Romanian language

Romanian — rarely written Rumanian, Roumanian — (natively: româna, limba română) is a Romance language spoken mainly in Romania, in Moldova and in scattered little areas across southeastern Europe (mostly in Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, the Republic of Macedonia, Greece, Bulgaria and Ukraine).

It is the official state language of Romania and Moldova. In Moldova, it is officially called Moldovan or more rarely Moldavian (natively: limba moldovenească).

The main dialects are classified in Daco-Romanian, the core dialectal group comprising the vast majority of the dialects and being the basis of Standard Romanian, and three other dialects scattered in remote patches across the Balkans: Aromanian (southern Balkans), Megleno-Romanian (southern Balkans) and Istro-Romanian (Istria, Croatia). In those Balkanic enclaves, Romanian may be called Vlach, especially by surrounding populations (for instance, βλάχικα / vlachika in Greek).

Romanian is the only Romance language of central or eastern Europe, so it is somewhat distant from the rest of the Romance languages since it does not have any territorial contiguity with them. Nevertheless its structures are deeply Romance and quite conservative compared with their Latin origins.