This chapter is an overview of the "state of the Italian language," exploring where Italian is spoken outside of the country, and which languages other than Italian are spoken in Italy and how these languages impact Italian and the acquisition of Italian, particularly by the immigrant population. Special attention is given to the history of the interactions between Italian and the dialects of Italy, as well as changes in the sociolinguistic and morphosyntactic features of the Italian language over time that have resulted in a process of restandardization. That is, a significant number of features that diverge from the literary standard, but are widely accepted, are poised to be recognized as features of a new standard. This has triggered a debate by teachers of Italian (L1) over whether and how this new standard should be incorporated into language instruction. The final goal of this chapter is to extend this debate to the teaching of Italian as a foreign language in the United States. A selection of neostandard features are presented and discussed in terms of how and when they can be incorporated into the Italian language classroom and Italian textbooks. I argue that by eliminating the disconnect between the language being taught and the language spoken in Italy (which students are aware of), we refine and enhance students' linguistic and communicative competence.