Catalan, known in the Valencian Community and Carche as Valencian, is a Western Romance language. It is the official language of Andorra, and an official language of two autonomous communities in eastern Spain: Catalonia and the Balearic Islands. It is also an official language in Valencia, where it is called Valencian. It has semi-official status in the Italian comune of Alghero, and it is spoken in the Pyrénées-Orientales department of France and in two further areas in eastern Spain: the eastern strip of Aragon and the Carche area in the Region of Murcia. The Catalan-speaking territories are often called the Països Catalans or "Catalan Countries".
Italian is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. Italian is the least divergent Romance language from Latin, together with Sardinian. Spoken by about 85 million people including 67 million native speakers (2024), Italian is an official language in Italy, San Marino, and Switzerland, and is the primary language of Vatican City. It has official minority status in Croatia and in some areas of Slovenian Istria.
The Romance languages, also known as the Latin or Neo-Latin languages, are the languages that are directly descended from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic branch of the Indo-European language family.
Romanian is the official and main language of Romania and Moldova. Romanian is part of the Eastern Romance sub-branch of Romance languages, a linguistic group that evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin which separated from the Western Romance languages in the course of the period from the 5th to the 8th centuries. To distinguish it within the Eastern Romance languages, in comparative linguistics it is called Daco-Romanian as opposed to its closest relatives, Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian, and Istro-Romanian. As a minority language it is spoken by stable communities in the countries surrounding Romania, and by the large Romanian diaspora. In total, it is spoken by 25 million people as a first language.
The Latins were originally an Italic tribe in ancient central Italy from Latium. As Roman power and colonization spread Helleno-Latin culture during the Roman Republic, Latins culturally "Romanized" or "Latinized" the rest of Italy, and the word Latin ceased to mean a particular people or ethnicity, acquiring a more legal and cultural sense. As the Roman Empire spread to include Spain, Portugal, France, and Romania, these joined Italy and Greece in becoming "Latin" and remain so to the present day. In the 15th and 16th centuries, Spain, Portugal and France began to build world empires in the Americas, Africa and the East Indies. By the mid-19th century, the former American colonies of these Latin European nations became known as Latin America.
Vulgar Latin, also known as Popular or Colloquial Latin, is the range of non-formal registers of Latin spoken from the Late Roman Republic onward. Vulgar Latin as a term is both controversial and imprecise. Spoken Latin existed for a long time and in many places. Scholars have differed in opinion as to the extent of the differences, and whether Vulgar Latin was in some sense a different language. This was developed as a theory in the nineteenth century by Raynouard. At its extreme, the theory suggested that the written register formed an elite language distinct from common speech, but this is now rejected.
The Iberian Romance, Ibero-Romance or sometimes Iberian languages are a group of Romance languages that developed on the Iberian Peninsula, an area consisting primarily of Spain, Portugal, Gibraltar, Andorra and southern France. They are today more commonly separated into West Iberian and Occitano-Romance language groups.
The European Union (EU) has 24 official languages, of which three – English, French and German – have the higher status of "procedural" languages of the European Commission. Irish previously had the lower status of "treaty language" before being upgraded to an official and working language in 2007. However, a temporary derogation was enforced until 1 January 2022. The three procedural languages are those used in the day-to-day workings of the institutions of the EU. The designation of Irish as a "treaty language" meant that only the treaties of the European Union were translated into Irish, whereas Legal Acts of the European Union adopted under the treaties did not have to be. Luxembourgish and Turkish, which have official status in Luxembourg and Cyprus, respectively, are the only two official languages of EU member states that are not official languages of the EU. In 2023, the Spanish government requested that its co-official languages Catalan, Basque, and Galician be added to the official languages of the EU.
Extremaduran is a group of vernacular Romance dialects, related to the Asturleonese language, spoken in Extremadura and adjoining areas in the province of Salamanca. It is difficult to establish the exact boundary between Extremaduran and the Spanish varieties spoken in most of Extremadura.
The La Spezia–Rimini Line, in the linguistics of the Romance languages, is a line that demarcates a number of important isoglosses that distinguish Romance languages south and east of the line from Romance languages north and west of it. The line runs through northern Italy, very roughly from the cities of La Spezia to Rimini. Romance languages on the eastern half of it include Italian and the Eastern Romance languages, whereas Catalan, French, Occitan, Portuguese, Romansh, Spanish, and the Gallo‒Italic languages are representatives of the Western group. Sardinian does not fit into either Western or Eastern Romance.
A regional language is a language spoken in a region of a sovereign state, whether it be a small area, a federated state or province or some wider area.
The culture of Spain is influenced by its Western origin, its interaction with other cultures in Europe, its historically Catholic religious tradition, and the varied national and regional identities within the country. It encompasses literature, music, visual arts, cuisine as well as contemporary customs, beliefs, institutions, and social norms. Beyond Spain, Spanish culture is the foundation of most of Latin American cultures and the Filipino culture.
The Organization of Ibero-American States, formally the Organization of Ibero-American States for Education, Science and Culture, is an international organization made up of 23 members states of Iberophone nations in Europe and the Americas, as well as one member in Africa. The OEI's membership is composed of all of the sovereign states of Ibero-America and the Iberian Peninsula, as well as Equatorial Guinea. All members are Portuguese and Spanish speaking nations, in addition to Andorra, which is predominantly Catalan speaking, though the organization does not include all the Iberophone nations of the world.
The internal classification of the Romance languages is a complex and sometimes controversial topic which may not have one single answer. Several classifications have been proposed, based on different criteria.
The Occitano-Romance or Gallo-Narbonnese, or rarely East Iberian, is a branch of the Romance language group that encompasses the Catalan/Valencian and Occitan languages spoken in parts of southern France and northeastern Spain.
Romance verbs are the most inflected part of speech in the language family. In the transition from Latin to the Romance languages, verbs went through many phonological, syntactic, and semantic changes. Most of the distinctions present in classical Latin continued to be made, but synthetic forms were often replaced with more analytic ones. Other verb forms changed meaning, and new forms also appeared.
As Classical Latin developed into Proto-Romance, its lexicon underwent numerous changes.
As a member of the dialect continuum of Romance languages, Catalan displays linguistic features similar to those of its closest neighbors. The following features represent in some cases unique changes in the evolution of Catalan from Vulgar Latin; other features are common in other Romance-speaking areas.
The Italy–Latin America Conference or Italo–Latin America Conference, formally the Italy–Latin America and Caribbean Conference, is an inter-governmental forum for encounter between Italy and the countries of Latin America. A biennial summit is organised in Italy by the "Italo-Latin American Institute" located in Rome, with many initiatives marking the "preparatory path". The institute's aims are to develop and coordinate research and documentation regarding the problems, achievements and prospects of its Member Countries in cultural, scientific, economic, technical and social contexts. The conferences are an effective and well-established policy instrument in Italy’s relations with the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean.
Romance linguistics is the scientific study of the Romance languages.
