In Romania there are several spoken languages. Beside Romanian, the countrywide official language, other spoken languages are spoken and sometimes co-official at a local level. These languages include Hungarian, Romani, Ukrainian, German, Russian, Turkish, Tatar, Serbian, Slovak, Bulgarian, and Croatian.
Video Languages of Romania
Official language
According to the 2002 Romanian Census, Romanian is spoken by 91% of the population as a primary language. According to the Romanian Constitution and the law 1206 of 2006 the official language in Romania is Romanian both at the national and local level.
Maps Languages of Romania
Minority languages
After the fall of Romania's communist government in 1989, the various minority languages have received more rights, and Romania currently has extensive laws relating to the rights of minorities to use their own language in local administration and the judicial system.
While Romanian is the only official language at the national and local level, there are 14 other living languages in Romania. The Romanian laws include linguistic rights for all minority groups that form over 20% of a locality's population. This includes the adoption of signage in minority languages, access to local administration and justice systems, the right to receive education in that language, and a series of other rights.
Hungarian
Hungarian is the largest minority language in Romania: the 2011 census listed 1,227,623 native Hungarian speakers in the country, or 6.1% of the total population. This minority largely lives in Transylvania, which was part of the Kingdom of Hungary until 1918 (Northern Transylvania was part of Hungary again between 1940 and 1947) though there are Hungarian speaking minorities in other parts of the country as well.
Romani
Roma make up the second largest minority in Romania and 241,617 Romani speakers were reported in the 2002 census, or 1.1% of the total population. Dialects of Romani spoken include Balkan Romani, Vlax Romani, and Carpathian Romani. Romani is used in local signage, administration, education and justice in 79 communes and one town (Bude?ti).
Ukrainian
There are 57,593 Ukrainian speakers in Romania, mostly concentrated in Maramure? County, where they make up 6.67% of the population, but also in Suceava and Timi? counties. Ukrainians make up the majority in four communes: Bistra, Maramure?, Rona de Sus, ?tiuca and Cop?cele.
German
There are many different groups of Germans in Romania, the largest of whom have historically been known as the Transylvanian Saxons and the Banat Swabians. Germans once constituted a much larger portion of the Romanian population than they do today, though they are still the fourth largest ethno-linguistic group. In 1938 there were 780,000, and in 1992 there were 111,301, but the 2002 census reported only 45,129 Germans. Since 1989 they have been represented by the Democratic Forum of Germans in Romania, which functions in the German language.
Russian
There are 29,890 Lipovans, ethnically Russian emigrants from the Russian Empire who left because of religious differences with the Russian Orthodox Church, in Romania. They mostly speak the Russian language, and most live in Tulcea County.
Turkic languages
Turkish
Turkish speakers make up 0.1% of the population, with a community of some 28,714 speakers. The Turkish speaking community is largely a legacy of the Ottoman rule of a large part of Romania. They live in the southern parts of Romania (Dobrudja).
Tatar
Tatars also make up roughly 0.1% of the Romanian population, with a community of 21,482 speakers. Most Crimean Tatars speak the Crimean Tatar language, and the greater part of the community lives in Constan?a County.
Other languages
Lesser spoken languages in Romania include: Serbo-Croatian (26,732: 20,377 Serbians, 6,355 Croatians), Slovak (16,108), Bulgarian (6,747), Greek (4,146).
The use of French developed among Romanian elites from the 18th century, and today around a quarter of Romanians speak French. Since 1993, Romania has been a member of Organisation internationale de la Francophonie despite not having a native French-speaking population or ever being part of any French empire.
References
External links
- Ethnologue report for Romania
- (in Romanian) Romanian National Census 2002, POPULATIA DUPA LIMBA MATERNA section
Source of article : Wikipedia
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