Romance languages ​​in Europe

We know by the name of Romanic languajes to all the languages ​​that come from vulgar Latin, which, in turn, derives from the cult Latin that was spoken in the ancient Roman empire. For this reason, Romance languages ​​are also known by other names such as "Romance languages" or "Neo-Latin" languages. Vulgar Latin emerged in opposition to educated Latin, at a time when people who wrote educated Latin realized that they were speaking Vulgar Latin. From this "Latin of the vulgar or of the people" the different Romance languages ​​in Europe arise.

In this lesson from a TEACHER we will explain what are the romantic languages ​​in europe and we are going to present in a brief and concise way what are the characteristics that unite all these languages, in addition to their common origin in Vulgar Latin. Keep reading!

The Romanic languajes are all those languages ​​that derive from vulgar Latin and that are spoken in certain European countries. There is a term with which linguists refer to the set of geographical areas in which Romance languages ​​are spoken:

Romania, a linguistic name to mention all of Latin Europe; that is, those countries or regions in which the official language is one of the Romance languages, since in these areas geographical areas previously dominated Latin over the rest, thanks to the Romanization carried out during the expansion of the empire Roman.

Romania includes territories such as Portugal, Spain, France, Andorra, Italy, Monaco, San Marino, part of Switzerland, Malta and Slovenia, among other countries, and also some states of Belgium. Thus, we can say that Romania encompasses almost the entire southern part of the European continent.

The existence of various Romance languages ​​is mainly due to the different evolution that vulgar Latin underwent in each of the territories of Romania, which, being (some of them) so far between Yes, they evolved in different ways, which gave rise to the birth of the Romance languages ​​that today we know.

Another reason that justifies the wide variety of Romance languages ​​is the fact that, in each of the Romance territories, these languages they had to live with other languages from other Indo-European branches. For example, the Germanic languages ​​in areas such as France, Germany or Holland, which directly influenced French, the Romance language.

Also, in the case of Spanish, it has an enormous influence from the Arabic language, especially in relation to the lexicon. In this other lesson from a TEACHER we will discover the formation of Romance languages ​​in Spain.

Not all Romance languages ​​have the same status linguistic and socio-political, since some of them are official languages ​​of countries, as is the case of Spanish and French, and that, in addition, they are languages ​​that have a strong literary, cultural, economic, social and political tradition, along with linguistic normalization standardized.

Others, however, do not enjoy the same social importance, and are more reduced in terms of geographic territory and number of speakers are concerned, such as Sardinian or retro-romance.

The main Romance languages ​​of Europe are as follows:

• Portuguese
• The Spanish
• The Galician
• The Catalan
• Octane
• The French
• The Italian
• Romanian
• Sardinian
• The retro-romance

As well as all dialect variants of all the previous languages, such as the Italian dialects: Friulian, Sicilian, etc., or the Spanish: Aragonese or Leonese, among the most important historical dialects.

Of all the languages ​​that we have named above, those with the highest number of speakers are: Romanian, Italian, French, Spanish and Portuguese. However, the rest of the Romance languages ​​that we have mentioned are not less important but their use is reduced to a smaller number of speakers and to a more limited geographical territory.