What are the romantic languages?

lanfranco

The main romance languages (if that's what you're talking about), are French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, and, in some views, Catalan. However, there are many, many Latin-derived dialects, some with official status. Then again, it is possible to be extremely romantic in just about any language. ;) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_languages Dec 10 06, 7:59 PM

skysmom65

The Romance languages are a group of closely related vernaculars descended from the LATIN LANGUAGE, a member of the Italic branch of INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. The designation Romance is derived from the Latin phrase romanica loqui, "to speak in Roman fashion," which attests to the popular, rather than literary, origins of the languages. The Romance languages that have acquired national standing as the official tongues of their countries are French, with approximately 98 million speakers living principally in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, and parts of Africa; Italian, with 65 million speakers in Italy, Switzerland, and parts of Africa; Portuguese, with 137 million speakers in Portugal, Brazil, and parts of Africa and Asia; Spanish, with 231 million speakers in Spain, Latin America, and parts of the Caribbean; and Romanian, with 25 million speakers in Romania and other parts of the Balkans. In strict geographical terms, these languages are even more widespread, for there are large pockets of Spanish speakers in the United States, Italian speakers in Argentina, Romanian speakers in Yugoslavia, and so on. http://www.angelfire.com/md/Orastie/Romance.html Dec 10 06, 8:18 PM

ilovemytubaboy

lanfranco, the last part of your reply was the one thing I thought no one would say!!! Dec 10 06, 8:41 PM

stuntgirl

French and Italian... Dec 10 06, 10:12 PM

Baloo55th

Other romance languages include Aromunian, Judezmo, Romansch, Ladin and Friulian. Many class Sardinian, Sicilian, Galician and Occitan as full languages rather than being dialects. Vegliote and Meglenite are fairly certainly extinct now. One interesting difference between modern romance languages and classical Latin is that they all use definite articles where classical Latin doesn't. This is probably because they descend more from Low Latin, where pronouns were used with verbs and words like ille were used with nouns, as opposed to the rather condensed classical Latin used by Cicero and Co. Dec 11 06, 5:27 AM