The Romance Languages
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ScribdTranslationsThe Romance Languages
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ScribdTranslationsThe Romance languages
They are called Romance languages, also known as Romance languages, those
derivatives of vulgar Latin. The Romance languages are part of the Indo-European family tree, the
major language family of the world.
Currently, the number of Romance languages is more than twenty, although the truth is that
Many of the regional varieties are threatened and only half a dozen of them have a
general use and several million speakers all over the world.
Among the languages that group the Romance languages, we can find the following: in
the Galoromanic group includes French and Arpitan, in the Italo-Romanian group are Romanian,
Italian and Sicilian, in the Occitan-Romance group are Occitan, Friulian, and Catalan, in
The Ibero-Romance group includes Navarre-Aragonese, Spanish, Asturleonese, Galician, and the
Portuguese.
As we can see in this map of the Romance languages, the Romance languages are
They spread all over the world due to the colonizations carried out by Europeans centuries ago.
As we have mentioned previously, the Romance languages are descendants of Latin. The
Latin spread throughout Europe as a result of the expansion of the Roman Empire, which
they used Latin as their mother tongue.
In the fall of the Roman Empire, the Germanic tribes took over northern Europe and the
Latin took root in the south. Over the years, the Latin spoken in those southern European countries became
it was transforming until it became what we today call languages
romances.
This is why today in the Northern European countries languages such as
German, English... which are the descendants of the Germanic languages and which instead, in the
southern European countries speak languages like Italian, Spanish, French... that are the
descendants of Latin. And therefore, of the Romance languages.
Although the Romance languages are an evolution of vulgar Latin, their common features are
They are due to the fact that practically all or most languages share the same features as Latin.
As we said, Latin has evolved into each of the Romance languages in
different stages. These are dated as follows:
Between 200 BC and approximately 400: different forms of vulgar Latin.
Between 500 and 600: these forms begin to distinguish themselves from each other.
From the year 800: The existence of Romance languages is recognized.
Italo-Romance languages
They are the languages of central and southern Italy. They are divided from the Gallo-Italian languages by a
imaginary line that connects the towns of La Spezia and Rimini. For some, it is not only the
border between the northern lines and those of central and southern Italy, but also of the languages
Western and Eastern romances.
In reality, the name italoromances does not reflect the truth, since they are not languages.
that form a unit within the Romance languages. Thus, in reality, one would have to talk about
four groups: Tuscan, central, southern and extreme southern.
Toscano is the language on which standard Italian is based. In the 19th century, Italian
Literary was the official language of all the Italian states before unification. Without
embargo, being a literary language, had become somewhat stagnant. It was practically the
same language that Dante had written.
It was modernized based on the Tuscan spoken at that time, and that new version
taught in schools all over the new country. Thus, Italy learned Tuscan in schools, not
listening to the Tuscans (unlike, for example, Castilian, which was brought by the
Castilians in colonization processes towards the south). The Tuscan of Tuscany, therefore,
it continued to evolve and is now not the same as standard Italian. This variant is spoken, of course,
in Tuscany and in Corsica.
The central group is made up of the dialects of the province of Le Marche, Umbrian,
Sabine, dialects of central and northern Lazio (including Rome) and the province of Latina. The most
important is the Romanesco, that of the city of Rome. As a curiosity, the implosive -l (at the end
before a consonant it is pronounced -r, as in western Andalusia (er Papa).
The Neapolitan and the Apulian-Barese are the languages of southern Italy. The former is very lively.
and has a rich literary tradition. It is, for example, the language in which songs are sung.
Neapolitan folk songs, such as Funiculì, funiculà. However, it has always been associated with the
popular layers of the population, which is why its prestige is not the same as that of Italian.
It is not studied, has no institutional support, and its number of speakers is decreasing, although
there are still around 11 million. It is spoken in most of southern Italy, except in the heel and
the tip of the famous boot and in the Bari region.
In Bari, Apulian-Barese is spoken, with a couple of million speakers, without any type of
official protection and in regression.
The following group consists of the extreme southern languages: Sicilian, Salentino, and Calabrian.
There are some authors who encompass them all as Sicilian languages, while others speak
of three different languages.
Sicilian is spoken in the family and among friends throughout the region, it is very common.
to hear it. It has an extensive literature and is the Italian language that most influenced the language
Maltese. It has almost 5 million speakers.