Many people in those countries speak a Romance language (e.g. French, Portuguese) but have a tribal language as their native tongue (which is what this quiz is about).
I don't think the reasoning is as simple as whether there are more native languages than the Romance language, but how many people in a given country speak the Romance language as a native tongue. Yes, Peru has Quechua, but most of Peru's residents speak the Romance language (i.e., Spanish) as their first language. That is not the case in many of the African countries cited in the comments.
Seems to have skipped over Hispaniola (Dominican Republic & Haiti) completely. Surely the number of people on this island for whom Spanish and French is their first language trumps any African nation with the possible exception of Cote d'ivoire.
(thinking out loud) - Are creoles categorized by their parent language (in this case French, and so Romance) or are they in a separate category? Really don't know.
Yeah it is for us. But Creole is very similar to French, the only thing is Creole also has Spanish, African dialect, and some of the language of the native Taino Indians. But if you speak Creole, you can understand French for the most part and most Haitians are learning French now.
Native French speakers have a problem understanding Walloon, which is basically French. I think they also have a problem with the Canadian version of French.
Walloon isn't "basically French". It's a different language, although it's part of the same family, the langues d'oïl. But not many people speak it these days. Most people in Wallonia now speak Belgian French, which is quite similar to "Standard" French.
@komtvoordebakker Consider that many native French speakers *do* speak the Canadian version of French. I assume you are referring to speakers of "Metropolitan French" (aka Standard European French). Native speakers of Metropolitan French and Québécois French speakers generally understand each other well, but can run into trouble with idioms and slang (which happens across languages all the time of course).
I could not think of the last one for the life of me, and then was shocked to see it was Romania--for about half a second, until I looked at the word "Romania." Oh. Duh.
Foi um quiz muito bom! I loved the quiz. And although I speak English as a first language, I love romantic languages... Favorite is Portuguese.. the Jjjjjj of French and the beauty of the other latin languages like Spanish, Italian, Ladino, Romanian. Lots of African countries speak as well as Philippines has a good number who speak romantic language.
I thought he meant that the Romance languages sound romantic when spoken. In the movies the Casanovas always seem to quote French, Italian, or Spanish when wooing the ladies. Pepe le Pew is a prime example. :)
I kept wondering if Switzerland was the last slot on the list, thinking that surely there were at least 11m Swiss and that French, Italian, and Romansh speakers comprised at least half of them. Nope, wrong on both counts: population is only 8m, and German speakers are the majority. The More You Know!
Either way, Switzerland still wouldn't have qualified for this quiz if it had a high enough population because the language most of the people speak is not a romance language.
Wikipedia says the last census in 2017 found that about 47.3% of Mozambicans speak Portuguese though it is the most widely spoken language. And only 16.6% are native speakers of Portuguese, which the quiz asks for.
also Cameroon where 83% speak French and 17% speak English, their population is 24 million, which means nearly 20 million speak French. and the list goes on and on and on
It think they "can" speak french, that doesnt mean it is their 1st language. Often I believe it is used as a lingua franca, the language they speak when two people have different first languages.
The number of native speakers is not high enough. A country can use a language as its official language without the majority of its people having it as a native language. 82% of the people in Cameroon do not speak French as native speakers, and few of them would be better at French than at their own language.
Berber and Arabic are not Romance based, which are Algerian official languages. DRC natives do not speak French widely, it is those nosy French people that can’t mind their own business that feel the need to colonize anything they can find.
Algeria is most likely not on here because most of Algeria speaks Berber dialects as their first language, not French. It's probably the same deal for some of the other countries that have French and Portuguese as their languages such as Angola, Mozambique, and the DRC.
Native Angolans (the people who lived in Angola before nosy Europeans came and colonized everything) did not speak Portuguese. They cannot be classified as native. Therefore, it is not correct to add Angola to this quiz.
Majority of Belgians are native Dutch speakers so Belgium does not fit the description of a country "where a majority of the residents are native speakers of a language derived from Latin".
I wonder which states are missing at all (not just top15). There are several American countries, Portugal, Andorra, San Marino, Vatican, Monaco, and Cape Verde. That's it?!
I really did not expect Haiti to have a larger population than Cuba even though Cuba is four times larger in terms of area. This quiz's source gives Haiti a population that is larger than Cuba by only 75,000 people.
ps there is a world of difference between romance (languages) and romance aswell...
Based on origin: the language(s) one learned first (the language(s) in which one has established the first long-lasting verbal contacts);
Based on internal identification: the language(s) one identifies with/as a speaker of;
Based on external identification: the language(s) one is identified with/as a speaker of, by others;
Based on competence: the language(s) one knows best:
Based on function: the language(s) one uses most.
Under some of these definitions, some African countries, including at least Angola, would qualify.
If you need a reference you can check the official report of the angolan 2014 census.
http://www.embajadadeangola.com/pdf/Publicacao%20Resultados%20Definitivos%20Censo%20Geral%202014_Versao%2022032016_DEFINITIVA%2018H17.pdf
Section 7.1.10 (p. 51) shows that 71% of Angolans speak Portuguese at home. The same census show that Angola has 25.8 million inhabitants.
Romania: Da.
Nice idea, thanks!