Romance Languages
Linguists group a number of
modern European languages — French, Spanish, Portuguese, and
Italian, as well as the less well-known Romanian, Catalan,
Provençal, and so on — together as romance
languages because of their shared parent, Latin. Although
they differ on the surface, many words in their vocabularies are
cognate, and their grammatical
structures tend to be similar. See also Indo-European.
From the Guide to Literary Terms by Jack Lynch.
Please send comments to Jack Lynch.
Note: This guide is still in the early stages of development.
Three question marks mean I have to write more on the subject. Bear with me.