content. The many ethnicities that are all Italian, with their unique cultures and languages, may be adequately covered both in the article body and in their own individual articles.
Rhaetianlombard, I feel like you are putting too much emphasis on language. "Italian-ness" is based on a shared geography, history, and affiliation with the Italian state. The standard Italian language is an important part of this, but not essential. You can be both fully Italian and also fully something else, like a Sardinian, Friulian, Neapolitan, Arbereshe, Griko, etc.
I do agree with Rhaetianlombard that the Italian identity is artificial, constructed. This does not mean that it doesn't exist. We should cover it like any other identity, while recognizing that it overlaps with many regional and linguistic identities. Marisauna (talk) 16:51, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
I agree with you, @Marisauna:. In my opinion should remain in the Infobox only those ethnic groups that are intimately linked to the Italian one, due to the long permanence of the respective peoples in the cultural and political orbit of Italy: this means Corsican and Maltese people. Alex2006 (talk) 19:27, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
Honestly, in my opinion, I do not think that "Gallo-Italic" and the already "Historical linguistic minorities of Italy" should even be in the infobox for one reason; They are not ethnicities, they are languages! If it were changed to "Historical ethnic minorities of Italy", then maybe, but the point is that these are not ethnicities, only family groups and neither articles state that they are linguistical ethnicities. - 23:20, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
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