Tuscan

language

Also known as: Tuscan dialect

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Last updated

July 14, 2026

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The term "Tuscan" can refer to a native of Tuscany, Italy, or to the Italian language as spoken in Tuscany. The standard literary dialect of Italian is based on the dialect of Florence, which is in the Tuscany region.12

Italian is a Romance language spoken by approximately 66 million people, primarily in Italy. It is also an official language in San Marino, Vatican City, and Switzerland. While a standard Italian exists, common speech often involves dialects or local variations. The Tuscan dialect is one of the recognized dialect groups within Italy.2

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6 Britannica Sources

Italian language
Tuscan
Etruscan language
Tuscan
Italian literature - The Tuscan poets
Italian literature - Religious and historical literature

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- Italian language
  …the island of Corsica a Tuscan variety of Italian is spoken, though Italian is not the language of culture. Overseas (e.g., in the United States, Brazil, and Argentina) speakers sometimes do not know the standard language and use only dialect forms. Increasingly, they only rarely know the language of their…
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  …the island of Corsica a Tuscan variety of Italian is spoken, though Italian is not the language of culture. Overseas (e.g., in the United States, Brazil, and Argentina) speakers sometimes do not know the standard language and use only dialect forms. Increasingly, they only rarely know the language of their…
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- Celtic languages
  Phonological characteristics
  …in one Italian dialect: in Tuscan, there occur porta “door,” la forta “the door,” tre porte “three doors,” from Latin porta, illa porta, tres portae. In both cases, consonant weakening has spread from word to sentence; there is a common development, but it cannot be claimed that it is distinctively…
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  …in one Italian dialect: in Tuscan, there occur porta “door,” la forta “the door,” tre porte “three doors,” from Latin porta, illa porta, tres portae. In both cases, consonant weakening has spread from word to sentence; there is a common development, but it cannot be claimed that it is distinctively…
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- history of Europe
  Arts and letters
  …end of that century, however, Tuscan was emerging as the primary vernacular, and Dante’s choice of it for his The Divine Comedy ensured its preeminence. Of lyric poets writing in Tuscan (hereafter called Italian), the greatest was Petrarch. His canzoni, or songs, and sonnets in praise of Laura are revealing…
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  …end of that century, however, Tuscan was emerging as the primary vernacular, and Dante’s choice of it for his The Divine Comedy ensured its preeminence. Of lyric poets writing in Tuscan (hereafter called Italian), the greatest was Petrarch. His canzoni, or songs, and sonnets in praise of Laura are revealing…
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Pietro Bembo
…standard language, and recommended 14th-century Tuscan as the model for Italian literary language. His view, opposed by those who wanted Latin and by others who wanted a more modern Italian as the model, had triumphed by the end of the 16th century. Bembo’s history of Venice, which he wrote in…
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…standard language, and recommended 14th-century Tuscan as the model for Italian literary language. His view, opposed by those who wanted Latin and by others who wanted a more modern Italian as the model, had triumphed by the end of the 16th century. Bembo’s history of Venice, which he wrote in…
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Crusca Academy
…for the purpose of purifying Tuscan, the literary language of the Italian Renaissance. Partially through the efforts of its members, the Tuscan dialect, particularly as it had been employed by Petrarch and Boccaccio, became the model for Italian literature in the 16th and 17th centuries.
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…for the purpose of purifying Tuscan, the literary language of the Italian Renaissance. Partially through the efforts of its members, the Tuscan dialect, particularly as it had been employed by Petrarch and Boccaccio, became the model for Italian literature in the 16th and 17th centuries.
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