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  • If we include the word Latin, then we have speakers of Ladino (also called Judeo-Spanish) and Ladin (natively called ladino). The first is derived from Old Spanish and spoken by Sephardic Jews everywhere but in Spain where they were expelled from. The latter is spoken in Northern Italy, specifically in South Tyrol, Trentino and Belluno.

    The names are funny just because you can imagine asking someone speaking a language derived from Vulgar Latin what language they're speaking (or writing), and them answering as a fish would when asked about the water.

    by 1-more
  • Besides Romanians, there are several more eastern european romance-language-speaking peoples ("Vlachs") like Aromanians, Megleno-Romanians and Istro-Romanians. I think they might also deserve a mention.
    by muvlon
  • "Where are the Romans now?" "You're looking at them." - Tony Soprano
    by runamuck
  • The citizens of Byzantium identified as being Romans. Interesting, many Greek Christians still did at the time that the modern Greek state was created. When told they are "Hellenes" they responded that they have always been "Romioi".
    by Gupie
  • I bought a torrone (Italian nougat dessert) in local Auchan (French supermarket chain) today and while briefly researching the dessert history found out that it was popular in Ancient Rome named as cupedia and in some Southern parts of Italy it still called as cupeta.

    Just imagine to make recipe so good that it not just transferred across generations through 2000 years, but also evolved to come in supermarket in Russia.

    by 4rtem
  • I'm a bit surprised that the "people from modern Rome" only got an honorable mention. After all, Rome still sees itself as the successor of the Roman Empire. When first visiting it, I was surprised to see the famous SPQR (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPQR) acronym all over the place - on trash cans, manhole covers etc. etc.
    by rob74
  • Just wait for Hollywood to create a film about Roman mythology and not cast a single Roman!

    But less tongue-in-cheek, the other thing is that the legacy of the Romans is pretty much all around us. The Roman Calendar (with July and August both referencing a Roman leader), the Latin alphabet (with the additional letters like 'y' being added later on to support Greek), the roads we can travel, etc.

    by Insanity
  • This is strictly about linguistic similarity and not genetic similarity.

    On a genetic map, a PCA plot, Romans and Romanians simply don't overlap. Romanians cluster with their Balkan neighbors, (1) on account of massive Slavic migration from around the 7th century AD, and (2) on account of strong historical and genetic evidence to suggest that the Roman colonists sent to Dacia were largely recruited from neighboring Balkan provinces (like Moesia and Pannonia), rather than from the city of Rome.

    Genetically, the nearest populations to Ancient Romans are Cypriots and certain other Mediterranean types, including Anatolians. But it's not neat; there's no clear unambiguous descent. A lot can happen in >1000 years!

    by A_D_E_P_T

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