When you think of romance, your mind might go to a candlelight dinner, a bottle of Champagne, roses, or strawberries dipped in chocolate. The last thing, if it ever came to mind, would be Italian, Spanish, or Portuguese. What are Romance languages? When discussing language, Romance languages are the descendants of the spoken form of Latin, which is also known as Vulgar Latin. The word vulgar in this instance does not mean coarse or off-color. It means common or the usual, typically, everyday speech of regular people.

The languages considered to be Romance languages are modern French, Italian, Spanish, Romanian, Catalan, the Romansch group of dialects used in Switzerland, and Sardinian. Also included are the languages Occitan and Provencal from France, Andalusian from Spain, Friulian from northeast Italy, Ladin from northern Italy, and Sicilian from southern Italy.

Many of the Romance languages are regional dialects rather than the national language of the country where they are spoken. They have been classified together because they have a shared section of vocabulary, which originated in the influence of the language of the Roman conquerors. Today there are nearly 625 million people who speak Romance languages.

Italian like the other Romance languages is the direct offspring of the Latin spoken by the Roman conquerors, which was forced on them by these Romans. Of all the major Romance languages, Italian kept the closest to the original Latin. When you consider the power of the Roman empire, you might think that more of latin should have survived to the modern day. Yet it has not. Italian is the closes you can get for a modern day, living language.

You have come to February 13th and you are trying to figure out what to buy your wife for Valentine’s Day. You don’t have too much imagination, so you want to choose between chocolate or flowers. Flowers are always beautiful and never a bad gift. They come in so many different varieties that you have many different options about what you want to buy her. You can go with a combination of flowers, you can go with the old standby; roses, or you can take a more obscure flower, including carnations or daisies. If you go with flowers, add a card to it that has a special message or poem on it to give it a bit more personality. The best way to make an impression is go with a large bouquet of roses, with a beautifully worded card to go with it.

Chocolate is a girl’s best friend, well next to diamonds that is. If you buy some chocolate for her, don’t just get the usual chocolate in a heart shaped box. Instead, go for something a bit better and original. Find some Pot of Gold or specialty chocolate that costs an arm and a leg. By going all out on the chocolate, you will make your wife a very happy woman. As with the flowers, include a special card to give it a bit more personality and show that you took some initiative for her gift.