List of Romance languages

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Romance languages include 47 (SIL estimate) languages and dialects spoken in Europe; this language group is a part of the Italic language family.

The classification below is largely based on the analysis provided by the Ethnologue. The ISO-639-2 code roa is applied by the ISO for any Romance language that does not have its own code. The Ethnologue classification is at one extreme of linguists, who are divided into 'splitters' and 'lumpers'. The Ethnologue classification produces a very detailed classification, more precise than many other linguists would accept, but valuable as a description of varieties. Top level groups are listed roughly East to West.

This article lists also the main groups of Romance-based Creole languages.

The Romance language family (simplified) - click to enlarge
The Romance language family (simplified) - click to enlarge

Contents

[edit] Eastern Romance

[edit] Southern Romance

[edit] Italo-Western Romance

[edit] Italo-Dalmatian Romance

[edit] Western Romance

Main article: Western Romance languages

Western Romance languages comprise the Romance subgroup with the most languages and the most speakers. It includes three major international languages - French, Portuguese and Spanish as well as many regional languages, dialects and varieties.

[edit] Pyrenean-Mozarabic Romance

Main article: Pyrenean-Mozarabic languages

[edit] Gallo-Iberian Romance

Main article: Gallo-Iberian

[edit] Gallo-Romance

[edit] Occitano-Romance

There is a controversy about the classification of Catalan and Occitan languages. There is no consensus whether they belong to the Gallo-Romance or to the Ibero-Romance group or serve as transitional languages between those groups. Their grouping into a distinct group, Occitano-Romance languages, is disputed, too.[citation needed]

[edit] Iberian Romance

This group includes the West Iberian languages - Astur-Leonese, Spanish, Galician, Portuguese and their dialects. According to some opinions[who?] it also includes Occitan and Catalan.

[edit] Languages whose classification is unknown or disputed

[edit] Pidgins and creoles

The global spread of colonial Romance languages has given rise to numerous creole languages and pidgins. Some of the lesser-used languages have also had influences on varieties spoken far from their traditional regions. The following is a partial list of creole languages and pidgins, grouped by their main source language.

While not being pidgins nor creoles, English (see Middle English creole hypothesis), Basque and Albanian have a substantial Romance influence in their vocabularies.

For mixed languages based on Romance languages, see the main article on Mixed languages.

[edit] See also

[edit] References