The Eastern Romance languages are a group of

Romance languages The Romance languages, also known as the Latin or Neo-Latin languages, are the languages that are Language family, directly descended from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-E ...

. The group comprises the

Romanian language Romanian (obsolete spelling: Roumanian; , or , ) is the official and main language of Romania and Moldova. Romanian is part of the Eastern Romance languages, Eastern Romance sub-branch of Romance languages, a linguistic group that evolved fr ...

(Daco-Romanian), the

Aromanian language The Aromanian language (, , , , , or , , ), also known as Vlach or Macedo-Romanian, is an Eastern Romance languages, Eastern Romance language, similar to Megleno-Romanian language, Megleno-Romanian, Istro-Romanian language, Istro-Romanian an ...

and two other related minor languages, Megleno-Romanian and Istro-Romanian. The extinct

Dalmatian language Dalmatian or Dalmatic (, ) is a group of now-extinct Romance varieties that developed along the coast of Dalmatia. Over the centuries they were increasingly influenced, and then supplanted, by Croatian and Venetian. It has not been demonstr ...

(otherwise included in the Central Romance group) is sometimes included as part of the Eastern Romance group, being considered a bridge between Italian and Romanian. Some classifications of the Romance languages consider Eastern and Central Romance to form a clade (often simply called "Eastern Romance", with "Eastern Romance proper" referred to as Balkan or Daco-Romance), but nowadays Central Romance are more often grouped with the Western Romance languages as " Italo-Western".

Languages

Eastern Romance comprises Romanian (or Daco-Romanian), Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian and Istro-Romanian, according to the most widely accepted classification of the Romance languages. The four languages are sometimes labelled as dialects of Romanian and developed from a common ancestor known as

Common Romanian Common Romanian (), also known as Ancient Romanian (), or Proto-Romanian (), is a comparatively reconstructed Romance language evolved from Vulgar Latin and spoken by the ancestors of today's Romanians, Aromanians, Megleno-Romanians, Istro-Roma ...

. They are surrounded by non-Romance languages.

Judaeo-Spanish Judaeo-Spanish or Judeo-Spanish (autonym , Hebrew script: ), also known as Ladino or Judezmo or Spaniolit, is a Romance language derived from Castilian Old Spanish. Originally spoken in Spain, and then after the Edict of Expulsion spreading ...

(or Ladino) is also spoken in the Balkan Peninsula, but it is rarely listed among the other Romance languages of the region because it is rather an

Iberian Romance The Iberian Romance, Ibero-Romance or sometimes Iberian languages Iberian languages is also used as a more inclusive term for all languages spoken on the Iberian Peninsula, which in antiquity included the non-Indo-European Iberian language. are ...

language that developed as a Jewish dialect of

Old Spanish Old Spanish (, , ; ), also known as Old Castilian or Medieval Spanish, refers to the varieties of Ibero-Romance spoken predominantly in Castile and environs during the Middle Ages. The earliest, longest, and most famous literary composition in O ...

in the far west of Europe, and it began to be spoken widely in the Balkans only after the influx of Ladino-speaking refugees into the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

in the 16th century.

Internal classification

Within the

Glottolog ''Glottolog'' is an open-access online bibliographic database of the world's languages. In addition to listing linguistic materials ( grammars, articles, dictionaries) describing individual languages, the database also contains the most up-to-d ...

database, the languages are classified as follows: * Eastern Romance ** Aromanian ** Northern Romanian *** Eastern Romanian **** Megleno-Romanian **** Daco-Romanian *** Istro-Romanian Peter R. Petrucci, by contrast, states that Common Romanian had developed into two major dialects by the 10th century, and that Daco-Romanian and Istro-Romanian are descended from the northern dialect, while Megleno-Romanian and Aromanian are descended from the southern dialect. * Eastern Romance ** Northern Romanian *** Daco-Romanian *** Istro-Romanian ** Southern Romanian *** Aromanian *** Megleno-Romanian

Languages

Internal classification

Samples of Eastern Romance languages

See also

References

Sources