Romanian (obsolete spelling: Roumanian ; autonym: limba română
[ˈlimba roˈmɨnə] , or românește , lit. 'in Romanian') is the official and
main language of Romania and Moldova. Romanian is part of the Eastern Romance
sub-branch of Romance languages, a linguistic group that evolved from several
dialects of Vulgar Latin which separated from the Western Romance languages in
the course of the period from the 5th to the 8th centuries. To distinguish it
within the Eastern Romance languages, in comparative linguistics it is called
Daco-Romanian as opposed to its closest relatives, Aromanian, Megleno-
Romanian, and Istro-Romanian.