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Roman Languages

The document discusses the Roman languages, which descended from Vulgar Latin spoken throughout the Roman Empire. As the Empire declined, Latin varieties began diverging locally and evolved into distinct languages. Today, around two-thirds of Roman language speakers live outside of Europe, as those languages spread through European colonial empires from the 15th century onward. The document lists 47 current Roman languages and dialects spoken in Europe.

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367 views

Roman Languages

The document discusses the Roman languages, which descended from Vulgar Latin spoken throughout the Roman Empire. As the Empire declined, Latin varieties began diverging locally and evolved into distinct languages. Today, around two-thirds of Roman language speakers live outside of Europe, as those languages spread through European colonial empires from the 15th century onward. The document lists 47 current Roman languages and dialects spoken in Europe.

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Roman Languages: Etymology

Presented by Maria Desislava Plachkova

The Roman languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome.

Roman languages are the continuation of Vulgar Latin, the popular sociolect of Latin spoken by soldiers, settlers and merchants of the Roman Empire, as distinguished from the Classical form of the language spoken by the Roman upper classes, the form in which the language was generally written.

The expansion of the Empire, together with its administrative and educational policies, made Latin the dominant native language in continental Western Europe. Latin also exerted a strong influence in southwestern Britain and the Roman province of Africa.

During the Empire's decline, and after its fragmentation and collapse in the 5th century, varieties of Latin began to diverge within each local area at an accelerated rate, and eventually evolved into a continuum of recognizably different typologies.

The overseas empires established by Portugal, Spain and France from the 15th century onward spread their languages to the other continents, to such an extent that about two-thirds of all Roman speakers today live outside Europe.

The classification of the Roman languages is inherently difficult, since most of the linguistic area can be considered a dialect continuum, and in some cases political biases can come into play.

Nevertheless, according to SIL counts, 47 Roman languages and dialects are spoken in Europe. Along with Latin (which is not included among the Roman languages) and a few extinct languages of ancient Italy, they make up the Italic branch of the Indo-European family.

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