Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>This chapter reviews two interlocking themes that characterize the Italian language question, the questione della lingua, as it develops during the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: first, the way in which traditional thinking about language and culture relates to the emergence of the new discipline of linguistics; and second, the complex relation between language and dialect in the newly unified state of Italy. The thinking of Ascoli, Biondelli, Cesarotti, Leopardi, and Manzoni will be presented, and attention will be given to the nature of the debate between Manzoni and Ascoli. The significance of the questione della lingua for linguistics and linguistic theory is also considered.</jats:p>