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Romance Languages
*** Shopping-Tip: Romance Languages
Image:Map-Romance_Language_World.png Blue'''-French; '''Green'''-Spanish; '''Orange'''-Portuguese; '''Yellow'''-Italian; '''Red'''-Romanian.html" title="Meaning of 300px|right|thumb|''Romance languages'' in the World
'''Blue'''-French; '''Green'''-Spanish; '''Orange'''-Portuguese; '''Yellow'''-Italian; '''Red'''-Romanian">300px|right|thumb|''Romance languages'' in the World
'''Blue'''-French; '''Green'''-Spanish; '''Orange'''-Portuguese; '''Yellow'''-Italian; '''Red'''-Romanian
The '''Romance languages''', a major branch of the
Indo-European languages Indo-European language family, comprise all languages that descended from
Latin, the language of the
Roman Empire. The Romance languages have more than 600 million native speakers worldwide, mainly in the
Americas,
Europe, and
Africa; as well as in many smaller regions scattered through the world.
All Romance languages descend from
Vulgar Latin, the language of soldiers, settlers, and slaves of the
Roman Empire, which was substantially different from the
Classical Latin of the Roman literati. Between 200 BC and 100 AD, the expansion of the Empire, coupled with administrative and educational policies of Rome, made Vulgar Latin the dominant native language over a wide area spanning from the
Iberian Peninsula to the Western coast of the
Black Sea. During the Empire's decadence and after its collapse and fragmentation in 5th century, Vulgar Latin began to evolve independently within each local area, and eventually diverged into dozens of distinct languages. The oversea empires established by
Spanish Empire Spain,
Portuguese Empire Portugal and
French colonial empires France after the 15th century then spread Romance to the other continents — to such an extent that about 2/3 of all Romance speakers are now outside Europe.
In spite of multiple influences from pre-Roman languages and from later invasions, the
phonology,
morphology (linguistics) morphology,
lexicon, and
syntax of all Romance languages are predominantly derived from Vulgar Latin. As a result, the group shares a number of linguistic features that set it apart from other Indo-European branches. In particular, with only one or two exceptions, Romance languages have lost the
declension system of Classical Latin, and as a result have a relatively rigid
Subject Verb Object SVO sentence structure and make extensive use of
Adposition prepositions.
History
Vulgar Latin
There is very little documentary evidence about the nature of Vulgar Latin, and that little is often hard to interpret or generalize. In any case, many of its speakers were soldiers, slaves, displaced peoples, and forced resettlers — that is, more likely to be natives of the conquered lands than natives of Rome. It is believed that Vulgar Latin already had most of the features that are shared by all Romance languages and distinguish them from Classical Latin — such as the almost complete loss of the declension system and its replacement by prepositions, the loss of the
neuter gender, of comparative inflections, and of many verbal tenses, the use of articles, and the change in pronunciation of {{IPA|/k/}} and {{IPA|/g/}}.
Fall of the Empire
The political decadence of the Roman Empire in the 5th century and the large-scale migrations of the period, notably the
Germanic migrations Germanic incursions, led to a fragmentation of the Latin-speaking world into several independent states. Central Europe and the
Balkans were occupied by Germanic and
Slavic peoples Slavic tribes,
Huns, and
Turkic peoples Turks, isolating
Romania from the rest of Latin Europe. Latin also disappeared from
England, which had been for a time part of the Empire. On the other hand, the Germanic tribes that had entered
Italy,
France, and the
Iberian Peninsula eventually adopted Latin and the remains of Roman culture, and so Latin continued to be the dominant language in those areas.
Latent incubation
Between the 5th and 10th century, spoken Vulgar Latin underwent divergent evolution in various parts of its domain, leading to dozens of distinct languages. This evolution is poorly documented, since the written language for all purposes continued to be a Latin close to the Classical variant.
Recognition of the vernaculars
Between the 10th and 13th centuries, some local vernaculars came to be written, and began to supplant Latin in many of its roles. In some countries, such as Portugal, this transition was speeded up by force of law, whereas in other countries, such as Italy, the rise of the vernacular was the result of many prominent poets and writers adopting it as their medium.
Uniformization and standardization
The invention of the press apparently slowed down the evolution of Romance language from the 16th century on, and brought instead a tendency to uniformization of language within political boundaries. In France, for instance, the "Francien" spoken in the region of Paris gradually spread over the whole country, while the
Langue d'Oc and
Franco-Provençal language Franco-Provençal of the south lost much ground.
History of the name
The term "Romance" comes from the
Old French ''romance'' or ''romanz'', from Latin ''romanice'', the adverbial form of ''romanicus'', in expressions like ''parabolare romanice'' ("to speak in Roman"). Initially the "Roman language" would only refer to
Langue d'oïl, but it was eventually generalized by scholars to describe all languages derived from Latin.
Status
The most spoken Romance language is
Spanish language Spanish, followed by
Portuguese language Portuguese,
French language French,
Italian language Italian,
Romanian language Romanian and
Catalan language Catalan. These six languages are all main and official
national languages in more than one country each. A few other languages have official status on a regional or otherwise limited level, for instance
Sardinian language Sardinian and
Franco-Provençal language Valdôtain in Italy,
Romansh language Romansh in Switzerland,
Valencian language Valencian,
Galician language Galician, and
Aranese language Aranese in Spain.
The remaining Romance languages survive mostly as spoken languages for informal contact. National governments have historically viewed linguistic diversity as an economic, administrative, or military liability, and a potential source of
separatism separatist movements; therefore they have generally fought to eliminate it — by massively promoting the use of the official language, by restricting the use of the "other" languages in the media, by characterizing them as mere "dialects" — or worse.
In the last decades of the 20th century, however, increased sensibility to the rights of minorities have allowed those languages to recover some of their prestige and of their lost rights. However, it is not clear whether those political changes will be enough to reverse the decline of the non-official languages.
Linguistic features
Features inherited from Indo-European
As members of the Indo-European (IE) family, Romance languages have a number of features that are shared by other IE subfamiles (such as the
Celtic languages Celtic,
Germanic languages Germanic,
Slavic languages Slavic, and
Indo-Persian languages,
Albanian language Albanian,
Armenian language Armenian,
Greek language Greek,
Lithuanian language Lithuanian, etc.), and in particular with
English language English; but which set them apart from non-IE languages like
Arabic language Arabic,
Basque language Basque,
Hungarian language Hungarian,
Tamil language Tamil, and many more. These features include:
*Almost all their words are classified into four major classes —
nouns,
verbs,
adjectives, and
adverbs — each with a specific set of possible syntactic roles.
*They have a complex system of word
inflections to indicate syntactic relationships between words and to create derivative words in the same or in other classes.
*Inflection almost always consists in replacing a
suffix of the word, and each word has relatively small set of "suffix slots".
*They are
verb-centered; meaning that the basic
clause structure consists of a verb, expressing an action involving one or more nouns — the
verb argument arguments of the verb — that play specific semantic roles in the action and specific syntactic roles in the clause.
*The verb is inflected to indicate various aspects the action, such as time, completedness or continuation; and also according to the
grammatical person and
grammatical number of one of the arguments, the
subject (grammar) subject.
*The verb can be further modified by adverbs, or by additional nouns preceded by prepositions that indicate their semantic roles.
*Nouns are classified into several
grammatical genders and grammatical numbers.
*Adjectives are noun modifiers; each adjective is normally inflected so as to echo the gender and number of the noun it is attached to.
*Verbs are not inflected according to the gender of the subject (unlike Arabic and Hebrew, for example).
*
tone (linguistics) Tone (voice pitch) is used only at the sentence level, e.g. to indicate surprise or interrogation (unlike
Mandarin language Chinese and
Yorùbá language Yorùbá, for example, where pitch changes the meaning of words).
Features inherited from Latin
The Romance languages share a number of features that were inherited from Classical Latin, and collectively set them apart from most other Indo-European languages.
* They have lost the
dual (grammatical number) dual number (that still survives in
Greek language Greek, for example), retaining only
singular and
plural.
* They all have retained at least three of Latin's verbal tenses: present, e.g. ''DĪCIT'' "he says", past perfect ''DĪXIT'' "he said", past imperfect ''DĪCEBAT'' "he was saying".
* For each tense, there are usually six distinct verbal inflections, encoding each of the three persons (I, you, he/she/it) and two numbers (singular and plural) of the subject.
* They all had originally two
copula verbs, derived from the Latin ''STARE'' (mostly used for "temporary state") and ''ESSE'' (mostly used for "essential attributes"). However, the distinction was eventually lost in some languages, notably French, which now have only the first copula.
* All those languages are written with the "core"
Latin alphabet of 22 letters — ''A'', ''B'', ''C'', ''D'', ''E'', ''F'', ''G'', ''H'', ''I'', ''L'', ''M'', ''N'', ''O'', ''P'', ''Q'', ''R'', ''S'', ''T'', ''V'', ''X'', ''Y'', ''Z'' — subsequently
alphabets derived from the Latin modified and augmented in various ways.
*In particular, the letter ''K'' is rarely used in Romance languages — mostly for unassimilated foreign names and words, as it was in Latin.
Features inherited from Vulgar Latin
Romance languages also have a number of features that are not shared with Classical Latin. Most of these features are thought to be inherited from Vulgar Latin.
*There are no
declensions, that is, nouns are no longer altered to indicate their grammatical roles. (An exception is
Romanian language Romanian, which retains a combined
genitive/
dative case. Also,
Old French initially had an
oblique case.)
*There are only two
grammatical genders, having lost the
neuter neuter gender of
Classical Latin.
*The normal clause structure is
subject verb object SVO, rather than
subject object verb SOV, and is much less flexible than in Latin.
*Adjectives generally follow the noun they modify.
*Many Latin constructions involving nominalized verbal forms (e.g. the use of accusative plus infinitive in
indirect discourse and the use of the
ablative absolute) were dropped in favour of constructions with subordinate clauses.
*There are definite and indefinite
article (grammar) grammatical articles, derived from Latin
demonstratives and the numeral ''UNUS'' ("one").
*The Latin
future tense was replaced by new synthetic future and
conditional tenses, based on
infinitive + present or imperfect tense of ''HABERE'' ("to have"), fused to form new
inflections.
*Most Latin synthetic perfect tenses were lost, generally replaced by new compound forms with "to be" or "to have" + past
participle.
*There is an elaborate system of pronouns which partially retain the distinction between Latin cases, some of them being
clitic.
*The distinction between
vowel length long and short vowels, believed to have been present in Classical Latin, was lost and replaced by a system of
lexical stress, where one vowel of each word is pronounced slightly louder than the rest.
*Many Latin combining prefixes were incorporated in the lexicon as new roots and verb stems, e.g. Italian ''estrarre'' ("to extract") from Latin ''EX-'' ("out") and ''TRAHERE'' ("to drag").
*The Latin letters ''C'' and ''G'' — which usually sound like {{IPA|[k]}} and {{IPA|[g]}} — have other sounds when they come before ''E'' and ''I''. (See below.)
Other shared features
The Romance languages also share a number of features that were not the result of common inheritance, but rather of various cultural diffusion processes in the Middle Ages — such as literary diffusion, commercial and military interactions, political domination, influence of the Catholic Church, and (especially in later times) conscious attempts to "purify" the languages by reference to Classical Latin. Some of those features have in fact spread to other non-Romance (and even non-Indo-European) languages, chiefly in Europe. Here are some of these "late origin" shared features:
*Most Romance languages have polite forms of address that change the person and/or number of 2nd person subjects, such as the
T-V distinction ''tu''/''vous'' contrast in French or the ''tu''/''Lei'' contrast in Italian.
*They all have a large collection of prefixes, stems, and suffixes retained or reintroduced from Greek and Latin, used to coin new words. Most of those have cognates in English, e.g. "tele-", "dis-", "ex-", "post-", "-scope", "-logy", "-tion".
*They all replaced the Latin letter ''V'' by a new letter ''U'' when it had a vowel sound.
*Many of them introduced the new letter ''J'' (originally a variant of ''I'', which in time acquired various sounds in different languages).
*They are all presently written in a mixture of two distinct but phonetically identical variants or "cases" of the alphabet, "uppercase" and "lowercase", with similar rules for their usage.
*They also use very similar sets of punctuation characters.
Divergent features
In spite of their common origin, the descendants of Vulgar Latin have many differences. These occur at all levels, including the sound systems, the orthography, the nominal, verbal, and adjectival inflections, the auxiliary verbs and the semantics of verbal tenses, the function words, the rules for subordinate clauses, and, especially, in their vocabularies. While most of those differences are clearly due to independent development after the breakup of the Roman Empire (including invasions and cultural exchanges), one must also consider the influence of prior languages in territories of Latin Europe that fell under Roman rule, and possible inhomogenities in Vulgar Latin itself.
It is often said that Portuguese and French are the most innovative of the Romance languages, each in different ways, that
Sardinian language Sardinian and
Romanian language Romanian are the most isolated and conservative variants, and that the
languages of Italy other than Sardinian (including
Italian language Italian) occupy a middle ground. Some even claim that
Languedocien language Languedocian Occitan is the "most average" western Romance language. However, these evaluations are largely subjective, as they depend on how much weight one assigns to specific features. In fact all Romance languages, including Sardinian and Romanian, are all vastly different from its common ancestor.
Romanian (together with other related minor languages, like Aromanian) in fact has a number of grammatical features which are unique within Romance, but are shared with other non-Romance languages of the
Balkans, such as
Albanian language Albanian,
Bulgarian language Bulgarian,
Greek language Greek, and
Serbian language Serban. These features include, for example, the structure of the vestigial case system, the placement of articles as suffixes of the nouns (''cer'' = "sky", ''cerul''= "the sky"), and several more. This phenomenon, called the
Balkan linguistic union, may be due to contacts between those languages in post-Roman times.
Sound changes
The vocabularies of Romance languages have undergone massive change since their birth, by various phonological processes that were characteristic of each language. Those changes applied more or less systematically to all words, but were often conditioned by the sound context or morphological structure.
Some languages have dropped letters from the original Latin words. French, in particular, has dropped all final vowels, and sometimes also the preceding consonant: thus Latin ''LUPUS'' and ''LUNA'' became Italian ''lupo'' and ''luna'' but French ''loup'' {{IPA|[lu]}} and ''lune'' {{IPA|[lyn]}}. Catalan, Occitan, and Romanian (
Daco-Romanian) lost the final vowels in most masculine nouns and adjectives, but retained them in the feminine. Other languages, including Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Franco-Provençal, and the Southern dialects of Romanian have retained those vowels.
Some languages, like Portuguese, Spanish, and
venetian language Venetian, have lost the final vowel ''-E'' from verbal infinitives, e.g. ''DĪCERE'' → Portuguese ''dizer'' ("to say"). Other common cases of final truncation are the verbal endings, eg. Latin ''AMĀT'' → Italian ''ama'' ("he loves"), ''AMĀBAM'' → ''amavo'' ("I loved"), ''AMĀBAT'' → ''amava'' ("he loved"), ''AMĀBATIS'' → ''amavate'' ("You pl. loved"), etc..
Sonds have often been dropped in the middle of the word, too; e.g. Latin ''LUNA'' → Portuguese ''lua'', ''CRĒDERE'' → Spanish ''creer'' ("to believe").
On the other hand, some languages have inserted many
epenthesis epenthetic vowels in certain contexts. For instance Spanish and Portuguese have generally inserted an ''e'' in front of Latin words that began with ''S'' + consonant, such as ''SPERŌ'' → ''espero'' ("I hope"). French has gone the same way, but then dropped the ''s'': ''SPATULA'' → ''épaule'' ("shoulder").
Lexical stress
The position of the stressed syllable in a word generally varies from word to word in each Romance language, and often moves as the word is inflected. Sometimes the stress is lexically significant, e.g. Italian ''Papa'' {{IPA|['papa]}} ("Pope") and ''papà '' {{IPA|[pa'pa]}} ("daddy"), or Spanish imperfect subjunctive ''cantara'' ("he would sing") and future ''cantará'' ("he will sing"). However, the main function of Romance stress in appears to be a clue for
speech segmentation — namely to help the listener identify the word boundaries in normal speech, where inter-word spaces are usually absent.
In Romance languages, the stress is usually confined to one of the last three syllables of the word. That limit may be occasionally exceeded by some verbs with attached clitics, e.g. Italian ''mettiamocene'' {{IPA|[meË?ËŒ'tjaËŒmoËŒtʃeËŒne]}} ("let's put some of it in there") or Spanish ''entregándomelo'' {{IPA|[enËŒtreËŒ'ganËŒdoËŒmeËŒlo]}} ("delivering it to me"). Originally the stress was predominatly in the next-to-last syllable, but that pattern has changed considerably in some languages. In French, for instance, the loss of final vowels has left the stress almost exclusively on the last syllable.
Formation of plurals
Some Romance languages form plurals by adding {{IPA|/s/}} (derived from the plural of the Latin accusative case), while others form the plural by changing the final vowel (by influence of the Latin nominative ending {{IPA|/i/}}). See
La Spezia-Rimini Line for more information.
*Plural in {{IPA|/s/}}: Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, Occitan, Sardinian, Friulian.
*Vowel change: Italian, Romanian.
*No marking: French (formerly marked with {{IPA|/s/}}, but this has been lost in the spoken language; plural marking is now indicated on the associated
determiner rather than the noun itself)
Borrowed words
Derivations
Words for "more"
Some Romance languages use a version of Latin ''plus'', others a version of ''magis''.
*''Plus''-derived: French ''plus'' {{IPA|/ply/}}, Italian ''più'' {{IPA|/pju/}}, dialectal Catalan ''pus'' {{IPA|/pus/}} (this word is exclusively used on negative statements in Mallorcan Catalan), Romansh
*''Magis''-derived: Portuguese (''mais'', mediaeval Galician-Portugueses retained both versions: ''mais'' and ''chus''), Spanish (''más''), Catalan (''més''), Occitan (''mai''), Romanian (''mai''), Italian (''mai'', used only in the construction ''non... mai'', meaning "never")
Words for "nothing"
The common word for "nothing" is ''nada'' in Spanish and Portuguese, ''rien'' in French, ''res'' in Catalan, and ''niente'' and ''nulla'' in Italian. It is said that all three roots derive from different parts of a Latin phrase ''NULLAM REM NATAM'' ("no thing born"), an emphatic idiom for "nothing".
The number 16
Romanian constructs the names of the numbers 11–19 by a regular pattern which could be translated as "one-over-ten", "two-over-ten", etc.. All the other Romance languages use a pattern like "one-ten", "two-ten", etc. for 11–15, and the pattern "ten-and-seven, "ten-and-eight", "ten-and-nine" for 17–19. For 16, however, they split into two groups: some use "six-ten", some use "ten-and-six":
*"Sixteen": Catalan ''setze'', French ''seize'', Italian ''sedici'', Franco-Provençal ''sèze'', Occitan ''setze'', Sardinian ''sédichi''.
*"Ten and six": Portuguese ''dezasseis'' or ''dezesseis'', Spanish ''dieciséis''.
*"Six over ten": Romanian ''ÅŸaisprezece'' (where ''spre'' derives from
Latin ''super'').
Clasical Latin, by the way, uses the "one-and-ten" pattern for 11–17 (''ūndecim'', ''duodecim'', ..., ''septemdecim''), but then switches to "two-off-twenty" (''duodēvigintī'') and "one-off-twenty" (''ūndēvigintī''). For the sake of comparison, note that English and German use two special words for 11 and 12, then the pattern "three-ten", "four-ten", ..., "nine-ten" for 13–19.
To have and to hold
The verbs derived from Latin ''HABÄ’RE'', ''TENÄ’RE'', and ''ESSE'' are used differently for the concepts of "to have" (something), "to have" (
auxiliary verb for complex tenses), and "there is" (existence statements). If we use '''T''' for ''TENÄ’RE'', '''H''' for ''HABÄ’RE'', and '''E''' for ''ESSE'', the various languages classify as follows:
*'''TTH''': Portuguese/Galician.
*'''THH''': Spanish, Catalan.
*'''HHH''': Occitan, French.
*'''HHE''': Romanian, Italian
For example:
:Portuguese: ''(eu) tenho'', ''(eu) tenho feito'', ''há'' ('''TTH''')
:Spanish: ''(yo) tengo'', ''(yo) he hecho'', ''hay'' ('''THH''')
:French: ''j'ai'', ''j'ai fait'', ''il y a'' ('''HHH''')
:Italian: ''(io) ho'', ''(io) ho fatto'', ''c'è'' ('''HHE''')
:Romanian: ''(eu) am'', ''(eu) am făcut'', ''este'' ('''HHE''')
Most of these languages also use the ''TENĒRE'' verb for the sense of "to hold", e.g. Italian ''tieni il libro'', French ''tiens le livre'', Spanish ''tienes el libro'' ("you hold the book"). However, Portuguese normally uses a different verb for that sense, usually ''segurar'' (from the Vulgar Latin ''ASSECURARE'', "to make secure"). On the other hand, Portuguese informally uses the '''T''' verb in the existential sense, besides the '''H''' verb, e.g. ''tem água no copo'' instead of ''há água no copo'' ("there is water in the glass").
To have or to be
Some languages use their equivalent of "have" as an
auxiliary verb to form the perfect forms (e. g. French ''passé composé'') of all verbs; others use "be" for some verbs and "have" for others.
*"Have" only: Catalan, Spanish, Romanian, Sicilian.
*"Have" and "be": Occitan, French, Italian.
In the latter, the verbs which use "be" as an auxiliary are
unaccusative verbs, that is, intransitive verbs that show motion not directly initiated by the subject or changes of state, such as "fall", "come", "become". All other verbs (intransitive
unergative verbs and all transitive verbs) use "have". For example, in French, ''J'ai vu'' "I have seen" vs. ''Je suis tombé'' "I am fallen" ("I have fallen").
Portuguese is unique in that its equivalent of the ''passé composé'' — usually made with ''ter'' (Spanish ''tener'') but occasionally with ''haver'' — is uncommon and does not have the same meaning as for other Romance languages. The phrase ''eu tenho feito'' means ''I have been doing'' rather than ''I have done'', which would be rendered with the simple past (''eu fiz'').
I did or I have done
Some languages (e.g. Spanish, and written French and Italian) make a distinction between a
preterite and a
perfect tense (cf. English ''I did'' vs. ''I have done''). Others (Portuguese, spoken French and Italian) contain only one tense, which renders both meanings. French and Italian use the compound past for this, while Portuguese and Sicilian use the simple past.
Writing systems
Letter values
While most of the 22 basic Latin Letters have similar sound values in all Romance languages, the values of some letters have diverged considerably; and the new letters added since the Middle Ages have been put to different uses in different scripts. Some letters, notably ''H'' and ''Q'', have been variously combined in
digraph (orthography) digraphs or
trigraph (orthography) trigraphs (see below) to represent phonetic phenomena not recorded in Latin, or to get around previously established spelling conventions.
A characteristic feature of the the writing systems of all Romance languages is that the Latin letters ''C'' and ''G'' — which usually sound like {{IPA|[k]}} and {{IPA|[g]}} — have other sounds when they come before ''E'' and ''I''. This is due to a general
palatalization or
affrication of the {{IPA|[k]}} and {{IPA|[g]}} sounds before front vowels, like {{IPA|[i]}} and {{IPA|[e]}}, which is believed to have occurred in the transition from Classical to Vulgar Latin. Since the written form of all the affected words was tied to the Classical language, the shift was accommodated by a change in the pronunciation rules. However, the new sounds of ''C'' and ''G'' in those contexts differ from language to language.
The spelling rules of most Romance languages are fairly complex, and subject to considerable regional variation. To a first approximation, the pronunciation of non-combined letters can be summarized as follows:
:'''''C''''': generally {{IPA|[k]}}, but "softened" before ''E'' or ''I'' in all languages — to {{IPA|[s]}} in French, Portuguese and American Spanish, {{IPA|[tʃ]}} in Italian and Romanian, {{IPA|[θ]}} in Castilian Spanish.
:'''''G''''': generally {{IPA|[g]}} or {{IPA|[ɣ]}}, but "softened" before ''E'' or ''I'' in all languages — to {{IPA|[ʒ]}} in French and Portuguese, {{IPA|[dʒ]}} in Italian and Romanian, {{IPA|[x]}} in Spanish.
:'''''H''''': silent in French, Spanish, Catalan and Portuguese; pronouned as {{IPA|[h]}} in Romanian; used in Italian after a ''C'' or ''G'' to give the letters a {{IPA|[k]}} or {{IPA|[g]}} sound when preceding an ''E'' or ''I''.
:'''''J''''': {{IPA|[x]}} in Spanish; {{IPA|[j]}} in Sicilian, and to a much lesser extent in Italian; {{IPA|[Ê’]}} in most other languages.
:'''''Q''''': not used alone.
:'''''S''''': usually {{IPA|[z]}} between vowels in Italian, French, Portuguese and Catalan.
:'''''W''''': used only in
Walloon language. Pronounced {{IPA|[v]}} in French, with the exception of words imported from English.
:'''''X''''': not used in Italian, generally {{IPA|[ks]}} in other languages, but with considerable variation even within each language (e.g., it is often pronouced [gz] in French.
:'''''Y''''': used in French and Spanish as a vowel {{IPA|[i]}}, and in Spanish also as a consonant {{IPA|[dÊ’]}}, {{IPA|[Ê’]}}, or {{IPA|[j]}}.
:'''''Z''''': either {{IPA|[z]}} or {{IPA|[ts]}} in Italian; {{IPA|[θ]}} or {{IPA|[s]}} in Spanish; {{IPA|[z]}} in most of the other languages.
Otherwise, letters that are not combined in digraphs generally have the same sounds as in the
International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), whose design was in fact greatly influenced by the Romance spelling systems.
Digraphs and trigraphs
Since most Romance languages have more sounds that can be accommodated in the Roman Latin alphabet they all resorted to the use of digraphs and trigraphs — combinations of two or three letters with conventional sound values. The concept (but not the actual combinations) derives from Classical Latin; which used, for example, ''TH'', ''PH'', and ''CH'' when transliterating the Greek letters "θ", "φ", and "χ". Some of the digraphs used in modern scripts are:
:'''''CH''''': used in Italian and Romanian to get the {{IPA|[k]}} sound before ''E'' or ''I''; for {{IPA|[tʃ]}} in Spanish; for {{IPA|[ʃ]}} in most other languages.
:'''''ÇH''''': used in Poitevin-Saintongeais for
voiceless palatal fricative {{IPA|[ç]}}
:'''''DD''''': used in Sicilian for {{IPA|
voiced retroflex plosive [ɖ]}}.
:'''''DJ''''': used in Walloon for {{IPA|[dÊ’]}}.
:'''''GI''''': used in Italian and Romanian to get the {{IPA|[dÊ’]}} sound before ''A'', ''O'', or ''U''.
:'''''GH''''': used in Italian and Romanian to get the {{IPA|[g]}} sound before ''E'' or ''I''; not used in other languages.
:'''''GL''''': used in Italian for {{IPA|[ÊŽ]}}.
:'''''GN''''': used in French and Italian for {{IPA|[ɳ]}}, as in ''champignon'' or ''gnocchi''.
:'''''GU''''': used before ''E'' or ''I'' for the sound {{IPA|[g]}} or {{IPA|[É£]}}, in all Romance except Italian, Romanian and some standards of Norman.
:'''''JH''''': used in Poitevin-Saintongeais for aspirated {{IPA|[Ê’]}}.
:'''''LH''''': used in Portuguese for {{IPA|[ÊŽ]}}.
:'''''LL''''': used in Spanish, Catalan, Norman and Dgèrnésiais, originally for {{IPA|[ʎ]}} but often pronounced {{IPA|[j]}}, {{IPA|[ʒ]}}.
:'''''NH''''': used in Portuguese for {{IPA|[ɳ]}}.
:'''''PH''''': used in French for {{IPA|[f]}} in some words.
:'''''QU''''': used before ''E'' or ''I'' for {{IPA|[k]}}, in all Romance except Italian, Romanian and some standards of Norman.
:'''''RR''''': used instead of ''R'' in various languages to indicate a trilled {{IPA|[r]}} instead of simple {{IPA|[ɾ]}}.
:'''''SC''''': used before ''E'' or ''I'' in Italian for {{IPA|[ʃ]}}, and in Portuguese and French as alternate to {{IPA|[s]}}.
:'''''SCI''''': used in Italian for {{IPA|[ʃ]}} before ''A'', ''O'', or ''U''.
:'''''SS''''': used in Italian, Portuguese and French for {{IPA|[s]}} between vowels.
Italian and Sicilian also use "doubled consonants" like ''BB'', ''CC'', ''DD'', etc. The doubling indicates a short pause before the consonant, which often has lexical value: e.g. ''note'' {{IPA|['nÉ”te]}} ("notes") vs ''notte'' {{IPA|['nÉ”Ë?te]}} ("night"). Double consonants are even found at the beginning of words in Neapolitan and Sicilian, and are occasionally written, e.g. Sicilian ''cchiù'' (more), and ''ddà '' (there). Generally speaking, all words commencing with the letter ''B'', ''R'' and ''Z'' are pronounced as a double consonant. Double consonants also occur in French, but do not have a simple phonetic value.
The consonant {{IPA|[ʃ]}} is never written with the English ''SH'' or German ''SCH''. The Latin digraphs ''TH'' for {{IPA|[θ]}} (as in English "thick") and ''CH'' for {{IPA|[x]}} (as in German ''nacht'' or Scottish ''loch'') did not survive, not even in the Venetian and Spanish dialects that have preserved those sounds, but ''TH'' is used in Jèrriais. While all Romance languages originally used ''PH'' for {{IPA|[f]}} in many words of Greek origin, most have now replaced it by ''F''.
Diacritics
Punctuation and spacing
Upper and lower case
Most languages are written with a mixture of two distinct but phonetically identical variants or "cases" of the alphabet: "uppercase" (or "capital letters"), derived from Roman stone-carved letter shapes, and "lowercase", derived from Medieval
quill pen handwriting and adapted by printers in the 15th and 16th centuries.
In particular, all Romance languages presently capitalize (use uppercase for the first letter of) the following words: the first word of each complete
sentence, most words in names of people, places, and organizations, and most words in titles of books. Text in all upper case is used for emphasis and is generally interpreted as shouting. The Romance languages do not follow the German practice of capitalizing all nouns including common ones. Unlike English, the names of months, days of the weeks, and derivatives of proper nouns are not capitalized: thus, in Italian one capitalizes ''Francia'' ("France") and ''Francesco'' ("Francis"), but not ''francese'' ("French") or ''francescano'' ("Franciscan"). However, each language has some exceptions to this general rule.
Italic and Boldface
Modern Romance texts also use two main variant letter styles, conventionally called "roman" (used for most text) and "italic" (a slanted and usually more rounded form, used for quotations and emphasis, and generally read with a higher-pitched voice). Finally, any of thse can be printed in "boldface" (with thicker strokes, understood as a louder and more forceful tone) for stronger emphasis.
List of languages
The following is a listing of the Romance languages and some of their dialects. Since the
classification of Romance languages is still controversial, the listing records only the groupings that are accepted by most linguists. Top level groups are listed roughly West to East. Within each group, the sub-groups and languages are listed in alphabetical order. Nesting below a single language is used only for true dialects — meaning languages that were definitely derived from that parent language ''only'', well after the parent came into existence. So, for example, the American variants of Spanish are listed under Spanish; whereas Spanish, Portuguese, and Galician are listed at the same level. Ditto for the so-called "
languages of Italy Italian dialects," which were derived directly from Vulgar Latin and not from standard Italian.
*
West Iberian languages
**
Aragonese language Aragonese:
**
Asturian language Asturo-Leonese (Mirandese): 100,000 Spain, 5,000 Portugal
**
Extremaduran language Extremaduran:
**
Fala language Fala: 10,000 Spain.
**
Galician language Galician: 4 million Galicia
**
Ladino language Ladino (Judaeo-Spanish):
**
Portuguese language Portuguese: 230 million Portugal, Brazil]; a few thousand
Asia; 26 million
Africa
**
Riverense Portuñol language Riverense Portuñol: about 100,000 in Uruguay and Southern Brazil.
**
Spanish language Spanish (Castilian): 360 million
Spain,
Americas
***Dialects in Spain:
****
Northern Spanish
****
Andalusian Spanish
****
Canarian Spanish
****
Churro Spanish
****
Murcian Spanish
***Dialects in Americas:
****
Amazonian Spanish
****
Andino Spanish
****
Antioqueño Spanish
****
Camba Spanish
****
Caribbean Spanish
*****
Cuban Spanish
*****
Dominican Spanish
*****
Panamanian Spanish
*****
Puerto Rican Spanish
*****
Venezuelan Spanish
******
Maracucho Spanish
****
Central American Spanish
****
Chilean Spanish
*****
Chilote Spanish
****
Cundiboyacense Spanish
****
Ecuatorial Spanish
****
Mexican Spanish
****
North Mexican Spanish
****
South Mexican Spanish
****
Paraguayan Spanish
****
Peruvian Ribereño Spanish
****
Rioplatense Spanish
****
Santandereano-Tachirense Spanish
****
Yucateco Spanish
*
Catalan language Catalan: 6.5 million
Spain,
Andorra
**
Alguerese:
**
Central Catalan Central Catalan (incl. Barcelonese):
**
Northern Catalan Northern Catalan (Roussillonese):
**
Ribagorçan: (~Aragonese)
**
Valencian:
*
Oïl languages Northern French languages (''langues d'oïl'')
**
Burgundian Bourguignon-Morvandiau:
**
Champenois:
**
Franc-Comtois:
**
French language French: 70 million
France; 87 million
Americas
**
Gallo language Gallo:
**
Lorrain:
**
Norman language Norman:
***
Jèrriais :
***
Dgèrnésiais:
***
Anglo-Norman language: extinct
**
Picard language Picard:
**
Poitevin-Saintongeais :
**
Walloon language Walloon:
*
Franco-Provençal language Franco-Provençal:
*
Occitan language Southern French languages (Occitan, ''langue d'oc''): 2 million
France
**
Gascon:
**
Aranese language Aranese:
**
Limousin language Lemosin:
**
Auvergnat language Auvernhat:
**
Aupenc:
**
Languedocien language Lengadocian:
**
Provençal language Provençal:
**
Niçard:
*
Corsican language Corsican:
**
Gallurese:
**
Sassarese:
*
Sardinian language Sardinian: 300,000
Sardinia
**
Sardo campidanese Campidanese:
**
Sardo logudorese Logudorese:
*
Gallo-Romance languages Northern Italian (Gallo-Romance) languages:
**
Emilio-Romagnolo:
**
Ligurian language (Romance) Ligurian(Genoese):
**
Monegasque language Monegasque:
**
Lombard language Lombard:
**
Piemontese language Piemontese:
**
Venetian Language Venetian: 2 million
Veneto
*
Rhaetian languages
**
Friulian language Friulian:
Friuli
**
Ladin language Ladin Dolomites:
**
Romansh language Romansh: 66,000
Switzerland
*
List of Italo-Dalmatian languages Italo-Dalmatian languages:
**
Dalmatian language Dalmatian: extinct
**
Istro-Romanian language Istro-Romanian:
**
Italian language Italian: 60 million
Italy
**
Judeo-Italian language Judeo-Italian: 4,000
Italy
**
Neapolitan language Neapolitan: 8 million
Italy
**
Romanesco language Romanesco:
**
Sicilian language Sicilian: 10 million
Sicily,
Italy
*
East Romance languages:
**
Aromanian language Aromanian: 300,000
Greece,
Macedonia,
Albania, and
Bulgaria
**
Romanian language Romanian (Moldovan): 30 million
Romania and
Moldova
**
Moldovan language Moldovan:
*
Istriot:
*
Meglenitic language Meglenitic:
*
Mozarabic: (extinct)
Mixed languages
There are some languages that developed from a mixture of two established Romance languages. It is not always clear whether they should be classified as
pidgins,
creole languages, or
mixed languages.
*
Riverense Portuñol language Riverense Portuñol
Proposed subfamilies
Here are some of the subfamiles that have been proposed within the various classification schemes for Romance languages:
*
Iberian Romance languages
*
Portuguese-Galician
Pidgins and creoles
The global spread of
colonialism colonial Romance languages has given rise to numerous
creole languages and
pidgins. Some of the lesser-spoken languages have also had influences on varieties spoken far from their traditional regions. The following is a partial list of creole languages and pidgins, grouped by their main source language.
*
Lingua franca#Mediterranean_lingua_franca Lingua Franca, influenced by the Romance languages of the Western Mediterranean and Arabic.
*
French-based creole languages:
**
Haitian Creole language Haitian Creole is a national language of
Haiti
**
Antillean Creole spoken primarily in
Dominica and
St. Lucia.
**
Kreyol Lwiziyen Louisiana creole
**
Mauritian Creole is the lingua franca in
Mauritius
**
Seychellois Creole Also known as Seselwa, Seychellois Creole is an official language, along with English and French, as well as the lingua franca of the
Seychelles.
**
Lanc-Patuá Spoken in
Brazil, mostly in
Amapá state. It has been influenced by Portuguese. It was developed by immigrants from neighbouring
French Guiana and French territories of the
Caribbean Sea.
*
Portuguese-based creole languages
**
Angolar language Angolar Spoken in coastal areas of
São Tomé Island,
São Tomé and PrÃncipe.
**
Annobonese language Annobonese Spoken in the island of
Annobón,
Equatorial Guinea.
**
Capeverdean Crioulo languages Capeverdean Crioulo (Criol, Kriolu) A
dialect continuum spoken in
Cape Verde.
**
Daman Indo-Portuguese language Daman Indo-Portuguese Spoken in
Daman and Diu Daman,
India. Decreolization process occurred.
**
Diu Indo-Portuguese language Diu Indo-Portuguese Spoken in
Daman and Diu Diu, India. Almost extinct.
**
Forro language Forro Spoken in São Tomé Island, São Tomé and PrÃncipe.
**
Kristang language Kristang Spoken in
Malaysia.
**
Kristi language Kristi Spoken in the village of
Korlay,
India.
**
Principense language Principense (Lunguyê) Spoken in
PrÃncipe Island, São Tomé and PrÃncipe. Almost extinct.
**
Macanese language Macanese Spoken in
Macau and
Hong Kong. Decreolization process occurred.
**
Papiamento Spoken in the
Netherlands Antilles and
Aruba. Spanish influenced.
**
Riverense Portuñol language Riverense Portuñol Spoken in
Rivera (Northern Uruguay) and region. Spanish influenced.
**
Saramaccan Portuguese/English Creole. Spoken in
Surinam.
**
Burgher Sri Lanka Indo-Portuguese Spoken in Coastal cities of
Sri Lanka.
**
Upper Guinea Kriol language Upper Guinea Creole (Kriol) lingua franca of
Guinea-Bissau, also spoken in
Casamance,
Senegal.
*
Spanish-based creole languages
**
Chavacano -Spoken in
Zamboanga and
Cavite ,
Philippines.
**
Palenquero
**
Papiamento. It is often hard to tell Portuguese influences from Spanish ones.
**
Spanglish, spoken in northern Mexico and southern United States.
**
Yanito
While not being pidgins nor creoles, English (see ''
Middle English creole hypothesis''),
Basque language Basque and
Albanian language Albanian have a substantial Romance influence in their vocabularies.
Constructed languages
Latin and the Romance languages also give rise to numerous
constructed language constructed languages, both
international auxiliary languages (such as
Interlingua,
Latino sine flexione,
Occidental language Occidental, and
Lingua Franca Nova) and languages created for artistic purposes only (such as
Brithenig and
Wenedyk).
See also
*
Iberian Romance Languages
*
Latin Union
*
Romance copula
*
Linguistic history of Spanish
External links
-
Orbis Latinus, site on Romance languages
{{Link FA|fr}}
Category:Lists of languages Romanic
Category:Romance languages *
als:Romanische Sprachen
ar:لغة رومانسية
az:Roman qrupu
bg:РоманÑ?ки езици
bs:Romanski jezici
zh-min-nan:Romance gÃ-giân
ca:Llengües romà niques
cs:Románské jazyky
da:Romanske sprog
de:Romanische Sprachen
et:Romaani keeled
el:ΡομανικÎÏ‚ γλώσσες
es:Lenguas romances
eo:Latinida lingvo
eu:Hizkuntz erromantze
fr:Langues romanes
fur:Lenghis romanzis
ko:로�스어군
io:Latinida linguo
it:Lingue romanze
he:שפות רומ×?× ×™×•×ª
kw:Romanek
la:Linguae Romanae
lt:Romanų kalbos
li:Roemaanse taole
mk:РоманÑ?ки јазици
nl:Romaanse talen
ja:ãƒãƒžãƒ³ã‚¹èªž
no:Romanske språk
pl:Języki romańskie
pt:LÃnguas românicas
ro:Limbile romanice
rm:Linguas romanas
ru:РоманÑ?кие Ñ?зыки
se:Románalaš gielat
sc:Limbas Romanzas
simple:Romance languages
sk:Románske jazyky
sl:Romanski jeziki
fi:Romaaniset kielet
sv:Romanska språk
vi:Nhóm ngôn ngữ Rôman
uk:РоманÑ?ькі мови
wa:Lingaedjes romans
zh:罗曼è¯æ—?
Category:Italic languages
an:Category:Luengas romanzes
bg:КатегориÑ?:РоманÑ?ки езици
be:КатÑ?горыÑ?:РаманÑ?кіÑ? мовы
ca:Categoria:Llengües romà niques
da:Kategori:Romanske sprog
de:Kategorie:Romanische Sprache
es:CategorÃa:Lenguas romances
fr:Catégorie:Langue romane
ko:분류:로�스어군
la:Categoria:Linguae Romanicae
li:Kategorie:Roemaanse tale
nl:Categorie:Romaanse taal
pl:Kategoria:Języki romańskie
pt:Categoria:LÃnguas românicas
ru:КатегориÑ?:РоманÑ?кие Ñ?зыки
fi:Luokka:Romaaniset kielet
sv:Kategori:Romanska språk
tl:Category:Mga wikang Romans
vi:Category:Nhóm ngôn ngữ Rôman
see :
Romance languages
*** Shopping-Tip: Romance Languages
