Romanian language in Serbia

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The Romanian language is widely spoken in Serbia. This country hosts large native Romanian-speaking populations, which can be divided into the ethnic Romanians in the autonomous region of Vojvodina and the Romanian^[1]/Vlachs of the Timok Valley, a geographical region in Central Serbia. The former speak the Banat Romanian, identify as Romanians and have full rights within the autonomous region. Romanian is one of the six officially recognized languages of Vojvodina. Romanian/Vlachs speak archaic varieties of the Banat and Oltenian Romanian. Some of the members of community do not identify as Romanians^[2] and their language is not recognized as Romanian within Serbia. A "Vlach language" has gone under attempted standardization in the country, using a Cyrillic alphabet. This has been criticized in Romania, and attempts to bring Romanian-language resources and education to the Timok Vlachs have been blocked by the Serbian authorities.

In January 2020, the Romanian Academy and the Academy of Sciences of Moldova issued a joint "Declaration on Unity of Romanian Language" condemning any attempts which has the aim politicisation of the Romanian language.^[3] In February 2020, the Romanian Academy made an appeal to the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts to contribute to the "normalisation of the exposed situation" regarding attempts to politicize the Romanian language in Serbia.^[4]