Romance languages
Modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin.[1] They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language family.
| Romance | |
|---|---|
| Geographic distribution | Originated in Old Latium, Southern, Western and Eastern Europe; now also spoken in a majority of the countries of the Americas, in parts of Africa and in parts of Southeast Asia and Oceania |
| Linguistic classification | Indo-European
|
Early forms | |
| Proto-language | Proto-Romance |
| Subdivisions | |
| ISO 639-2 / 5 | roa |
| Linguasphere | 51- (phylozone) |
| Glottolog | roma1334 |
 Romance languages in Europe | |
 Romance languages in the World Majority native language
Co-official and majority native language
Official but minority native language
Cultural or secondary language | |
| Part of a series on |
| Indo-European topics |
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The five most widely spoken Romance languages by number of native speakers are Spanish (489 million), Portuguese (283 million), French (77 million), Italian (67 million) and Romanian (24 million), which are all national languages of their respective countries of origin. By most measures, Sardinian and Italian are the least divergent languages from Latin, while French has changed the most.[2] However, all Romance languages are closer to each other than to classical Latin.[3][4]
There are more than 900 million native speakers of Romance languages found worldwide, mainly in the Americas, Europe, and parts of Africa. The major Romance languages also have many non-native speakers and are in widespread use as linguae francae.[5]
Because it is difficult to assign rigid categories to phenomena such as languages which exist on a continuum, estimates of the number of modern Romance languages vary. For example, Dalby lists 23, based on the criterion of mutual intelligibility. The following includes those and additional current, living languages, and one extinct language, Dalmatian:[6]
- Ibero-Romance: Portuguese, Galician, Asturleonese/Mirandese, Spanish, Aragonese, Ladino;
- Occitano-Romance: Catalan/Valencian, Occitan (lenga d'oc), Gascon (sometimes considered part of Occitan);
- Gallo-Romance: French/Oïl languages, Franco-Provençal (Arpitan);
- Rhaeto-Romance: Romansh, Ladin, Friulian;
- Gallo-Italic: Piedmontese, Ligurian, Lombard, Emilian, Romagnol;
- Venetian (classification disputed);
- Italo-Dalmatian: Italian (Tuscan, Corsican, Sassarese, Central Italian), Sicilian/Extreme Southern Italian, Neapolitan/Southern Italian, Dalmatian (extinct in 1898), Istriot;
- Eastern Romance: Romanian, Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian, Istro-Romanian;
- Sardinian.