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.

What are the Romance languages and how romantic are they, really? We examine their history, explore the top 5 and reveal the complete list.

Feb 6, 2025 · Romance languages, group of related languages all derived from Vulgar Latin within historical times and forming a subgroup of the Italic branch of the Indo-European language family. The major languages of the family include French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanian, all national languages.

Romance languages are the group of related languages all derived from later Latin, or Vulgar Latin, within historical times from the 3rd century CE onward and forming a subgroup of the Italic branch of the Indo-European language family.

The most spoken Romance languages are Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian and Romanian. They are called "Romance languages" because they originate from Latin, the language spoken by the Western Roman Empire .

The Romance languages, despite comprising only one branch in the Indo-European language family, include some of the most influential languages in the Western world. They’re spoken both in a large part of Europe and throughout North and South America.

The five major Romance languages are Spanish (538 million speakers), French (277 million), Portuguese (252 million), Italian (68 million), and Romanian (25 million).

Dec 19, 2017 · What are the Romance Languages? Approximately 800 million people around the world are native speakers of Romantic languages. Also referred to as Latin or Neo-Latin languages, the Romanic languages are the modern languages that have evolved between the 6th and 9th centuries from Vulgar Latin.

Aug 17, 2019 · Linguists may prefer a list of the Romance languages with more detail and more thoroughness. This comprehensive list gathers the the names, geographic divisions, and national locations of major divisions of some modern Romance languages around the world.

The major Romance languages—French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and Romanian—are national languages. French is probably the most internationally significant, but Spanish, the official language of 19 American countries and Spain and Equatorial Guinea, has the most speakers.