Romance Languages - Classification and Related Languages

Classification and Related Languages

The classification of the Romance languages is inherently difficult, since most of the linguistic area can be considered a dialect continuum, and in some cases political biases can come into play. Along with Latin (which is not included among the Romance languages) and a few extinct languages of ancient Italy, they make up the Italic branch of the Indo-European family.

Latin
Classical Latin Vulgar Latin
Continental Romance Sardinian languages
Italo-Western Romance Eastern Romance
Western Romance Proto-Italian Balkan Romance Dalmatian
Ibero-Romance Gallo-Romance Italian Proto-Romanian Albanian words
Portuguese Spanish Occitano-Romance French Romanian Aromanian
Catalan Occitan

Note that Dalmatian is now generally grouped under Proto-Italian rather than Eastern Romance.

Read more about this topic:  Romance Languages

Famous quotes containing the words related and/or languages:

    The near explains the far. The drop is a small ocean. A man is related to all nature. This perception of the worth of the vulgar is fruitful in discoveries. Goethe, in this very thing the most modern of the moderns, has shown us, as none ever did, the genius of the ancients.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    No doubt, to a man of sense, travel offers advantages. As many languages as he has, as many friends, as many arts and trades, so many times is he a man. A foreign country is a point of comparison, wherefrom to judge his own.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)