Due to its long history of strongly independent regional identities, until its relatively recent unification in 1861, Italy has kept a wide variety of regional languages, some of which have gained official recognition (like Sardinian).
The largest group of non-Italian speakers (some 1.6 million people) are the ones who speak Sardinian (Sardo, Sardu) - romance language. Four dialects of Sardinian can be distinguished: Gallurese Sardinian, Logudorese Sardinian, Campidanese Sardinian, and Sassarese Sardinian.
Another quite large community of some 350,000 people in Friuli speak Friulian, another Rhaeto-romanic language, spoken in the Udine Province, extending to Gorizia and the Venezia provinces.
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