Romanian | |
---|---|
Daco-Romanian | |
limba română | |
Native to | Romania, 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 | ![]() ![]() Vojvodina ![]() |
Recognised minority language in | |
Regulated by | Academia Română Academy of Sciences of Moldova |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-1 | ro |
ISO 639-2 | rum (B) ron (T) |
ISO 639-3 | ron |
Linguasphere | 51-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. |
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 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.