Why Romanians Speak Vulgar?

Romanian language is a Romance language, an Italian (Latin) branch of the Indo-European family of languages. This means that the Romanian language is common with other languages like Catalan (Spanish dialect), Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese.

However, the language that is most associated with this language is the Eastern Romance Language. This could be the reason why most people would ask why they speak the Romance language.

Well, here is the thing. Romania, being a descendant of ancient Rome (Dacia, the country’s name before Roman imperialism was conquered by the empire) speaks closest of the Latin language. Romanians speak the vernacular Latin, known as Vulgar Latin. Vulgar doesn’t mean profanity, but it means of speaking the Latin language in a lesser classical way. Common inhabitants of the early Roman Empire speak Vulgar Latin, while the aristocrats speak classical. It is an everyday language that even Cicero uses for correspondences.

The language simplified the Latin, the extinct language that we can only see on judicial arguments, decisions or laws our legislators write at some point.

Vulgar Latin was spoken more when the classical Latin started to disintegrate. There came a point when people no longer understand Latin that priests were ordered to preach the vernacular Latin. Since then, classical Latin has been extinct after the fall of the empire until the Middle Ages while the vulgar Latin has not, as evidenced by Romanians speaking it to this very day.

This is why a lot of people suggest that Romanians are the closest to speak Latin today.

So you or someone you know might ask why Romanian is Vulgar Latin or Romance. It is because of the reason that the core language is Latin.

And again, vulgar doesn’t equate with profanity or crudeness as the English dictionary defines. Vulgar, for speakers of the romance language means vernacular.

So when someone tells you that: “Hey, the Romanians speak a vulgar language!” Do not freak out and think that Romanians are rude people because they are not.