The Romanian language is widely spoken in Serbia. This country hosts large native Romanian-speaking populations, which can be divided into the ethnic Romanians in the autonomous region of Vojvodina and the Romanian/Vlachs of the Timok Valley, a geographical region in Central Serbia. The former speak the Banat Romanian, identify as Romanians and have full rights within the autonomous region. Romanian is one of the six officially recognized languages of Vojvodina. Romanian/Vlachs speak archaic varieties of the Banat and Oltenian Romanian. Some of the members of community do not identify as Romanians and their language is not recognized as Romanian within Serbia. A "Vlach language" has gone under attempted standardization in the country, using a Cyrillic alphabet. This has been criticized in Romania, and attempts to bring Romanian-language resources and education to the Timok Vlachs have been blocked by the Serbian authorities.
In January 2020, the Romanian Academy and the Academy of Sciences of Moldova issued a joint "Declaration on Unity of Romanian Language" condemning any attempts which has the aim politicisation of the Romanian language. In February 2020, the Romanian Academy made an appeal to the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts to contribute to the "normalisation of the exposed situation" regarding attempts to politicize the Romanian language in Serbia.
Vojvodina
Legal status
Article 10 of the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia (2006) stipulates that in the Republic of Serbia the Serbian language and the Cyrillic script shall be officially used. In addition it notes that in the regions inhabited by national minorities, their own languages and scripts shall be officially used, as established by law.
Article 6 of the Statute of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina (published in the Official Gazette of APV) determines that, together with the Serbo-Croat language and Cyrillic script, and the Latin script as stipulated by the law, the Hungarian, Slovak, Romanian and Rusyn languages and their scripts, as well as languages and scripts of other nationalities, shall simultaneously be officially used in the work of the bodies of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, as established by the law. The bodies of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina are: the Assembly, the Executive Council and the Provincial administrative bodies.
The National Council of the Romanian National Minority has a department that attends to the analysis and promotion of the official use of the Romanian language.
Among others, decisions and laws established by the Assembly of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, bulletins and publications of the Assembly and the Executive Council, as well as other acts of provincial interest issued by the authorities of the Republic of Serbia must all be translated into Romanian. Assembly sessions are simultaneously interpreted in Romanian. The Provincial Secretariat for Regulations, Administration and National Minorities, through its sections and departments, collects and analyses data regarding the exercise of the rights of the national minorities in the domains of culture, education, information, the official use of the languages and the alphabets.It also watches the orderliness of the laws that stipulate this. The Secretariat prepares materials that are published in the "Official Gazette of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina", in the Serbian language and in the languages of national minorities that are in official use in the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina. The Provincial Secretariat for Regulations, Administration and National Minorities also sends Romanian judicial interprets to the district courts in Novi Sad and Pančevo.
At the local level, the Romanian language and script are officially used in Alibunar, Bela Crkva, Žitište, Zrenjanin, Kovačica, Kovin, Plandište and Sečanj. In Vršac, Romanian is official in the villages with ethnic Romanian majority: Vojvodinci (Romanian: Voivodiț), Markovac (Romanian: Marcovăț), Straža (Romanian: Straja), Mali Žam (Romanian: Jamu Mic), Malo Središte (Romanian: Srediștea Mică), Mesić (Romanian: Mesici), Jablanka (Romanian: Jablanka), Sočica (Romanian: Sălcița), Ritiševo (Romanian: Râtișor), Orešac (Romanian: Oreșaț) and Kuštilj (Romanian: Coștei).