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Romance languages

From Vikidia, the encyclopedia for 8 to 13-year-old children that everybody can make better
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Romance languages in the world:
BlueFrench
GreenSpanish
OrangePortuguese
YellowItalian
RedRomanian
Lighter colors mean that the language is not official, but important

The Romance languages are a language family in the Indo-European languages. They started from Vulgar Latin. The biggest Romance languages are Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Romanian, and Catalan. They are called "romance languages" because they originate from a language spoken by Romans.

The area where the Romance languages are spoken in Europe, corresponds well with the extent of the Western Roman Empire. The Greek language superseded Latin in the Eastern Roman Empire, but Latin survived in Romania, whose language, Romanian, is a Romance language.

Demographics[edit | edit source]

Percentage of speakers of each Romance language, out of the total speakers of all the Romance languages

The Romance language family is one of the biggest in the world, and in total there is almost a billion first and second language speakers .

Spanish is the widest used Romance language, then comes Portuguese, and then French.

Spanish is mainly spoken in Spain and Latin America. Portuguese is mostly used/spoken in Brazil, Portugal and parts of Africa. French is spoken in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, and in some areas of Africa.

List of Romance languages[edit | edit source]

Eastern Romance[edit | edit source]

Italo-Western Romance[edit | edit source]

Italo-Dalmatian[edit | edit source]

Western Romance languages[edit | edit source]

Gallo-Iberian languages[edit | edit source]
Gallo-Romance languages[edit | edit source]
Iberian Romance languages[edit | edit source]
Pyrenean-Mozarabic languages[edit | edit source]

Other[edit | edit source]

Family tree of Romance languages[edit | edit source]

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Latin
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Classical Latin
 
 
 
Vulgar Latin
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Continental Romance
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Sardinian dialects
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Italo-Western Romance
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Eastern Romance
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Western Romance
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Italo-Dalmatian
 
 
 
 
 
Balkan Romance
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Ibero-Romance
 
 
 
 
 
Gallo-Romance
 
Sicilian
 
Italian
 
Neapolitan
 
Proto-Romanian
 
Albanian words
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Portuguese
 
Spanish
 
French
 
Occitano Romance
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Romanian
 
Aromanian
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Occitan
 
Catalan

Other websites[edit | edit source]