Rumanian

Romanian is a Romance language spoken primarily in Romania and Moldova, as well as by Romanian communities across Europe and the Americas. It belongs to the Eastern Romance branch of the Romance languages, evolving from Late Latin with substantial influence from neighboring languages such as Slavic, Hungarian, Turkish, and German. The language features a subject–verb–object word order, uses a Latin-based alphabet with characters such as â, î, and ș, and has a phonemic vowel system distinct from many other Romance languages.

Historically, Romanian developed in the Balkans during the Great Migration and subsequent Roman colonization, leading to a blend of Latin and Thracian substrata. By the Middle Ages, the language had split into Northern, Central, and Southern dialects, a division reflected in modern Romania's regional phonology and vocabulary. The 19th and 20th centuries saw significant standardization efforts, influenced by ideas of national identity, culminating in the 1866 alphabet reform and the exclusion of the diacritic letter â from the standard alphabet. It also underwent reforms in the 20th century, including the adoption of new spelling rules after the 1948 decree and later simplification in the 1960s.

Today, Romanian is spoken by roughly 24 million native speakers. It is an official language of Romania and Moldova, where it is co‑official with Moldovan, and it enjoys recognition in the European Union as a protected heritage language. The language remains a vital cultural marker for Romanians worldwide and continues to evolve through formal education, media, and literary production.