10 - Romance outside the Romània

Summary

A number of the Romance languages, most notably Spanish, Portuguese and French, have in the course of the last five centuries been carried beyond Europe, both as the spoken languages of individuals and as the official languages of empire. The length and degree of contact between diasporic Romance and indigenous substrate languages has varied from place to place. The kinds of change which have been undergone by those Romance languages which diffused widely outside Europe have naturally tended to result in the creation of new regional varieties, a process which invites comparison with the fragmentation of Latin. It is therefore interesting to observe with what success a sense of language community and a common standard have been maintained. Although the history of the Romance languages outside the Romània has generally been one of expansion and diversification, there are also a number of examples of attrition or death.