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The Romanesque group are. Germanic languages

According to statistics, the inhabitants of the Earth speak 2.5 thousand languages. This includes both practically international and little-known ones. Many are dialects of more common languages, although it is always difficult to confirm or disprove this theory. Some languages ​​are considered dead, although certain types are still in use today. The most striking example confirming this is Latin.

Ancestor of modern languages

The first language that has arisen on our planet, historians call pro-world. It is the hypothetical ancestor of all languages ​​spoken by the modern population, and several language groups that are believed to be dead today.

Modern scholars are sure that the Proto-World language was used by ancient people and existed for more than one century. But there are other hypotheses as well. It is possible that different types of languages ​​arose independently of each other, in different groups of people. Alas, modern methods of linguistic research do not allow confirming or refuting any of these hypotheses.

Indo-European language group

Several large linguistic groups gradually formed from the pro-world, which became the ancestors of modern ones. One of them belongs to the Indo-European language, from which the Germanic and Romance languages ​​are derived. Indo-European is one of the most widespread groups spoken by the majority of the world's population - about 2.5 billion people. It is believed that the people who owned it lived in Eastern Europe or Western Asia. However, their existence, apart from language, is not supported by any fact.

One of the most numerous subgroups of Indo-European is the Romano-Germanic group of languages. It is about her that we will talk today.

The history of the emergence of the Germanic language group

The ancestor of the Germanic, as scientists assume, is the Germanic. The inscriptions on it, alas, have not been found by archaeologists, but its presence is confirmed by various dialects reflected in ancient texts. Thanks to the comparison of these memos, scientists have put forward a hypothesis that there is a Germanic language, which laid the foundation for the entire language group. This theory has taken root in the scientific world.

The first inscriptions in the Old Germanic language were made in the 2nd century BC on tablets. These are very short runic texts, consisting of several words. The first long texts discovered by archaeologists date back to the 6th century BC. NS. and are written in Gothic. Later, historians discovered fragments of the translation of the Bible into Germanic, in particular Gothic.

Based on the above facts, we can conclude that the Germanic writing system has existed for more than 2,000 years.

Germanic language groups

The Germanic language group is divided into 3 subgroups:

  • western;
  • northern (or Scandinavian);
  • eastern.

The eastern languages ​​are languages ​​that became extinct in the first millennium. This is Burgundy, Vandal, Gothic. The latter is called classical, since it is the basis for the study of historical Germanic studies. It was spoken by the tribes living in the territory of today's Germany.

The rest of the Germanic languages ​​(German is the first and most native language among them) are modern. Let's take a closer look at each of them.

West Germanic language group

This thread includes the following languages:

  • English (originally Old English), which is official in 54 countries;
  • German;
  • Dutch;
  • Flemish (is a dialect of Dutch);
  • Frisian (common in the Netherlands and north-west Germany);
  • Yiddish (the language of German Jews);
  • Afrikaans (South Africa).

Northern group of Germanic languages

This branch of Indo-European is also called Scandinavian. It includes:

  • Swedish;
  • Danish;
  • Norwegian;
  • Icelandic;
  • Faroese (common in the Faroe Islands and Denmark).

German language group today

Now that we know the history of the Germanic languages, let's talk about modernity. Over time, changing more and more (probably due to the peculiarities of pronunciation of Germanic words by different people), the language was enriched, its branches grew more and more.

Most people using Germanic languages ​​today speak English. It is estimated that it is used by more than 3.1 billion of the world's population. English is spoken not only in the UK and the USA, but also in some Asian and African countries. In India, it became widespread during the time of British colonization and since then has been the official language of this state along with Hindi.

We teach literary English. But its dialects are represented in huge numbers, each of which is inherent in a particular region. One of the most popular representatives of this dialect is the London Cockney - a type of common speech.

But the German language - in fact, the most classical representative of the branch of "modern Germanic languages", which linguists call the second native language in the world, is underestimated today. This is due to the fact that English is considered easier to learn and therefore more common. Today, experts believe that German is at risk of becoming a dialect of English, which is associated with the thoughtless linguistic behavior of politicians. Today, almost every middle-educated German knows English and can easily switch to it. In addition, in German, there are more and more inclusions of English.

The group of Germanic languages ​​is also used in Germany, Austria, Luxembourg, Belgium, Switzerland, ASR, New Zealand. The total number of speakers reaches 0.5 million.

Romance languages

Romance languages ​​are genetically derived from dead Latin. The term romans is translated as "Roman", because it was in ancient Rome that Latin was used. In the early Middle Ages, this term meant simple folk speech, which was significantly different from both literary Latin and other dialects.

With the spread of the power of Rome, this language was passed on to the subordinate cities, since the Romans forced the locals to speak Latin. It soon spread throughout the Roman Empire. However, at the same time, Ancient Rome spoke classical Latin, while the simple speech of the villagers was considered vulgar.

Today the Romance group is used by about 60 countries, although there is still no consensus on the number of Romance languages.

Groups of Romance languages

Among the groups of modern Romance languages, the following are distinguished.

1. Ibero-Romanesque:

  • Spanish;
  • Portuguese;
  • Catalan (it is spoken by about 11 million people in Spain, France, Italy);
  • Galician (Galicia - Autonomous Spanish Community).

2. Gallo-Roman group:

  • French;
  • Provencal (popular in the south-east of France).

Gauls are tribes of Celts who inhabited France, Italy, Belgium, Germany and Switzerland in the 5th century. For a long time they fought with the Roman Empire. There is a hypothesis that part of the modern population of France is the descendants of the Gauls.

3. Italo-Romanesque:

  • Italian;
  • Sardinian (island of Sardinia).

In addition, the Romance group includes Romansh, which is a group of archaic Romance languages ​​and contains several names, as well as Romanian and Moldavian languages.

Creole, which developed in America, Asia and Africa, is based on Romanesque. Today, the Romance language branch has more than a dozen languages, many of which are not used at all in modern speech. Others have become dialects of a number of languages, among which Italian prevails.

Romance language group in the modern world

Today the Romance language plays the role of one of the most important in the world linguistic system. It is spoken by about 700 million people. The immensely popular English also borrowed many words from Latin, although it belongs to the branch of "Germanic languages". This is due to the fact that in the 17-18 centuries Latin was considered the perfect language, which was persistently mixed with traditional English in literature. Today, many English words are Latin, which allows English to be attributed to the Romano-Germanic group.

The most common Romanesque is Spanish. It is used by over 380 million people. And due to the similarity of the Romance languages, they are easy to learn. If you are fluent in one language from this group, it will not be difficult to learn others.

Latin and Romano-Germanic languages

For you, Latin itself also refers to a branch of Indo-European. Presumably, it originated in the west of the Apennine Peninsula, in the Latin tribe. Later, the center of this area became Rome, whose inhabitants began to be called the Romans.

Today, Latin is the only Italian language still in active use. The rest are dead. Latin is the official language of the Vatican and the Roman Catholic churches.

The Romano-Germanic group of languages ​​has its own history. Despite the fact that in fact such a classification does not exist, and it is found only as the names of faculties in institutes, there is a close relationship between these two groups. Since the 1st century BC. NS. the Romans more than once tried to subjugate the Germanic tribes, but their persistent attempts were unsuccessful. But the Romans and Germans collaborated for a long time. Their economic ties can be traced even in the names of cities with a Latin basis, including those located on the banks of the Danube and Rhine rivers. The conquest of Britain by the Germans in the 5th century was the reason that many Latin words migrated to the Germanic languages.

In Russian, Latin inclusions are also traced, mostly through Greek. Especially in Old Russian. For example, the Russian suffix -ar was taken from Latin. It denotes a person performing some kind of constant task. For example: vrat-ar, myt-ar.

There is also a hypothesis that the Germanic languages ​​are a mixture of Turkic and Slavic. This hypothesis, if we consider it in more detail, really has a right to exist. Thanks to a careful analysis of Russian and Germanic words, a parallel can be easily traced between them.

Conclusion

Today, researchers continue to study and interpret ancient languages. Most likely, all of our languages ​​descended from one ancestor, and then began to change due to differences in geographic location and cultural characteristics. This is due to the fact that in almost all modern languages, even at first glance completely different, you can find similarities in words and signs. But on the question of whether the Neanderthals spoke, scientists are still pondering. If they were capable of this degree of communication, it is likely that their language was different from those that emerged later.

State Polar Academy

Faculty of Philology

Department of Philosophy, Cultural Studies and History


Romance languages: general characteristics


Completed: student 281gr

Ondar Saglai Olegovna


Saint Petersburg 2008


Romance languages ​​are a group of languages ​​and dialects that are part of the Indo-European language family and were formed on the basis of the Latin language in its colloquial form.

The term "Romanesque" goes back to the Latin adjective "romanus", which means "Roman". And the word "romanus" itself was formed from the word "Roma" - Rom. Initially, this word had a predominantly ethnic meaning, but after the extension of the right of Roman citizenship to the entire multilingual population of the Roman Empire (212 AD), it acquired a political one. And in the era of the collapse of the Roman Empire and the formation of "barbarian" states on its territory, it became the common name of all Latin-speaking peoples.

The commonality of the Romance languages ​​is determined primarily by their origin from the popular Latin speech, which spread in the territories conquered by Rome. Romance languages ​​developed as a result of the divergent (centrifugal) development of the oral tradition of different geographic dialects of the once common popular Latin language. Then they gradually separated from the source language and from each other as a result of various demographic, historical and geographical processes. The beginning of this epochal process was laid by the Roman colonists who inhabited the provinces of the Roman Empire far from the capital - the city of Rome - in the course of a complex ethnographic process called Romanization in the period of the 3rd century. BC NS. - 5 c. n. NS. During this period, the various dialects of Latin are influenced by the substrate. For a long time, Romance languages ​​were perceived only as vernacular dialects of the classical Latin language, and therefore were practically not used in writing. The formation of the literary forms of the Romance languages ​​was largely based on the traditions of classical Latin, which allowed them to converge again in lexical and semantic terms already in modern times.

Distribution zones and stages of development of Romance languages


The zones of distribution of the Romance languages ​​are divided into:

) "Old Romania", that is, the modern cultural, historical and linguistic regions of Southern and partly Eastern Europe, which in ancient times were part of the Roman Empire. They went through the process of ancient ethnocultural Romanization, and which subsequently became the nucleus of the formation of modern Romance peoples and Romance languages. Most of the sovereign states of modern Latin Europe were formed on the territory of Old Romania in the Middle Ages and modern times. These regions include Italy, Portugal, almost all of Spain, France, the south of Belgium, the west and south of Switzerland, the main territory of Romania, almost all of Moldova, some blotches in the north of Greece, the south and northwest of Serbia.

) "New Romania". New Romance, in turn, refers to areas that are not directly related to the Roman Empire, but romanized later (in the Middle Ages and modern times) as a result of their colonization by the European roman-speaking powers, where the roman-speaking population (Vlachs) migrated from neighboring Transylvania in the 13-15th centuries. These include French-speaking Canada, Central and South America, and most of the Antilles. And the former colonies, where the Romance languages ​​(French, Spanish, Portuguese), without displacing the local ones, became official: many African countries, partly South Asia and some Pacific islands.

More than 11 Romance languages ​​were formed on the territory of "Old Romania": Portuguese, Galician, Spanish, Catalan, French, Provencal (Occitan), Italian, Sardinian (Sardinian), Romansh, Dalmatian (disappeared at the end of the 19th century), Romanian and Moldavian, as well as many varieties of Romance speech, which are considered intermediate between the language and the dialect: Gascon, Franco-Provencal, Aromanian, Meglen-Romanian, Istro-Romanian, etc.

Modern Romance languages ​​are a continuation and development of popular Latin speech in the territories that became part of the Roman Empire. There are several stages in the development of Romance languages:

) 3rd century BC NS. - 5 c. - the period of romanization (replacement of local languages ​​by the vernacular Latin). The divergences of the future Romance dialects were predetermined by the different times of the conquest of the regions by Rome (Italy by the 3rd century BC, Spain - 3rd century BC, Gaul - 1st century BC, Rezia - 1st century BC). , Dacia - 2nd century), the pace and social conditions of Romanization, dialectal differences of Latin itself, the degree of connection of the provinces with Rome, the administrative division of the empire, the influence of the substrate (the languages ​​of the local population - Iberians, Gauls, Reths, Dacians, etc.).

) 5-9 centuries. - the period of the formation of the Romance languages ​​in the context of the collapse of the Roman Empire and the formation of barbarian states. Romance speech was influenced by the languages ​​of the conquerors (the so-called superstratum): the Germans (Visigoths in Spain, Franks and Burgundians in Gaul, Lombards in Italy), Arabs in Spain and Slavs in the Balkans. By the 10th century. the boundaries of modern Romania are determined; Romance languages ​​are beginning to be recognized as languages ​​distinct from Latin and from each other.

) 10-16 centuries. - the development of writing in Romance languages, the expansion of their social functions, the emergence of supra-dialect literary languages.

) 16-19 centuries. - formation of national languages, their normalization, further enrichment.

) 20th - 21st centuries. - the rise of Spanish to the detriment of French, the movement for the approval and expansion of the functions of minority languages.

supra-dialectal literary phonetics romanesque

Classification of Romance languages


The modern classification of Romance languages ​​looks like this:

) Ibero-Romance subgroup, which includes Catalan (aka Catalan), Galician, Ladino (Spanish-Hebrew, Sephardic, Spagnol, Judesmo), Portuguese. Catalan languages ​​are often singled out as a separate group of Occitan-Romance languages, along with Ibero-Romance and Gallo-Romance. Some linguists also attribute them not to the Iberian subgroup, but to the Gaulish.

) Occitan-Romance subgroup - Occitan language and Catalan language.

) Gallo-Romance subgroup - French and Provencal (Occitan) languages.

) Italo-Romance subgroup - Spanish (some of its dialects are sometimes considered separate languages) and Sardinian (Sardinian) language.

) The Romance subgroup is a conventional name for a group of archaic Romance languages ​​located on the periphery of the Gallo-Italian linguistic area. They are an areal association, not a genetic group. Includes Romansh (Romanesh, Swiss-Romansh, Graubünden, Kurval), Friulian (Furlanian), Ladin (Tyrolean, Trent, Trentino, Dolomite).

) Balkan-Romance subgroup - Romanian (Moldavian, Aromunian, Meglen-Romanian and Istro-Romanian dialects are sometimes considered separate languages), Dalmatian language (disappeared in the 19th century).


Main features of Romance languages


The main changes in the field of phonetics are the rejection of the quantitative differences of vowels; the common Roman system has 7 vowels (the greatest preservation is in Italian); development of specific vowels (nasal in French and Portuguese, labialized front vowels in French, Provencal, Romansh; mixed vowels in Balkan-Romanian); the formation of diphthongs; reduction of unstressed vowels (especially final ones); neutralization of openness / closeness e and o in unstressed syllables. The Latin consonant system became more complex in all Romance languages ​​due to the process of palatalization, which led to the formation of new phonemes - affricates, sibilants, and palatal sonorants. The result is a weakening or reduction of the intervocal consonant; weakening and reduction of a consonant in the outcome of a syllable; a tendency to open syllable and limited consonant compatibility; a tendency towards phonetic linking of words in the speech stream (especially in French).

In the field of morphology, there is a preservation of inflection with a strong tendency towards analyticism. General grammatical romanisms affect almost all the main categories of both the noun and the verb (all of them are directed towards increasing analyticism). In the name system, the number of declination types was reduced to three; no case category (except for Balkan-Romance); the disappearance of the morphological class of neuter names; an increase in the frequency of the use of the demonstrative pronoun in the anaphoric function (later it turned into a definite article), a variety of forms, the coordination of adjectives with names in gender and number; formation of adverbs from adjectives by means of the suffix -mente (except for Balkan-Romanian); ramified system of analytical verb forms; a typical scheme of a romance verb contains 16 tenses and 4 moods; 2 pledges; peculiar impersonal forms.

In syntax - the order of words is fixed in some cases; an adjective usually follows a noun; determinatives precede the verb (except Balkan-Romance).

The grammatical and phonetic shifts that have taken place in the Romance languages ​​during the last one and a half thousand years, on the whole, are of the same type, although they differ in greater or lesser consistency.


Conclusion


Romance languages, which are part of the Indo-European language family, are a good example of how several related dialects emerge from one proto-language over time and changes in the geographical conditions of people, which eventually become separate languages. Today, the total number of speakers of Romance languages ​​is over 400 million; state languages ​​of more than 50 countries. The classification of Romance languages ​​is difficult, since they are connected by varied and gradual transitions. The number of Romance languages ​​is a controversial issue. There is no consensus in science about the number of Romance languages.

In the course of development, Romance languages ​​are influenced by the Latin language, borrowing words, word-formation models, syntactic constructions from it. Romance languages ​​are characterized by a number of general tendencies, which are implemented in each of them to varying degrees. Romance languages ​​belong to the inflectional languages ​​with a strong tendency towards analyticism (especially French spoken language).

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INDO-EUROPEAN FAMILY OF LANGUAGES

ROMAN GROUP

(For 1st year students of full-time and part-time departments)

Rostov-on-Don

R O M A N S K I E I Z Y K I

This is a group of languages ​​of the Indo-European family, united by a common origin: they all formed on the basis of the Latin language in its colloquial form, which was part of the Italic group of now dead languages. Romance languages ​​demonstrate a rare case of the formation of a language group, firstly, in a certain, historically foreseeable period of time, and secondly, on the basis of the well-known and very well represented in the written records of the source language.

The immediate source of the Romance languages ​​is folk (vulgar) Latin, the oral speech of the Romanized population in the territories that were part of the Roman Empire. Already in the classical period (1st century BC) spoken live speech was contrasted with the literary Latin language. Roman authors also noted that Latin is territorially differentiated, i.e. outside the Apennine Peninsula, live speech has local characteristics.

The term "Romance languages" goes back to the Latin adjectives romanus and romanicus, derived from the word Roma - Rome. The meaning of the word has changed over time. At first, it had an ethnic and political meaning: civisromanus - ‘Roman citizen’. LingvaRomana (‘the language of Rome’) meant Latin. After the extension of the right of Roman citizenship to the entire population of the Roman Empire (212), the word romanus lost its political meaning and became the general name for the Romanized population in all territories that ever entered the Roman Empire. To designate these territories in the works of Roman historians of the later period, the concept of "romania" appears. Structural discrepancies between classical Latin and vernacular dialects have increased over time. The latter are beginning to be recognized as languages ​​other than Latin, and are collectively called romanalingva. At the same time, the speakers of the Romance languages ​​are opposed to the Germanic peoples, and subsequently to the Arabs, Slavs, etc.

For the first time, the term romanalingva is not used as a synonym for linguaLatina in the acts of the Cathedral of Tours in 813.

In the Middle Ages, the adverb romanice 'in-romance', combined with the verbs of speech and writing, began to denote 'the romance language; an essay in the Romance language '. Similar designations existed in all Romance languages, except Italian, since in it, the corresponding adjective was associated with Rome (Roma). The Italian language was called volgare `` volgare '' from volgo `` people, rabble '', opposing it to the bookish, learned language (Latin).

Later, "Romance" in the scientific literature began to call the countries of the Romance speech in their totality. From the moment the Romans seized the first territories outside Latium, a process begins, which is commonly called Romanization - the spread of the Latin language, Roman customs and Roman culture to the territories captured by Rome. The adjective latinus 'Latin' originally denoted the inhabitants of Latium, then, with the collapse of the Roman Empire, it began to denote those who continued to live according to Roman law, in contrast to the Germanic conquerors who lived according to barbaric customs. In the Middle Ages, this name was associated with the Roman Catholic Church.

Romanization, starting with the Apennine Peninsula of Italy, covered most of the areas conquered by the Romans. The Romanization of various parts of the Roman Empire varied in depth and strength. The conquest of Britain by the Romans, for example, if accompanied by the Romanization of the population, then to a very insignificant extent. The Romanesque element was not preserved in such provinces as Noricus, Pannonia, Illyricum, Thrace, and partly Moesia due to the insufficient depth of Romanization and their settlement by huge masses of peoples of other ethnic groups.

Romanization proved to be strong and led to the formation of Romance languages ​​in Italy itself, on the Iberian Peninsula, in Gaul, in Dacia and partly in Rezia. The process of Romanization, which lasted more than five hundred years in total, took place in each region in its own way. In Italy, the factors that determined the peculiarities of Romanization were, in particular, the ethnic community of the population (and, as a result, the creation of a common Italian colloquial koine) and the federative nature of the unification of cities (their well-known autonomy).

On the Iberian Peninsula, this is primarily the unevenness of the rate of romanization of different regions. The formation of the Romance languages ​​of the Iberian Peninsula in 711 was interrupted by the Arab conquest. Galicia, part of Asturias, Aragon, Catalonia and Old Castile were free from the Arab invasion. In the course of the Reconquista, the Romance speech of these Iberian regions spread to the south, where the Mosarabian dialects functioned during the period of Arab rule. Therefore, from a genetic point of view, the source of the Portuguese language can be considered Galician.

In the process of historical development, the original genetic commonality of the Corsican and Sardinian languages ​​was disrupted, because the Tuscany language took place early in Corsica.

The main part of Transalpine Gaul was conquered relatively quickly, the Gallic society at the time of its conquest reached a certain level of development, the Roman state itself was experiencing a period of its highest prosperity. Romanization here was more uniform. And, nevertheless, as you know, on the territory of Transalpine Gaul, two Romance languages ​​were formed - Provençal and French. This, apparently, can be explained as follows: the Mediterranean coast and the rest of the territory were conquered at different times (the province of Narbonne Gaul was created in 120 BC, Lugdun Gaul, Belgica and Aquitaine in 52 BC). NS.); Latin was influenced by various local languages ​​(Ligunian in the south, Celtic in the north), and the subsequent history of each region developed in different ways.

The Romanization of Dacia proceeded at an unusually fast pace, which was associated with the resettlement of a significant number of Latin speakers on its territory in a relatively short period of time. But in 270 - 275. under the onslaught of the Visigoths, the Roman legions were withdrawn from the territory of Dacia to the south, beyond the Danube, which significantly reduced the proportion of the romanized population in this area and affected the fate of the Balkan-Romance languages. You should also pay attention to the influence on these territories of the Slavic superstratum, Greek, Hungarian, Turkic adstrata.

Interbreeding with the languages ​​of the Roman provinces (Iberian in Spain, Celtic - in Gaul, northern Italy, Portugal, Dacian in Romania) was subjected not to classical, but folk (vulgar) Latin - common spoken Latin.

Taking into account this specificity of formation, a genetic classification of Romance languages ​​is also being built. Unlike other large language families, Romance languages ​​are relatively recent. Therefore, for them, the traditional principle of isolating a common language, isolated at the earliest level, is unacceptable, then the gradual isolation of territories and the formation of dialects on them (construction of the so-called "family tree"). Most researchers do not single out the general Romanesque period, because the differentiation of folk Latin actually begins from the moment of the Romanization of the corresponding territory. In most cases, Romance languages ​​and dialects are a continuation of the type of folk Latin that was formed in this area, therefore they speak, for example, of "Aquitanian Latin" (southwestern France) as the predecessor of Gascon, "Narbonne Latin" (southern France), which gave the beginning of Occitan, etc.

The following factors influenced the development of individual Romance languages:

    the time of the conquest of this area by Rome (early, later);

    the time of the isolation of this area from Central Italy during the collapse of the Roman Empire;

    the degree of intensity of political, economic, cultural contacts of this area with Central Italy and neighboring Romanesque areas;

    the way of romanizing this area (“urban”: school, administration, familiarizing the local nobility with Roman culture; “rural”: colonies of Latin and Italic settlers, mostly former warriors);

    the nature of the substrate and the degree of its impact;

    the nature of the superstratum (Germanic, not Germanic).

According to various estimates, the Romance languages ​​are spoken by about 700 million people (or more than one tenth of the world's population). This number is determined rather conditionally, because it includes both native speakers for whom Romance languages ​​are native, and those who use Romance languages ​​as literary and written in a situation of official or interethnic communication.

The modern term "Romagna" denotes the area of ​​distribution of the Romance languages. There are 3 zones of distribution of Romance languages:

1) "Old Romania": the territory of Europe, which was part of the Roman Empire and retained the Romanesque speech. This is the core of the formation of Romance languages ​​- Italy, Portugal, almost all of Spain and France, south. Belgium, West and south. Switzerland, Romania and Moldova.

2) "New Romance" - these are groups of the Roman-speaking population outside Europe, formed in the XVI-XVIII centuries. in connection with the colonization: part of the North. America (Quebec in Canada, Mexico), almost all of Central America, South America, most of the Antilles.

3) Countries in which, as a result of expansion, Romance languages ​​became official languages, but did not supplant local languages: a significant part of Africa (French, Spanish, Portuguese), small territories in South Asia and Oceania.

In total, the Romance languages ​​are spoken by residents of more than 60 countries.

The question of the number of Romance languages ​​is controversial, since the concepts of "language" and "dialect" are not sufficiently distinguished. The following Romance languages ​​are usually distinguished.

State, national, multifunctional languages ​​that have a literary norm and structural independence:

    Spanish,

    Portuguese,

    French,

    Italian,

    Romanian.

French, Spanish, Portuguese in addition to Europe, they are common in the countries of the New World, where they act in the form of national variants, the norm of which differs from the norm of the Old World.

The rest of the languages ​​are considered small, or minority, their speakers are mostly bilingual, they are ethnic and linguistic minorities in the countries of residence, and the languages ​​functionally coexist with one or more dominant languages:

    Catalan,

    Galician - do not have national status, but are official in the autonomous regions of Spain, therefore they have a fairly wide sphere of functioning;

    Provencal (Occitan) - a language common in the south of France, currently exists as a group of dialects, in the Middle Ages had a rich cultural and literary historical tradition;

    Romansh, common in Switzerland, has an official

status, despite the limited number of speakers, continues to exist in the form of 5 main dialects, each of which has its own literary tradition; a general rule has recently been developed for them;

    the Friulian language in Northern Italy does not have the status of a state language, but a literary koine has developed for it, there is literature, in addition, the Friuli have a pronounced ethnic identity;

    Ladin is also widespread in Northern Italy; it is a group of dialects that a number of researchers attribute to the northern dialects of Italy and do not distinguish as an independent language;

12. Sardinian (Sardinian) language is the general name for significantly differentiated dialects of Sardinia Island, for which there is no single norm;

13. Meglen-Romanian, Aromanian, Istro-Romanian are considered as intermediate between the language and the dialect; exist mainly in oral form, have vivid typological features, which gives reason to distinguish them as separate languages;

14. Gascon, belonging to the Occitan dialects, has specific typological characteristics;

15. Corsican, Aragonese, Asturian also claim the status of a language, norms have been developed for them, which are being actively implemented today;

16. Jewish-Roman dialects are traditionally distinguished as ethno-confessional; their carriers were distinguished by their religious affiliation (Judaism); most of these dialects (Jewish-French, Jewish-Portuguese, Jewish-Occitan) have already disappeared, today only Jewish-Italian stands out (a small number of its speakers live in Rome and Livorno). Researchers note that it is more likely not about languages, but about a set of features characteristic of the language of monuments written in Hebrew graphics; the discrepancies concern, first of all, the lexical composition, which is quite explainable by the development of the language in another confessional, cultural, literary tradition;

17. Hebrew-Spanish (Sephardic, Ladino, Spagnol, Spanish Hebrew), unlike the previous group, has an original structure; from the end of the 15th century. (after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492) developed outside the influence of the base language (Spanish); part of the Jews living in North Africa, Asia Minor, and the Balkan Peninsula speaks this language;

18. Creole languages ​​evolved from Spanish, Portuguese and French.

19. The group of Romance languages ​​also includes the extinct at the end of the 19th century. Dalmatian language.

There are 5 subgroups of Romance languages: Gallo-Roman(French, Provencal languages); italo-roman(Italian, Sardinian languages); Ibero-Romanesque(Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese, Galician languages); Balkan-Romanesque(Romanian, Moldavian languages, as well as Aromunian, Meglen-Romanian, Istro-Romanian dialects (languages), Romansh.

The similarity and difference in the above-mentioned features allow scientists to distinguish two opposing areas to each other: East Romanesque (Balkan-Romanesque) and West Romanesque. The development of the Balkan-Romance languages ​​was greatly influenced by the Slavic, Greek, Hungarian languages, and the Turkic languages-neighbors. In addition, the Romanization of Dacia was mainly rural in nature: the Latin brought by the Roman legionaries contained new features of the vernacular, which did not manage to spread to the previously Romanized territories, where Latin education was firmly rooted.

In the Western Romanesque region, the development of languages ​​was influenced primarily by the substrate base: the Celtic substrate in France and Northern Italy, Italic in Southern Italy, Ibero-Basque and Celtic in Spain. In some areas, the influence of a deep substrate of a non-Indo-European character is possible: Ligurian in the north-west of Italy and the southern coast of France, Etruscan in Tuscany, "Mediterranean" substrate in Corsica and Sardinia. Information about substratum languages ​​is very limited, therefore it is difficult to establish concrete facts of the substratum influence on the Romance languages. Nevertheless, even today, the border, opposing the northern dialects of Italy to the central ones, runs where the border between the ethnic territories of the Celtic tribes and the Etruscans passed.

The Western Romance languages ​​were also greatly influenced by the superstratum, which in most of the Romance territory was the languages ​​of the Germanic conquerors. For French, these are the languages ​​of the Frankish tribes, for Italian, the language of the Ostrogoths and Lombards, for the languages ​​of the Iberian Peninsula, the languages ​​of the Visigoths and other Germanic tribes. The influence of the Germanic superstratum on the French language is most noticeable.

The Western Romanesque area developed within the framework of the Latin cultural tradition. Latin was used as a written language for most languages. For the Balkan-Romance languages, this role was played by the Greek and Church Slavonic languages. The influence of the Greek language was significant in the south of Italy.

The Italo-Romance area is linguistically heterogeneous and exhibits similarities with both Western Romanesque and Eastern Romanesque languages. The classification of Romance languages ​​on the basis of structural features turns out to be ambiguous, since languages ​​opposed on one basis turn out to be united on the other. Considering the conventionality of such a division, as well as the fact that Sardinia and Corsica do not completely fit into either one or the other area and stand out as a separate, archaic zone of Romania, a tradition arose to oppose not Western and Eastern Romania, but continuous, or central, Romania isolated, or peripheral, marginal. Proponents of this approach note that the division into Western and Eastern Romania is based on diachronic features and does not take into account the current state of the Romance languages. However, this point of view is also not unconditionally accepted. The most common and acceptable classification combines typological features with criteria for geographical and cultural proximity of areas.

The Ibero-Romance subgroup includes Spanish, Portuguese, Galician, Hebrew-Spanish, Aragonese, Asturian. Catalan, also related to Ibero-Roman, is close to Gallo-Roman, especially Occitan.

The Gallo-Roman subgroup includes French, Occitan, Franco-Provencal. Gascon, sometimes regarded as a dialect of Occitan, has much in common with Ibero-Romance languages, especially Aragonese and Catalan, and in some ways also with Spanish. Some novelists distinguish the Pyrenean subgroup of languages, which includes Occitan, Gascon, Catalan, and Aragonese.

The Italian-Romance subgroup includes quite a variety of languages: literary Italian, northern, central and southern dialects of Italy, Sardinian, Corsican, Friulian, Ladin and Istro-Romanesque. Many dialects of northern Italy share similarities with the languages ​​of the Gallo-Roman subgroup. Sardinian coincides in a number of ways with the Ibero-Romance languages. Friulian and Ladin have long been attributed to the Romansh languages.

The selection of the Romansh subgroup seems to be the most problematic. In the works of the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century. the Romansh included not only the Romansh language of Switzerland, but also the Friulian and Ladin languages. The Romansh subgroup was considered as a transitional between Gallo-Romance and Italo-Romance and, more broadly, including Dalmatian and Istro-Romanesque, as a transitional one between the eastern and western languages ​​of Romania. At present, such a view is recognized as outdated, and only dialects of Rumansh Switzerland are actually attributed to the Romansh language.

The Balkan-Romance subgroup includes the Romanian language and the minor Balkan languages, sometimes called the South Danube: Aromanian, Meglen-Romanian, Istro-Romanian.

The extinct Dalmatian language belongs to the Italo-Romance or Balkan-Romance subgroup. It is sometimes viewed as a "bridge language" between these two subgroups. There was a proposal to unite Dalmatian with Istro-Romanesque and designate this subgroup by substratum as Illyro-Romanesque.

The degree of structural affinity of languages ​​has changed over the course of their history. Old Catalan and Old Occitan were much closer to each other than modern Catalan and Occitan. Old French was in many ways closer to other Western Romanesque languages ​​than modern French.

Romance languages ​​use the Latin alphabet. In the Balkan-Romance languages ​​(Romanian, Moldavian) from the XVI to the beginning. XIX century. a writing based on the Cyrillic alphabet was used, because the language of religion and culture was Church Slavonic. After 1860, the Romanian language switched to the Latin alphabet, the Moldavian language retained the former script, in 1989 a decision was made to switch to the Latin alphabet.

Texts in the minor Balkan languages ​​were written in Greek graphics. Aromanian, with its most enduring written tradition, still uses the predominantly Greek alphabet.

Separate lines in the medieval Arabic-language lyrics of the Iberian Peninsula record the romance words in the Arabic script.

Written monuments of the Jewish diaspora in all Romanesque countries were recorded before the beginning. XIX century. the Hebrew alphabet.

Romance languages ​​are classified as inflectional-analytical. The development of the Romance languages ​​went along the line of strengthening analytical features, especially in the name system. Most of the analytical features in the oral form of the French language. In Balkan-Romance languages, the role of inflection is more significant than in other Romance languages.

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State Polar Academy

Faculty of Philology

Department of Philosophy, Cultural Studies and History

Romance languages: general characteristics

Completed: student 281gr

Ondar Saglai Olegovna

Saint Petersburg 2008

Romance languages ​​are a group of languages ​​and dialects that are part of the Indo-European language family and were formed on the basis of the Latin language in its colloquial form.

The term "Romanesque" goes back to the Latin adjective "romanus", which means "Roman". And the word "romanus" itself was formed from the word "Roma" - Rom. Initially, this word had a predominantly ethnic meaning, but after the extension of the right of Roman citizenship to the entire multilingual population of the Roman Empire (212 AD), it acquired a political one. And in the era of the collapse of the Roman Empire and the formation of "barbarian" states on its territory, it became the common name of all Latin-speaking peoples.

The commonality of the Romance languages ​​is determined primarily by their origin from the popular Latin speech, which spread in the territories conquered by Rome. Romance languages ​​developed as a result of the divergent (centrifugal) development of the oral tradition of different geographic dialects of the once common popular Latin language. Then they gradually separated from the source language and from each other as a result of various demographic, historical and geographical processes. The beginning of this epochal process was laid by the Roman colonists who inhabited the provinces of the Roman Empire far from the capital - the city of Rome - in the course of a complex ethnographic process called Romanization in the period of the 3rd century. BC NS. - 5 c. n. NS. During this period, the various dialects of Latin are influenced by the substrate. For a long time, Romance languages ​​were perceived only as vernacular dialects of the classical Latin language, and therefore were practically not used in writing. The formation of the literary forms of the Romance languages ​​was largely based on the traditions of classical Latin, which allowed them to converge again in lexical and semantic terms already in modern times.

Distribution zones and stages of development of Romance languages

The zones of distribution of the Romance languages ​​are divided into:

1) "Old Romania", that is, the modern cultural, historical and linguistic areas of Southern and partly Eastern Europe, which in ancient times were part of the Roman Empire. They went through the process of ancient ethnocultural Romanization, and which subsequently became the nucleus of the formation of modern Romance peoples and Romance languages. Most of the sovereign states of modern Latin Europe were formed on the territory of Old Romania in the Middle Ages and modern times. These regions include Italy, Portugal, almost all of Spain, France, the south of Belgium, the west and south of Switzerland, the main territory of Romania, almost all of Moldova, some blotches in the north of Greece, the south and northwest of Serbia.

2) "New Romania". New Romance, in turn, refers to areas that are not directly related to the Roman Empire, but romanized later (in the Middle Ages and modern times) as a result of their colonization by the European roman-speaking powers, where the roman-speaking population (Vlachs) migrated from neighboring Transylvania in the 13-15th centuries. These include French-speaking Canada, Central and South America, and most of the Antilles. And the former colonies, where the Romance languages ​​(French, Spanish, Portuguese), without displacing the local ones, became official: many African countries, partly South Asia and some Pacific islands.

More than 11 Romance languages ​​were formed on the territory of "Old Romania": Portuguese, Galician, Spanish, Catalan, French, Provencal (Occitan), Italian, Sardinian (Sardinian), Romansh, Dalmatian (disappeared at the end of the 19th century), Romanian and Moldavian, as well as many varieties of Romance speech, which are considered intermediate between the language and the dialect: Gascon, Franco-Provencal, Aromanian, Meglen-Romanian, Istro-Romanian, etc.

Modern Romance languages ​​are a continuation and development of popular Latin speech in the territories that became part of the Roman Empire. There are several stages in the development of Romance languages:

1) 3rd century BC NS. - 5 c. - the period of romanization (replacement of local languages ​​by the vernacular Latin). The divergences of the future Romance dialects were predetermined by the different times of the conquest of the regions by Rome (Italy by the 3rd century BC, Spain - 3rd century BC, Gaul - 1st century BC, Rezia - 1st century, Dacia - 2nd century), the pace and social conditions of Romanization, dialectal differences of Latin itself, the degree of connection of the provinces with Rome, the administrative division of the empire, the influence of the substratum (languages ​​of the local population - Iberians, Gauls, Reths, Dacians, etc. .).

2) 5-9 centuries. - the period of the formation of the Romance languages ​​in the context of the collapse of the Roman Empire and the formation of barbarian states. Romance speech was influenced by the languages ​​of the conquerors (the so-called superstratum): the Germans (Visigoths in Spain, Franks and Burgundians in Gaul, Lombards in Italy), Arabs in Spain and Slavs in the Balkans. By the 10th century. the boundaries of modern Romania are determined; Romance languages ​​are beginning to be recognized as languages ​​distinct from Latin and from each other.

3) 10-16 centuries. - the development of writing in Romance languages, the expansion of their social functions, the emergence of supra-dialect literary languages.

4) 16-19 centuries. - formation of national languages, their normalization, further enrichment.

5) 20th - 21st centuries - the rise of Spanish to the detriment of French, the movement for the approval and expansion of the functions of minority languages.

supra-dialectal literary phonetics romanesque

Classification of Romance languages

The modern classification of Romance languages ​​looks like this:

1) Ibero-Romance subgroup, which includes Catalan (aka Catalan), Galician, Ladino (Spanish-Hebrew, Sephardic, Spagnol, Judesmo), Portuguese. Catalan languages ​​are often singled out as a separate group of Occitan-Romance languages, along with Ibero-Romance and Gallo-Romance. Some linguists also attribute them not to the Iberian subgroup, but to the Gaulish.

2) Occitan-Romance subgroup - Occitan language and Catalan language.

3) Gallo-Romance subgroup - French and Provencal (Occitan) languages.

4) Italo-Romance subgroup - Spanish (some of its dialects are sometimes considered separate languages) and Sardinian (Sardinian) language.

5) The Romance subgroup is a conventional name for a group of archaic Romance languages ​​located on the periphery of the Gallo-Italian linguistic area. They are an areal association, not a genetic group. Includes Romansh (Romanesh, Swiss-Romansh, Graubünden, Kurval), Friulian (Furlanian), Ladin (Tyrolean, Trent, Trentino, Dolomite).

6) Balkan-Romance subgroup - Romanian (Moldavian, Aromunian, Meglen-Romanian and Istro-Romanian dialects are sometimes considered separate languages), Dalmatian language (disappeared in the 19th century).

Main features of Romance languages

The main changes in the field of phonetics are the rejection of the quantitative differences of vowels; the common Roman system has 7 vowels (the greatest preservation is in Italian); development of specific vowels (nasal in French and Portuguese, labialized front vowels in French, Provencal, Romansh; mixed vowels in Balkan-Romanian); the formation of diphthongs; reduction of unstressed vowels (especially final ones); neutralization of openness / closeness e and o in unstressed syllables. The Latin consonant system became more complex in all Romance languages ​​due to the process of palatalization, which led to the formation of new phonemes - affricates, sibilants, and palatal sonorants. The result is a weakening or reduction of the intervocal consonant; weakening and reduction of a consonant in the outcome of a syllable; a tendency to open syllable and limited consonant compatibility; a tendency towards phonetic linking of words in the speech stream (especially in French).

In the field of morphology, there is a preservation of inflection with a strong tendency towards analyticism. General grammatical romanisms affect almost all the main categories of both the noun and the verb (all of them are directed towards increasing analyticism). In the name system, the number of declination types was reduced to three; no case category (except for Balkan-Romance); the disappearance of the morphological class of neuter names; an increase in the frequency of the use of the demonstrative pronoun in the anaphoric function (later it turned into a definite article), a variety of forms, the coordination of adjectives with names in gender and number; formation of adverbs from adjectives by means of the suffix -mente (except for Balkan-Romanian); ramified system of analytical verb forms; a typical scheme of a romance verb contains 16 tenses and 4 moods; 2 pledges; peculiar impersonal forms.

In syntax - the order of words is fixed in some cases; an adjective usually follows a noun; determinatives precede the verb (except Balkan-Romance).

The grammatical and phonetic shifts that have taken place in the Romance languages ​​during the last one and a half thousand years, on the whole, are of the same type, although they differ in greater or lesser consistency.

Conclusion

Romance languages, which are part of the Indo-European language family, are a good example of how several related dialects emerge from one proto-language over time and changes in the geographical conditions of people, which eventually become separate languages. Today, the total number of speakers of Romance languages ​​is over 400 million; state languages ​​of more than 50 countries. The classification of Romance languages ​​is difficult, since they are connected by varied and gradual transitions. The number of Romance languages ​​is a controversial issue. There is no consensus in science about the number of Romance languages.

In the course of development, Romance languages ​​are influenced by the Latin language, borrowing words, word-formation models, syntactic constructions from it. Romance languages ​​are characterized by a number of general tendencies, which are implemented in each of them to varying degrees. Romance languages ​​belong to the inflectional languages ​​with a strong tendency towards analyticism (especially French spoken language).

List of used literature

1) Sergievsky M.V., Introduction to Romance Linguistics, M., 1952.

2) Romance languages, M., 1965.

3) Bursier E. Fundamentals of Romance linguistics. M., 1952

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The Romance group, which is part of the Indo-European family, is spoken by about a billion people, over 800 million of whom consider a Romance language to be their mother tongue. Romance languages ​​are recognized as national or official languages ​​in more than 60 countries. In addition, over 10 Creole languages ​​have emerged from Spanish, Portuguese and French. In addition to these languages, Italian has a global cultural significance.
The term "Romanesque" goes back to the Latin adjective romanus, derived from the word Roma "Rome". Initially, this word had a predominantly ethnic meaning, however, after the extension of the right of Roman citizenship to the entire multilingual population of the Roman Empire (212 AD), it acquired a political meaning (since civis romanus meant "Roman citizen"), and in the era of disintegration The Roman Empire and the formation of "barbarian" states on its territory became the common name for all Latin-speaking peoples. As the structural discrepancies between the classical norm of Latin and the vernacular dialects of the romanized population increase, the latter are collectively called romana lingua. For the first time, the expression romana lingua is not used as a synonym for lingua latina in the acts of the Council of Tours in 813 (which decided to preach sermons not in Latin, but in the "folk" - Roman and Germanic - languages). From the adjective romanus in late Latin was formed the noun Romnia (in the Greek version Romana), which was used first in the sense of Imperium Romanum, and after the fall of the empire - in the meaning of "region with a romanized population." To the word Romana, the self-name Romna "Romania" goes back, and to Romnia - Romagna "Romagna" (a region in Northern Italy that remained part of the Eastern Roman Empire during the reign of the Ostrogoths and Lombards).
Zones of distribution of Romance languages:
1) "Old Romania": Italy, Portugal, almost all of Spain, France, south of Belgium, west and south of Switzerland, the main territory of Romania, almost all of Moldova, some blotches in the north of Greece, south and north-west of Serbia;
2) "New Romania": part of North America (Quebec, Mexico), almost all of Central and South America, most of the Antilles;
3) the former colonies, where the Romance languages ​​(French, Spanish, Portuguese), without displacing the local ones, became official: almost all of Africa, partly South Asia and Oceania.
Evolution of Romance languages.In classical Latin, the system of simple vocalism was represented by 5 qualitatively different vowels, each of which could be long or short, i.e. vowel longitude was phonological (the difference in longitude was accompanied by some qualitative differences). However, already in folk Latin, in connection with the fixation of longitude for the stressed open syllable, the opposition in longitude / brevity loses its distinctive function (defonologized); this function is taken on by another sign - openness / closeness (which turns from the accompanying into the leading one, i.e., on the contrary, is phonologized). Simultaneously, almost throughout the entire Romanesque area, there was a merger of the former i brief and e long, u brief and o long, which turned into e closed and O closed. On the territory of Sardinia, all long and short vowels coincided in pairs; in Sicily i long, i short and e long matched in sound i, as well as u long, u short and O long matched in sound u... As a result, for example, the Latin word solem in the Sardinian language sounds sole, and in the Sicilian dialect of Italian - suli. Further stages in the history of Romanesque vocalism, as well as consontantism, are described.
The grammar of the Romance languages ​​has gone from Latin synthetism to analyticism. In the name system, the number of declination types was reduced to three; reduction of the case paradigm; the disappearance of the morphological class of neuter names; an increase in the frequency of the use of the demonstrative pronoun in the anaphoric function (later it turned into a definite article); an increase in the frequency of use of prepositional constructions ad + accusative and de + ablative instead of the case forms of the dative and genitive.
In the verb system, paraphrases such as habeo scriptum and est praeteritus have spread instead of the forms of the simple perfect scripsi, praeteriit; the loss of the Latin form of a simple future and the formation in its place of new futural forms based on Latin combinations of the modal character infinitive + habeo (debeo, volo); the formation of a new, absent in Latin, form of conditional on the basis of the Latin combination of infinitive + habebam (habui); the loss of the synthetic Latin form of the passive in -r, -ris, -tur and the formation in its place of a new form of the passive voice; a shift in the temporal attribution of Latin analytical forms of the passive (for example, the Latin perfect amatus sum corresponds to the Italian present sono amato, the pluperfect amatus eram - to the imperfect ero amato); a shift in the temporal attribution of the Latin form of the pluperfect of the conjunctiva (amavissem), which in the Romance languages ​​acquired the meaning of the imperfect of the conjunctiva (French aimasse, Spanish amase, etc.).
In a word, modern Romance languages ​​are a continuation and development of popular Latin speech in the territories that became part of the Roman Empire.
Stages of their development:III century. BC. - V century. AD - Romanization (replacement of local languages ​​by folk-Latin), which proceeded at a different pace due to unequal linguistic situations, the influence of Indo-European and pre-Indo-European substratum languages ​​(Iberian in Spain, Celtic in Gaul, northern Italy and Portugal, Rettian in Rezia, Dacian in the Balkans, Osco-Umbrian in Italy and Rezia, further Ligurian in northern Italy and southern France, Etruscan in Italy and Rezia), the weakening of ties between the provinces and the metropolis;
V-IX centuries - the formation of separate Romance languages ​​in the context of the collapse of the Roman Empire and the formation of barbarian states, the isolation of dialects, the influence of superstratal languages ​​(Visigothic in Spain, especially Frankish in northern Gaul, Burgundian in southeastern Gaul, Lombard and Ostrogothic in Italy, extremely strongly Slavic in Dacia; the French language is most strongly "Germanized"); the influence of the adstratic languages ​​(Greek in southern Italy and Sicily, Arabic in Spain, German in the Romansh language zone); awareness of the special nature of new languages, the translation of religious services into them, the appearance of the first written evidence (Strasbourg Oaths, 842);
IX-XVI centuries - the development of writing in Romance languages, the expansion of their social functions, the emergence of supra-dialect literary languages;
XVI-XIX centuries - the formation of national languages, the rise of some and the loss of their positions by other Romance languages;
XX-XXI centuries - the rise of Spanish to the detriment of French, the movement for the approval and expansion of the functions of minority languages.
Main features of Romance languages:
in phonetics- rejection of quantitative differences of vowels; the general Roman system has 7 vowels (the greatest preservation is in Italian); development of specific vowels (nasal in French and Portuguese, labialized front vowels in French, Provencal, Romansh; mixed vowels in Balkan-Romance); the formation of diphthongs; reduction of unstressed vowels (especially final ones); neutralization of openness / closeness e and O in unstressed syllables; simplification and transformation of consonant groups; the emergence as a result of palatalization of affricates, which have passed into slit in some languages; weakening or reduction of the intervocal consonant; weakening and reduction of a consonant in the outcome of a syllable; a tendency to open syllable and limited consonant compatibility; the tendency towards phonetic linking of words in the speech stream (especially in French);
in morphology- preservation of inflection with a strong tendency towards analyticism; the name has 2 numbers, 2 genders, the absence of a case category (except for the Balkan-Romance), the transfer of object relations by prepositions; variety of forms of the article; preservation of the case system of pronouns; coordination of adjectives with names in gender and number; the formation of adverbs from adjectives through the suffix -mente (except for Balkan-Romance); ramified system of analytical verb forms; a typical scheme of a romance verb contains 16 tenses and 4 moods; 2 pledges; peculiar impersonal forms;
in syntax- word order in some cases is fixed; an adjective usually follows a noun; determinatives precede the verb (except Balkan-Romance).
Writing. All Romance languages ​​now use the Latin alphabet. Exception in the 1940s and 1980s. was the Moldovan dialect of the Romanian language, in which the Cyrillic alphabet was used by order of the Soviet authorities. Romance languages ​​use letter combinations and diacritics to depict sounds that are absent in Latin.
Genetic basis classification of Romance languages were outlined at the beginning of the twentieth century by G. Greber and W. Meyer-Lubke, who explained the difference in the evolution of folk Latin in different regions of Romania, as well as the structural coincidences and divergences of the Romance languages ​​by a number of historical and sociolinguistic factors. Here are the main factors: 1) the time of the conquest of this area by Rome, reflecting the stage of development of Latin itself during the period of Romanization; 2) the time of isolation of this Romanized region from Central Italy during the collapse of the Roman Empire; 3) the degree of intensity of political, economic and cultural contacts of this area with Central Italy and neighboring Romanesque areas; 4) the way of romanizing this area: “urban” (school, administration, introduction of the local nobility to Roman culture) or “rural” (colonies of Latin or Italic settlers, mostly former warriors); 5) the nature of the substrate (Celtic or non-Celtic) and the degree of its impact; 6) the nature of the superstratum (Germanic or Slavic) and the degree of its impact.
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