Romanian

Romanian is the only Romance language east of Italy — 24 million native speakers in Romania and Moldova, plus a million-strong diaspora across Italy, Spain, Germany and the UK. It descends directly from the Latin spoken by Roman colonists 2,000 years ago, evolved in isolation surrounded by Slavic, Hungarian and Greek neighbours, and emerged as a strange, beautiful hybrid: the syntax of French, the rhythm of Italian, and a vocabulary spiced with Slavic and Turkish loans.

For English speakers, Romanian is the easiest Romance language you've never considered. Anyone who has studied Spanish or Italian will recognise about 70% of the vocabulary on day one, the pronunciation is consistent and clear, and the grammar — while keeping cases and a definite article that attaches to the end of the noun, weirdly — is otherwise familiar Romance territory. As a bonus, Romanian unlocks one of Europe's fastest-growing tech scenes, a remarkable literary tradition (Eliade, Cioran, Ionesco), and arguably the continent's most under-rated food.