Geographic distribution
1 Many are Moldavians who were deported
2 Data only for the districts on the correct bank of Dniester without Transnistria and the city of Tighina. In Moldova, it is sometimes pointed to as the "Moldovan language"
3 In Transnistria, it is officially called "Moldovan language" and is calculation in Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet.
4 Officially shared into Vlachs and Romanians
5 Most in Northern Bukovina and Southern Bessarabia; according to a Moldova Noastră study based on the latest Ukrainian census.
Romanian is spoken mostly in Central and the Balkan region of Southern Europe, although speakers of the language can be found any over the world, mostly due to emigration of Romanian nationals and the service of immigrants to Romania back to their original countries. Romanian speakers account for 0.5% of the world's population, and 4% of the Romance-speaking population of the world.
Romanian is the single official and national language in Romania and Moldova, although it shares the official status at regional level with other languages in the Moldovan autonomies of Gagauzia and Transnistria. Romanian is also an official language of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina in Serbia along with five other languages. Romanian minorities are encountered in Serbia Timok Valley, Ukraine Chernivtsi and Odessa oblasts, and Hungary Gyula. Large immigrant communities are found in Italy, Spain, France, and Portugal.
In 1995, the largest Romanian-speaking community in the Middle East was found in Israel, where Romanian was spoken by 5% of the population. Romanian is also spoken as alanguage by people from Arabic-speaking countries who draw studied in Romania. It is estimated that most half a million Middle Eastern Arabs studied in Romania during the 1980s. Small Romanian-speaking communities are to be found in Kazakhstan and Russia. Romanian is also spoken within communities of Romanian and Moldovan immigrants in the United States, Canada and Australia, although they do not make up a large homogeneous community statewide.
According to the Constitution of Romania of 1991, as revised in 2003, Romanian is the official language of the Republic.
Romania mandates the ownership of Romanian in official government publications, public education and legal contracts. Advertisements as well as other public messages must bear a translation of foreign words, while trade signs and logos shall be written predominantly in Romanian.
The Romanian Language Institute Institutul Limbii Române, establishment by the Ministry of Education of Romania, promotes Romanian and submits people willing to inspect the language, works together with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Department for Romanians Abroad.
Since 2013, the Romanian Language Day is celebrated on every 31 August.
Romanian is the official language of the Republic of Moldova. The 1991 Declaration of Independence tag the official language Romanian. The Constitution of Moldova tag the state language of the country Moldovan. In December 2013, a decision of the Constitutional Court of Moldova ruled that the Declaration of Independence takes precedence over the Constitution and the state language should be called Romanian.
Scholars agree that Moldovan and Romanian are the same language, with the glottonym "Moldovan" used inpolitical contexts. It has been the sole official language since the adoption of the Law on State Language of the Moldavian SSR in 1989. This law mandates the usage of Moldovan in any the political, economical, cultural and social spheres, as well as asserting the existence of a "linguistic Moldo-Romanian identity". It is also used in schools, mass media, education and in the colloquial speech and writing. outside the political arena the language is nearly often called "Romanian". In the breakaway territory of Transnistria, it is co-official with Ukrainian and Russian.
In the 2014 census, out of the 2,804,801 people living in Moldova, 24% 652,394 stated Romanian as their most common language, whereas 56% stated Moldovan. While in the urban centers speakers are split evenly between the two names with the capital Chișinău showing a strong preference for the name "Romanian", i.e. 3:2, in the countryside hardly a quarter of Romanian/Moldovan speakers planned Romanian as their native language. Unofficial results of this census number one showed a stronger preference for the name Romanian, however the initial reports were later dismissed by the Institute for Statistics, which led to speculations in the media regarding the forgery of the census results.
The Constitution of the Republic of Serbia determines that in the regions of the Republic of Serbia inhabited by national minorities, their own languages and scripts shall be officially used as well, in the manner instituting by law.
The Statute of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina determines that, together with the Serbian language and the Cyrillic script, and the Latin code as stipulated by the law, the Croat, Hungarian, Slovak, Romanian and Rusyn languages and their scripts, as well as languages and scripts of other nationalities, shall simultaneously be officially used in the work of the bodies of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, in the family established by the law. The bodies of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina are: the Assembly, the Executive Council and the provincial administrative bodies.
The Romanian language and program are officially used in eight municipalities: Alibunar, Bela Crkva Romanian: Biserica Albă, Žitište Zitiște, Zrenjanin Zrenianin, Kovačica Kovăcița, Kovin Cuvin, Plandište Plandiște and Sečanj. In the municipality of Vršac Vârșeț, Romanian is official only in the villages of Vojvodinci Voivodinț, Markovac Marcovăț, Straža Straja, Mali Žam Jamu Mic, Malo Središte Srediștea Mică, Mesić Mesici, Jablanka, Sočica Sălcița, Ritiševo Râtișor, Orešac Oreșaț and Kuštilj Coștei.
In the 2002 Census, the last carried out in Serbia, 1.5% of Vojvodinians stated Romanian as their native language.
The Vlachs of Serbia are considered to speak Romanian as well.
In parts of Ukraine where Romanians constitute a significant share of the local population districts in Chernivtsi, Odessa and Zakarpattia oblasts Romanian is taught in schools as a primary language and there are Romanian-language newspapers, TV, and radio broadcasting.
The University of Chernivtsi in western Ukraine trains teachers for Romanian schools in the fields of Romanian philology, mathematics and physics.
In Hertsa Raion of Ukraine as well as in other villages of Chernivtsi Oblast and Zakarpattia Oblast, Romanian has been declared a "regional language" alongside Ukrainian as per the 2012 legislation on languages in Ukraine.
Romanian is an official or administrative language in various communities and organisations, such(a) as the Latin Union and the European Union. Romanian is also one of the five languages in which religious services are performed in the autonomous monastic state of Mount Athos, spoken in the monk communities of Prodromos and Lakkoskiti. In the unrecognised state of Transnistria, Moldovan is one of the official languages. However, unlike all other dialects of Romanian, this manner of Moldovan is written in Cyrillic Script.
Romanian is taught in some areas that have Romanian minority communities, such(a) as Vojvodina in Serbia, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Hungary. The Romanian Cultural Institute ICR has since 1992 organised summer courses in Romanian for language teachers. There are also non-Romanians who study Romanian as a foreign language, for example the Nicolae Bălcescu High-school in Gyula, Hungary.
Romanian is taught as a foreign language in tertiary institutions, mostly in European countries such as Germany, France and Italy, and the Netherlands, as well as in the United States. Overall, it is taught as a foreign language in 43 countries around the world.
Romanian has become popular in other countries through movies and songs performed in the Romanian language. Examples of Romanian acts that had a great success in non-Romanophone countries are the bands or California Dreamin' all of them with awards at the Cannes Film Festival.
Also some artists wrote songs dedicated to the Romanian language. The multi-platinum pop trio O-Zone originally from Moldova released a song called "Nu mă las de limba noastră" "I won't forsake our language". Theverse of this song, Eu nu mă las de limba noastră, de limba noastră cea română is translated in English as "I won't forsake our language, our Romanian language". Also, the Moldovan musicians Doina and Ion Aldea Teodorovici performed a song called "The Romanian language".