Romanian
Language · official in 2 countries and territories
Limba română grew from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman provinces along the Danube, and linguists call it Daco-Romanian to tell it from Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian and Istro-Romanian. Its oldest dated text, a letter of 1521, is in Cyrillic; the Latin alphabet became official in 1860 and 1862. It is the official language of Romania and Moldova.
The language on record
- Own name
- română
- ISO 639-1
- RO
- ISO 639-3
- RON
- Script
- Latin
- Family
- Romance
- Official in
- 2 countries
Where Romanian is official
Two neighbouring states hold Romanian as their official language, Romania and Moldova, where the constitution called it Moldovan until the 2023 law changed the name.
About Romanian
What Romanian kept from Latin
Romanian is an Eastern Romance language. Its ancestor split from Western Romance between the 5th and 8th centuries and became Common Romanian, which then met the Slavic languages and divided into four branches. The lexicon grew from fewer than 2,500 words attested from Late Antiquity to more than 150,000, borrowing from Slavic, Greek, Hungarian, German, Turkish and, after the Enlightenment, French. The core words of everyday talk still come from Latin.
Why the alphabet changed
From the 12th or 13th century official and church writing in the region was in Old Church Slavonic. The Hurmuzaki Psalter, dated by its watermarks to 1491 to 1504, and the letter of 1521 were written in Cyrillic. Between 1830 and 1860 transitional alphabets mixed Latin letters into the Cyrillic. The Latin alphabet became official in Wallachia and Transylvania in 1860 and in Moldavia in 1862, and the current spelling, regulated by the Romanian Academy on a largely phonological principle, was in full use by 1881.
How Moldova named its language
Moldova's 1991 Declaration of Independence called the language Romanian, while the 1994 Constitution called it Moldovan. In December 2013 the Constitutional Court ruled that the Declaration took precedence, and on 16 March 2023 Parliament passed a law putting "Romanian" into every legislative text and the constitution. In the 2024 census 49.2% of those who gave a mother tongue named Moldovan and 31.3% named Romanian. In breakaway Transnistria it is co-official with Ukrainian and Russian.
What the law requires in Romania
The Constitution of 1991, revised in 2003, makes Romanian the official language. Government publications, public education and legal contracts must use it, and advertisements must translate foreign words. Romanian Language Day falls on 31 August, marked since 2013. In Serbia, Romanian is in official use in eight municipalities of Vojvodina.
Common questions
Questions about Romanian
Are Moldovan and Romanian the same language?
Yes, scholars agree they are. "Moldovan" is a name used in some political contexts. Moldova's Constitutional Court ruled in 2013 that the state language is Romanian, and a 2023 law applied that name across all legislation.
When did Romanian switch from Cyrillic to Latin letters?
The Latin alphabet became official in Wallachia and Transylvania in 1860 and in Moldavia in 1862, after three decades of mixed transitional alphabets.
What is Daco-Romanian?
The name comparative linguists give standard Romanian to set it apart from its three closest relatives, Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian and Istro-Romanian, which all descend from Common Romanian.
Is Romanian spoken outside Romania and Moldova?
Yes, by stable communities in Bulgaria, Hungary, Serbia and Ukraine and by a diaspora. It is an official language of the European Union and is used in eight municipalities of Serbia's Vojvodina province.