<P> Although over 17 million Americans are of Italian descent, only a little over one million people in the United States speak Italian at home . Nevertheless, an Italian language media market does exist in the country . On the other hand, although technology allows for the Italian language to spread globally, there has been a decrease in the number of Italian speakers in the United States . According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of Italian speakers in 1980 was 1,614,344 . In 1990, the number of Italian speakers in the United States dropped to 1,308,648 . In 2000, the number of speakers decreased to 1,008,370, and finally, in 2010, the number of Italian speakers plummeted to 725,223 . The percent change from 1980--2010 was a negative 55.2 . </P> <P> In Canada, Italian is the second most spoken non-official language when varieties of Chinese are not grouped together, with over 660,000 speakers (or about 2.1% of the population) according to the 2006 Census . </P> <P> In Australia, Italian is the second most spoken foreign language after Chinese, with 1.4% of the population speaking it as their home language . </P> <P> Italian immigrants to South America have also brought a presence of the language to that continent . Italian is the second most spoken language in Argentina after the official language of Spanish, with over 1 million (mainly of the older generation) speaking it at home, and Italian has also influenced the dialect of Spanish spoken in Argentina and Uruguay, mostly in phonology, as well as the Portuguese prosody of the Brazilian state of São Paulo which itself has 15 million Italian descendants . This form of Spanish is known as Rioplatense Spanish . Italian bilingual speakers can be found in the Southeast of Brazil as well as in the South . In Venezuela, Italian is the second most spoken language after Spanish, with around 200,000 speakers . Smaller Italian - speaking minorities on the continent are also found in Paraguay and Ecuador . </P>

When did italy switch from latin to italian