> Which of the following isn't a Romance language, or a language that originatedfrom Latin?Considering Romanian, Portuguese, Italian and English, the answer is: English. The so-called "Romance" languages originated from Latin, which was the languagespoken in the Western Roman Empire. Today, the most commonly used Romancelanguages are Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, and Romanian.Out of the so-called "families" of language, Romance languages are perhaps theeasiest to identify and account for. The languages not only share large portionsof their vocabulary but can also be traced fairly directly back to their originin the Roman Empire. Roman occupation of the Iberian peninsula, Gaul (modern-dayFrance and parts of Belgium), and the Balkans accounts for the "Roman" characterof the major Romance languages. Later European colonial contact with parts ofthe Americas, Africa, and Asia explain the French, Spanish, and Portuguesespoken in those regions.Today, Spanish is the most widely spoken Romance language in the world, clockingin at nearly a billion speakers around the globe. French takes second place,with 276 million native and non-native speakers, while Portuguese comes inthird, with about 250 million speakers in total. And now, a joke:Latin isn't a dead language – it's still Roman around!Want to compare and contrast the sounds of the Romance languages? Check out thevideo below: