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Language Family

Romance

Eurasian Language Families

Romance is a branch of the Indo-European language family descended from Vulgar Latin, the spoken form of Latin used across the Roman Empire. Its major members, including Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian and Romanian, are together spoken natively by roughly 900 million people worldwide, making Romance one of the most widely spoken branches of Indo-European.

Facts
Region
Worldwide, chiefly the Americas, Europe and parts of Africa, originating in continental Western Europe under the former Western Roman Empire. 2
Speaker Count
900,000,000 2
Proto-Language Status
Not a reconstructed proto-language in the usual comparative sense: the Romance languages descend directly from Vulgar Latin, a directly attested spoken register of Latin, rather than from an unattested common ancestor inferred by the comparative method. 2
Browse and compare
Classification Confidence
Established 1
Reconstructed Ancestor
Reconstructed 2
Compare
Number of Languages
77 1
Romance
Filter Results2 entries

Eastern Romance

Romance

Western Romance

Romance
Connections

Ancestor Of

Eastern Romance, Language Families

Eastern Romance groups Romanian and the other Balkan Romance varieties east of the Spezia-Rimini isogloss line.

Western Romance, Language Families

Western Romance groups the Ibero-Romance, Gallo-Romance and Rhaeto-Romance languages west of the Spezia-Rimini isogloss line.

Associated With

Richard S. Kayne, Linguists

Descends From

Italic, Language Families

The Romance languages descend from Vulgar Latin, the spoken register of the Italic branch's Latino-Faliscan language.

Includes

Occitan, Languages
Source Occitan (Wikipedia)
Old French, Languages
Source Old French (Wikipedia)
In the Other Atlases

Includes

Franks

Also in Divinity Atlas: included in this subject.

French

Also in Divinity Atlas: included in this subject.

Italian

Also in Divinity Atlas: included in this subject.

Ladino

Also in Divinity Atlas: included in this subject.

Modern French

Also in Divinity Atlas: included in this subject.

Moriscos

Also in Divinity Atlas: included in this subject.

Old French

Also in Divinity Atlas: included in this subject.

Portuguese

Also in Divinity Atlas: included in this subject.

Spanish

Also in Divinity Atlas: included in this subject.

Found In

Africa

Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject is found.

Europe

Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject is found.

Western Europe

Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject is found.

Sources
1. Glottolog: Romance (languoid record)
Glottolog
  • Languoid record: child_language_count
    "child_language_count": 77
  • Languoid record: level and category
    "level": "family", "bookkeeping": false, "category": "Family"
View the Source
2. Wikipedia: Romance Languages
Wikimedia Foundation
  • Introduction, second paragraph
    There are more than 900 million native speakers of Romance languages found worldwide, mainly in the Americas, Europe, and parts of Africa.
  • Introduction, first paragraph
    The Romance languages, also known as the Latin languages, are the languages that directly descended from Vulgar Latin.
  • Infobox: protoname
    Proto-Romance
View the Source
Wikidata: Romance
Wikidata Q19814, class allow-list match (w-wdresolver-0926)View the Source
Occitan (Wikipedia)
Includes: Occitan, Lead
Quote, Includes: Occitan, Lead
is a Romance language spoken in southern France, Monaco, Italy's Occitan Valleys and the Val d'Aran in northeast Spain
View the Source
Old French (Wikipedia)
Includes: Old French, Lead
Quote, Includes: Old French, Lead
Old French was a group of Romance dialects
View the Source
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