The Italian Consulates and Cultural Institutes in the USA have designed a rich calendar of events to celebrate both the 11th week of the Italian language and the 150th anniversary of the Unification of Italy.


From Washington to Los Angeles, from Houston to San Francisco: the 11th Week of the Italian Language in the World (October 17-21, 2011), which this year is titled “Buon Compleanno Italia!” (“Happy Birthday Italy!”), features a program full of events to be held here in the United States.

The Italian Embassy [2], together with all the Consulates and Cultural Institutes located on American territory, created an intense calendar of events, including, in concomitance with the anniversary of the 150 Years of the Italian Unification, the introduction of Advanced Placement Program (AP) courses of Italian language and culture that will allow the students of American schools to obtain recognized, university level credits, thanks to the initiative of the Italian Government and the financial support of the Italian-American community.


This year, the Week of the Italian Language in the USA arrives also on the web with two initiatives created entirely for students and teachers: the new website of the Osservatorio sulla Lingua Italiana, US Speaks Italian (www.usspeaksitalian.org [3]) is aimed, within the AP program, at helping students, parents and teachers interact and be informed, while the new interactive portal Italy4Kids, was created by the Italian Embassy to provide young Americans, ages 5 to 18, with information on our country and on learning the language in the schools of Italian.


“Learning Italian is getting more popular in the United States,” declared the Italian Ambassador in Washington, Giulio Terzi di Sant’Agata as he was unveiling the American program. The data is very positive: “according to the statistics of the Modern Language Association – continued Ambassador Terzi – between 1998 and 2009 the number of students of Italian in the American Universities has raised about 60%, and has exceeded 80 thousand, meanwhile the number of high school graduates that learn Italian has gone up from 65 thousand to 78 thousand between 2004 and 2008.”


The list of the main events is available on the Embassy’s website: www.ambwashingtondc.esteri.it [4]