[7] The Romanian laws include linguistic rights for all minority groups that form over 20% of a locality's population based on the census from 1992.

[8] This includes the adoption of signage in minority languages, access to local administration, public services and justice systems.

Roma make up the second largest minority in Romania and 241,617 Romani speakers were reported in the 2002 census, or 1.1% of the total population.

Germans once constituted a much larger portion of the Romanian population than they do today, though they are still the fourth largest ethno-linguistic group.

Lesser spoken languages in Romania include: Serbo-Croatian (26,732: 20,377 Serbians, 6,355 Croatians), Slovak (16,108), Bulgarian (6,747), Greek (4,146).

Patrick Leigh Fermor, who visited Romania in 1934, noted that although the elites were all bilingual, their mother tongue was French, "of a particularly pure, cool, and charming kind.

Since 1993, Romania has been a member of Organisation internationale de la Francophonie despite not having a native French-speaking population or ever being part of any French empire.