These youth in Braşov talk excitedly
about their upcoming trip to Italy. It is likely half of
them will have a working knowledge of Italian, taught widely in
Romanian high schools.
Photo: Rest Romania SRL
The Latin Family Tree
Queen among the Balkan Romance Languages and
second only to Italian for it's modern-day similarity to Latin
From the Taxi song by Dan
Teodorescu, "Americanofonia"
The Romanian language, limba română, has survived as a testament to
the basic utility and flexibility of it's tenacious Latin roots.
Romanian and Italian are much closer to their Latin origins than
other Romance language. After the Roman troops left, the
Romanized Dacian cultures persisted for centuries, with Romanian
developing in Transilvania, Wallachia and Moldova alike, despite the
cultural differences and frequent migrations through each region.
Only very minor differences in accent or vocabulary were present
throughout the occupations of and migrations through of the regions by
an almost endless list of outsiders. And yet, the language,
and culture, somehow remained.
Modern Influences
With a fair bit of Slavic vocabulary picked up through the
centuries, as well as a few Saxon and Hungarian influences, it is yet to
be seen how much an impact English will ultimately have with Romanian.
Romanian is a Romance language, belonging to the Italic branch of
the Indo-European language family, having much in common with languages
such as French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish.
However, the languages closest to Romanian are the other Eastern
Romance languages, spoken south of Danube: Aromanian/Macedo-Romanian,
Megleno-Romanian and Istro-Romanian, which are sometimes classified as
dialects of Romanian.
An alternative name for Romanian used by linguists to disambiguate
with the other Eastern Romance languages is "Daco-Romanian", referring
to the area where it is spoken (which corresponds roughly to the onetime
Roman province of Dacia).
The Romanian variety spoken in Moldova has been named Moldovan
language by the Soviet and later Moldovan authorities, but linguists do
not recognize it as a different language. An attempt to publish a
Moldovan-Romanian translation dictionary was met with derision and
laughter -- mostly from Moldovans, who, despite speaking "the National
Language", know that it's really just Romanian with a few spelling
differences.
Out of the main Romance languages, Romanian is closest to Italian,
the two being mutually intelligible to some extent, especially in their
cultivated forms. However, compared to Italian, Romanian sounds
considerably softer and less emphatic (rather like Portuguese compared
to Spanish).
Even though Romanian has obvious lexical and grammatical
similarities with French, Catalan, Spanish or Portuguese, it is not
mutually intelligible with them to a practical extent; Romanian speakers
will usually need some formal study of basic grammar and vocabulary,
before being able to understand even the simplest sentences in those
languages.
Regional Accents
Like all other languages, Romanian can be regarded as a dialect
continuum. However, such a formulation tends to obscure the high
homogeneity and uniformity of the language.
You Talk Funny!
Most Romanians can pick up on the regional
pronunciation cues and place their fellow Romanians according to
regional origins.
Muntenian accent, spoken mainly in Wallachia and southern parts of
Dobrogea.
Moldavian accent, spoken mainly in Moldavia, northern parts of
Dobrogea and the Republic of Moldova. Written
<p> is realised as /k/; written <c> before front vowels is realised as
/∫/. Written
<ă>, in final position, is palatalized.
Maramureşian accent, spoken mainly in Maramureş
region.
Transylvanian accent, spoken mainly in the Transilvania Region.
Banatian accent, spoken mainly in Banat. Written <t> before front
vowels is realised as /t∫/.
Oltenian accent, spoken mainly in Oltenia and by the Romanian
minority in Timoc region of Serbia. Notable feature of this dialect is
the usage of the Simple perfect tense rather than the Complex perfect
which is used in other dialects.
The Romanian language cannot be neatly divided into separate
dialects and Romanians themselves speak of the differences as accents. This correctly conveys the
linguistics notion of accent, as language variants that only feature
slight pronunciation differences (Romanian accents are fully mutually
intelligible).
Over the last century, however, regional accents have been weakened
due to mass communications and greater mobility. And, like
elsewhere, accents are also a
source of
humour
Romanian is clearly a Latin language and has clearly survived since
the days of Roman occupation. Exactly how it managed to
survive so robustly is a conundrum.
Best theories postulate there were enough early Romanian speakers
entrenched in the protected areas of the great Carpathian swath of
mountains for centuries. There the core Romanian culture and
language survived, letting the Visigoth, Ostrigoth,
Sântana de Mureş, Slav, Alan, Bulgar, Byzantine, Magyar and
Ottoman invasions and migrations pass by below them on the Wallachian
and Moldovan plains along the Danube and Şiret rivers.
However unlikely this might seem, the language stands squarely and
proudly preserved through time. Frankly there is almost no
archaeological evidence to underscore the existance of this "hidden"
Romanian culture, although a few written records mentioning such a
population do exist.
The origins of Romanians,
especially after the withdrawal of Roman troops (the Romanized Dacian
population remained of course), remains most contentious between 3rd and
8th centuries. While much is known, little can convincingly
explain the perseverance of the Romanian language as the region's de
facto lingua franca.
Romanian from the Romans
You may or may not have noticed, but "Romanian" starts with "Roman".
Tracing the existence of some Latin words shows a pattern of the spread
of the Romanized populations, from both the Dacians of the southwest of
today's Romania, and including the Gothic confederation of ethnic
Dacians, Costobocs, and Sarmatic peoples, all of which largely adopted
the Romanized cultures of the region after troops left in the 270s.
Latin terms can be traced from the Dacian provinces of Rome and the
the interior Carpathic basin, to
the eastern Carpian people in today's Moldavia .
Showing this migration of the language and culture from west to east
are terms of Latin origin in Transilvania which are not present in
Moldavia. Further fortifying this direction to the east is
the complete lack of unique Latin origin words in Moldavia -- all the
ones found there are also found in Transilvania.
In addition to Latin origin words migrating from the western former
Roman provinces, the same happened from the south and the Roman
provinces there. Wallachia just north of the Danube has
linguigstic forms showing Latin roots which are not present in
Transilvania.
Banat, once the thriving province of Dacia Inferior, neighbouring
the longer-lived Moesia superior, has an even richer reserve of
Latin-origin words which managed to stay in that region, not found in
Transilvania, Wallachia, or elsewhere in today's Romania.
While there was not a written tradition of Romanian before 14th
century, the language survived tenaciously in the folds and pockets of
the agrarian societies which used it.
So entrenched were these early Romanians, that the movements of
nomads traversing their thick forests and mountain passes didn't change
their flexible and pervasive Latin based tongue. The numbers
in these migrations of the at least partially Romanized Goths apparently
was not sufficient to wash away the pervasive Romanian culture and
language.
In fact, these nomads were just that -- temporary residents, using
small areas of the lowlands on their crossings, while the core rural
Romanian people stayed in higher lands as they passed through.
Most of the archaeological finds in Wallachia show these passing
cultures came from the north-east as part of the Sântana
de Mureş culture.
Whatever influence these passing cultures had on Romanians, it was
very little in the language at least, with the Romanian language least
resembling other Balkan tongues such as Slavic, Albanian, and Greek.
Even the Aromanian peoples (the Aromun), whilst having similarly
strong Latin roots, are not actually genetically more similar to
Romanians, and the similarity of Aromanian with the Romanian language
exhibits convergence more than a common root.
The Jireček Line is an imaginary line through the ancient
Balkans that divided the influences of the Latin (in the north) and
Greek (in the south) languages until the 4th century.
It goes from
near the city of Laçi in modern Albania to Serdica (now Sofia, in
Bulgaria) and then follows the Balkan Mountains to the Black Sea.
The placing of the line is based on archaeological findings:
most of the inscriptions found to the north of it were written in
Latin, while most of the inscriptions found to the south were in
Greek.
This line is important in establishing the place where the
Romanian and Aromanian people were formed (see Origin of Romanians),
since it is considered unlikely that a Latin people formed on the
south of it.
The Jireček line was originally used by the Czech
historian Konstantin Jireček in 1911 in a history of the Slavic
people.
Some examples of a more pronounced Latin linguistic heritage in areas
of the ancient Roman Dacia compared to remaining Romania from the
Regional Linguistic Romanian Atlas (volumes 1 - 5, Academic Edition):
1. Use of the typical Latin tense of simple past, e.g. fui/fuşi/fu
2. Use of the typical Latin inverted interrogation form, e.g.
“dusu-te-ai ?” vs. “te-ai dus ?”
3. Existence of Latin words not used in the remaining Romania, e.g.
mâneca (lat.manicare) – to wake up early in the morning; mănea – (lat.
manere) – to stay overnight
4. Existence of Latin forms in contrast to Slavic forms of the same
word e.g. snow: nea (lat. nive) – zăpadă (sl. zapaditi); garlic: aiu
(lat. alium) – usturoi (rom. constr); slave: şerb (lat. servus) – rob
(sl. robu); sand: arină (lat. arena) – nisip (bg. nasip)
5. Existence of lexical forms closer to Latin e.g. flour: fărină
(lat. farina) – făină
6. Existence of phonetical forms closer to Latin e.g. pronunciation
of the Romanian diphthong “oa” like “o”, thus closer to the original
Latin “o”, like in “mo(a)rte” (lat. mortis) (death), “so(a)rtă” (lat.
sortis) (fate)
The Slavic influence was first due to the migration of Slavic
tribes, which traversed the territory of today's Romania during the
formation of the language.
It's interesting to note that Slavs were assimilated north of
Danube, whereas they almost completely assimilated the Romanized
population (Vlachs) living south of Danube. An important part of this
population was still Vlach in the 10th century, only to fade away along
with Vlach political power. For more information about this, see
Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian. The other surrounding languages (all
Slavic, with the exception of Hungarian) also influenced Romanian,
through centuries of mutual interactions.
Of great importance was the influence of Old Church Slavonic, as it
was the liturgical language of the Romanian Orthodox Church (compared to
western and central European countries which used Latin) from the Middle
Ages, until the 18th century.
Borrowings from Old Church Slavonic: a izbăvi from Sl. izbaviti=to
save; a blagoslovi from Sl. blagosloviti=to bless; blajin from Sl.
blažĕnŭ=merciful, peaceful; cinste from Sl. čĩştĩ=honesty; ispravă from
Sl. isprava= deed, accomplishment; vrednic from Sl. vrĕdĩnŭ=dignified,
worthy; jertfă from Sl. žrŭtyva=sacrifice, immolation; mir from Sl.
miro=chrism, holy oil;
As was characteristic of the Middle Ages, the Church had a great
influence on people's lives. Thus even basic words such as a iubi=to
love; glas=voice; nevoie=need; prieten=friend are of Church Slavonic
origin. Names were also influenced by the use of Slavonic in Church and
in administration.
However, many Slavic words are archaisms and it is estimated that of
the 20% of Slavic borrowings, only 10% are in use common use in modern
Romanian (estimates vary).
There are some Slavonic influences, both on the phonetic and on the
lexical level—for example Romanian took the Slavonic da for yes.
The following is a comparison of romance languages
for a sentence meaning "She
always closes the window before having dinner.":
Ea închide întodeauna fereastra înainte de a cina.
(Romanian)
Ella (or lei) chiude sempre la finestra prima di
cenare. (Italian)
Elle ferme toujours la fenętre avant de dîner.
(French)
Ella siempre cierra la ventana antes de cenar.
(Spanish)
Ela fecha sempre a janela antes de cear.
(Portuguese)
On the other hand, Romanian vocabulary has been
strongly influenced by French and Italian in the Modern Age. At
present, the lexical similarity with Italian is estimated at 77%,
whereas French follows at 75%, Spanish at 71% and Portuguese at 72%.
The Romanian alphabet is a modification of the Latin alphabet and
consists of 28 letters
A, a (a); Ă, ă (ă); Â, â (â din a); B, b (be), C, c (ce); D, d (de),
E, e (e); F, f (fe / ef); G, g (ghe / ge); H, h (ha / haş); I, i (i); Î,
î (î din i); J, j (je), K, k (ka de la kilogram), L, l (le / el); M, m
(me / em); N, n (ne / en); O, o (o); P, p (pe); R, r, (re / er); S, s
(se / es); Ş, ş (Şe); T, t (te); Ţ, ţ (ţe); U, u
(u); V, v (ve); X, x (ics); Z, z (ze / zet).
The letters Q, W, and Y only occur in foreign words, such as quasar,
watt, and yacht. In cases were the word is a direct borrowing having
diacritical marks not present in the above alphabet, official spelling
tends to favor their use (München, Angoulęme etc., as opposed to the use
of Istanbul over İstanbul).
Diacritical marks
Five letters of the Romanian Alphabet have diacritical marks and form
separate letters with their own sounds.
The letter â is used exclusively in the middle of words; its
majuscule version appears only in all-capitals inscriptions.
The Πand  Positions
The letters î and â are phonetically and functionally identical. The
reason for using both of them is historical, denoting the language's
Latin origin. During the communist regime, the Romanian government
largely eliminated the letter â, replacing it with î everywhere except
for the name of the country, which remained România. For example, the
Latin angelus (angel) became the Romanian ânger, but today it is spelled
înger.
Initially, the country name and its derivatives too were
spelled with "î" - Romînia, romîn etc., but this was later reverted;
since the first stipulation coincided with the official designation of
the country as a People's Republic, the full title of the latter was
Republica Populară Romînă, whereas the Socialist Republic proclaimed in
1965 is associated with the spelling Republica Socialistă România.
Comparison across fonts which come with Windows
and Microsoft Programs. None provide the correct S-commas as
proscribed by the Romanian Academy, although perversely, Microsoft
seems to mix with a few having correct T-commas.
After the fall of the Ceauşescu regime, the Romanian Academy decided
to reintroduce â from 1993 onward. However, most of the population had
only learned î spellings, so the Academy proposed a new set of rules for
it. The choice between î and â is currently based on a simple rule: the
letter is always spelled as â, except at the beginning and the end of
words where î is used instead.
Exceptions include proper nouns where the usage of the letters is
frozen, whichever it may be and compound words, whose components are
each separately subjected to the rule above, not the resulting word
itself (e.g. ne+îndemânatic => neîndemânatic, not *neândemânatic).
Writing letters ş and ţ with a cedilla instead of a comma is
considered incorrect by the language academy. Actual Romanian writings,
including books created to teach children to write, treat the comma and
cedilla as a variation in font, rather than treating the cedilla as a
foreign misspelling.
For no particularly clear reason, Microsoft sometimes uses the comma
with the T with it's basic Arial, Courier and Times fonts, but reverts
to the cedilla (as it does with all of the common fonts for the S) .
Even with the Arial font, the Capital T sports a perverse sort of
reverse comma, whilst the lower case presents correctly as a "real"
t-comma.
If you would like to print using the correct s-comma and
t-comma spelling in Romanian, you should install one of the fonts on the
market which has been updated.
Or, if you are in a pinch, you can simply find and replace the
offending s-cedilla and t-cedilla characters with the unicode numbers on
the right (see Character Map in Windows to help with this).
Spelling
Romanian spelling is mostly phonetic. The table below gives the
correspondence between letters and sounds.
Some of the letters have several possible readings, even if
allophones are not taken into account. When vowels /i/, /u/, /e/, and
/o/ are changed into their corresponding semivowels, this is not marked
in writing. Letters K, Q, W, and Y appear only in foreign borrowings;
the pronunciation of W and Y depends on the origin of the word they
appear in.
The earliest document surviving in Romanian is a letter written in
1521, sent by Neacşu of Câmpulung to the judge and mayor of Braşov, Hans
Benkner.
Neacşu's Letter, 1521
The oldest surviving
document written in Romanian
A Rough Translation from the combined Slavic and Romanian text:
To the most wise and honoured and by God gifted master Hans
Benkner of Braşov, lots of health from Neacşu of Câmpulung.
And so I let you know of the deeds of the Turks, as I have heard
that the emperor has left Sofia, and that must be true, and went up
the Danube.
And so You should know that a man from Nicopolis came to me and
told me they saw with their own eyes that those ships which You know
about have sailed up the Danube.
And so you should know that they are taking 50 men from each
town to help on the ships.
And so you should know that some experts from Constantinople (Tsarigrad)
realized how to make the ships to past that narrow place which You
know too.
And so I tell You about the deed of Mohammed beg, as I heard
from neighbouring boyars and from my son-in-law Negre, that the
emperor gave Mohammed beg freedom to pass through Wallachia wherever
he pleases.
And so You should know that our Basarab too is fearful of that
thief Mohammed begs, even more so than You.
And so I'm telling You as my superior about what I have found
out. I am telling You, and You are wise and You should keep these
words for yourself, so that not many people know, and You should
take proper guard.
And may God bring you happiness. Amen
Romanian culture was heavily influenced by the Eastern Orthodox
Church, which was brought to the country via the Slavs. Therefore the
earliest translations of books into Romanian were from Slavonic
religious texts of the 15th century. The Psalter of Şcheia (Psaltirea
Şcheiană) of 1482 and the Voroneţ Codex (Codicele Voroneţean) are
religious texts that were written in Maramureş, probably with the help
of the Hussite movement.
The first book that was printed in Romania was a Slavonic religious
book in 1508, and the first one printed in the Romanian language was a
catechism of Deacon Coresi in 1559. Other translations from Greek and
Slavonic books were printed in the 16th century. Dosoftei, a Moldavian
published in Poland in 1673, was the first Romanian metrical psalter,
producing the earliest known poetry written in Romanian.
Early efforts of publishing the Bible in Romanian have started in
the second half of the 16th century with the 1582 printing in the small
town of Orăştie of the so-called Palia de la Orăştie - a translation of
the first books of the Old Testament - by Deacon Şerban (a son of the
above-mentioned Deacon Coresi) and Marien Diacul (Marien the Scribe).
Palia was translated from Latin by H.G.† Bishop Mihail Tordaş et al. and
the translation was double-checked for accuracy using Hungarian
translations of the Bible.
However, the whole of the Bible was not published in Romanian until
the end of the 17th century, when monks at the monastery of Snagov, near
Bucharest, translated and printed a Romanian Bible in 1688 ("Biblia de
la Bucureşti - "The Bucharest Bible").
European humanism came to Moldavia in the 17th century via Poland
with its great representative, Miron Costin, writing a chronicle on the
history of Moldavia. Another humanist was Dimitrie Cantemir, who wrote
histories of Romania and Moldavia.
Ottoman Decadence and Phanariotes
The 18th century in the Romanian lands was dominated by the Ottoman
Empire, which decided not to allow Romanian rulers in Wallachia and
Moldavia and ruled, instead, through Greek merchants of Istanbul, called
phanariotes.
Thus, Greek culture influenced the developments of Romanian
literature. For example, one of the greatest poets of this century was
Alecu Văcărescu, who wrote love songs in the tradition of ancient Greek
poet Anacreon. His father, Ienăchiţă, was a poet as well, but he also
wrote the first Romanian grammar and his son, Iancu, was probably one of
the greatest poets of his generation. A human comedy was developed in
the anecdotes of Anton Pann, who tried to illustrate a bit of the
Balkanic spirit and folklore which was brought by the Ottomans in the
Romanian lands.
However, the next generation of Romanian writers headed toward
European Illuminism for inspiration, among them Gheorghe Asachi, Ion
Budai Deleanu and Dinicu Golescu.
National awakening
As the revolutionary ideas of nationalism spread in Europe, they
were also used by the Romanians, who desired their own national state,
but were living under foreign rule.
Many Romanian writers of the time were also part of the national
movement and participated in the revolutions of 1821 and 1848. The
Origin of the Romanians began to be discussed and in Transylvania, a
Latinist movement Şcoala Ardeleană emerged, producing philological
studies about the Romanic origin of Romanian and opening Romanian
language schools.
Romanians studied in France, Italy and Germany, and German
philosophy and French culture were integrated into modern Romanian
literature, lessening the influence of Ancient Greece and the Orient
over time. In Wallachia an important figure of the time was Ion Heliade
Rădulescu, who founded the first Romanian-language journal and the
Philharmonic Society, which later created the National Theatre of
Bucharest.
Mihai Eminescu (Mihail Eminovici)
Mihai Eminescu (January 15, 1850 – June 15, 1889),
born Mihail Eminovici, was a late Romantic poet, the
best-known and most influential Romanian poet celebrated
in both Romania and Moldova.
Famous poems include Luceafărul
(Morning Star), Odă în metru antic (Ode in an antique
meter), and the 5 Scrisori (Epistles). Eminescu was
active in the
Junimea literary society, and served as editor of
Timpul, the official newspaper of the
Conservative Party.
The most important writers of the second half of the century were
Vasile Alecsandri and later Mihai Eminescu. Alecsandri was a prolific
writer, contributing to Romanian literature with poetry, prose, several
plays, and collections of Romanian folklore. Eminescu is considered by
most critics to be the most important and influential Romanian poet. His
lyric poetry had many of its roots in Romanian traditions, but was also
influenced by German philosophy and Hindu traditions.
Titu Maiorescu's Junimea literary circle, founded in 1863 and
frequented by many Romanian writers, played an important role in
Romanian literature. Many outstanding Romanian writers, including Ion
Luca Caragiale, who wrote some of the best Romanian comedies, Ion
Creangă, who wrote traditional Romanian stories and Barbu Ştefănescu
Delavrancea, published their works during this time.
After achieving national unity in 1918, Romanian literature entered
what can be called a golden age, characterized by the development of the
Romanian novel.
Traditional society and recent political events influenced works
such as Liviu Rebreanu's Răscoala ("The Uprising"), which, published in
1932, was inspired by the 1907 Romanian Peasants' Revolt, and Pădurea
Spânzuraţilor ("The Forest of the Hanged"), published in 1922 and
inspired by Romanian participation in World War I. The dawn of the
modern novel can be seen in Hortensia Papadat Bengescu (Concert din
muzică de Bach—"Bach Concert"), Camil Petrescu (Ultima noapte de
dragoste, întâia noapte de război—"The Last Night of Love, the First
Night of War").
George Călinescu is another complex personality of the Romanian
literature: novelist, playwright, poet, literary critic and historian,
essayist, journalist. He published consacrated monographs about Eminescu,
Creanga, and a monumental (almost 1000 pages in quarto) history of
Roman
Limba
română
Have more info? Please Let us know!
