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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
Practices in language education vary significantly by...
- Sardinian
Non-native speaker of the Nuorese dialect of Siniscola....
- Classification
Another common classification begins by splitting the...
- Romance linguistics
Romance languages have a number of shared features across...
- 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.
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The Romance languages (also sometimes called Romanic languages) are a language family in the Indo-European languages. They started from Vulgar Latin (in Latin, "vulgar" is the word for "common" and so "Vulgar Latin" means "Common Latin"). The most spoken Romance languages are Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian and Romanian .
Romance languages - Latin, Development, Dialects: Latin is traditionally grouped with Faliscan among the Italic languages, of which the other main member is the Osco-Umbrian group. Oscan was the name given by the Romans to a group of dialects spoken by Samnite tribes to the south of Rome. It is well attested in inscriptions and texts for about five centuries before the Common Era and was used ...
The five most widely spoken Romance languages by number of native speakers are Spanish (489 million), Portuguese (240 million), French (80 million), Italian (67 million) and Romanian (24 million), which are all national languages of their respective countries of origin. There are more than 900 million native speakers of Romance languages found ...
