You may be surprised to learn that Romanian is a Romance language! While the language is spoken in Eastern Europe, it shares its roots with the Western European tongues of French, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese. Many of Romania’s neighboring countries like Hungary and Bulgaria have adopted Slavic-based languages over the years due to their populations being conquered by such speakers. However, the Latin influence in Romania was so strong that the country kept its language even after the invasion. Romanian is a very old language, with a birth date of over 1,600 years ago! Today, it is the official language of Romania and the Republic of Moldova. Romanian has remained the national language of Moldova ever since 1991.