Wiki quote: The Romance languages (more accurately the Romanic languages), are a group of languages known also as Latin languages, or Neo-Latin languages, and are descended from Vulgar Latin. They form a branch of the Italic languages within the Indo-European language family. The five most widely spoken Romance languages by number of native speakers are Spanish (410 million), Portuguese (220 million), French (75 million), Italian (60 million)*, and Romanian (25 million).[1] The larger have many non-native speakers; this is especially the case for French, which is in widespread use throughout Central and West Africa and the Maghreb region.** The Romance languages developed from Latin in the sixth to ninth centuries. Today, there are more than 800 million native speakers worldwide, mainly in Europe and the Americas and many smaller regions scattered throughout the world, as well as large numbers of non-native speakers, and widespread use as lingua franca.[2] Because of the difficulty of imposing boundaries on a continuum, there are various counts of the Romance languages; Dalby lists 23 based on mutual intelligibility: Portuguese, Spanish, Asturian-Leonese, Aragonese, Catalan, Gascon, Provençal, Gallo-Wallon, French, Franco-Provençal, Romansh, Ladin, Friulian, Venetian, Lombard, Corsican, Italian, Neapolitan-Sicilian, Sardinian, Dalmatian, Istro-Romanian, Aromanian, and Daco-Romanian.[3] In several of these cases, more than one variety has been standardized, and is therefore considered a distinct language in the popular conception; this is true for example with Asturian and Leonese as well as Napolitan*** and Sicilian. *There are circa 85 millions people who speak italian natively (with Switzerland, Albania, and on other continents). **this is weird to talk about the african french speakers when theyre not counted in the figure... Either there are circa 220 millions people who speak french or there are 75 millions (without Africa)... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_number_of_speakers Unlike what this list says, Ive read many sources in which English is quoted as being more spoken than Chinese... but who knows... English: 1 billion 800 millions speakers en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_language 77 millions French speakers in Europe alone according to this source... 77 millions native French speakers in Europe alone and 75 millions in the world... Logical... Same for Spanish... 400 millions... 417 millions... 500 millions... Who are the guys who create those lists?? LOL By the way, I have read that spanish is the most spoken language by native speakers in the world after chinese. And same, the number Ive seen counting everyone who speak it is almost 530 millions... (417 millions natives) Is there REALLY a language called Kannada? LOL... Come on... They speak (mostly) english and (in Québec) french in Canada! ha ha ha. :D We call the Romance languages Latin languages in France. You could say les langues de source romane. I guess... Romance -> Rome -> Italy -> Latin. There is no doubt that the Romance languages take most of their roots from Latin, thus from a language that comes from Italy. The Germanic languages, though, in spite of their names that make think immediately of Germany, take their source only in the extreme north of Germany, and not all of it. Otherwise in all of Denmark and in south Norway and Sweden. *** Sure Napolitan is a specific braunch of the italian language LOL. But then you could say Scottish is a specific braunch of the english language I guess... LOL I speak italian to a converstaion level (like english) and, true, a conversation with a napolitan would be, certainly possible, but challenging LOL... The languages of Italy are more diverse in the south... Even though, I guess you could find various forms of the language in the north (Venice) those are not very strong... From Naples onward in the South, italian turns much more regional... The most spoken language by native speakers in Europe is German.
Posted on: Sun, 27 Oct 2013 15:34:33 +0000
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