| Languages of Vatican City | |
|---|---|
 Inscription inItalian over the entrance to the Vatican Museums. | |
| Official | Italian,Latin |
Vatican City usesItalian in its official documents and as its main working language. However, many other languages are also used by institutions situated within the state, such as theHoly See and theSwiss Guard, as well as personally by its diverse population.
During theRoman Empire,Latin was the language spoken in the area corresponding to the present Vatican City. The subsequentPapal States also used Latin for official purposes during the first centuries of their existence. In 1870, the area became part of theKingdom of Italy, whose official language was Italian.
In 1929, theLateran Treaty established Vatican City as an independent state. TheFundamental Law of Vatican City State does not establish an official language, but its laws are published in Italian in a supplement to theActa Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See), which is mainly in Latin.
Since the state came into existence in 1929, most of the buildings situated within it predated it by centuries. Inscriptions can be found in them mainly in Latin, but also in Italian,Greek,French andGerman.[1][better source needed]
Many languages are spoken within the state, as its inhabitants come from many countries.Italian is thelingua franca of the Vatican and replaced Latin as the official language of theSynod of Bishops in 2014.[2] The Holy See, the entity with authority over the state (yet legally distinct), uses Latin as its official language and Italian as its main working language in administrative and diplomatic affairs. French is also sometimes used as a diplomatic language. In the Swiss Guard,Swiss German is the language used for giving commands, but the individual guards take their oath of loyalty in their own languages: German, French, Italian orRomansh.
Since the state was established, thenative languages of thepopes have beenItalian,Polish,German,Spanish, andEnglish.
The official website of Vatican City is in Italian.[3] Previous versions of the website were also available in English, French, German and Spanish.[4]
The official website of the Holy See is primarily in Italian, with versions in English, French, German,Portuguese and Spanish, and partial versions inArabic,Chinese and Latin.[5] Some content is also available in many other languages, such asAlbanian,Belarusian,Croatian,Czech,Dutch,Hebrew,Hungarian,Indonesian,Japanese,Korean,Lithuanian,Maltese,Polish,Russian,Slovak,Slovene,Swahili andUkrainian.[6][7]
The Holy See's newspaperL'Osservatore Romano is published in Italian, English, French, German, Polish, Portuguese and Spanish.[8] TheVatican News website is available in many languages: Albanian,Amharic, Arabic,Armenian, Belarusian,Bulgarian, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, English,Esperanto, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean,Latvian, Lithuanian,Hindi, Hungarian,Kannada,Malayalam,Macedonian, Polish, Portuguese,Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Slovene, Spanish, Swahili,Swedish,Tamil,Tigrinya, Ukrainian andVietnamese.[9]
