Romance languages

The Romance languages, often called the Latin languages, are those that evolved directly from Vulgar Latin. They form the only living branch of the Italic group within the Indo-European language family. The best-known among them are Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, Romanian, and Catalan. The word "Romance" comes from the Vulgar Latin adverb *romanice*, meaning "in Roman," which was used in phrases like *romanice loqui* ("to speak in Roman," referring to the everyday Latin vernacular). This was set against *latine loqui* ("to speak in Latin," the formal, written version) and *barbarice loqui* ("to speak in Barbarian," for non-Latin languages outside the empire).

For centuries, most of the Romance-speaking regions of Europe formed a dialect continuum. In such a continuum, the speech of one location is only slightly different from its neighbor, but over a long distance, those differences accumulate until people from far-apart areas clearly speak distinct languages. This makes it hard to draw clear boundaries between languages, and mutual intelligibility alone is not always a reliable test. As a result, no single, unambiguous method exists for dividing Romance varieties into separate languages. The groupings below are not meant to be strict genetic clades in a family tree, but rather a practical way to organize the major branches, with only a few example languages listed for each:

- **Ibero-Romance:** Portuguese, Galician, Asturleonese (including Asturian, Leonese, and Mirandese), Spanish, Aragonese, Judaeo-Spanish, Mozarabic/Andalusi Romance (extinct since the late 13th century) - **Occitano-Romance:** Catalan (including Valencian), Occitan - **Gallo-Romance:** Oïl languages (including French), Franco-Provençal (also called Arpitan) - **Rhaeto-Romance:** Romansh, Ladin, Friulian - **Gallo-Italic:** Piedmontese, Ligurian, Lombard, Emilian, Romagnol - **Venetian** (classification disputed) - **Central Romance:** Italian (Tuscan, Corsican, Sassarese, Central Italian), Sicilian/Extreme Southern Italian, Neapolitan/Southern Italian, Dalmatian (extinct in 1898), Istriot - **Eastern Romance:** Daco-Romanian (Romanian), Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian, Istro-Romanian - **Southern Romance:** African (extinct since the Late Middle Ages), Sardinian (Campidanese, Logudorese) - **Southern Lucanian** (classification disputed)

Today, the Romance language with the most native speakers is Spanish, followed by Portuguese, French, Italian, and Romanian. These five languages are spoken across a vast area in Europe and beyond, serving as official or national languages in dozens of countries. Within Europe, at least one Romance language holds official status in France, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Romania, Moldova, Monaco, Andorra, San Marino, and Vatican City. In these nations, French, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, Romanian, Romansh, and Catalan are constitutionally recognized. French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Romanian are also official languages of the European Union. Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Romanian, and Catalan were once official in the now-defunct Latin Union, while French and Spanish are two of the six official languages of the United Nations. Outside Europe, French, Portuguese, and Spanish are widely spoken and hold official status in many countries that emerged from colonial empires.

Spanish, with nearly 500 million native speakers, is official in Spain, nine South American countries (home to about half the continent’s population), six Central American countries (all except Belize), and Mexico. In the Caribbean, it is official in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico. Across these regions, Latin American Spanish is the everyday language of the majority. In the United States, Spanish is a common language, especially among Hispanic and Latino communities, with over 45 million total speakers—second only to English. It is most widely spoken in the Southwestern states (California, Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico, where it has semi-official status), as well as in Southern Florida, Illinois, and New York. In Africa, Spanish is the main official language of Equatorial Guinea. It was an official language of the Philippines until 1973, and the current constitution lists it as "voluntary and optional."

Portuguese, in its homeland of Portugal, is spoken by nearly all of its 10 million residents. As the official language of Brazil, it is spoken by over 200 million people, making Portuguese the most widely spoken official Romance language in a single country. It is also spoken in neighboring eastern Paraguay and northern Uruguay, accounting for slightly more than half of South America’s population. Portuguese is the official language of six African countries: Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Equatorial Guinea, and São Tomé and Príncipe.