Why is Romanian included as a major Romance language?

[Dude24]

When there are other Romance languages such as Catalan, Occitan, and Aragonese that are probably closer to Latin than Romanian is, but they are never included in a list of major Romance languages?

[andreiRO]

Romanian is a Romance language, indeed. It is also more spoken than Catalan, Occitan and Aragonese. The relation of Romance languages with Latin is not only based on the vocabulary, but also on grammar and on the regular evolution of specific traits. I mean:

noCTem, laCTem (Latin words for night and milk) -> noaPTe, laPTe, just like we have the Italian words noTTE, laTTe or the Spanish words noCHe and leCHe.

But it seems like you just want to know why you always find Romanian in the list of Romance languages, where you don't see Catalan, Occitan and Aragonese. Well, that's just because of politics, I think. Romanian is recognised as the official language in Romania and Moldova. Catalan is also an official language in Spain and Andorra. But Occitan and Aragonese haven't a particular status. This also happens for plenty of Italian languages, like Lombard, Venetian, Piedmontese and Sicilian. They're all derived from Latin itself, but no one recognises them properly. So, when a language is not that influent, it is likely to be forgotten in lists and all that kind of things. But this doesn't mean it's not part of a family.

[David]

Romanian are very romantic.

[Xinoxano]

The fact that some people forget Catalan in their list is a huge mistake, as Catalan is spoken in areas of 4 different countries (Spain, Andorra, France and Italy) and is spoken by 8 milion people, more than languages like Norwegian. And of course Catalan come difectly from Latin and is not a dialect of Spanish or a mixture of Spanish and French, as ignorant people say sometimes.

In Catalonia (capital Barcelona) it is an official language and we have everything in Catalan: newspapers, magazines, all sorts of books and encyclopaedias, radio and TV.stations, movies dubbed in Catalan, education in Catalan (primary education, secondary education, university), computer programms an Internet applications in Catalan (Windows, Office, Facebook, Google, Facebook, Twitter).

Regarding Aragonese and Occitan: they are also Romance languages which come directly from Latin, but they are not official and very few people speak them nowadays. In fact, Occitan is only official in the Aran Valley of Catalonia.

Regarding your question: Romanian is an important Romance language.

[Matvey]

Romanian has roots with latin, although the misconception is that its not a romance langauge , given that Ramania was at one time part of the soviet union, and is a Baltic-nation county. As well the romanian language uses latin letters in alphbet. Rather than cyrillic. as well given romania's location to the west , latin was a very big infulence.

[RAY G]

> When there are other Romance languages such as Catalan, Occitan, and Aragonese that are probably closer to Latin than Romanian is

But they're not. Being geographically remote from Rome, the versions of Vulgar Latin they descended from would have already been regional dialects at the time of the Roman empire.

Probably their smaller geographical range that Romanian would explain why they aren't prominent in lists.

[Locoluis]

What is a "major" Romance language?

According to Abram de Swaan, the following languages are supercentral or global languages. This means that they're not only widely spoken, but also serve as links between different cultures:
Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Hindi, Japanese, Malay, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Swahili.

Spanish, Portuguese and French have over 70 million native speakers and over 120 million total speakers. They're the also only Romance languages that are widely spoken outside Europe.

Italian comes fourth at about 62 million speakers, mostly concentrated in Italy and Switzerland. I think I can draw the line between "Major Romance language" and the rest of them here.

Romanian comes fifth at only 24 million speakers, concentrated around Romania and Moldova. It's important nevertheless because:
- it's the most widely spoken Eastern Romance language.
- it retains a lot of archaic features. It's as close to Latin as, say, Italian, except that it followed a different path to that of Western Romance languages.

Catalan comes sixth at merely 12 million speakers. The Catalan-speaking area in those countries you mentioned doesn't get further than about 300 miles around the island of Majorca.

[zirp]

either because "major" is defined as "having more than 10 million speakers" or because (some) people are so nationalist that they only count languages that have a status as "national language" in at least one country.