The Romance language group is a group of related languages that originates from Latin and forms a subgroup of the Italian branch of the Indo-European language family. The main languages of the family are French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Moldovan, Romanian and others.
Romance group of the Indo-European language family
Such a close resemblance of each of the Romance languages to Latin, as is now known from rich literature and continuous religious and scientific traditions, leaves no doubt as to their relationship. To the layman, the historical evidence is even more convincing than the linguistic evidence: the Roman occupation of Italy, the Iberian Peninsula, Gaul, and the Balkans explains the "Roman" character of the major Romance languages. Later there were European colonial and commercial contacts with parts of the Americas, Africa and Asia readily explaining French, Spanish and Portuguese in these regions.
Of all the so-called families of languages, Romancethe group is perhaps the simplest to define and the easiest to explain historically. Not only do the Romance languages have a significant proportion of a core vocabulary that is still recognizable in the same way despite some phonological changes, and a number of similar grammatical forms, they can be traced, with a slight break in continuity, to the language of the Roman Empire.
Spread of Romance languages in Europe
The name "Romance" does indicate the ultimate connection of these languages with Rome: the English word comes from the French form of Latin Romanicus, used in the Middle Ages to designate the language of Latin speech, as well as literature written in the vernacular. The fact that languages belonging to the Romance language group share features not found in contemporary Latin textbooks suggests, however, that the version of Latin is not the same as the version of Classical Latin known from the literature.
It is clear that it is Latin, perhaps in a popular form, that is the forerunner of the Romance languages. By the beginning of the 21st century, about 920 million people recognize the languages of the Romance language group as their native language, and 300 million people consider it a second language. A small number of Creole dialects can be added to this number. It is a simplified form of the language that has become native to many language communities around the world.
Due to the vast territories dominated by the Spanish andPortuguese, these languages will continue to be of paramount importance. Despite the fact that it has a relatively small geographical distribution, the Italian language, associated with the great cultural heritage of Italy, is still popular among students.
Peoples of the Romance language group
The official language of Switzerland is Romansh. Provençal or Occitan is the language of the indigenous people of Occitania, which is found in the south of France, as well as in some nearby areas of Spain and Italy, as well as in part of Monaco. Sardinian is spoken by people from the island of Sardinia (Italy). In addition to European Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Romania, the countries of the Romance language group are quite an impressive list.
Galician is the native language of the indigenous population of the historical region of Galicia, which is located in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula. About 11 million people speak Catalan or Valencian in Spain, France, Catalonia, Andorra and Italy. French Creole is spoken by millions of people in western India, North America and the Indian Ocean islands (e.g. Mauritius, Reunion, Rodrigues Island, Seychelles).
Portuguese Creoles are found in Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Sao Tome and Principe, India (especially the state of Goa and the union territory of Daman and Diu) and Malaysia. Spanish Creoles - in eastern India and the Philippines. Many speakers use the Creole dialect for informal purposes and the standard languagefor official occasions. Portuguese is the official language of Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Sao Toma and Principe.
French
Romance language group: which languages are included here? French is still widely used today as a second language in many parts of the world. The richness of the French literary tradition, its articulate grammar, bequeathed by the grammarians of the 17th and 18th centuries, and the pride of the French in their language may ensure its long-term importance among the languages of the world. Romance languages are also formally used in some countries where most speakers use them for everyday purposes.
For example, French is used alongside Arabic in Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria. It is the official language of 18 countries - Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Madagascar and several other islands off the coast of Africa.
Methods and tasks of classification
Although it is clear which languages can be classified as Romance languages, on the basis of predominantly lexical and morphological (structural) similarities, some subgroups of languages in the family cannot be called exactly similar. On the basis of several heterogeneous phonetic features, one theory argues that the division intodialects started early, with an eastern dialect (including central and southern Italy), developing popular traits and western speech areas while maintaining more literary standards.
Besides this, the indigenous languages and dialects later superimposed on Latin by the conquerors seem to have caused further divisions. Problems remain within such a scheme. Do dialect groups separate? Although the dialects found in Italy are closer to Italian, and the Swiss ones are closer to French. The Sardinian dialect is generally regarded as linguistically distinct, its isolation from the rest of the Roman Empire by incorporation into the Vandal realm in the mid-fifth century provides historical support for the thesis. The exact position in any classification is open to dispute.
The family tree classification is usually used for the Romance language group. If, however, the historical consideration of one phonetic feature is taken as the classification criterion for constructing the tree, the results differ. Classified according to the historical development of stressed vowels, French would be grouped with Northern Italian and Dalmatian, and Central Italian would be isolated. Classifications that are not based on family trees usually include ranking languages based on degree of differentiation rather than grouping.
Languages and dialects
What is a language, as opposed to a dialect? Much depends on how many people speak it today. A political definition of a language accepted as a standard by a nation or people,is the least ambiguous. Under this definition, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Romanian are definitely languages. Sicilian is distinct from northern and central Italian dialects, but in Italy all neighboring dialects are mutually intelligible, with the differences becoming more pronounced with geographical distance.
Many dialects also compete for "language" status based on written traditions or actively promoting their use in writing. Some linguists believe that Creoles are often distinct from their metropolitan counterparts. Many Romance dialects literally or practically ceased to exist in the 20th century, such as Dalmatian, which differs markedly from other Romance languages.
Characteristics of Classical Latin
The Romance language group includes many languages in European countries. In the past, Latin, in one form or another, was the everyday language of most sections of society. However, whether the Romance languages continue the rough peasant dialects of Latin or use more cultured urban communities remains an open question.
There are those who argue that the Latin used in each area became differentiated once the local population adopted the language of the conqueror for whatever purpose. According to this belief, Latin dialects are the result of multidirectional development, either through innovation in limited areas or through geographically limited retention of somefeatures.
Obviously, the Latin usage must have varied over a wide area, but the differences could simply be phonetic and lexical variations. On the other hand, they may have been deep enough to form the basis for further differentiation when administrative unity was lost. The latter hypothesis suggests a long period of bilingualism (perhaps up to 500 years), since linguistic interference between languages in contact rarely survives the bilingual stage.
Virtually nothing is known about the status of indigenous languages during the imperial period, and only vague contemporary references can be found to linguistic differences within the empire. It seems odd that none of the many Latin grammarians should have cited known linguistic facts, but the lack of evidence does not justify the claim that there was no real diversification during the imperial era.
What is certain is that, even if popular usage in the Roman Empire showed great diversification, it was imposed by a standard written language that retained a good degree of uniformity until the empire's administrative collapse. As for the speakers, they seemed to think that they were using Latin, although they realized that their language was not quite what it should be. Classical Latin was a different language, not just a more polished, cultured version of their own.
Language, religion andculture
With the spread of Christianity, Latin spread to new lands, and it may have been its pure cultivation in Ireland, from where it was exported to England, that paved the way for Charlemagne's language reform in the 8th century. Realizing that current Latin usage was not up to classical Latin standards, Charlemagne invited Alcuin of York, a scholar and grammarian, to his courtyard in Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen). There Alcuin remained from 782 to 796, inspiring and directing an intellectual renaissance.
Perhaps as a result of the revival of the so-called purer Latin, vernacular texts began to appear. In 813, shortly before the death of Charlemagne, the Council of Tours decreed that sermons should be delivered in rustic Roman to make them understandable to the parishioners. Latin remains the official language of the Roman Catholic Church. Only during the last half of the 20th century did church services begin to be held in the vernacular. As the language of science, Latin dominated until the 16th century, when, under the influence of the Reformation, emerging nationalism and the invention of the printing press, modern languages began to replace it.
Latin borrowings
Nevertheless, in the West, along with knowledge of Greek, knowledge of Latin remained the mark of an educated person for centuries, although in the middle of the 20th century the teaching of classical languages in schools was significantly reduced. The prestige of Rome was such that Latin borrowings can be found in almost all European languages, as well as in the Berber languages of North Africa,which retain a number of words, mostly agricultural terms, lost elsewhere.
In the Germanic languages, borrowed Latin words are mainly associated with trade and often reflect archaic forms. A very large number of Latin words in Albanian are part of the main vocabulary of the language and cover areas such as religion, although some of them may have been later borrowed from Romanian. In some cases, Latin words found in Albanian have not survived in any other part of the former Roman Empire. Greek and Slavic have relatively few Latin words, many of which are of an administrative or commercial nature.
