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Ethnicity Romanians 89.5% , Hungarian 6.6%, Roma 2.5%, Ukrainian 0.3%, German, 0.3%, Russian 0.2%, Turkish 0.2%, Serbian 0.1%, Slovak 0.1%, Other 0.2%. An October 2005 report estimates that 1,061,400 Romanians are living in Italy, constituting 37.2% of 2.8 million immigrants in that country. Also, it is estimated that in Spain live 400,000 Romanians. Other ethnic groups include natives of Romania's neighboring countries and some smaller groups like the Polish minority (numbering a few thousand people) living in Suceava County. According to official declarations, ethnic minorities can use their native language in education. Ethnic minorities are offered native language access to public administration in towns and villages where they make up for more than 20% of the population. In towns and villages where they make up for more than 30% of the population, local council meetings can be held in the minority language, provided that translation into Romanian is provided, and that official minutes are kept in Romanian. On the other hand, some members and observers of minor ethnic minorities (e.g.) Roma claim that their numbers are undercounted in national censuses
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The official language is Romanian, a Romance language of the Italic subfamily of the family of Indo-European languages. This language family includes French, Spanish, Catalan, Italian and Portuguese; its languages are spoken by about 670 million people in many parts of the world, but mainly in Europe and the Western Hemisphere. About 24 million people worldwide speak Romanian, mostly in Romania and Moldova. A sizeable Hungarian minority in Transylvania speaks Hungarian as well as Romanian; until the 1990s, there were also a substantial number of German-speaking Transylvanian Saxons, but in exchange for payments to the Communist regime many left to West Germany and most of the remainder have left the country since the fall of communism and the accompanying opening of borders. The Romanian educational system puts a strong emphasis on foreign languages, and Radio România Internaţional broadcasts in Arabic, Armenian, Aromanian, Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Serbian, Spanish, and Ukrainian (broadcasts in Bulgarian, Greek, Hungarian, Portuguese and Turkish ended in late March 2004). According to the Euro barometer Report "Europeans and Languages" (Sept. 2005) more than a quarter of Romanians understand and speak English and 17% French. Romania is a member of the Organization de la Francophonie, with Bucharest being the host of the Summit of Francophony in 2006. In terms of foreign languages, 5 million Romanians speak English, 4-5 million speak French, 1.5 million speak German, 2 million speak Italian, and 1 million speak Spanish. Historically, French was the leading foreign language for Romanians to study; now it is English, so that, as a group, Romanian English-speakers are generally younger than Romanian French-speakers.
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Religions (2002 Census): Romanian Orthodox - 86.8% (See: Orthodoxism in Romania) Roman Catholic - 4.5% Protestant - 3.7% Pentecostal - 1.5% Greek-Catholic Uniate - 0.9% Most Romanians are members of the Romanian Orthodox Church, which is one of the churches of Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Catholicism (both Roman Catholic and Greek Catholic) and Protestantism are also represented. In Dobrogea, the region lying on the shore of the Black Sea, there is a small Muslim minority (of Turkish and Tatar ethnicity), which is a remnant of the Ottoman rule and migrations from Crimea, respectively. |
Romania Information: Inside
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