Q: The Romance languages (sometimes called the Romanic languages, Latin languages, or Neo-Latin languages) are the modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin between the sixth and ninth centuries and that thus form a branch of the Italic languages within the Indo-European language family.

Today, around 800 million people are native speakers worldwide, mainly in Europe, Africa and the Americas, but also elsewhere. Additionally, the major Romance languages have many non-native speakers and are in widespread use as lingua francas. This is especially the case for French, which is in widespread use throughout Central and West Africa, Madagascar, Mauritius and the Maghreb.

The five most widely spoken Romance languages by number of native speakers are Spanish (470 million), Portuguese (250 million), French (150 million), Italian (60 million), and Romanian (25 million).

Because of the difficulty of imposing boundaries on a continuum, various counts of the modern Romance languages are given; for example, Dalby lists 23 based on mutual intelligibility. The following, more extensive list, includes 35 current, living languages, and one recently extinct language, Dalmatian:

Romance languages are the continuation of Vulgar Latin, the popular and colloquial sociolect of Latin spoken by soldiers, settlers, and merchants of the Roman Empire, as distinguished from the classical form of the language spoken by the Roman upper classes, the form in which the language was generally written. Between 350 BC and 150 AD, the expansion of the Empire, together with its administrative and educational policies, made Latin the dominant native language in continental Western Europe. Latin also exerted a strong influence in southeastern Britain, the Roman province of Africa, western Germany, Pannonia and the Balkans north of the Jirecek Line.

1. Romanic languages
2. Spanish
3. 470 million
4. Between 350 BC and 150 AD
5. between the sixth and ninth centuries
6. Italic languages
7. 35 current
8. Yes
9. southeastern Britain
10. 25 million
11. Yes

Numbered questions:
1. What are some names the Romance languages are sometimes called?
2. What is the most spoken of the Languages?
3. Around how many people speak it?
4. During what time frame did Latin become the dominant native language in continental Western Europe?
5. When did the modern Romance Languages start evolving from Vulgar Latin?
6. What language branch did they form then?
7. In a more extensive listing how many current Romance Languages are there?
8. Is there difficulty imposing boundries where a new language starts and an old one ends with the Romance languages?
9. Where has latin had a strong influence?
10. How many people speak Romanian?
11. Are these languages ever used as lingua francas?

input: Make use of the article to answer the questions. Editor's note: Join Roland S. Martin for his weekly sound-off segment on CNN.com Live at 11:10 a.m. ET Wednesday. If you're passionate about politics, he wants to hear from you. A nationally syndicated columnist, Martin has said he will vote for Barack Obama in November. He is the author of "Listening to the Spirit Within: 50 Perspectives on Faith" and "Speak, Brother! A Black Man's View of America." Visit his Web site for more information.

Roland Martin says Howard Dean bucked other leaders and insisted on a 50-state Democratic strategy.

(CNN) -- If Sen. Barack Obama is able to prevail over Sen. John McCain on Tuesday, all of those Democrats who ripped Howard Dean's 50-state strategy over the last four years should call the head of the Democratic National Committee and offer a heartfelt apology.

First in line should be New York Sen. Charles Schumer, Chicago, Illinois, Rep. Rahm Emanuel and my CNN colleague, political strategist James Carville.

When Democrats were in the final stages of winning back Congress in 2006, those three were at odds with Dean, saying he should forget about his pie-in-the-sky plan to have the Democratic Party competitive in all 50 states.

They reasoned that money spent on get-out-the vote efforts in non-congressional elections was futile, and all the effort should be on reclaiming Congress.

But Dean resisted their suggestions, weathering repeated calls for him to resign after that election.

Dean's insistence on having a Democratic Party that existed in the heartland, and not just California, New York and Massachusetts, was brilliant in that it made clear that the party recognized the rest of America. iReport.com: What would you ask Obama? 1. who was the author of Listening to the spirit within?
2. Who bucked other leaders?
3. Who was in the race with Obama?
4. Who had the 50 state strategy?
5. Who should be first in line?
6. Which party was in final stages of winning back congress in 2006?
numbered_answers: 1. Roland S. Martin.
2. Howard Dean.
3. McCain.
4. Dean.
5. Charles Schumer, Rahm Emanuel, and James Carville.
6. Democrats .

Cyprus (i/saprs/; Greek: IPA: [cipros]; Turkish: Kbrs IPA: [kbs]), officially the Republic of Cyprus (Greek: ; Turkish: Kbrs Cumhuriyeti), is an island country in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, off the coasts of Syria and Turkey.[e] Cyprus is the third largest and third most populous island in the Mediterranean, and a member state of the European Union. It is located south of Turkey, west of Syria and Lebanon, northwest of Israel and Palestine, north of Egypt and east of Greece.

The earliest known human activity on the island dates to around the 10th millennium BC. Archaeological remains from this period include the well-preserved Neolithic village of Khirokitia, and Cyprus is home to some of the oldest water wells in the world. Cyprus was settled by Mycenaean Greeks in two waves in the 2nd millennium BC. As a strategic location in the Middle East, it was subsequently occupied by several major powers, including the empires of the Assyrians, Egyptians and Persians, from whom the island was seized in 333 BC by Alexander the Great. Subsequent rule by Ptolemaic Egypt, the Classical and Eastern Roman Empire, Arab caliphates for a short period, the French Lusignan dynasty and the Venetians, was followed by over three centuries of Ottoman rule between 1571 and 1878 (de jure until 1914). What are the answers to this following set of questions: 1. what did archaeologists find?
2. from what time frame?
3. where is it located?
4. who were the settlers in the area?
5. when did they settle?
6. how many people occupied it?
7. was it ever conquered?
8. by who?
9. when did they hold power?
10. is it the most populated place in the Sea?
Answer:
1. the Neolithic village of Khirokitia
2. from the 10th millennium BC
3. in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea
4. by Mycenaean Greeks
5. the 2nd millennium BC
6. Nine
7. yes
8. The Ottoman's
9. between 1571 and 1878
10. no