The name of Venezuela itself comes from the Italian Amerigo Vespucci, who called the area "Little Venice" in a typical Italian expression. Some Italians participated in the first European colonies in Venezuela, mainly on the island of Margarita and in Cumaná, the first European city in the Americas, but their influence on the local language was very limited. During the Venezuelan Wars of Independence some Italians helped Simón Bolivar against the Spanish Empire and they brought some Italian military words to Venezuelan Spanish. The military officerAgostino Codazzi created the first "Atlante" of Venezuela and - as a consequence - many geographical words in Venezuela are loanwords from Italian. In the second half of the 20th century, more than 300,000 Italians moved to Venezuela and left their linguistic imprint on the local vocabulary: "Ciao" is now a usual friendly salute in Caracas, for example. There are even expressions among local young people that mix Italian and Spanish words: "Muérete que chao" is an example. Indeed after WWII came a huge emigration to Venezuela from Italy and the Italian language started to get importance in the country. The modisms of the upper class in Caracas are full of Italian words and expressions. Today, there are nearly 2 million Venezuelans with some Italian roots: some young Italo-Venezuelans in Caracas use slang mixing Italian dialect and Spanish among themselves. Nearly all the Italians speaking the Italian language in Venezuela live in the half of the country north of the Orinoco-Apure rivers, while only a few thousands live in the Ciudad Bolivar-Ciudad Guayana and San Felipe areas of the Apure-Amazonas-Bolivar states.
In the 2000s there are nearly 50,000 Italians residing in Venezuela who speak a variety of Italian with their sons and daughters. The teaching of the Italian language is starting to be better implemented among the nearly one million Venezuelans who are of Italian descent, but there are only a few Italian language institutions in Venezuela. Indeed, the Italian community has some private Italian schools in the country. In the metropolitan area of Caracas the best school is the "Agustin Codazzi" , while there are others in the interior of Venezuela. According to the Italian Embassy in Caracas the "...Italian language teaching is guaranteed by the presence of a consistent number of private Venezuelan schools and institutions, where Italian language courses and Italian literature are active. Other similar courses are organized and sponsored by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Associations.The Didactic Office of the General Consulate of Caracas, together with this Embassy, is negotiating an Agreement with the Venezuelan Authorities for the recognition of the Study Diplomas emitted by the Italian School so that there can be access to the University system in Venezuela with an Italian high school diploma.Since 2002, the Italian Government has become the promoter for a provision which makes it mandatory to teach Italian as a second language in a consistent number of public and private schools within Venezuela..."
