Romanischen

Romanisch is a German term that can refer to two related but distinct fields. In linguistics, it denotes the Romance languages, a branch of the Indo-European family descended from Vulgar Latin. In art and architectural history, Romanisch is used for the Romanesque style, a medieval architectural and artistic movement roughly dating from the 10th to the 12th centuries. The term ultimately derives from Latin Romanus, meaning “Roman” or “of Rome.”

The Romance languages are a group that developed from Latin after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. They include major languages such as Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian and Romanian, and numerous regional languages like Catalan, Galician, Occitan, Sardinian and Romansh. Together they are spoken by hundreds of millions of people; estimates place about 900 million native and second-language speakers. Common features include the loss of Latin noun case endings, the development of definite articles from demonstratives, and a verb system that relies on tense conjugations formed with auxiliary verbs. They are spoken primarily in Europe, the Americas, parts of Africa and Asia due to historical empires and migration.

Romanesque architecture is an architectural and artistic movement of medieval Europe, roughly spanning the 10th to the 12th centuries and overlapping with early Gothic. Typical features include thick masonry walls, rounded arches, sturdy piers, small windows, decorative arcading and large towers. It spread across Western and Central Europe, notably in France, Germany, northern Italy and the Iberian Peninsula, as well as in monastic and pilgrimage contexts. In German, the architectural style is commonly referred to as Romanik. See also Romance languages; Romanesque architecture; Romanic studies.