Language in Romania: What to Expect

Looking to travel to Romania? It’s full of beautiful cities, amazing castles, and scenic views!

But what about the language? How easily can you get around as an English speaker, and what other languages might you encounter?

Well, it’s actually pretty cut and dry. It’s not as diverse as a country like Indonesia, but there are still plenty of languages and cultures throughout. Unlike other Romance languages (Spanish, Italian, French, etc.), Romanian is heavily influenced by the nearby Slavic languages.

Also, I wrote a quick and easy guide for Romanian that explains the basics of the language! I wrote it for travelers who don’t need to learn all of the details. Find it here.

Anyway, let’s get started!

English Language in Romania

As an American travel writer, I’m going to assume much of my audience is English-speaking. So, that’s what I’ll start with. How easy will it be to get around if you only know English?

Well, unlike Belize or Germany, there aren’t a lot of English speakers. I would expect it to be somewhat common in touristy areas, but I wouldn’t rely on it.

English is spoken by about 31% of the population as of a 2012 report. With the population size, this means it has about 6 million speakers out of 20 million people. You could find some English speakers pretty easily and, from what I hear, it’s more likely among younger people.

For that reason, while you could go into the country entirely reliant on English and probably be fine, it’d be smart to learn at least some basics of Romanian.

Romanian Itself

It shouldn’t be much of a surprise that the most widely-spoken language in Romania is the one the country is named for.

Romanian itself is spoken by about 91% of the population (as of 2002). If you take the time to learn some basics of Romanian, you’re certain to find some people to communicate with.

This also means that, should you want to fully learn the language, Romania is definitely the place to do it! Immersion will always be one of the most effective methods for language practice.

Romanian is also, unsurprisingly, the official language of Romania, and it’s spread out across the whole country.

Other Languages in Romania

There are plenty of other languages present in Romania. Most of them aren’t too surprising given the languages that exist nearby, but they’re definitely worth knowing about. There are about 30 different languages in a noticeable number in Romania. 5 of those are indigenous to the area.

These minority languages also have legal protections which keep them alive and active. They didn’t exist until 1989, when Romania was no longer communist.

Hungarian Language in Romania

Some regions of Romania used to be part of Hungary, so it shouldn’t be too surprising that Hungarian is a (somewhat) common language.

You’re most likely to encounter it in the center of Romania, in the northern parts of Transylvania. It’s also present in northwestern Romania near the border of Hungary.

It’s spoken by around 6% of the population, so while it isn’t extremely common, it’s possible you’ll encounter it. That’s still 1.2 million people.

Romani

It might not seem like it from the name (it admittedly confused me a bit at first) but Romani and Romanian are actually separate languages. While Romanian is a Romance language like Spanish, Romani actually has more in common with languages near India.

That said, there are many distinct varieties of Romani in different parts of the world. So Romani speakers in Romania will speak the language quite differently from Romani speakers in the US.

This language makes up a very small part of the population (about 240,000, which is still a very large number) and is scattered all over the country. It’s most likely to be found in the same central region as Hungarian.

Ukrainian Language in Romania

Ukrainian is spoken primarily along the Ukrainian border in northern Romania.

There are about 50,000 Ukrainian speakers in Romania as of the last census, but recent events have probably increased that number by a noticeable amount.

Some Others

There are a few more languages that I don’t think are significant enough for a whole section. In order to paint the full picture, though, I think they’re important to mention

Romania used to have a much larger population of German speakers in the 1900s. That number has dropped by over 700,000 since the 1940s. It’s now closer to 40,000. Still, they’re one of the larger ethnicities within Romania.

Russian is also commonly spoken by emigrants who left Russia due to religious differences. There are about 30,000 speakers still in Romania.

You might also encounter Turkish speakers, as well as Serbo-Croatian, Slovak, Bulgarian, and Greek.

Conclusion

This one wasn’t very long compared to some of my other regional language guides but, like with German, there isn’t as much history of intermixing languages as in some other places.

Still, I was pleasantly surprised at how many languages you might find here. I expected some Slavic languages because of their heavy influence on Romanian, but there’s a lot more than I expected.

It always seems interesting to me to look at this information. As an American near the Canadian border (and nowhere near French Canada), I don’t really encounter other languages often. So looking into the actual population distribution often surprises me with the diversity of language.

Now, that’s not to say that people don’t speak other languages here. People might speak Spanish, Japanese, or thousands of other languages in private while they speak English in public.

The same is true of any country, and I’d imagine that you could get by with Romanian in any part of Romania without much issue.

Like I said, this was a lot shorter than some of my other, similar posts. But if you enjoyed it, be sure to check out those ones, too.

Also, if you find that any of this information needs corrections, or otherwise have questions, comments, or concerns, please reach out in the comments or contact me directly!

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Thanks for reading!