European extent of Romance languages in the 20th century Number of total speakers of each Romance language, as fractions of the total (2024). The influence of Romance languages stretches far and wide, even to English, the world’s modern lingua franca. Romance languages are widely regarded as the most romantic languages in the world. In contrast to the similarities between the Romance languages listed above, German and Mandarin—two languages of different families with entirely unique writing systems—couldn Romance stories are things that children are well aware of. We provide classes in Romance languages that help students develop linguistic abilities with an emphasis on real-world The major languages of the family include French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Romanian, all national languages. [11] Franco-Provençal in east-central France, western Switzerland and the Aosta Valley region of northwestern Italy. Students can choose to do the MA with a thesis or as a non-thesis MA degree. Which languages are Romance languages? The Romance language family includes approximately 43 different languages. Romance languages have a long and storied history. Every dollar given has a direct impact upon our students and faculty. This major is designed for students who are interested in developing skills Nov 10, 2023 · A list of romance languages usually begins with the major five: French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Romanian. Thus, majors in Romance Languages are able to take advantage of the rich course offerings and resources of our world-renowned language departments and learn from distinguished scholars in George S. Contrary to a popular belief that the Romance languages are so named because they are the languages of love, the word Romance indicates the connection of these languages with Rome. Oct 31, 2022 · 1. College: Arts and Sciences. 2022 Meet the World with Lexika Reading time: 3 min. 210 Herty Drive University of Georgia Athens, GA 30602-1815. Spanish, or "Español," is one of the most widely spoken romance languages, with over 460 million speakers worldwide. Stay Silent. Like Romanian, Catalan has kept many features from its Latin origins while incorporating elements from other European languages such as Arabic, French, Occitanian (Provencal), and Italian. The Romance languages, with their mellifluous cadences and rich literary traditions, provide a fascinating lens through which to examine the complexities of linguistic identity, evolution, and cultural influence. Emerging from the vernacular Latin once spoken by the Romans, these languages have traversed a multifaceted journey, branching out Western Romance languages are one of the two subdivisions of a proposed subdivision of the Romance languages based on the La Spezia–Rimini Line. Explore the cultural and linguistic diversity of Romance languages and their endangered status in the world. The Department of Romance Languages at Hunter College offers language, culture and literature courses in French, Italian, Spanish (the target languages and major fields), as well as literature and culture courses in English. [88] Aug 2, 2017 · Romance languages are the modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin, the colloquial language spoken in the Mediterranean region during and after the Roman Empire. Let's take a look at what many consider to be one of the world's most exotic romantic languages: Japanese. The PhD is offered in Romance Languages with a major in French, Italian, Portuguese, or Spanish literatures, or Hispanic Linguistics. Welcome to Romance Languages and Literatures. It offers a detailed structural treatment of . , Oscan humuns, Latin homines, and Gothic gumans ‘human beings’ derive from an Indo-European root that meant ‘earth’; and Oscan anamúm ‘mind Mar 31, 2022 · The five love languages are: Words of affirmation. However, the full list of Romance languages is actually Harvard University, Boylston Hall, 4th Floor, Cambridge, MA 02138 Phone: (617) 495-2546 Fax: (617) 496-4682 Email: rll@fas. This book is as an essential tool for both Romance linguists and general linguists which brings together leading recent international scholarship in individual Romance varieties and from different theoretical frameworks and approaches, showing how each may cast new and necessary light on the other. The second most common language in Europe, it is spoken in France, Switzerland, and Belgium, as well Romance languages have a number of shared features across all languages: Romance languages are moderately inflecting, i. 最初在 拉丁姆 ，直至整個 歐洲 ；現在還有 拉丁美洲 、 魁北克 和 西非 的很多地方。. So initially it might not be "kinda obvious" to many people. What are Romance languages: Latin or love? by Alison Maciejewski Cortez. On the whole, the vowels are clear and bell-like and articulation energetic and precise, though Portuguese and The series Manuals of Romance Linguistics (MRL) presents a comprehensive, state-of-the-art overview of Romance linguistics. Latin found itself alongside numerous languages of many diverse linguistic affiliations, necessarily giving rise to extensive bilingualism. May 17, 2023 · In conclusion, the Romance languages of French, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese are a captivating world waiting to be explored. 5K. Learn the Romance languages, and you’ll make your way across Europe with ease. With over 750 million global speakers, learning a Romance language opens doors in the global community. With its penchant for adopting foreign words, English is a prime example of Romance languages' influence. The most spoken Romance languages are Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian and Romanian . There are many levels of bilingualism and bi-cultural awareness that represent an expansion of a person's communicative potential. MA Degrees. Latin was the language of the Roman Empire , but the classical Latin that was written by literati like Cicero was not the language of daily life. Spanish. There are over 250 languages indigenous to Europe, and most belong to the Indo-European language family. 羅馬 語族 （Romance languages），又稱 羅曼語族 、 拉丁語族 ，屬於 印歐語系 義大利語族 ，是西元三至八世紀間從 通俗拉丁語 中衍生出来的現代 語族 ，主要包括 A major in any one of the Romance Languages offered at Hunter College (French, Italian, Spanish, or Romance Languages) is designed as an in-depth study of the spoken language, its written form, and the literature and civilizations of the people who speak it. There are linguistic boundaries called isoglosses that may date back to pre-Italic history: e. Phone: 706-542-1607. Whether you're drawn to the elegance of French, the global reach of Spanish, the artistic heritage of Italian, or the adventurous spirit Glottolog. It engages with new and original topics that reflect wider-ranging comparative concerns, such as the relation between diachrony and synchrony, morphosyntactic typology, pragmatic change, the structure of written Romance, and lexical stability. Spanish: The Language of Passion. Romance Languages faculty members specialize in aesthetics, gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, colonialism, diasporas and migration, collective memory, eco-criticism and Hispanic Linguistics including romance, literary form, usually characterized by its treatment of chivalry, that came into being in France in the mid-12th century. Of the many so-called families of world languages, the Romance group is The Department of Romance Languages and Literatures embraces multiple disciplinary and linguistic traditions reflecting the geographical range and theoretical diversity of our fields. Degree: BA. Galician is a Romance language derived from Vulgar Latin, belonging to the family of Ibero-Romance language varieties, and specifically, to the Galaico/Galician-Portuguese linguistic area. Physical touch. Login for Faculty, Staff and Students. Romanian is unlike any of its linguistic relatives in that it has evolved in an area in southeastern Europe that is predominated by Slavic—rather than other Romance—languages. 2. They started from Vulgar Latin (in Latin, "vulgar" is the word for "common" and so "Vulgar Latin" means "Common Latin"). Romance languages are the modern languages that evolved from Latin such as Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Romanian. Romance languages - Orthography, Grammar, Vocabulary: In the 21st century the Romance languages are all written in the Latin alphabet, with certain modifications, though until the mid-19th century Romanian was normally written in Cyrillic (used in Moldova until 1989), and, in the Middle Ages, Arabic script was Romance Studies. Oct 4, 2022 · Although English is a Germanic language, it has a deep connection to Romance languages. Facebook. Many students arrive at Ohio State with a desire to learn languages, and many already have a background in one or more Romance languages (Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian) or Latin. Spanish is a widely spoken language, mostly spoken in the Americas. harvard. Students are guided through the program by the graduate coordinator Jul 10, 2024 · This Cambridge History is the most comprehensive survey of the history of the Romance languages ever published in English. Click here to learn more about giving. The English word comes from an Old French form of Latin Romanicus, used to designate a vernacular type of Latin speech and Feb 12, 2015 · The Romance-language speaking world, with Romanian-speaking areas highlighted in red Differences between Romanian and other Romance languages. Romance Languages (2022 - 2024) Overview of the Major. Formerly thought of as a dialect of either the One language is designated as primary, in which students must take five (5) 4-credit courses; students complete the other 4 courses in the secondary language. As used in this phrase, romanice is a language related to the Romans—i. The communication, critical and creative thinking skills coupled with the global perspective that our program fosters, are invaluable to a variety of career paths such as business, law, education May 13, 2022 · To see languages that are closely related, we recommend diving into the world of language families, or groups of languages that all share the same mother language. , art history, business administration, economics, family and human services, history, international studies, journalism, music, or political science) find positions in communications media, government foreign service, international business and law ロマンス諸語 （ロマンスしょご）は、 インド・ヨーロッパ語族 イタリック語派 ラテン・ファリスク語群 に属する言語のうち、 ラテン語 の口語である 俗ラテン語 に起源をもつ 言語 の総称である。. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. They belong to the Indo-European language family together with Germanic, Slavic, Baltic languages, and are spoken by over 800 million French ( français, French: [fʁɑ̃sɛ], or langue française, French: [lɑ̃ɡ fʁɑ̃sɛːz], or by some speakers, French: [lɑ̃ŋ fʁɑ̃sɛ]) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. ロマン諸語 、 ロマンス語 、 ロマン語 とも言う Aug 29, 2023 · Romance Languages and Literatures Our curriculum spans the globe from Europe to North and South America and Africa to the Caribbean. [4] In Tuscan , Corsican , and some Rhaeto-Romance languages , the outcomes of /tj/ are more anterior (alveolar) affricates than the outcomes of /kj/ , whereas in other Romance languages - Classification, Problems, Methods: Though it is quite clear which languages can be classified as Romance, on the basis primarily of lexical (vocabulary) and morphological (structural) similarities, the subgrouping of the languages within the family is less straightforward. They are considered the most important because they are all official national languages. According to the classification of linguists such as Leonard (1980) and Agard (1984), the Southern Romance family is composed of Sardinian, Corsican, and the southern Lucanian dialects. All Romance languages derive from Vulgar Latin, a form of Late Latin spoken among groups of people, in contrast to Dec 13, 2022 · Romance Languages: Characteristics and Categorisation. FYI, love languages don’t just apply to romantic relationships. We will now explain each of the measures. From: Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics (Second Edition), 2006 Oct 5, 2013 · 2 The transition from Latin to the Romance languages; 3 Periodization; 4 Evidence and sources; 5 Koinésandscriptae; 6 Contact and borrowing; 7 The Romance languages in the Renaissance and after; 8 Geography and distribution of the Romance languages in Europe; 9 The sociology of the Romance languages; 10 Romance outside the Romània; 11 Creoles The Romance languages we teach (French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish) are spoken by hundreds of millions of people on all continents. The Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, the largest foreign language and literature department at the University of Notre Dame, houses a vigorous cohort of nationally and internationally recognized scholars with robust research profiles and publication records. More information about a doctorate in romance languages from University of Virginia Feb 6, 2019 · The Romance languages, despite comprising only one branch in the Indo-European language family, include some of the most influential languages in the Western world. Post. New! Try the gap-fill exercises (open in new window): Numbers 1-10 Numbers 11-20. Jul 10, 2024 · Today the Romance languages are spoken over much of Europe, central and southern Latin America and Quebec, as well as in the former French, Portuguese and Spanish colonies of many parts of Africa and, Asia. The Romance language most widely spoken natively today is Spanish, followed by Portuguese, French, Italian and Romanian, which together cover a vast territory in Europe and beyond, and work as official and national languages in dozens of countries. In comparison with Germanic languages, for instance, they seem musical and mellifluous—probably because of the relatively greater importance of vowels than consonants. The group, also called the Balkan Romance or Daco-Romance languages , [1] comprises the Romanian language (Daco-Romanian), the Aromanian language and two other related minor languages, Megleno-Romanian and Istro-Romanian . Combined, these five languages account for over 90% of all Romance language speakers. The most obvious difference between Latin and Romance is 8 Annual Graduates. The most popular Romance Languages are Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Romanian. Aug 17, 2019 · The word romance connotes love and wooing, but when it has a capital R, as in Romance languages, it probably refers to a set of languages based on Latin, the language of the ancient Romans. The Gallo-Romance group includes: The langues d'oïl include French, Orleanais, Gallo, Angevin, Tourangeau, Saintongeais, Poitevin, Bourguignon, Picard, Walloon, Lorrain and Norman. Catalan also has taken on a political and cultural significance. Romanian is a Romance language, belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European language family, having much in common with languages such as Italian, Spanish, French and Portuguese. Each language carries its own unique charm, history, and cultural significance. Culture. University of Virginia is a very large public university located in the small suburb of Charlottesville. Learn what Romance languages are, how they evolved from Latin, and which languages belong to this group. However, you can find its influence in many other regions of the world. By far, the most commonly spoken of all of the 40-some Romance languages are: Dec 9, 2021 · 13. The final language on our list takes us on a trip to Asia. Feb 12, 2021 · In Latin, the word Rōmānus means “Roman,” and it gave rise to the phrase romanice scriber or “to write in a Romance language. You can get a BA in French language and literature or a BA in Romance languages, combining French with Italian or Spanish. A definitive number is hard to pin down, as there’s ongoing debate around a few of the particular Romance languages - Syntax, Grammar, Vocabulary: Word order is the means most used by modern Romance languages to show the grammatical relationship between words; statistically the most-frequent order in statements is subject–verb–object. Click in the first row and drag left or right to change the order of the columns. Illustration created by Minna Sundberg, author of the webcomic Stand Still. In Portuguese, two can also be feminine: duas. We offer an MA in Romance Languages , with areas of emphasis in French, Italian, Portuguese, or a combination of Romance languages, and an MA in Spanish, with areas of emphasis in Hispanic Linguistics or Hispanic Studies. Mar 10, 2023 · Catalan is a Western Romance Language spoken primarily in Catalonia (Spain) as well as parts of France and Andorra. French, Spanish, Italian Sep 13, 2021 · The Romance language definition is a language that derives from Latin - usually vulgar Latin. BA in French. edu Mar 2, 2023 · A Romance language is any language within the Romance grouping of languages. g. While the English language has certainly been influenced by Latin , and has borrowed many of its linguistic markers, it principally evolved from Anglo-Saxon dialects that came to Britain from Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands in the fifth to seventh May 1, 2024 · As a major or minor you will gain skills in interpretation and analysis, emotional and artistic sensitivity, primary source research, and become familiar with a rich range of human creativity. In many of the Romance languages, interrogation can be shown by inversion of the subject and verb, placing the verb, as the element on which the When learning an additional language, we should strive for and expect to move beyond monolingualism in incremental steps of skill and perception. In each table, the columns can be re-arranged to change the order of the languages and there is also the option to hide or show languages. Department of Romance Languages. lexical, phonetic and syntactic. Students may choose the thesis or non-thesis degree. Quality time. Acts of service. Among the more important Romance languages are Catalan, French, Italian, Portuguese, Occitan, Rhaeto-Romanic, Romanian, and Spanish. We teach seven languages: Basque, Catalan, French, Haitian Kreyol, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. Members of our faculty also have an impressive record of securing Italic languages - Romance, Latin, Indo-European: Lexical comparison leads to more specific data about the history of the Italic languages. 2019年8月17日に更新. Special focus is placed on the presentation and analysis of the Due to definitional problems, the exact number is disputed. The Normans spoke a dialect of Old French, and the comingling of Norman French and Old English resulted in Middle English, a language that reflects aspects of both The Eastern Romance languages are a group of Romance languages. Today, there are estimated to be over 400 million French speakers around the globe. Feb 20, 2024 · The influence of Romance languages on other languages. A significant portion (up to 60%!) of its vocabulary actually comes from Romanian (limba română) Romanian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Romania, Moldova and Transnistria. Requirements for the MA degree in Romance Languages with a Master’s thesis: 33 total credit hours—9 courses plus 6 credit hours for the thesis requirement, MA exams, and an oral thesis defense and demonstrated knowledge of another Romance language. And you can also double-major in hundreds of other UO degree programs. They are today more commonly separated into West Iberian and Occitano-Romance language groups. The study of Romance Languages develops global competencies Rocket Languages: Online language courses that are Simple, Powerful and Effective. The program of study must include at least 12 credit hours of courses open only to graduate Feb 9, 2022 · Learning materials. It had antecedents in many prose works from classical antiquity (the so-called Greek romances), but as a distinctive genre it was developed in the context of the aristocratic courts of such patrons as Eleanor of Sep 5, 1996 · In this comprehensive survey Rebecca Posner, a distinguished Romance specialist, examines this group of languages from a wide variety of perspectives. Romance Languages Vocabulary: Numbers. Trends in spoken Latin altered or dismantled older categories in When learning an additional language, we should strive for and expect to move beyond monolingualism in incremental steps of skill and perception. there is a moderately complex system of affixes (primarily suffixes) that are attached to word roots to convey grammatical information such as number, gender, person, tense, etc. They can be Romance Languages. Our configurations for undergraduate study include majors and Jan 20, 2019 · Latin languages are the languages that originated from the evolution of Latin. What are the Romance Languages and why is linguistic diversity so French. 罗曼语族. Lane Douglas Q. Known for its passionate intonation and rich cultural heritage, Spanish originated in the Iberian Peninsula and later spread across Latin America and beyond. Gallo-Italic may also be included. Receiving gifts. Dating and romance stories are very common and very pervasive. Our degrees include the undergraduate major and Masters degrees in French, Italian and Spanish. Feb 15, 2023 · The Romance languages are a group of related languages descended from Latin, the language of the ancient Romans. ラテン語は ローマ帝国の Notre Dame’s Department of Romance Languages and Literatures offers undergraduate programs in French, Italian, Portuguese, Romance Languages, and Spanish; and graduate programs in French and Francophone Studies, Iberian and Latin American Studies, and Italian Studies. ”. The Romance languages (also sometimes called Romanic languages) are a language family in the Indo-European languages. The spread of some Romance languages to other parts of the world irisphoto2/ゲッティイメージズ. sout3158. It will comprise approximately 60 volumes that can either be consulted individually or used as a series of books providing a detailed overall picture of the current state of research in Romance linguistics. This family of five languages—Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, and Romanian—all share common roots in Latin, and the family gets its name from the Roman empire. Adams. We also offer a Romance Romance languages - Grammar, Dialects, Vocabulary: Item for item, the Romance languages all appear grammatically close to Latin and to each other: superficial resemblances in individual expressions may, however, mask differences of content and construction that are difficult to describe. Ti Alkire and Carol Rosen trace the changes that led from colloquial Latin to five major Romance languages, those which ultimately became national or transnational languages: Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Romanian. ロマンスという言葉は愛と懇願を意味しますが、ロマンス諸語のように大文字のRが付いている場合は、おそらく古代ローマの言語であるラテン語に基づく一連の言語を指します。. Oct 5, 2021 · The Romance language family includes Spanish, French, Italian, and Portuguese, but there are many more—even within Spain, France, Italy, and Portugal! Others include Asturian, spoken in the very north of Spain; Sicilian, spoken in Sicily; Occitan, spoken in France; and Ladino, also called Judeo-Spanish, which is spoken by some of the Students seeking the MA in Romance Languages may choose an emphasis in French, Italian (must be in combination with another language), Portuguese, Spanish, Romance Linguistics, or a combination of two or more languages. The Romance languages major requires a total of 36 points distributed between two languages, with 20 points taken in the primary language and 16 points taken in the secondary language. French is one of the most popular Romance languages for learners and is typically known as “the language of love” because of its melodic intonations. Other popular Romance languages include: Catalan, Galacian, Sardinian, Walloon, and Provençal. May 1, 2023 · Within each of the three language families, linguistic distances were measured for all pairs of the five (Germanic, Romance) or six (Slavic) stimulus languages used in the project (35 language combinations in all). E-mail Contacts. Her analysis combines philological expertise with insights drawn from modern theoretical linguistics, both synchronic and diachronic. French evolved from Gallo-Romance, the Latin spoken in Gaul Documentary sources for spoken Latin show the beginnings of this process, which comes to full fruition in the medieval emergence of written Romance languages. Most classifications are, overtly or covertly, historico-geographic—so that Spanish and Portuguese Another common classification begins by splitting the Romance languages into two main branches, East and West. Verbs have much more inflection than nouns. These languages are none other than Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, or Romanian, to mention just the mo. [88] Compared with the other Romance languages, the closest relative of Romanian is Italian. University of Virginia - Main Campus is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a doctor's degree in romance languages. Graduate students are mentored in the advanced study of linguistics, literature and culture while they benefit from rigorous training in foreign language These tables include vocabulary words side-by-side in French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese so that you can learn these four Romance languages together. The three largest phyla of the Indo-European language family in Europe are Romance, Germanic, and Slavic; they All Romance languages reflect the palatalization of Latin /tj kj/, which can be reconstructed as developing into affricates and later, in some languages, into fricatives. They make up nearly ninety percent of the total speakers. Recent undergraduate courses include offerings focused on shipwrecks, graphic novels, street art, Francophone African music, and French film. Published on February 9, 2022 / Updated on February 14, 2024. Also called Romanic, they are spoken by about 670 million people in many parts of the world, but chiefly in Europe and the Western Hemisphere. So it comes as no surprise that Spanish is the most spoken of the Romance languages. The roots of this connection trace back to the Conquest of England by the Normans in 1066. These languages share many commonalities and are spoken by hundreds of millions of people around Jul 19, 2023 · 1. [1] Jul 10, 2024 · The Romance languages and dialects constitute a treasure trove of linguistic data of profound interest and significance. When much later we hear "romance language", the word romance still has connotations of dating and romance. Here we have a comparison of the most spoken latin languages around the world, Jun 21, 2021 · The official Romance languages aren't the only romantic languages, however. The timeline of courses in Spanish, Italian and French stretches from the Middle Ages to present day through the exploration of literature, linguistics, film and cultural studies. Other countries with a significant number of Romanian speakers include Serbia, Ukraine, Hungary, Italy, Spain, Germany, Russian, Israel, the USA and Canada. Apr 18, 2020 · Romance languages are those with roots traced back to the language of the Roman Empire, which was Latin. This major prepares students for a variety of career opportunities. The East group includes Romanian, the languages of Corsica and Sardinia, [9] and all languages of Italy south of a line through the cities of Rimini and La Spezia (see La Spezia–Rimini Line ). e. , a language descended from the Vulgar (or “common”) Latin spoken throughout the expansive Roman Empire. The Iberian Romance, Ibero-Romance [3] or sometimes Iberian languages [note 1] are a group of Romance languages that developed on the Iberian Peninsula, an area consisting primarily of Spain, Portugal, Gibraltar, Andorra and southern France. These languages include Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, and Catalan. Oct 28, 2022 · So, romance stories got their name from the language they were originally shared in—which got its name from the Roman empire. Data from the Romance languages have contributed extensively to our current empirical and theoretical understanding of phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, sociolinguistics, and historical linguistics. Distances were computed at three linguistic levels, viz. Campus: Columbus. Dominik Parajka 13. They include the Gallo-Romance, Occitano-Romance (sometimes included in one of the two other branches) and Iberian Romance branches. Aug 9, 1990 · It has detailed chapters about the Romance languages in general, then Latin, and all the major national and regional Romance languages, including separate chapters on Catalan, Occitan, Sardinian, and one on the Rhaeto-Romance languages, as well as the more obvious languages like Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, and Romanian. This book newly distills the facts into an appealing program of study, including exercises, and makes the difficult issues clear, taking well motivated and sometimes innovative stands. Sardinia as part of the Southern Romance group in Europe. "Romance language" doesn't really come up that much. The degree in Romance languages combines the study of two of the languages we teach. Students in Romance Languages acquire advanced and superior levels of second-language literacy—listening, speaking, interacting, reading, and writing — that provide an increased awareness of the crucial role communication skills play in navigating the global landscape of society. In all four languages, one can be feminine: une, una, una, uma. [1] [2] Out of a total European population of 744 million as of 2018, some 94% are native speakers of an Indo-European language. The Japanese language contains huge expressive potential and complex levels of politeness. For native English speakers, learning Spanish is relatively easy. They’re spoken both in a large part of Europe and throughout North and South America. What are the Romance Languages and why is linguistic diversity so Romance languages - Latin, Indo-European, Dialects: As a group, the Romance languages share many characteristics. In a way, the Roman Empire “lives on” today through the nearly 1 billion people around the world that speak one of the Romance languages as their native language. Romance languages majors, especially those who have a second major in another discipline (e. Jan 1, 2010 · Romance Languages: A Historical Introduction. The Southern Romance languages are a primary branch of the Romance languages . In fact After Mandarin, Spanish is the second most spoken native language worldwide. One key difference between Catalan and The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. 12. But the most widely spoken are the five major Romance languages of Spanish (538 million speakers globally), French (277 million), Portuguese (252 million), Italian (68 million), and Romanian (25 million), all of which have national language status. en pj us rc mp hg da fw fd hl