Romanian language

Romanian — rarely written Rumanian, Roumanian — (natively: româna, limba română) is a Romance language spoken mainly in Romania, Moldova and scattered areas across the Balkans and Ukraine.

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

The main dialects are classified in a huge Daco-Romanian group (comprising the vast majority of the dialects and being the basis of Standard Romanian), Aromanian (in scattered areas of the Balkans), Megleno-Romanian (also in scattered areas of the Balkans) and Istro-Romanian (in some villages of Istria, Croatia).

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