where did the term "romance" languages come from?

Question

if you could cite your source..

Answer 1

From Roman (+ce), all the languages directly derived from Latin, which are mostly of Southern European origin, French, Italian, Spanish, Portugese and Romanian, it has nothing to do with the fact that some people think that the area it comes from or the language sounds romantic

Answer 2

The term Romance when talking about languages had nothing to do with love. It is a term given to them because the people that conquered them were Romans and they spread there language (Latin). All of the people they conquered spoke a form of Latin called Vulgar Latin which developed differently in different areas as it was basically a slang latin which relied heavily on there already spoken languages for flavor. Hence we end up with Spanish, Italian, French, and Portuguese.

Roman Latin based language = Romance Language

Answer 3

Romance languages (Vulgar Latin, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Romanian, Romansch, Catalan, Languedoc and others are languages derived from the language of the Romans, called Latin. Latin was spoken not only in Rome, but in the outlying areas, the entire region known as Latium.

The word 'romance' meaning love affairs was used because it was what was normally in the French novels beginning in the XVII Century, (romains) which dealt with love affairs, as Roman novels of the pagan period did.

Check this out on Wikipedia if you do not believe me.

Answer 4

You have got great answers here - I'll just add a little about the link between Romance languages and Romance stories / Romanticism. In French (and in Swedish, and probably several other languages) the word for "novel" is "roman".

romance
c.1300, "story of a hero's adventures," also (c.1330), "vernacular language of France" (as opposed to Latin), from O.Fr. romanz "verse narrative," originally an adverb, "in the vernacular language," from V.L. *romanice scribere "to write in a Romance language" (one developed from Latin instead of Frankish), from L. Romanicus "of or in the Roman style," from Romanus "Roman" (see Roman). The connecting notion is that medieval vernacular tales were usually about chivalric adventure. Literary sense extended by 1667 to "a love story." Extended 1612 to other modern languages derived from Latin (Spanish, Italian, etc.). Meaning "adventurous quality" first recorded 1801; that of "love affair, idealistic quality" is from 1916. The verb meaning "court as a lover" is from 1942.

Answer 5

Languages derived from Latin, one of the eldest languages, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and others are romance languages.
and it's called like that "romance", because Latin was spoken first in Rome, and then during the Empire, Romans spread their language and culture through a great part of the world.

Answer 6

Human sloppiness. Swearing manner taking an oath. Cursing manner magically hoping that a few voodoo-like vigor can purpose evil to befall anyone. People do that always. You would name them idiots or morons, however the ones 2 phrases initially supposed levels of IQ underneath-common within the Stanford -Binet classifications of human intelligence. So they aren't precisely common, above common, nor talented or genius, while they're so sloppy with our language. :-) Foul language often refers to execrations related to procreation hobbies or taking a few god's title in useless. I'm comfortable you requested this query, giving me the risk to get whatever "off my chest".

Answer 7

"Romance" Languages is a reflection of the basis of Latin in several European languages (Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, etc...). It may also relate to the spread of Latin throughout Europe in the conquests of the Roman Empire. 'Romance' -- 'Romanesque'...you get the idea.

Romance languages tend to build off of one another (meaning if you learn one, it is typically a little easier to learn another than say going from Spanish to Japanese.)

Answer 8

shakespear