Italian is Milan's official language, spoken by everyone. As a popular international tourist destination, you may well find that in many restaurants, bars and hotels English is spoken.
Local Milanese people also speak their own dialect, part of the Lombard language of northern Italy which has been recognised as an endangered language by UNESCO. The Lombard variety with the oldest literary tradition, dating back to the 13th century, is the Milanese. However, due to the influence of immigrants from other parts of Italy - especially Apulia, Sicily and Campania - during the fast industrialization after the Second World War, it is rarely spoken now in the city, even if around two million people speak it in the metropolitan area. It is characterised by the pronunciation of some words in a similar way to German and French.
