Languages of Italy and their dialects. There are a variety of regional languages spoken to varying degrees in Italy, most of which belong to various branches of the Romance languages and are hence descendants of Vulgar Latin. The official and most widely spoken language is Italian, a descendant of Tuscan. All Romance varieties spoken in Italy, except from Italian, are often called dialects in the literature, although the term may coexist with other labels such as minority languages or vernaculars..