Romance studies

Romance studies is the interdisciplinary study of the languages, literatures, and cultures that developed from Latin, including French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and Romanian traditions.

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Romance languages: A family of languages descended from spoken Latin, including French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and Romanian. This language family defines the field’s linguistic scope.
Philology: The study of language through historical texts, including their transmission, interpretation, and linguistic features. Textual and linguistic evidence lets scholars investigate Romance cultures across periods.
Romance philology: The historical and comparative study of Romance languages and their texts, especially as an academic discipline. It is a major scholarly predecessor of modern Romance studies.
French studies: The interdisciplinary study of the French language, literature, and cultures associated with French. It is a national-language specialization within the broader Romance-studies scope.
Vulgar Latin: The nonliterary varieties of Latin spoken across the Roman world, from which the Romance languages developed. Its regional speech varieties are the historical source of the languages studied here.
Translation studies: The interdisciplinary study of translation, interpreting, and the movement of texts between languages and cultures. Translation reveals how ideas and literary works circulate among Romance-language communities.
Neogrammarians: Nineteenth-century linguists who argued that sound change follows regular laws. Their comparative methods shaped the historical study of Romance languages.
Hispanic studies: The study of Spanish language, literature, and cultures across Spain and the Spanish-speaking world. It narrows the field to Spanish-speaking traditions and their transnational connections.
Historical linguistics: The study of how languages change and diversify over time. It supplies methods for tracing Romance languages from Latin and comparing their development.
Sociolinguistics: The study of how language varies and functions in social contexts. It connects Romance-language forms to class, identity, region, and social change.