Here's a breakdown:
* Indo-European: A large language family encompassing many languages spoken across Europe, Asia, and parts of the Americas.
* Romance: A branch of Indo-European languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin, the spoken language of the Roman Empire.
* Italian: One of the Romance languages, specifically descended from the Latin spoken in the Italian peninsula.
So, Italian is a descendant of Latin, which itself is part of the Indo-European language family. This means Italian shares a common ancestor with many other languages across the world, including English, Spanish, French, German, Hindi, and Russian.