Other Uses of Romania and Other Derivatives of Romanus
- Since 7th century, name for region surrounding Ravenna (Romagna in Italian) where the Byzantines kept off the Germanic rulers.
- It has been an alternative name for the Byzantine Empire (also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, Ρωμανία Rōmanía in Greek - compare with the name Ρουμανία Roumanía for Romania). The name was also kept by non-Latin peoples, such as the Byzantines, who used to call themselves "Romaioi" (Ρωμαίοι, also the origin of the first name Romeo). In the Arabic and Ottoman Turkish languages, it came to mean further Eastward regions of the empire, like Rûm and Rumelia in Asia. Rumi was also an Arabic word for Christian.
- It has been an alternative name for the Latin Empire, centred on Byzantium, set up by Roman Catholic Crusaders of the Fourth Crusade with the intention of replacing the Eastern Orthodox Byzantine Empire with a Roman Catholic empire.
- In Romance linguistics it designates all Romance linguistic areas.
- The word Romanus is also kept elsewhere in other parts of the Roman Empire in the name of the Romansh language of Switzerland.
- In the Balkans there are Romanic people that have an ethnonym derived from "Romanus", including Aromanians (armâni, arumâni or rămăni) and Istro-Romanians (rumâri). The Megleno-Romanians originally used the form rămâni, but it was lost by the 19th century and used the word Vlaşi borrowed from Bulgarian.
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