page_title: Romanian language
hierarchical_section_title: Romanian language
caption_attribution_description: English: Romanian language &#160;&#160; Majority areas &#160;&#160; Minority or billingual areas Español: Idioma rumano &#160;&#160; Donde es mayoritario &#160;&#160; Donde es una minoría o bilingüe Română: Limba română &#160;&#160; Zone majoritare &#160;&#160; Zone minoritare sau bilingve
context_page_description: Romanian is a Balkan Romance language spoken by approximately 24–26 million people as a native language, primarily in Romania and Moldova, and by another 4 million people as a second language. According to another estimate, there are about 34 million people worldwide who can speak Romanian, of whom 30 million speak it as a native language. It is an official and national language of both Romania and Moldova and is one of the official languages of the European Union.
  Romanian is a 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. Romanian is also known as Moldovan in Moldova, although the Constitutional Court of Moldova ruled in 2013 that "the official language of the republic is Romanian".
context_section_description: Romanian (dated spellings: Rumanian or Roumanian; autonym: limba română [ˈlimba roˈmɨnə] (listen), "the Romanian language", or românește, lit. "in Romanian") is a Balkan Romance language spoken by approximately 24–26 million people as a native language, primarily in Romania and Moldova, and by another 4 million people as a second language. According to another estimate, there are about 34 million people worldwide who can speak Romanian, of whom 30 million speak it as a native language. It is an official and national language of both Romania and Moldova and is one of the  official languages of the European Union.
  Romanian is a 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. Romanian is also known as Moldovan in Moldova, although the Constitutional Court of Moldova ruled in 2013 that "the official language of the republic is Romanian".
  Numerous immigrant Romanian speakers live scattered across many other regions and countries worldwide, with large populations in Italy, Spain, Germany, United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States of America.
caption: Distribution of the Romanian language in Romania, Moldova and surroundings.
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