Ethnicity
The original indoeuropean tribes of the Italic people settled in neolitical times in the Italian peninsula. Usually these tribes were historically divided between Latino-Faliscans, Osco-Umbrians, Veneti, and Ligures. Successively they were united and amalgamated by Rome, together with the Etruscans in central Italy, Gaulish tribes in the Po river plains, and Greeks in the so-called Magna Grecia. Most Italians originate from the people mentioned above, and all share common Latin heritage, but some Italians have a variety of other ancestries.
There are some Italians across Italy who have Germanic heritage from the occupation of Italy by several Germanic tribes. The Germanic tribe of the Ostrogoths conquered Italy and presented themselves as upholders of Latin culture, mixing Roman culture together with Gothic culture, in order to legitimize their rule amongst Roman subjects who had a long-held belief in the superiority of Roman culture over foreign "barbarian" Germanic culture. The total number of the population of Ostrogoths who settled in Italy was small, estimated at 40,000 people, while the total population of both the Ostrogoths and their allies who occupied Italy is estimated at 100,000 people. The Germanic tribe of the Lombards invaded Italy, which in the meantime had been reconquered by the East Roman Empire, and conquered most of it. However, only a small number of Lombards settled in Italy, in comparison with the overwhelming majority of the indigenous Latin population. The Germanic tribe of the Vandals conquered the islands of Corsica and Sardinia, and held the islands until they were captured by the Byzantines.
Southern Italy has an ancestral Greek heritage alongside the Italic one. Southern Italy was influenced both by the ancient Greeks of Magna Graecia who brought Hellenic culture to Italy, and by the arrival of modern Greeks in the 7th century during the rule of the Byzantine Empire.
Sicilians have a diverse ancestry. After Roman rule, Sicily was conquered by the Ostrogoths, and then by the Byzantines. The Normans brought a new addition to Sicilian ancestry. \. As a result of Arab and Berber expulsion, many towns across Sicily were left depopulated. By the 12th century, Swabian kings granted immigrants from northern Italy (particularly Piedmont, Lombardy and Liguria), Latium in central Italy, and the south of France settlement into Sicily, re-establishing the Latin element back to Sicily, a legacy which can be seen in the many Gallo-Italic dialects found in the interior and western parts of Sicily, brought by these settlers.
Linguistic minorities have always been negligible in comparison with those of most other European nations; in 1861, they amounted to a scarce 1% of the total population, and in 1921, when Italy's territory reached its greatest extent, only 2% of the population spoke a language different from Italian or related dialects. However, these linguistic minorities and language islands have historically been quite diverse, speaking Algherese, Arbëresh, German, Greek, Slovene and Franco-Provençal. Moreover, it should be mentioned that in 1999 the Republic granted special protection to the languages listed above, together with the Sardinian, in the territories where they are spoken.
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