section_path: Demographics/Language
section_name: Language
paragraph_text: Language
  
  Rome's historic contribution to language in a worldwide sense is extensive. Through the process of Romanization, the peoples of Italy, Gallia, the Iberian Peninsula and Dacia developed languages which derive directly from Latin and were adopted in large areas of the world, all through cultural influence, colonisation and migration. Moreover, also modern English, because of the Norman Conquest, borrowed a large percentage of its vocabulary from the Latin language. The Roman or Latin alphabet is the most widely used writing system in the world used by the greatest number of languages.
  
  The medieval Roman dialect belonged to the southern family of Italian dialects, and was thus much closer to the Neapolitan language than to the Florentine. A typical example of Romanesco of that period is Vita di Cola di Rienzo ("Life of Cola di Rienzo "), written by an anonymous Roman during the 14th century. Starting with the 16th century, the Roman dialect underwent a stronger and stronger influence from the Tuscan dialect (from which modern Italian derives) starting with the reigns of the two Medici popes (Leo X and Clement VII) and with the Sack of Rome in 1527, two events which provoked a large immigration from Tuscany. Therefore, current Romanesco has grammar and roots that are rather different from other dialects in Central Italy.