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Number of native speakers of each Romance language, as fractions of the total 690 million (2007) The Romance language most widely spoken natively today is Spanish, followed by Portuguese, French, Italian and Romanian, which together cover a vast territory in Europe and beyond, and work as official and national languages in dozens of countries.
- Modern Languages
A modern language is any human language that is currently in...
- Sardinian
Non-native speaker of the Nuorese dialect of Siniscola....
- Modern Languages
- Overview
- Origins and distribution
The Romance languages are a group of related languages all derived from Vulgar Latin within historical times and forming a subgroup of the Italic branch of the Indo-European language family. The major languages of the family include French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanian.
How did the Romance languages get their name?
Contrary to a popular belief that the Romance languages are so named because they are the languages of love, the word Romance indicates the connection of these languages with Rome. The English word comes from an Old French form of Latin Romanicus, used to designate a vernacular type of Latin speech and literature.
Why are the Romance languages gendered?
Grammatical gender is used as a way to classify all nouns within a language. Latin originally had a five-case declensional system to classify nouns, but all modern Romance languages have replaced those endings with a two-gender system in which the masculine stems from Latin’s second (-us) declension endings and the feminine from first (-a) declension endings.
How many Romance languages are there?
The name Romance indeed suggests the ultimate connection of these languages with Rome: the English word is derived from an Old French form of Latin Romanicus, used in the Middle Ages to designate a vernacular type of Latin speech (as distinct from the more learned form used by clerics) as well as literature written in the vernacular. The fact that the Romance languages share features not found in contemporary Latin textbooks suggests, however, that the version of Latin they continue is not identical with that of Classical Latin as known from literature. Nonetheless, although it is sometimes claimed that the other Italic languages (the Indo-European language group to which Latin belonged, spoken in Italy) did contribute features to Romance, it is fairly certain that it is specifically Latin itself, perhaps in a popular form, that is the precursor of the Romance languages.
By the beginning of the 21st century, some 920 million people claimed a Romance language as their mother tongue, 300 million people as a second language. To that number may be added the not-inconsiderable number of Romance creole speakers (a creole is a simplified or pidgin form of a language that has become the native language of a community) scattered around the world. French creoles are spoken by millions of people in the West Indies, North America, and islands of the Indian Ocean (e.g., Mauritius, Réunion, Rodrigues Island, the Seychelles); Portuguese creoles are spoken in Cabo Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Sao Tome and Principe, India (especially the state of Goa and the union territory of Daman and Diu), and Malaysia; and Spanish creoles (including Palenquero and Chavacano, as well as Papiamentu [based on Portuguese but heavily influenced by Spanish]) are spoken in the West Indies and the Philippines. Many speakers use creole for informal purposes and the standard language for formal occasions. Romance languages are also used formally in some countries where one or more non-Romance languages are used by most speakers for everyday purposes. French, for example, is used alongside Arabic in Tunisia, Morocco, and Algeria, and it is an (or the) official language of 18 countries—Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, and Togo—on the continent of Africa and of Madagascar and several other islands off the coast of Africa. Portuguese is the official language of Angola, Cabo Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, and Sao Tome and Principe.
Although its influence has waned before the growing popularity of English as an international language, French is still widely used today as a second language in many parts of the world. The wealth of French literary tradition, its precisely formulated grammar bequeathed by 17th- and 18th-century grammarians, and the pride of the French in their language may ensure it a lasting importance among languages of the world. By virtue of the vast territories in which Spanish and Portuguese hold sway, those languages will continue to be of prime importance. Even though territorially it has comparatively little extension, the Italian language, associated with Italy’s great cultural heritage, is still popular with students.
Britannica Quiz
- Spanish. Spanish is the most spoken of the Romance languages, with around 75% of today’s Spanish vocabulary coming from Latin. After Mandarin Chinese, Spanish is the second most spoken native language worldwide.
- Portuguese. Portuguese is the main language spoken in Portugal and Brazil and shares lexical similarities with the Spanish language. Portuguese’s longest word has 29 letters.
- French. French is the third most spoken Romance language and the second most spoken language in Europe after German. Around 45% of the English vocabulary is derived from French.
- Italian. Because of its similarities in vocabulary and pronunciation, Italian is considered one of the closest languages to Latin. It became an official language in 1861, and while every region has its own dialect, the Italian standard is Tuscan.
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Feb 6, 2019 · Therefore, there isn’t full agreement as to exactly how many Romance languages there are. Ethnologue breaks the Romance languages down into 44 different languages. The most spoken Romance languages are Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian and Romanian, which combined are spoken by over 90 percent of those who speak a Romance language.
Aug 17, 2019 · The word romance connotes love and wooing, but when it has a capital R, as in Romance languages, it probably refers to a set of languages based on Latin, the language of the ancient Romans. Latin was the language of the Roman Empire , but the classical Latin that was written by literati like Cicero was not the language of daily life.
The major Romance languages— French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and Romanian —are national languages. French is probably the most internationally significant, but Spanish, the official language of 19 American countries and Spain and Equatorial Guinea, has the most speakers. Languages spoken in smaller areas include Catalan, Occitan ...
Dec 19, 2017 · What are the Romance Languages? Approximately 800 million people around the world are native speakers of Romantic languages. Also referred to as Latin or Neo-Latin languages, the Romanic languages are the modern languages that have evolved between the 6th and 9th centuries from Vulgar Latin.
