I think Italy used to have different dialects for each region.Nowadays everyone in Italy learns the same language, so an American who learned Italian from their grandparents doesn't really speak the language as they do now in Italy. I had elderly relatives who knew Italian. When they visited Italy in the 70s and 80s they said it was as if they were speaking a different language from the younger people who grew up there.
Not true it’s still like that, although in schools they speak the proper Italian
