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Romance languages
Direct descendants of Vulgar Latin / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Romance languages, also known as the Latin[1] or Neo-Latin[2] languages, are the languages that are directly descended from Vulgar Latin.[3] They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic branch of the Indo-European language family.
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Romance | |
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Latin/Neo-Latin | |
Geographic distribution | Originated in Old Latium on the Italian peninsula, now spoken in Latin Europe (parts of Eastern Europe, Southern Europe, and Western Europe) and Latin America (a majority of the countries of Central America and South America), as well as parts of Africa (Latin Africa), Asia, and Oceania. |
Linguistic classification | Indo-European
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Early forms | |
Proto-language | Proto-Romance |
Subdivisions | |
ISO 639-2 / 5 | roa |
Linguasphere | 51- (phylozone) |
Glottolog | roma1334 |
![]() Romance languages in Europe | |
![]() The Romance-speaking world Majority native language
Co-official and majority native language
Official but minority native language
Cultural or secondary language |
The five most widely spoken Romance languages by number of total speakers are: Spanish (530 to 600 million), official in Spain and most of central and south America; French (320 to 500 million), official in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and French-speaking Africa and America; Portuguese (280 million), official in Portugal, Brazil and Portuguese-speaking Africa;[4] Italian (71 million), official in Italy, Vatican City, San Marino and Switzerland; and Romanian (30 million), official in Romania and Moldova.[5] There are also numerous regional Romance languages and dialects.