Romanian is a Latin Romance language spoken by about 25 million people in Romania, Moldova and the Ukraine. It was added as one of official languages of the European Union in 2007. It is closest to modern Italian in terms of mutual intelligibility, but also retains a number of features of old Latin and also contains many words taken from the surrounding Slavic languages, as well as from French, German, Greek and Turkish.
Romanian is the only Romance language spoken in Eastern Europe, which makes it an interesting subject of study to scholars. There are four primary dialects in the Romanian language: Daco-Romanian, Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian, and Istro-Romanian. The standard Romanian is Daco-Romanian and it is the primary dialect widely used in Romania and Moldova.
