0. Dialects of the Rumanian language are spoken today in three rather widely separated areas of Balkan Europe, the largest by far being that of Rumania itself. Within boundaries very nearly approximating those of the Rumanian nation at its territorial maximum after World War I, some 15 to 20 millions of persons speak the mutually intelligible and very closely related DACO-RUMANIAN dialects: those of Muntenia, Oltenia, Transylvania, the Banat, Moldavia, Bessarabia and Bukovina on the left bank of the Danube, and of Dobrugea on the right bank. To the south of the Daco-Rumanian area relatively small numbers of people in scattered sections of Macedonia, Thessaly, Epirus, and southern Albania speak the MACEDO-RUMANIAN and MEGLENITIC dialects, the latter being restricted to the vicinity of Salonika; and in a few villages of the Istrian Peninsula of Yugoslavia a small and dwindling number of persons speak ISTRO-RUMANIAN.