Romance languages
group of Indo-European languages, direct descendants of Vulgar Latin
The Romance languages, also known as the Latin languages, are the languages that directly descended from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic branch of the Indo-European language family. The most prominent Romance languages include Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, Romanian and Catalan.
The Romance languages spread throughout the world owing to the period of European colonialism beginning in the 15th century. There are more than 900 million native speakers of Romance languages found worldwide, mainly in the Americas, Europe, and parts of Africa. French, Spanish, and Portuguese also have many non-native speakers; they are widely used as lingua francas. There are also numerous regional Romance languages and dialects. All five of the most widely spoken Romance languages are also official languages of the European Union.
Name and languages
The term Romance derives from the Vulgar Latin adverb romanice, "in Roman", derived from romanicus: for instance, in the expression romanice loqui, "to speak in Roman" (that is, the Latin vernacular), contrasted with latine loqui, "to speak in Latin" (Medieval Latin, the conservative version of the language used in writing and formal contexts or as a lingua franca), and with barbarice loqui, "to speak in Barbarian" (the non-Latin languages of the peoples living outside the Roman Empire). From this adverb the noun romance originated, which applied initially to anything written romanice, or "in the Roman vernacular".
The public source identifies “Romance languages” as group of Indo-European languages, direct descendants of Vulgar Latin. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Romance, languages and group.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q19814. The Library of Congress control number is sh85114953. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Romance languages” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.