The only major Eastern Romance language — the official language of Romania and Moldova — descended from Vulgar Latin spoken in the Roman province of Dacia.
Where it’s spoken
Romanian is the official language of Romania and Moldova (where it has sometimes been called “Moldovan” for political reasons). Romanian-speaking minorities live in Serbia (Vojvodina), Ukraine, Hungary, and Israel. Major emigrant communities in Italy, Spain, Germany, and the United Kingdom number in the millions.
What it sounds like
Romanian preserved Latin’s case system to a remarkable degree (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, vocative) while developing post-posed definite articles attached to nouns — a Balkan areal feature shared with Bulgarian and Albanian. Romanian has the central vowels ă and î/â that other Romance languages lack.
How it’s written
Romanian uses the Latin alphabet with five additional letters: ă, â, î, ș, and ț. The shift from Cyrillic to Latin script was completed in the mid-19th century as part of Romania’s pivot toward Western Europe. Moldova switched back from Cyrillic to Latin in 1989.
History
Romanian inherited about 75% of its vocabulary from Latin but absorbed substantial Slavic, Greek, Turkish, and Hungarian loans. Its survival as a Romance island surrounded by Slavic, Hungarian, and Turkic neighbors is a remarkable case of linguistic continuity.
Find more languages by letter
Romanian starts with R and ends with N. Browse other languages along the same letter.
Languages that contain a letter from "Romanian":