Romanian language

Eastern Romance language, official of Romania

The Romanian language is a Romance language, meaning it comes from Latin like French, Spanish and Italian. It has 66% Latin-based words and 20% Slavic-based words. The rest are newer and come from Dacian, Turkish, Greek, or English. There are about 28 million speakers: 24 million who speak it as their mother tongue and 4 million who have learned it as their second language.

Romanian
Daco-Romanian
limba română
Native toRomania, Moldova, Transnistria (Disputed region)
Minority in:
Israel, Serbia, Ukraine, Hungary, diaspora in Italy, Spain, Scotland, Portugal and other parts of Western Europe
Native speakers
24 million (2007)[1]
Second language: 4 million[2]
Early form
Latin (Romanian alphabet)
Romanian Braille
Official status
Official language in
 Romania
 Moldova [3]
Vojvodina
 European Union
Recognised minority
language in
Regulated byAcademia Română
Academy of Sciences of Moldova
Language codes
ISO 639-1ro
ISO 639-2rum (B)
ron (T)
ISO 639-3ron
Linguasphere51-AAD-c (varieties: 51-AAD-ca to -ck)
Blue: region where Romanian is the dominant language. Green: areas with a notable minority of Romanian speakers.
Spoken Romanian

Romanian is also the most spoken language in Moldova, which is northeast of Romania. The Moldovan language is a kind of Romanian with certain differences, such as the dialect and a Moldavian accent.

References change

  1. Nationalencyklopedin "Världens 100 största språk 2007" The World's 100 Largest Languages in 2007
  2. Latin Union
  3. The constitution of the Republic of Moldova refers to the country's language as Moldovan rather than Romanian, though in practice it is often called "Romanian". The introduction of the law concerning the functioning of the languages (September 1989), still effective in the Republic of Moldova according to the Constitution,Parlament.md asserts the linguistic identity between the Romanian language and the Moldovan language. IATP.md