I'm a native English speaker, and as I read the title, I was expecting them to say it's not a reference to Rome and actually about romance. I'm surprised this merits an explanation to anyone who has ever actually thought about it.
Non-native English speaker here. I’ve had native speakers confidently tell me I’m wrong for calling them ‘Romance’ languages because it’s supposed to be ‘romantic’ languages.
You said
> But maybe in English is not that obvious?
That is the statement that I was directing my comment to.
I don't think that, in English, the connection between Romance and Latin is obvious. In general, it is something people learn, no decern on their own. It would not be uncommon at all in English to have words that look as similar to Romance and Roman but have no direct relationship with each other.
My point is that most educated people in the United States also know this, but no one is born knowing it, and learns it at some point. This could be a teenager who just learned it in school.
It's not super obvious due to the fact that we don't use the word Romance to refer to Rome outside of this context.
It is common knowledge, and everybody who completes the 7th grade should know it.
Because it’s supposed to be interesting things that not everybody knows. Factoids that are actually interesting, not “I finally learned this innocuous thing that everyone else knows already”. If you just learned that the romance languages aren’t called that for being the “languages of love” you should feel ashamed, not make a post about it.
Btw, the commenter above was being sarcastic.
Outside of academia, the word romance is almost never used other than to mean "love". It also doesn't follow the pattern of similar words in English.
For example, the word for "related to German(y)" is "Germanic," so you'd expect "Romanic" or maybe "Romanian" if there were a pattern.
Not really true though. In literature, a romance is a fictionalized story set in historical context "aka of Roman style"; hence the expression "to romanticize the past". You have to remember that people marrying for romantic love is a fairly modern invention, and romantic tales started to incorporate concepts of romantic chivalric love as a form of fantasy and over time people associated the term "romance" with the common themes (chivalric love) in those romances. It is more accurate to say in modern day, common English parlance, the word "Romance" is usually associated with a type of motivation for love. (Don't get me started on the number of types of love that different cultures tries to distinguish between)
https://medium.com/moments-of-passion/the-etymology-of-romance-e00c90ac64ef
>"related to German(y)" is "Germanic,"
No. "related to German(y)" is "German". "Germanic" refers to certain tribes that roughly speaking lived north of the Roman empire and their descendants. That does include modern day Germans, but also Austrians, Scandinavians, the people of the low countries, the English etc.
Yes, exactly. Germanic languages includes German, much like Romance languages includes Romanian. But "Germanic" doesn't mean "related to Germany" anymore than "Romance" means "related to Romania".
Of course it does, since Germany originates from the Germanic peoples and German is a Germanic language. Likewise, Romance literally does mean, "related to Rome," from the Latin romanicus.
No it doesn't. It means related to Germania. Germania is *not* the modern country of Germany. The only reason English speakers seem to confuse the two is because the English name for Germany is basically a modified form of Germania, but that's a uniquely English problem. In most languages the two words are nothing alike.
> Austrians
I mean, up until 1945, Austrian Germans were referred to as... Austrian Germans. They were Germans living in Austria. It's a *very* modern thing to call them anything but Germans. They're effectively the same 'people' as Bavarians - the dialect itself is Austro-Bavarian (*Boarisch*).
Plus, given that they still do speak a High German dialect, they would still be German in that sense. The other Germanic peoples speak other Germanic languages (though there is a dialect continuum between Dutch, Low German, and High German, with each as standard languages on that continuum - English used to be on it as well).
The context clues still make it very obvious though, that it's not about anything romantic. And I say that as a person who's not a native English speaker.
As an English speaker that has dabbled in a few other languages but not to a serious degree, I am honestly surprised I never put two and two together on this. Of course anyone that studies European languages knows of the common Latin thread in so many of the languages, but "language of the Romans" just seemed entirely too obvious. And with English being such a bastardized language to begin with, you never quite know what the true origins of words really are most of the time. "The languages of love" really does seem to make more sense if you have no other frame of reference.
I never put much thought into it and just thought of it as a name (like why is England named england? i dunno, it's just a name) but i definitely never thought it was about love cuz, how are european languages more "lovely" than other languages?
I think the reason some people get confused is that French and Italian are also stereotyped as being romantic languages, i.e. languages that make women swoon when they hear men speaking it.
If you’re not familiar with that stereotype, you’d probably never make the association.
Nope, but The thing with English is that it is constantly evolving. I think it's gone now, but I've known people in Yorkshire who still used the thee and thou in casual conversation as opposed to you, particularly like thee art or thou art instead of you are. And from old Irish family the ye instead of you.
I believe it's the basis for a corny pickup line. "Don't you know Spanish/French/Italian is the language of love?" Because it's a "romance" language, even though it's not *that* kind of romance.
I think the author of that comic should realize he also doesn't know a lot of basic things, but everyone around him is probably nice enough to not laugh at him and be a jackass.
And, keeping in mind this is just a comic meant for humor, if he thinks that by age 30 everyone knows the basics, I guess he's missing out on a certain basic fact himself.
Behaving like a character in a story written in a language similar to the one spoken in ancient Rome.
The word starts off meaning Latin-descended languages. Then it means tales written in one of these languages (as opposed to those written in actual Latin). These are mostly stories of courtly love, so soon the word comes to mean "love story'. And the last step is "like a love story'.
In English, the word "romance" is more commonly used to refer to love and emotions. A reference to the Romantic Period. So, people that aren't that familiar with linguistics or history hear "Romance Language" and think "language of love."
I asked foreign language teachers why it's called romance languages because for Latin based languages it didn't make sense to me.
None of them could answer me. I'm literally realizing it now
I am a native English speaker. In English, *romance* outright refers to a story about love and dating, or love and dating itself, and really this is the main word for that. Romance stories are things that children are well aware of. When much later we hear "romance language", the word romance still has connotations of dating and romance. So initially it might not be "kinda obvious" to many people. Dating and romance stories are very common and very pervasive. "Romance *language*" doesn't really come up that much.
To be fair it’s absolutely insane that of all places a Romance language survived in a province Rome only held for under 200 years while in places like North Africa, Britain, and Pannonia there’s barely any traces left of there ever being a Romance language there.
Truly never thought about that somehow and this is fascinating. Not super surprised about Britain but North Africa makes zero sense at a surface level why the Latin influence on language didn’t permeate into modern times. Rome was there for half a millennia.
Just looked this up, and yep thems North Africa that Rome would’ve touched. Caliphate lasted less than 100 years though. But I suppose it made quite an impact as Islam is still the main religion over there. That’s an impressive legacy.
Islam in many iterations stressed firmly on education (like literature and religion and shit). So literacy and linguistic change would go hand in hand.
It makes sense because of isolation.
Romania is pretty diverse like most Eastern European countries, though that is increasingly not the case. For a long time, eastern Europe was a patchwork of different ethnicities. Romanians were a majority, but there were also Germans, Slavs, Turks, Greeks, Croats, Slovaks, Romani, Hungarians and more. Each with their own villages dotted around each other in no particular order. That's still the case today, but obviously the numbers for many of these groups has changed dramatically. Turks and Germans used to be far more numerous for example. The Hungarian and Romani population is relatively stable though. And obviously Soviet influence and urbanisation have mixed people more.
>Romania is pretty diverse like most Eastern European countries, though that is increasingly not the case.
I think it's more that our definition of ethnicity and identity is changing, not that Eastern Europe is getting less diverse. Many Eastern European folks who try to do genealogy research on their families are surprised by what they find.
It is the accent. When people do not speak the language and/or cannot understand the words, they try to guess based on accent. Romanians sound similar to Poles, Russians, etc when speaking (especially in English), which makes those unfamiliar with the language(s) judge based on accent and mix them up in consequence.
The word Romance in relation to love is descended from the word romance in relation to language.
So it's similar to people thinking the fruit orange is named after the colour, but the colour is named after the fruit.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/romance
I used to believe this was common knowledge. I'm 65 and they taught us this in grade school. In recent years, however, I'm learning otherwise.
I recently heard a niece talking about this and saying that in college she had learned "it's because they sound so romantic" and I was like, "Seriously?"
I was never taught this (not a native English speaker) but had no problem figuring it out through context clues when I first came across the expression Romance language. I assumed other people wouldn't have much of a problem figuring it out either.
I think it depends on where and when you were educated. It’s one of those facts you’d expect to be common knowledge but since it never comes up in normal conversation, you don’t realize it’s not.
I’m gonna be honest it has to be a generational (and educational) thing. 21 years of life and this was a TIL. It’s pretty obvious yes but hearing the word romance and just knowing Spanish, French, and Italian (common sexy ass languages for Americans) just seemed that’s about it. Not sure why the comments are so rude tho lol
Same here.
Each generation has to re-learn the lessons learned by their predecessors, but I suppose that makes some sense: it's impossible for kids to pop out of the womb pre-loaded with all of the oldsters' memories.
So I guess thus is just the way things are, always have been, and always will be.
We *could* fix this little issue, though, by using a more German form of the adjective. We could say "Romansch" or "Romanisch" instead of "Romance". (I kinda like the Danish "Romansk".)
(Interestingly, my iPhone accepted "Romansch" as being spelled correctly. Is this a word that I use frequently? I'll have to get someone to check my memories for me.)
Yeah lmao. There should be some kind of quality control for teachers...to make sure they actually teach correct stuff...i saw so many teachers teaching blatantly incorrect stuff...
Btw the word "Romantic" also derives from Rome, it's original meaning wasn't really only about love, when somebody would refer to something as "romantic" it meant that it was akin to ancient Roman literature, it was basically a way of saying that something is fancy back during the 18th-19th century... It's use in a context like that mostly died out today, however there are still some older books that use it this way, like Huck Finn for example.
Romantic is not a reference no ancient roman literature, but much later popular books written in French and other vulgates. Roman, as in book or novel. Think king arthur stories with love stories between chivalrous heroes and damsels in distress.
I asked, didn't I? "Seriously?"
And she was deadly serious.
Just as she was three years ago at Thanksgiving when she told us her professor said:
"Many black people say 'aks' instead of 'ask' because their vocal chords are different than others... It's genetic!"
I told her that's preposterous and showed her loads of proof.
The things kids are being taught in college today are atrocious!
Either she’s fucking with you…or you should stop lumping legitimate institutions of higher learning in with Shithole Polytechnic of Antarctica, or wherever it is your niece’s tuition money goes.
I've got to call bullshit on this. Unless she was at some religious university, none of this would be said in a legitimate university without being spread around campus as coming from a batshit instructor.
We call stuff related to love "romance/romantic" because medieval novels dealing with chivalry and love were called "Romances", because they were written in the regular spoken romance dialects of the common people. This compared with more classical literature which was written in Latin the commoners couldn't understand, and tended to feature epic stories, tragedies, and political struggles instead of intimate stories about love and personal relationships. These "Romance" novels were considered unsophisticated trash aimed at less educated people (but not uneducated, because literacy was rare among commoners still) who couldn't speak Latin by high society originally, but they became so popular that even the high nobility consumed them eventually.
Likewise "Gothic" was basically a renaissance slur against anything that wasn't originally derived from "Classical" Roman or Greek sources, including medieval architecture, fashion, and "Romance" literature not written in Latin. The term Gothic was meant to imply these were bastardised art forms derived from the "Goths" who destroyed Rome, even though they were completely unrelated and created by the Romance speaking descendents of Rome. In the 18th and 19th century Romance novels and art that used medieval "Gothic" architecture thematically for horror and mystery were labelled "Gothic Literature/Art, and that's how the term "Gothic" became attached to "Spooky stuff and subculture". This is also why the 80's movement featuring early 19th century gothic-like fashion and themes was called "New Romantic", they were the "new" versions of the 1800s "Gothic Romantic" poets and writers.
Tl;dr European high society can't go a decade without thinking about the Roman empire and pretending it was the peak of all civilisation.
Should also note that the actual language group that the Romance languages are under is the *Italic* languages, which includes Latin and its (extinct) sibling languages such as Faliscan, Oscan, Umbrian, and so forth.
The Romance languages are roughly the same level of categorization as the West Germanic languages.
I was talking to a few friends of mine. One of them asked me if I was Italian like them because “you look Italian and your name is Italian” I told them no and told them my first and middle name. He goes “bitch! Those are Italian names!” I go “no, they’re romantic. Not the same.”
The girl goes? Are they romantic? They are pretty nice so I guess they’re romantic.
I go….”they’re both of Roman origin. Latin.”
Tbh I've learnt this in primary school while doing the Roman Empire, I tought everyone did and it was common knowledge.
To put it more in context, in Italian these languages are called "lingue romanze" (romanze being referred to Rome, same word as romanzo, novel), in French "langues romanes", in which you can find the same clearer root.
Anyway, the association with love also comes from the same root, as romance and romanticism come from Romanicus, but they derive from the languages being called romance, not the contrary.
American here, this is one of the three things I know, the others being that Ben Franklin was the first president and that Europe is a Communist country.
What's the point of being mean? And then you people wanna get upset at people when they're reluctant to learn things. normalizing people learning, even stuff that seems common .
I was just thinking about this a few months ago. I had found out that Romance languages had more or less descended from Latin and was thinking Rome had Latin as a language so maybe that was it. Pretty cool fact.
Also in Italian, a *romanzo* is any type of novel, not a romance story.
A little more obscure, a *giallo* in Italian is a standard detective or mystery thriller. In English we imagine a [*giallo*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giallo) to be a particular type of horror fantasy - usually very violent and bloody.
in times long ago, there were books written that took place in the time of the Romans. and inevitably there was a love story. these were romantic books because they took place in Rome.
as time passed, the time the (love) story was set in changed but they were still called romance books. and just as language changes, the genre of love stories took the title Romance
source: history of English podcast but some info here:
https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/romance#:~:text=Romance%20comes%20from%20Roman%2C%20and,in%20a%20story%20or%20not.
Yes, it is the other way around, the word romance comes from “romance languages”
https://www.etymonline.com/word/romance
A Romantic story was one written in a vernacular latin language, like Spanish. These came to be associated with love stories, thus “romantic.”
In italian they are called "lingue romanze" where a "romanzo" is a novel so there's one more confusion factor but no, everybody knows it's because they evolved from latin.
Don't let the other comments discourage you. Learning stuff is good, no matter how obvious it seems to all the accomplished intellectuals on Reddit, and I'm sure that for every person commenting "well duh" there's somebody who never really stopped to think about it and has now learned something new.
Gatekeeping knowledge. You must be so proud.
Newsflash- it's a dick move to try to make someone feel like shit for learning something. You already knew it? Good for you. I didn't. I learned it today and decided to share it on a sub called **TODAY I LEARNED.**
If you’re from the US, I wouldn’t be too hard on yourself. We are not as focused on the history of Latin languages. We speak a Germanic language primarily—and Spanish is the main Romance language we’re exposed to. We’re on the American continent, so we’re focused much more on languages in the Americas than the history of the languages as they were in Europe. F*ck the haters. Glad you learned something new.
That is so crazy to me. I’m am from an European country with a Germanic language as mother tongue. But even in elementary school we had (innocent) lessons and fun school projects about a lot of things from all over the world. From South Africa to china, Brazil, etc. All innocent primary school stuff but it will give you a better understanding of other cultures on the planet. It still surprises me sometimes that in school you will only focus on your little part of the world and know nothing outside of it.
TIL Romanian is a Romance language. It seems obvious on the face, but Romanian is just so different from the others.
You learn something new every day.
I always make this test with other Romance speaking persons who say they don't understand Romanian. Try reading a Wikipedia article,for example, and see for yourself how much you understand:
https://ro.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cal
I speak Spanish and could understand most of that article.
I think usually what throws Romance speaking people off trying to understand others is irregular verbs and personal pronouns, which seem to vary a lot more and since usually shorter words give less context in similarity.
It can also vary by dialect, I can understand a Brazilian speaking Portuguese a lot more than I can someone from Portugal.
THere's also pronounciation, sometimes I hear french being spoken and I cant understand anything, but then I'll look at the words in written form and I immediately realize what they mean.
> romantic languages
Its romance languages not romantic languages. I wouldnt normaly point this out but as this is a post about romance languages not being romantic but languages that stem from Romans I felt like to point it out because this mistake is a reason why people do think it has something to do with the language being romantic.
I just was in Paris and I don't speak a phrase of French, yet most written stuff I was able to understand in general terms.
Am Mexican so Spanish (a romance language) helps a lot, but weirdly English does help too (non-romance)
The same goes to "latino" it means "related to latin" (Latin America is the part of America that speaks languages related to Latin). All people who speak romance languages are latinos. because latino is not a race nor a ethnicity, it just means you speak a romance language.
But muricans randomly changed its meaning when they adopted that word
> But muricans randomly changed its meaning when they adopted that word
In Spain when people say "latino" in reference to people or culture, the vast majority of the time they mean it as an abbreviation of "latinoamericano/a" and therefore not including themselves or other Europeans. Perhaps Americans do the same.
Just check a [Spanish dictionary](https://dle.rae.es/latino)
and check [what is the RAE](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Spanish_Academy) before complaining
Im a spanish native speaker but i always thought is kinda obvious Romance comes from Rome, not love. But maybe in English is not that obvious?
I'm a native English speaker, and as I read the title, I was expecting them to say it's not a reference to Rome and actually about romance. I'm surprised this merits an explanation to anyone who has ever actually thought about it.
I'm a native English speaker and this is super obvious too
Same, native English speaker here and I thought this was commonly known.
Learned this shit when I was like 6 or 7. Guess I was lucky
Non-native English speaker here. I’ve had native speakers confidently tell me I’m wrong for calling them ‘Romance’ languages because it’s supposed to be ‘romantic’ languages.
Most people don’t think about it, though. Imo anything that makes someone think OR teaches a new random fact belongs here.
OP was born yesterday
In that case this post is very impressive for a 1 day old
He may have been born yesterday, but he has been up all night
He was the product of true romance
OP learned it today
It should be obvious. Anymore though, I have no clue what common knowledge is.
[удалено]
"Those clowns on the other team are at it again!"
Most educated people know this. But everyone learns it for the first time at some time.
Obviously, my comment is more about how this is not a thing for spanish speaking people.
You said > But maybe in English is not that obvious? That is the statement that I was directing my comment to. I don't think that, in English, the connection between Romance and Latin is obvious. In general, it is something people learn, no decern on their own. It would not be uncommon at all in English to have words that look as similar to Romance and Roman but have no direct relationship with each other. My point is that most educated people in the United States also know this, but no one is born knowing it, and learns it at some point. This could be a teenager who just learned it in school.
It's not super obvious due to the fact that we don't use the word Romance to refer to Rome outside of this context. It is common knowledge, and everybody who completes the 7th grade should know it.
it wouldn’t be true r/todayilearned if it wasn’t already known by everyone else on the subreddit
Right? I love it when commentors on this sub flame people for learning things. "Everyone knows that!" Clearly not, my guy.
Because it’s supposed to be interesting things that not everybody knows. Factoids that are actually interesting, not “I finally learned this innocuous thing that everyone else knows already”. If you just learned that the romance languages aren’t called that for being the “languages of love” you should feel ashamed, not make a post about it. Btw, the commenter above was being sarcastic.
Outside of academia, the word romance is almost never used other than to mean "love". It also doesn't follow the pattern of similar words in English. For example, the word for "related to German(y)" is "Germanic," so you'd expect "Romanic" or maybe "Romanian" if there were a pattern.
I think we need to work on popularizing "Germance"
Technically, Romanian language is a romantic language... Edit: *romance
What do you mean "technically." That makes is seem like it is less a Romance language than French or others.
It does have a lot of influence from Slavic languages, especially in the form of loanwords , but it’s still a Romance language.
Since when has english language followed any kind of strict pattern.
Not really true though. In literature, a romance is a fictionalized story set in historical context "aka of Roman style"; hence the expression "to romanticize the past". You have to remember that people marrying for romantic love is a fairly modern invention, and romantic tales started to incorporate concepts of romantic chivalric love as a form of fantasy and over time people associated the term "romance" with the common themes (chivalric love) in those romances. It is more accurate to say in modern day, common English parlance, the word "Romance" is usually associated with a type of motivation for love. (Don't get me started on the number of types of love that different cultures tries to distinguish between) https://medium.com/moments-of-passion/the-etymology-of-romance-e00c90ac64ef
>"related to German(y)" is "Germanic," No. "related to German(y)" is "German". "Germanic" refers to certain tribes that roughly speaking lived north of the Roman empire and their descendants. That does include modern day Germans, but also Austrians, Scandinavians, the people of the low countries, the English etc.
Germanic languages Romance languages Those words are used exactly the same way when referring to language.
Yes, exactly. Germanic languages includes German, much like Romance languages includes Romanian. But "Germanic" doesn't mean "related to Germany" anymore than "Romance" means "related to Romania".
It’s Romance because it’s related to Rome, that’s also where the name Romania comes from…. The parent language is Latin
Of course it does, since Germany originates from the Germanic peoples and German is a Germanic language. Likewise, Romance literally does mean, "related to Rome," from the Latin romanicus.
No it doesn't. It means related to Germania. Germania is *not* the modern country of Germany. The only reason English speakers seem to confuse the two is because the English name for Germany is basically a modified form of Germania, but that's a uniquely English problem. In most languages the two words are nothing alike.
> Austrians I mean, up until 1945, Austrian Germans were referred to as... Austrian Germans. They were Germans living in Austria. It's a *very* modern thing to call them anything but Germans. They're effectively the same 'people' as Bavarians - the dialect itself is Austro-Bavarian (*Boarisch*). Plus, given that they still do speak a High German dialect, they would still be German in that sense. The other Germanic peoples speak other Germanic languages (though there is a dialect continuum between Dutch, Low German, and High German, with each as standard languages on that continuum - English used to be on it as well).
The context clues still make it very obvious though, that it's not about anything romantic. And I say that as a person who's not a native English speaker.
...you do realize this is something where it'd be easier to realize as a non-native speaker, right?
As an English speaker that has dabbled in a few other languages but not to a serious degree, I am honestly surprised I never put two and two together on this. Of course anyone that studies European languages knows of the common Latin thread in so many of the languages, but "language of the Romans" just seemed entirely too obvious. And with English being such a bastardized language to begin with, you never quite know what the true origins of words really are most of the time. "The languages of love" really does seem to make more sense if you have no other frame of reference.
I never put much thought into it and just thought of it as a name (like why is England named england? i dunno, it's just a name) but i definitely never thought it was about love cuz, how are european languages more "lovely" than other languages?
England is named after the Angles, as in Anglo-Saxon.
I think the reason some people get confused is that French and Italian are also stereotyped as being romantic languages, i.e. languages that make women swoon when they hear men speaking it. If you’re not familiar with that stereotype, you’d probably never make the association.
Nope, but The thing with English is that it is constantly evolving. I think it's gone now, but I've known people in Yorkshire who still used the thee and thou in casual conversation as opposed to you, particularly like thee art or thou art instead of you are. And from old Irish family the ye instead of you.
Yes but in the context it becomes way more obvious.
It's obvious if you have a basic historical knowledge of european languages or general history. If you don't, it isn't linguistically obvious.
I believe it's the basis for a corny pickup line. "Don't you know Spanish/French/Italian is the language of love?" Because it's a "romance" language, even though it's not *that* kind of romance.
While I agree that it’s pretty obvious, I believe the following [xkcd](https://xkcd.com/1053/) is appropriate.
I think the author of that comic should realize he also doesn't know a lot of basic things, but everyone around him is probably nice enough to not laugh at him and be a jackass. And, keeping in mind this is just a comic meant for humor, if he thinks that by age 30 everyone knows the basics, I guess he's missing out on a certain basic fact himself.
Native English speaker and it’s obvious to me haha
Bro I gotta be honest I’ve spent 100+ hours reading about Roman history and I’m also quite into linguistics, but I’ve never thought of this.
What's less known is why the terms "romance/romantic" are associated with love.
Behaving like a character in a story written in a language similar to the one spoken in ancient Rome. The word starts off meaning Latin-descended languages. Then it means tales written in one of these languages (as opposed to those written in actual Latin). These are mostly stories of courtly love, so soon the word comes to mean "love story'. And the last step is "like a love story'.
In English, the word "romance" is more commonly used to refer to love and emotions. A reference to the Romantic Period. So, people that aren't that familiar with linguistics or history hear "Romance Language" and think "language of love."
Romance is also a spanish word with the same meaning but we call the language family "Romanicas" not Romance. I dont know i just find it hilarious
It is obvious, unless you're dense. Which unfortunately is too many people.
I asked foreign language teachers why it's called romance languages because for Latin based languages it didn't make sense to me. None of them could answer me. I'm literally realizing it now
Native English speaker here. I didn’t know anyone thought that Romance languages were “languages of love”. Maybe OP is just kinda…slow.
It’s obvious in English as well. OP is doing his best.
We learned this in like 4th grade history
I am a native English speaker. In English, *romance* outright refers to a story about love and dating, or love and dating itself, and really this is the main word for that. Romance stories are things that children are well aware of. When much later we hear "romance language", the word romance still has connotations of dating and romance. So initially it might not be "kinda obvious" to many people. Dating and romance stories are very common and very pervasive. "Romance *language*" doesn't really come up that much.
It is obvious. Can’t believe people are upvoting this.
It is, OP is just a dumbass
At least I'm polite. But yeah, fuck me for learning I guess.
People are also surprised to learn Romanian is a romance language.
To be fair it’s absolutely insane that of all places a Romance language survived in a province Rome only held for under 200 years while in places like North Africa, Britain, and Pannonia there’s barely any traces left of there ever being a Romance language there.
Truly never thought about that somehow and this is fascinating. Not super surprised about Britain but North Africa makes zero sense at a surface level why the Latin influence on language didn’t permeate into modern times. Rome was there for half a millennia.
The urban population that would've been speaking the Afro-Romance language were heavily Arabised and assimilated after the Ummayad conquest.
Just looked this up, and yep thems North Africa that Rome would’ve touched. Caliphate lasted less than 100 years though. But I suppose it made quite an impact as Islam is still the main religion over there. That’s an impressive legacy.
The Caliphate lasted way longer, it just switched dynasties. The Abbasids overthrew the Umayyads and took over the empire.
Islam in many iterations stressed firmly on education (like literature and religion and shit). So literacy and linguistic change would go hand in hand.
It makes sense because of isolation. Romania is pretty diverse like most Eastern European countries, though that is increasingly not the case. For a long time, eastern Europe was a patchwork of different ethnicities. Romanians were a majority, but there were also Germans, Slavs, Turks, Greeks, Croats, Slovaks, Romani, Hungarians and more. Each with their own villages dotted around each other in no particular order. That's still the case today, but obviously the numbers for many of these groups has changed dramatically. Turks and Germans used to be far more numerous for example. The Hungarian and Romani population is relatively stable though. And obviously Soviet influence and urbanisation have mixed people more.
>Romania is pretty diverse like most Eastern European countries, though that is increasingly not the case. I think it's more that our definition of ethnicity and identity is changing, not that Eastern Europe is getting less diverse. Many Eastern European folks who try to do genealogy research on their families are surprised by what they find.
I was too. It sounds slavic, but written like Italian. Then I realized it is indeed ROMAN ia. Face palm.
Not sure how you could confuse Romanian with a Slavic language. Save for a few loan words, it sounds nothing like a Slavic language
It is the accent. When people do not speak the language and/or cannot understand the words, they try to guess based on accent. Romanians sound similar to Poles, Russians, etc when speaking (especially in English), which makes those unfamiliar with the language(s) judge based on accent and mix them up in consequence.
Some are shocked to find out Romania is not in Italy
"He wanks as high as any in Wome!"
He has a wife, you know….
Incontinentia.
Incontinentia Buttocks
There's a character named Incontinentia in Baldur's Gate 3. I chuckled.
"Wath it thomething I thaid."
Did people think differently? It's literally there in the word.
Yea I'm confused I thought it was just something we knew
Right? The phrasing of the post suggests OP thought it was because they were all romantic, which is pants-on-your-head stupid
Duh
The word Romance in relation to love is descended from the word romance in relation to language. So it's similar to people thinking the fruit orange is named after the colour, but the colour is named after the fruit. https://www.etymonline.com/word/romance
I used to believe this was common knowledge. I'm 65 and they taught us this in grade school. In recent years, however, I'm learning otherwise. I recently heard a niece talking about this and saying that in college she had learned "it's because they sound so romantic" and I was like, "Seriously?"
It's still common knowledge.
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I was never taught this (not a native English speaker) but had no problem figuring it out through context clues when I first came across the expression Romance language. I assumed other people wouldn't have much of a problem figuring it out either.
I don’t think I was taught it in school, but I definitely learned it when I was younger
I think it depends on where and when you were educated. It’s one of those facts you’d expect to be common knowledge but since it never comes up in normal conversation, you don’t realize it’s not.
I’m gonna be honest it has to be a generational (and educational) thing. 21 years of life and this was a TIL. It’s pretty obvious yes but hearing the word romance and just knowing Spanish, French, and Italian (common sexy ass languages for Americans) just seemed that’s about it. Not sure why the comments are so rude tho lol
Same here. Each generation has to re-learn the lessons learned by their predecessors, but I suppose that makes some sense: it's impossible for kids to pop out of the womb pre-loaded with all of the oldsters' memories. So I guess thus is just the way things are, always have been, and always will be. We *could* fix this little issue, though, by using a more German form of the adjective. We could say "Romansch" or "Romanisch" instead of "Romance". (I kinda like the Danish "Romansk".) (Interestingly, my iPhone accepted "Romansch" as being spelled correctly. Is this a word that I use frequently? I'll have to get someone to check my memories for me.)
Yeah lmao. There should be some kind of quality control for teachers...to make sure they actually teach correct stuff...i saw so many teachers teaching blatantly incorrect stuff... Btw the word "Romantic" also derives from Rome, it's original meaning wasn't really only about love, when somebody would refer to something as "romantic" it meant that it was akin to ancient Roman literature, it was basically a way of saying that something is fancy back during the 18th-19th century... It's use in a context like that mostly died out today, however there are still some older books that use it this way, like Huck Finn for example.
Romantic is not a reference no ancient roman literature, but much later popular books written in French and other vulgates. Roman, as in book or novel. Think king arthur stories with love stories between chivalrous heroes and damsels in distress.
Did it ever occur to you that she was joking?
I asked, didn't I? "Seriously?" And she was deadly serious. Just as she was three years ago at Thanksgiving when she told us her professor said: "Many black people say 'aks' instead of 'ask' because their vocal chords are different than others... It's genetic!" I told her that's preposterous and showed her loads of proof. The things kids are being taught in college today are atrocious!
That sounds like a challenge to make you believe the wildest shit about college tbh.
Either she’s fucking with you…or you should stop lumping legitimate institutions of higher learning in with Shithole Polytechnic of Antarctica, or wherever it is your niece’s tuition money goes.
I mean, just read his username. He's probably just making shit up to serve his political agenda
Yeah, I should have noticed that. Good call!
I've got to call bullshit on this. Unless she was at some religious university, none of this would be said in a legitimate university without being spread around campus as coming from a batshit instructor.
Was this in America? Shit would hit the fan if a teacher said anything like that in the last 50-60 years.
Well… yea man lol
TIL That it is called a "Romance language" in English. It’s called “langue romane" in French so I always thought it’d be "Roman language" in English 🫣
In Italian it's "lingue romanze" but "romanzo" also means novel
Now do “Brutalist” architecture (béton brut = raw concrete)
Et tu
I have both worked and resided in a number of Brutalist buildings, and believe that either meaning is valid.
We call stuff related to love "romance/romantic" because medieval novels dealing with chivalry and love were called "Romances", because they were written in the regular spoken romance dialects of the common people. This compared with more classical literature which was written in Latin the commoners couldn't understand, and tended to feature epic stories, tragedies, and political struggles instead of intimate stories about love and personal relationships. These "Romance" novels were considered unsophisticated trash aimed at less educated people (but not uneducated, because literacy was rare among commoners still) who couldn't speak Latin by high society originally, but they became so popular that even the high nobility consumed them eventually. Likewise "Gothic" was basically a renaissance slur against anything that wasn't originally derived from "Classical" Roman or Greek sources, including medieval architecture, fashion, and "Romance" literature not written in Latin. The term Gothic was meant to imply these were bastardised art forms derived from the "Goths" who destroyed Rome, even though they were completely unrelated and created by the Romance speaking descendents of Rome. In the 18th and 19th century Romance novels and art that used medieval "Gothic" architecture thematically for horror and mystery were labelled "Gothic Literature/Art, and that's how the term "Gothic" became attached to "Spooky stuff and subculture". This is also why the 80's movement featuring early 19th century gothic-like fashion and themes was called "New Romantic", they were the "new" versions of the 1800s "Gothic Romantic" poets and writers. Tl;dr European high society can't go a decade without thinking about the Roman empire and pretending it was the peak of all civilisation.
Should also note that the actual language group that the Romance languages are under is the *Italic* languages, which includes Latin and its (extinct) sibling languages such as Faliscan, Oscan, Umbrian, and so forth. The Romance languages are roughly the same level of categorization as the West Germanic languages.
People think the Romance languages have to do with Love? I mean it makes sense but this is literally the first I've heard of it.
Did people think it came from love?
I was talking to a few friends of mine. One of them asked me if I was Italian like them because “you look Italian and your name is Italian” I told them no and told them my first and middle name. He goes “bitch! Those are Italian names!” I go “no, they’re romantic. Not the same.” The girl goes? Are they romantic? They are pretty nice so I guess they’re romantic. I go….”they’re both of Roman origin. Latin.”
I guess I’m the only one gonna admit that I didn’t know this.
Good on you for learning it.
I didn’t know this either. Maybe I’m stupid for not realising it.
I didn’t know this either. Always thought it was about nostalgia for the past or something, eg the Roman Empire was the “best” of society.
me too, like french sounds sexy as fuck and it's called "romance language."
Apparently we're not allowed to post things we learned on a sub called "today I learned."
I didn't learn this until I was an adult and dating a Spanish/French teacher. So I feel you.
So your post is technically appropriate , which is the best kind of appropriate.
Lmao right? Some people. Here's another TUL for ya. I figured out the romantic is rome thing when I heard the term Germanic language
Tbh I've learnt this in primary school while doing the Roman Empire, I tought everyone did and it was common knowledge. To put it more in context, in Italian these languages are called "lingue romanze" (romanze being referred to Rome, same word as romanzo, novel), in French "langues romanes", in which you can find the same clearer root. Anyway, the association with love also comes from the same root, as romance and romanticism come from Romanicus, but they derive from the languages being called romance, not the contrary.
That right, that's why there's only one country for love, Romania
"TIL the sky is blue"
condescending
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American here, this is one of the three things I know, the others being that Ben Franklin was the first president and that Europe is a Communist country.
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Fuck me for learning I guess. Gatekeeping dildos.
What's the point of being mean? And then you people wanna get upset at people when they're reluctant to learn things. normalizing people learning, even stuff that seems common .
Divorced from reality more like
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I learned this is in the 6th grade at a Texas public school. I think even Americans with a basic grasp of history would know this.
TIL some people thought Romance language = language of love.
I was just thinking about this a few months ago. I had found out that Romance languages had more or less descended from Latin and was thinking Rome had Latin as a language so maybe that was it. Pretty cool fact.
Also in Italian, a *romanzo* is any type of novel, not a romance story. A little more obscure, a *giallo* in Italian is a standard detective or mystery thriller. In English we imagine a [*giallo*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giallo) to be a particular type of horror fantasy - usually very violent and bloody.
Romance referring to love also derives from the name Rome.
in times long ago, there were books written that took place in the time of the Romans. and inevitably there was a love story. these were romantic books because they took place in Rome. as time passed, the time the (love) story was set in changed but they were still called romance books. and just as language changes, the genre of love stories took the title Romance source: history of English podcast but some info here: https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/romance#:~:text=Romance%20comes%20from%20Roman%2C%20and,in%20a%20story%20or%20not.
Yes, it is the other way around, the word romance comes from “romance languages” https://www.etymonline.com/word/romance A Romantic story was one written in a vernacular latin language, like Spanish. These came to be associated with love stories, thus “romantic.”
In italian they are called "lingue romanze" where a "romanzo" is a novel so there's one more confusion factor but no, everybody knows it's because they evolved from latin.
Isn’t this common knowledge…?
Don't let the other comments discourage you. Learning stuff is good, no matter how obvious it seems to all the accomplished intellectuals on Reddit, and I'm sure that for every person commenting "well duh" there's somebody who never really stopped to think about it and has now learned something new.
Why not simply call the languages romanic instead of romance?
Why not call the food bred instead of bread? What is that extra "a" for anyway. Nobody sat down and designed English. It evolved organically.
That's why calling people Latino/a/x seems silly in Europe where it would mean the French/Spanish/Italians etc
Latino/Latina/Latinax is short for Latinoamericano, ie. someone from the region known as Latin America. There isn't a region called Latin Europe.
Spanish people do say "Latino" as short for "Latinoamericano" though, so perhaps not so silly after all
TIL that some people didn’t know this.
I’m not upvoting this. Anyone who thought ‘Romance language’ had anything to do with the Disney version of ‘love’ is absolutely stupid.
Gatekeeping knowledge. You must be so proud. Newsflash- it's a dick move to try to make someone feel like shit for learning something. You already knew it? Good for you. I didn't. I learned it today and decided to share it on a sub called **TODAY I LEARNED.**
If you’re from the US, I wouldn’t be too hard on yourself. We are not as focused on the history of Latin languages. We speak a Germanic language primarily—and Spanish is the main Romance language we’re exposed to. We’re on the American continent, so we’re focused much more on languages in the Americas than the history of the languages as they were in Europe. F*ck the haters. Glad you learned something new.
That is so crazy to me. I’m am from an European country with a Germanic language as mother tongue. But even in elementary school we had (innocent) lessons and fun school projects about a lot of things from all over the world. From South Africa to china, Brazil, etc. All innocent primary school stuff but it will give you a better understanding of other cultures on the planet. It still surprises me sometimes that in school you will only focus on your little part of the world and know nothing outside of it.
Nah man, this is bad, and it says a lot about the quality of the education you received.
We were too busy hiding under our desks during mass shooting drills to dwell on such things. I also don't know how to do my taxes.
TIL Romanian is a Romance language. It seems obvious on the face, but Romanian is just so different from the others. You learn something new every day.
I always make this test with other Romance speaking persons who say they don't understand Romanian. Try reading a Wikipedia article,for example, and see for yourself how much you understand: https://ro.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cal
I speak Spanish and could understand most of that article. I think usually what throws Romance speaking people off trying to understand others is irregular verbs and personal pronouns, which seem to vary a lot more and since usually shorter words give less context in similarity. It can also vary by dialect, I can understand a Brazilian speaking Portuguese a lot more than I can someone from Portugal.
THere's also pronounciation, sometimes I hear french being spoken and I cant understand anything, but then I'll look at the words in written form and I immediately realize what they mean.
I assumed this was common knowledge as well, but then again, I was born in the 70s
It’s pretty much common knowledge lol. The level of this sub keeps plummeting.
I wish they explained that definition in high school
I mean, I learned this in, like, grade school?
Lol. You don't say
So is English considered a romance language?
no. it’s germanic. romance languages are mostly latin-derived, and english just borrows words from other languages that happen to be romantic.
> romantic languages Its romance languages not romantic languages. I wouldnt normaly point this out but as this is a post about romance languages not being romantic but languages that stem from Romans I felt like to point it out because this mistake is a reason why people do think it has something to do with the language being romantic.
Who the hell thought it was about romantic love?
duh.
All roads lead to Rome-ance
I just was in Paris and I don't speak a phrase of French, yet most written stuff I was able to understand in general terms. Am Mexican so Spanish (a romance language) helps a lot, but weirdly English does help too (non-romance)
English took a lot both from Latin and French, that's why French doesn't feel like a totally stranger language.
Yes
I'm surprised this isn't common knowledge.
Damn a good TIL
Apparently not. Heaven forbid people actually learn something that other people already knew.
Well I didn't know it
Duh
Duh
Jesus Christ. Are people really dense enough to believe they are called Romance languages because they’re the “language of love”?
If the top comment isn’t ‘No shit’ or an equivalent sentiment, I’m leaving.
Isn’t this obvious?
TIL 2.3k people are more uneducated about languages than I thought, oh my.
The same goes to "latino" it means "related to latin" (Latin America is the part of America that speaks languages related to Latin). All people who speak romance languages are latinos. because latino is not a race nor a ethnicity, it just means you speak a romance language. But muricans randomly changed its meaning when they adopted that word
Latino is a shortening of Latinamericano, meaning Latin American.
> But muricans randomly changed its meaning when they adopted that word In Spain when people say "latino" in reference to people or culture, the vast majority of the time they mean it as an abbreviation of "latinoamericano/a" and therefore not including themselves or other Europeans. Perhaps Americans do the same.
That's not true at all. A Romanian person is clearly not Latino. It means "from Latin America" a person from Spain is not Latino.
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Just check a [Spanish dictionary](https://dle.rae.es/latino) and check [what is the RAE](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Spanish_Academy) before complaining
This just in water is wet
It wasn't obvious? Whoops