What Are The Romance Languages?
We don’t often realize the importance of something by looking at it too closely. It is only with the help of a broader understanding of the world that we can figure out the influence of something on the globe. There are thousand-year-old cultures that have affected the modern lives of humans. But more often than not, we do not pay attention to history and how it has changed the world. However, just because we are not familiar with the influence of ancient cultures and languages doesn’t mean that it is not there. The mere existence of Romance languages is proof that everything in our past and present are connected in some way.
What Are the Romance Languages?
There are many families of languages in the world. They have been divided into these families based on their characteristics. But each family has subgroups that share more features with each other. One of the most famous families is Indo-European. It has many subgroups of importance. One has English, German, and Dutch in it. Another group is that of Romance languages. A few centuries ago, the vernacular that was spoken by a huge number of people in Europe was known as Latin. It was quite popular in its time. But when its number of speakers started decreasing, it got divided into different versions.
The Name:
Everyone wants to know why are the called the Romance languages. The name of the group has a unique history. It does not have anything to do with the term romance that is another word for love. In the old days, Latin was known as the Roman language. The term Romance originated from the Latin word ‘romanice.’ It generally meant speaking in Roman. In the beginning, the term was only used for Latin. But now that Latin has been divided into various vernaculars, the group has been given the same name. All the daughter tongues of Latin today are considered a Romance language.
Total Number:
In the world of linguistics, there are rarely any definite answers. Research on languages never stops. The families and their subgroups can have more members that we don’t know of yet. There are also those tongues that have gone extinct, and no data is available about them. In the case of this subgroup, there are some controversies about the total number of vernaculars that originated from Vulgar Latin. There are various answers to the question, how many Romance languages are there. Some linguists think that the final number of Romance languages is 23, while another group believes that the number is 36, including one dead tongue. There is no way to be sure that these numbers are accurate. We can discover more tongues of the group in the future. There is also a chance that new languages with similar features get born in the future that has to be placed in the same group.
Out of all the vernaculars of the group, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, French, and Romanian are the most popular. They also have the most number of speakers as compared to all the other members combined. Spanish and Portuguese have gained a lot of widespread popularity through colonization. This is why their native speakers can be found outside of Europe. Spanish is the biggest vernacular in the Americas, but Portuguese also enjoys official status in a couple of states.
Learning the Languages of this Group:
Those who are fascinated by Latin, also love all of its daughter tongues. But it is one thing to learn a single tongue and another to learn a group of them. However, since it is a single group, every member shares some features. So, there are simple answers to the question how to learn all romance languages. By learning them in the right order, you can make the process easier for yourself. However, linguists have some disagreement about the order in which Romance languages should be learned. Some of them suggest that people start with Romanian as it is the most challenging to learn, while others think that Spanish would be the better option.
A few experts suggest a different approach to this task. They say that it is better to thoroughly learn Spanish and French first. This technique is popular among learners because these two tongues cover all the features of their group. By mastering them, it will become easier for people to understand and pick the rules of the other languages. And as for those who find it difficult to learn a new vernacular, or don’t have the time to take classes, they can contact a translation agency whenever they need help with a tongue.
Our world is unique and beautiful. But we can only understand it completely if we try to learn more about it. Nowadays, there are apps that can help people with their learning process. They make it super easy for people to learn a new language. However, not everybody has the luxury of free time, which is why it is okay if you cannot learn everything. There are various experts in the world ready to help people with their linguistic services.
