Romanian language

Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; autonym: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 million people as a native language, primarily in Romania and Moldova, and by another 4 million people as a second language. It has official status in Romania, Republic of Moldova, the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina in Serbia and in the autonomous Mount Athos in Greece. In the Republic of Moldova, besides the term limba română, the language is also often called limba moldovenească ("Moldovan"); to avoid the political overtones both terms have in that country, a compromise solution has been to call it limba de stat ("the state language").