fbpx
Wikipedia

Romanian language

March 05, 2023

Not to be confused with the Romani, Romansh, or Aromanian languages.
"Limba română" and "Romanophone" redirect here. For the magazine, see Limba Română (magazine). For countries speaking Romance languages, see Romance-speaking world.

Romanian (obsolete spellings: Rumanian or Roumanian; autonym: limba română [ˈlimba roˈmɨnə] (listen), or românește, lit. 'in Romanian') is the official and main language of Romania and the Republic of Moldova. As a minority language it is spoken by stable communities in the countries surrounding Romania (Bulgaria, Hungary, Serbia, and Ukraine), and by the large Romanian diaspora. In total, it is spoken by 28–29 million people as an L1+L2 language, of whom c. 24 million are native speakers. In Europe, Romanian is rated as a medium level language, occupying the 10th position among 37 official languages.[4]

Romanian
Daco-Romanian
limba română[1]
Pronunciation[roˈmɨnə]
Native toRomania, Moldova
RegionCentral Europe, Southeastern Europe, and Eastern Europe
Ethnicity
Native speakers
23.6–24 million (2016)[2]
Early forms
Dialects
Official status
Official language in
Recognised minority
language in
Regulated by
Language codes
ISO 639-1ro
ISO 639-2rum (B)
ron (T)
ISO 639-3ron
Glottologroma1327
Linguasphere51-AAD-c (varieties: 51-AAD-ca to -ck)
Blue: region where Romanian is the dominant language. Cyan: areas with a notable minority of Romanian speakers.
Distribution of the Romanian language in Romania, Moldova and surroundings
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.
A Romanian speaker (with a Transylvanian accent), recorded in Romania

Romanian is part of the Eastern Romance sub-branch of Romance languages, a linguistic group that evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin which separated from the Western Romance languages in the course of the period from the 5th to the 8th centuries.[5] To distinguish it within the Eastern Romance languages, in comparative linguistics it is called Daco-Romanian as opposed to its closest relatives, Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian, and Istro-Romanian. Romanian is also known as Moldovan in Moldova, although the Constitutional Court of Moldova ruled in 2013 that "the official language of Moldova is Romanian".[nb 1]

Overview

The history of the Romanian language started in the Roman provinces north of the Jireček Line in Classical antiquity, over a large area . Between the 6th and 8th century, following the accumulated tendencies inherited from the vernacular spoken in this large area and, to a much smaller degree, the influences from native dialects, and in the context of a lessened power of the Roman central authority the language evolved into Common Romanian. This proto-language then came into close contact with the Slavic languages and subsequently divided into Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian, Istro-Romanian, and Daco-Romanian.[6][7] Due to limited attestation between the 6th and 16th century, entire stages from its history are re-constructed by researchers, often with proposed relative chronologies and loose limits.[8]

As a separate entity, starting from the 12th or 13th century, Romanian was superseded[citation needed] in official documents and religious texts by Old Church Slavonic, a language that had a similar role to Medieval Latin in Western Europe. The oldest dated text in Romanian is a letter written in 1521 with Cyrillic letters, and until late 18th century, including during the development of printing, the same alphabet was used. The period after 1780, starting with the writing of its first grammar books, represents the modern age of the language - a phase when the Latin alphabet became official, the literary language was standardized, and a large number of words from Modern Latin and other Romance languages entered the lexis.

In the process of language evolution from less than 2500 attested words from Late Antiquity to a lexicon of over 150,000 words in its contemporary form,[9] Romanian showed a high degree of lexical permeability, reflecting contact with Thraco-Dacian, Slavic languages (including Old Slavic, Serbian, Bulgarian, Ukrainian, and Russian), Greek, Hungarian, German, Turkish, and to languages that served as cultural models during and after the Age of Enlightenment, in particular French.[10] This lexical permeability is continuing today with the introduction of English words.[11]

Yet while the overall lexis was enriched with foreign words and internal constructs, in accordance with the history and development of the society and the diversification in semantic fields, the fundamental lexicon - the core vocabulary used in every day conversation - remains governed by inherited elements from the Latin spoken in the Roman provinces bordering Danube, without which no coherent sentence can be made.[12]

History

Main article: History of Romanian

Common Romanian

Main article: Proto-Romanian language
See also: Slavic superstratum in Romanian and Substrate in Romanian

Romanian descended from the Vulgar Latin spoken in the Roman provinces of Southeastern Europe.[13] Roman inscriptions show that Latin was primarily used to the north of the so-called Jireček Line (a hypothetical boundary between the predominantly Latin- and Greek-speaking territories of the Balkan Peninsula in the Roman Empire).

Most scholars agree that two major dialects developed from Common Romanian by the 10th century.[13] Daco-Romanian (the official language of Romania and Moldova) and Istro-Romanian (a language spoken by no more than 2,000 people in Istria) descended from the northern dialect.[13] Two other languages, Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian, developed from the southern version of Common Romanian.[13] These two languages are now spoken in lands to the south of the Jireček Line.[14]

Of the features that individualize Common Romanian, inherited from Latin or subsequently developed, of particular importance are:[15]

  • appearance of the ă vowel;
  • growth of the plural inflectional ending -uri for the neuter gender;
  • analytic present conditional (ex: Daco-Romanian aș cânta);
  • analytic future with an auxiliary derived from Latin volo (ex: Aromanian va s-cântu);
  • enclisis of the definite article (ex. Istro-Romanian câre – cârele);
  • nominal declension with two case forms in the singular feminine.

Old Romanian

See also: Romanian Cyrillic alphabet
 
Neacșu's letter is the oldest surviving document written in Old Romanian

The oldest extant document written in Romanian remains Neacșu's letter (1521) and was written using the Romanian Cyrillic alphabet, which was used until the late 19th century. The letter is oldest testimony of Romanian epistolary style and uses a prevalent lexis of Romanic origin.[16]

In Palia de la Orăștie (1582), first known translation from the Bible in Romanian, stands written "we printed ... in the Romanian language ... The Five Books of Moses ... and we gift them to you Romanian brothers "[17]

The use of the denomination Romanian (română) for the language and use of the demonym Romanians (Români) for speakers of this language predates the foundation of the modern Romanian state. Romanians always used the general term rumân/român or regional terms like ardeleni (or ungureni), moldoveni or munteni to designate themselves. Both the name of rumână or rumâniască for the Romanian language and the self-designation rumân/român are attested as early as the 16th century, by various foreign travelers into the Carpathian Romance-speaking space,[18] as well as in other historical documents written in Romanian at that time such as Cronicile Țării Moldovei [ro] (The Chronicles of the land of Moldova) by Grigore Ureche.

An attested reference to Romanian comes from a Latin title of an oath made in 1485 by the Moldavian Prince Stephen the Great to the Polish King Casimir, in which it is reported that "Haec Inscriptio ex Valachico in Latinam versa est sed Rex Ruthenica Lingua scriptam accepta"—"This Inscription was translated from Valachian (Romanian) into Latin, but the King has received it written in the Ruthenian language (Slavic)".[19][20]

In 1534, Tranquillo Andronico notes: "Valachi nunc se Romanos vocant" ("The Wallachians are now calling themselves Romans").[21] Francesco della Valle [it] writes in 1532 that Romanians "are calling themselves Romans in their own language", and he subsequently quotes the expression: "Sti Rominest?" for "Știi Românește?" ("Do you know Romanian?").[22]

The Transylvanian Saxon Johann Lebel writes in 1542 that "'Vlachi' call themselves 'Romuini'".[23]

The Polish chronicler Stanislaw Orzechowski (Orichovius) notes in 1554 that "In their language they call themselves Romini from the Romans, while we call them Wallachians from the Italians".[24]

The Croatian prelate and diplomat Antun Vrančić recorded in 1570 that "Vlachs in Transylvania, Moldavia and Wallachia designate themselves as 'Romans'".[25]

Pierre Lescalopier writes in 1574 that those who live in Moldavia, Wallachia and the vast part of Transylvania, "consider themselves as true descendants of the Romans and call their language romanechte, which is Roman".[26]

After travelling through Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania Ferrante Capecci accounts in 1575 that the vallachian population of these regions call themselves romanesci (românești).[27]

In Letopisețul Țării Moldovei (17th century), the Moldavian chronicler Grigore Ureche wrote: "In Transylvania there live not only Hungarians, but also very many Saxons, and Romanians everywhere around, so much so that the country is inhabited more by Romanians than by Hungarians."[28]

Miron Costin, in his De neamul moldovenilor (1687), while noting that Moldavians, Wallachians, and the Romanians living in the Kingdom of Hungary have the same origin, says that although people of Moldavia call themselves Moldavians, they name their language Romanian (românește) instead of Moldavian (moldovenește).[29]

The Transylvanian Hungarian Martin Szentiványi in 1699 quotes the following: "Si noi sentem Rumeni" ("We too are Romanians") and "Noi sentem di sange Rumena" ("We are of Romanian blood").[30] Notably, Szentiványi used Italian-based spellings to try to write the Romanian words.

Dimitrie Cantemir, in his Descriptio Moldaviae (Berlin, 1714), points out that the inhabitants of Moldavia, Wallachia and Transylvania spoke the same language. He notes, however, some differences in accent and vocabulary.[31] Cantemir's work provides one of the earliest histories of the language, in which he notes, like Ureche before him, the evolution from Latin and notices the Greek and Polish borrowings. Additionally, he introduces the idea that some words must have had Dacian roots. Cantemir also notes that while the idea of a Latin origin of the language was prevalent in his time, other scholars considered it to have derived from Italian.

The slow process of Romanian establishing itself as an official language, used in the public sphere, in literature and ecclesiastically, began in the late 15th century and ended in the early decades of the 18th century, by which time Romanian had begun to be regularly used by the Church. The oldest Romanian texts of a literary nature are religious manuscripts (Codicele Voronețean, Psaltirea Scheiană), translations of essential Christian texts. These are considered either propagandistic results of confessional rivalries, for instance between Lutheranism and Calvinism, or as initiatives by Romanian monks stationed at Peri Monastery in Maramureș to distance themselves from the influence of the Mukacheve eparchy in Ukraine.[32]

Modern Romanian

The modern age of Romanian starts in 1780 with the printing in Vienna of a very important grammar book[15] titled Elementa linguae daco-romanae sive valachicae. The author of the book, Samuil Micu-Klein, and the revisor, Gheorghe Șincai, both members of the Transylvanian School, chose to use Latin as the language of the text and presented the phonetical and grammatical features of Romanian in comparison to its ancestor.[33] The Modern age of Romanian language can be further divided into three phases: pre-modern or modernizing between 1780 and 1830, modern phase between 1831 and 1880, and contemporary from 1880 onwards.

Pre-modern period

Beginning with the printing in 1780 of Elementa linguae daco-romanae sive valachicae, the pre-modern phase was characterized by the publishing of school textbooks, appearance of first normative works in Romanian, numerous translations, and the beginning of a conscious stage of re-latinization of the language.[15] Notable contributions, besides that of the Transylvanian School, are the activities of Gheorghe Lazăr, founder of the first Romanian school, and Ion Heliade Rădulescu. The end of this period is marked by the first printing of magazines and newspapers in Romanian, in particular Curierul Românesc and Albina Românească.[34]

 
Lithograph of a group portrait by Constantin Daniel Rosenthal, showing Paris-based revolutionaries during the early 1840s. From left: Rosenthal (wearing a Phrygian cap), C. A. Rosetti, anonymous Wallachian

Modern period

Starting from 1831 and lasting until 1880 the modern phase is characterized by the development of literary styles: scientific, administrative, and belletristic. It quickly reached a high point with the printing of Dacia Literară, a journal founded by Mihail Kogălniceanu and representing a literary society, which together with other publications like Propășirea and Gazeta de Transilvania spread the ideas of Romantic nationalism and later contributed to the formation of other societies that took part in the Revolutions of 1848. Their members and those that shared their views are collectively known in Romania as pașoptiști – literally meaning "of '48" – a name that was extended to the literature and writers around this time such as Vasile Alecsandri, Grigore Alexandrescu, Nicolae Bălcescu, Timotei Cipariu.[35]

Between 1830 and 1860 "transitional alphabet"s were used, adding Latin letters to the Romanian Cyrillic alphabet. In 1860 the Latin alphabet became official.[36][citation needed][by whom?]

Following the unification of Moldavia and Wallachia further studies on the language were made, culminating with the founding of Societatea Literară Română on 1 April 1866 on the initiative of C. A. Rosetti, an academic society that had the purpose of standardizing the orthography, formalizing the grammar and (via a dictionary) vocabulary of the language, and promoting literary and scientific publications. This institution later became the Romanian Academy.[37]

Contemporary period

The third phase of the modern age of Romanian language, starting from 1880 and continuing to this day, is characterized by the prevalence of the supradialectal form of the language, standardized with the express contribution of the school system and Romanian Academy, bringing a close to the process of literary language modernization and development of literary styles.[11] It is distinguished by the activity of Romanian literature classics in its early decades: Mihai Eminescu, Ion Luca Caragiale, Ion Creangă.[38]

The current orthography, with minor reforms to this day and using Latin letters, was fully implemented in 1881, regulated by the Romanian Academy on a fundamentally phonological principle, with few morpho-syntactic exceptions.[39]

Modern history of Romanian in Bessarabia

The first Romanian grammar was published in Vienna in 1780.[40] Following the annexation of Bessarabia by Russia in 1812, Moldavian was established as an official language in the governmental institutions of Bessarabia, used along with Russian,[41] The publishing works established by Archbishop Gavril Bănulescu-Bodoni were able to produce books and liturgical works in Moldavian between 1815 and 1820.[42]

Bessarabia during the 1812–1918 era witnessed the gradual development of bilingualism. Russian continued to develop as the official language of privilege, whereas Romanian remained the principal vernacular.[citation needed]

The period from 1905 to 1917 was one of increasing linguistic conflict, with the re-awakening of Romanian national consciousness.[citation needed] In 1905 and 1906, the Bessarabian zemstva asked for the re-introduction of Romanian in schools as a "compulsory language", and the "liberty to teach in the mother language (Romanian language)". At the same time, Romanian-language newspapers and journals began to appear, such as Basarabia (1906), Viața Basarabiei (1907), Moldovanul (1907), Luminătorul (1908), Cuvînt moldovenesc (1913), Glasul Basarabiei (1913). From 1913, the synod permitted that "the churches in Bessarabia use the Romanian language". Romanian finally became the official language with the Constitution of 1923.

Historical grammar

Romanian has preserved a part of the Latin declension, but whereas Latin had six cases, from a morphological viewpoint, Romanian has only three: the nominative/accusative, genitive/dative, and marginally the vocative. Romanian nouns also preserve the neuter gender, although instead of functioning as a separate gender with its own forms in adjectives, the Romanian neuter became a mixture of masculine and feminine. The verb morphology of Romanian has shown the same move towards a compound perfect and future tense as the other Romance languages. Compared with the other Romance languages, during its evolution, Romanian simplified the original Latin tense system.[43]

Geographic distribution

See also: List of countries where Romanian is an official language and Romanian-American
Geographic distribution of Romanian
Country Speakers
(%) 		Speakers
(native) 		Country Population
World
World 0.33% 23,623,890 7,035,000,000
official:
Countries where Romanian is an official language
Romania 90.65% 17,263,561[44] 19,043,767
Moldova 2 82.1% 2,184,065 2,681,735
Transnistria (Moldova)3 33.0% 156,600 475,665
Vojvodina (Serbia) 1.32% 29,512 1,931,809
minority regional co-official language:
Ukraine 5 0.8% 327,703 48,457,000
not official:
Other neighboring European states (except for CIS where Romanian is not official)
Hungary 0.14% 13,886[45] 9,937,628
Central Serbia 0.4% 35,330 7,186,862
Bulgaria 0.06% 4,575[46][full citation needed] 7,364,570
114,050,000
CIS
not official:
Russia 1 0.06% 92,675[47] 142,856,536
Kazakhstan 1 0.1% 14,666 14,953,126
Asia
Israel 1.11% ~82,300[48] 7,412,200
UAE 0.1% 5,000[citation needed] 4,106,427
Singapore 0.02% 1,400[citation needed] 5,535,000
Japan 0.002% 2,185[citation needed] 126,659,683
South Korea 0.0006% 300[citation needed] 50,004,441
China 0.0008% 12,000[citation needed] 1,376,049,000
The Americas
not official:
United States 0.049% 154,625[49] 315,091,138
Canada 0.0289% 100,610[50] 34,767,250
Argentina 0.03% 13,000[citation needed] 40,117,096
Venezuela 0.036% 10,000[citation needed] 27,150,095
Brazil 0.002% 4,000[citation needed] 190,732,694
Oceania
not official:
Australia 0.09% 12,251[51] 21,507,717
New Zealand 0.08% 3,100[citation needed] 4,027,947
Africa
not official:
South Africa 0.007% 3,000[citation needed] 44,819,778

1 Many are Moldavians who were deported
2 Data only for the districts on the right bank of Dniester (without Transnistria and the city of Tighina). In Moldova, it is sometimes referred to as the "Moldovan language"
3 In Transnistria, it is officially called "Moldovan language" and is written in Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet.
4 Officially divided into Vlachs and Romanians
5 Most in Northern Bukovina and Southern Bessarabia; according to a Moldova Noastră study (based on the latest Ukrainian census).[52]

Romanian is spoken mostly in Central, South-Eastern, and Eastern Europe, although speakers of the language can be found all over the world, mostly due to emigration of Romanian nationals and the return of immigrants to Romania back to their original countries. Romanian speakers account for 0.5% of the world's population,[53] and 4% of the Romance-speaking population of the world.[54]

Romanian is the single official and national language in Romania and Moldova, although it shares the official status at regional level with other languages in the Moldovan autonomies of Gagauzia and Transnistria. Romanian is also an official language of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina in Serbia along with five other languages. Romanian minorities are encountered in Serbia (Timok Valley), Ukraine (Chernivtsi and Odessa oblasts), and Hungary (Gyula). Large immigrant communities are found in Italy, Spain, France, and Portugal.

In 1995, the largest Romanian-speaking community in the Middle East was found in Israel, where Romanian was spoken by 5% of the population.[55][56] Romanian is also spoken as a second language by people from Arabic-speaking countries who have studied in Romania. It is estimated that almost half a million Middle Eastern Arabs studied in Romania during the 1980s.[57] Small Romanian-speaking communities are to be found in Kazakhstan and Russia. Romanian is also spoken within communities of Romanian and Moldovan immigrants in the United States, Canada and Australia, although they do not make up a large homogeneous community statewide.

Legal status

In Romania

According to the Constitution of Romania of 1991, as revised in 2003, Romanian is the official language of the Republic.[58]

Romania mandates the use of Romanian in official government publications, public education and legal contracts. Advertisements as well as other public messages must bear a translation of foreign words,[59] while trade signs and logos shall be written predominantly in Romanian.[60]

The Romanian Language Institute (), established by the Ministry of Education of Romania, promotes Romanian and supports people willing to study the language, working together with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Department for Romanians Abroad.[61]

Since 2013, the Romanian Language Day is celebrated on every 31 August.[62][63]

In Moldova

Main article: Moldovan language

Romanian is the official language of the Republic of Moldova. The 1991 Declaration of Independence names the official language Romanian.[64][65] The Constitution of Moldova names the state language of the country Moldovan. In December 2013, a decision of the Constitutional Court of Moldova ruled that the Declaration of Independence takes precedence over the Constitution and the state language should be called Romanian.[66]

Scholars agree that Moldovan and Romanian are the same language, with the glottonym "Moldovan" used in certain political contexts.[67] It has been the sole official language since the adoption of the Law on State Language of the Moldavian SSR in 1989.[68] This law mandates the use of Moldovan in all the political, economic, cultural and social spheres, as well as asserting the existence of a "linguistic Moldo-Romanian identity".[69] It is also used in schools, mass media, education and in the colloquial speech and writing. Outside the political arena the language is most often called "Romanian". In the breakaway territory of Transnistria, it is co-official with Ukrainian and Russian.

In the 2014 census, out of the 2,804,801 people living in Moldova, 24% (652,394) stated Romanian as their most common language, whereas 56% stated Moldovan. While in the urban centers speakers are split evenly between the two names (with the capital Chișinău showing a strong preference for the name "Romanian", i.e. 3:2), in the countryside hardly a quarter of Romanian/Moldovan speakers indicated Romanian as their native language.[70] Unofficial results of this census first showed a stronger preference for the name Romanian, however the initial reports were later dismissed by the Institute for Statistics, which led to speculations in the media regarding the forgery of the census results.[71]

In Serbia

Main article: Romanian language in Serbia
Vojvodina
 
Official usage of Romanian language in Vojvodina, Serbia
 
Romanian language in entire Serbia (see also Romanians in Serbia), census 2002
  1–5%
  5–10%
  10–15%
  15–25%
  25–35%
  over 35%

The Constitution of the Republic of Serbia determines that in the regions of the Republic of Serbia inhabited by national minorities, their own languages and scripts shall be officially used as well, in the manner established by law.[72]

The Statute of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina determines that, together with the Serbian language and the Cyrillic script, and the Latin script as stipulated by the law, the Croat, 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, in the manner established by the law.[73][74] The bodies of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina are: the Assembly, the Executive Council and the provincial administrative bodies.

The Romanian language and script are officially used in eight municipalities: Alibunar, Bela Crkva (Romanian: Biserica Albă), Žitište (Zitiște), Zrenjanin (Zrenianin), Kovačica (Kovăcița), Kovin (Cuvin), Plandište (Plandiște) and Sečanj. In the municipality of Vršac (Vârșeț), Romanian is official only in the villages of Vojvodinci (Voivodinț), Markovac (Marcovăț), Straža (Straja), Mali Žam (Jamu Mic), Malo Središte (Srediștea Mică), Mesić (Mesici), Jablanka, Sočica (Sălcița), Ritiševo (Râtișor), Orešac (Oreșaț) and Kuštilj (Coștei).[75]

In the 2002 Census, the last carried out in Serbia, 1.5% of Vojvodinians stated Romanian as their native language.

Timok Valley

The Vlachs of Serbia are considered to speak Romanian as well.[76]

Regional language status in Ukraine

In parts of Ukraine where Romanians constitute a significant share of the local population (districts in Chernivtsi, Odessa and Zakarpattia oblasts) Romanian is taught in schools as a primary language and there are Romanian-language newspapers, TV, and radio broadcasting.[77][78] The University of Chernivtsi in western Ukraine trains teachers for Romanian schools in the fields of Romanian philology, mathematics and physics.[79]

In Hertsa Raion of Ukraine as well as in other villages of Chernivtsi Oblast and Zakarpattia Oblast, Romanian has been declared a "regional language" alongside Ukrainian as per the 2012 legislation on languages in Ukraine.

In other countries and organizations

See also: Romanian diaspora

Romanian is an official or administrative language in various communities and organisations, such as the Latin Union and the European Union. Romanian is also one of the five languages in which religious services are performed in the autonomous monastic state of Mount Athos, spoken in the monastic communities of Prodromos and Lakkoskiti. In the unrecognised state of Transnistria, Moldovan is one of the official languages. However, unlike all other dialects of Romanian, this variety of Moldovan is written in Cyrillic script.

 
Distribution of first-language native Romanian speakers by country—Voivodina is an autonomous province of northern Serbia bordering Romania, while Altele means "Other"

As a second and foreign language

Romanian is taught in some areas that have Romanian minority communities, such as Vojvodina in Serbia, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Hungary. The Romanian Cultural Institute (ICR) has since 1992 organised summer courses in Romanian for language teachers.[80] There are also non-Romanians who study Romanian as a foreign language, for example the Nicolae Bălcescu High-school in Gyula, Hungary.

Romanian is taught as a foreign language in tertiary institutions, mostly in European countries such as Germany, France and Italy, and the Netherlands, as well as in the United States. Overall, it is taught as a foreign language in 43 countries around the world.[81]

 
Romanian as secondary or foreign language in Central and Eastern Europe
  Native
  Above 3%
  1–3%
  Under 1%
  N/A

Popular culture

Romanian has become popular in other countries through movies and songs performed in the Romanian language. Examples of Romanian acts that had a great success in non-Romanophone countries are the bands O-Zone (with their No. 1 single Dragostea Din Tei/Numa Numa across the world in 2003–2004), Akcent (popular in the Netherlands, Poland and other European countries), Activ (successful in some Eastern European countries), DJ Project (popular as clubbing music) SunStroke Project (known by viral video "Epic sax guy") and Alexandra Stan (worldwide no.1 hit with "Mr. Saxobeat") and Inna as well as high-rated movies like 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, 12:08 East of Bucharest or California Dreamin' (all of them with awards at the Cannes Film Festival).

Also some artists wrote songs dedicated to the Romanian language. The multi-platinum pop trio O-Zone (originally from Moldova) released a song called "Nu mă las de limba noastră" ("I won't forsake our language"). The final verse of this song, "Eu nu mă las de limba noastră, de limba noastră cea română", is translated in English as "I won't forsake our language, our Romanian language". Also, the Moldovan musicians Doina and Ion Aldea Teodorovici performed a song called "The Romanian language".

Dialects

Main article: Romanian dialects

Romanian is also called Daco-Romanian in comparative linguistics to distinguish from the other dialects of Common Romanian: Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian, and Istro-Romanian. The origin of the term "Daco-Romanian" can be traced back to the first printed book of Romanian grammar in 1780,[40] by Samuil Micu and Gheorghe Șincai. There, the Romanian dialect spoken north of the Danube is called lingua Daco-Romana to emphasize its origin and its area of use, which includes the former Roman province of Dacia, although it is spoken also south of the Danube, in Dobruja, the Timok Valley and northern Bulgaria.

This article deals with the Romanian (i.e. Daco-Romanian) language, and thus only its dialectal variations are discussed here. The differences between the regional varieties are small, limited to regular phonetic changes, few grammar aspects, and lexical particularities. There is a single written and spoken standard (literary) Romanian language used by all speakers, regardless of region. Like most natural languages, Romanian dialects are part of a dialect continuum. The dialects of Romanian are also referred to as 'sub-dialects' and are distinguished primarily by phonetic differences. Romanians themselves speak of the differences as 'accents' or 'speeches' (in Romanian: accent or grai).[82]

Depending on the criteria used for classifying these dialects, fewer or more are found, ranging from 2 to 20, although the most widespread approaches give a number of five dialects. These are grouped into two main types, southern and northern, further divided as follows:

Over the last century, however, regional accents have been weakened due to mass communication and greater mobility.

Some argots and speech forms have also arisen from the Romanian language. Examples are the Gumuțeasca, spoken in Mărgău,[83][84] and the Totoiana, an inverted "version" of Romanian spoken in Totoi.[85][86][87]

Classification

Romance language

See also: Romance languages
 
Romanian language in the Romance language family

Romanian is a Romance language, belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European language family, having much in common with languages such as Italian, Spanish, French and Portuguese.[88]

Compared with the other Romance languages, the closest relative of Romanian is Italian.[88] Romanian has had a greater share of foreign influence than some other Romance languages such as Italian in terms of vocabulary and other aspects. A study conducted by Mario Pei in 1949 which analyzed the degree of differentiation of languages from their parental language (in the case of Romance languages to Latin comparing phonology, inflection, discourse, syntax, vocabulary, and intonation) produced the following percentages (the higher the percentage, the greater the distance from Latin):[89]

  • Sardinian: 8%
  • Italian: 12%
  • Spanish: 20%
  • Romanian: 23.5%
  • Occitan: 25%
  • Portuguese: 31%
  • French: 44%

The lexical similarity of Romanian with Italian has been estimated at 77%, followed by French at 75%, Sardinian 74%, Catalan 73%, Portuguese and Rhaeto-Romance 72%, Spanish 71%.[90]

The Romanian vocabulary became predominantly influenced by French and, to a lesser extent, Italian in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.[91]

Balkan language area

While most of Romanian grammar and morphology are based on Latin, there are some features that are shared only with other languages of the Balkans and not found in other Romance languages. The shared features of Romanian and the other languages of the Balkan language area (Bulgarian, Macedonian, Albanian, Greek, and Serbo-Croatian) include a suffixed definite article, the syncretism of genitive and dative case and the formation of the future and the alternation of infinitive with subjunctive constructions.[92][93] According to a well-established scholarly theory, most Balkanisms could be traced back to the development of the Balkan Romance languages; these features were adopted by other languages due to language shift.[94]

Slavic influence

Main article: Slavic influence on Romanian

Slavic influence on Romanian is especially noticeable in its vocabulary, with words of Slavic origin constituting about 10–15% of modern Romanian lexicon,[95][96] and with further influences in its phonetics, morphology and syntax. The greater part of its Slavic vocabulary comes from Old Church Slavonic,[97][98] which was the official written language of Wallachia and Moldavia from the 14th to the 18th century (although not understood by most people), as well as the liturgical language of the Romanian Orthodox Church.[99][100] As a result, much Romanian vocabulary dealing with religion, ritual, and hierarchy is Slavic.[101][99] The number of high-frequency Slavic-derived words is also believed to indicate contact or cohabitation with South Slavic tribes from around the 6th century, though it is disputed where this took place (see Origin of the Romanians).[99] Words borrowed in this way tend to be more vernacular (compare sfârși, "to end", with săvârși, "to commit").[101] The extent of this borrowing is such that some scholars once mistakenly viewed Romanian as a Slavic language.[102][103][104] It has also been argued that Slavic borrowing was a key factor in the development of [ɨ] (î and â) as a separate phoneme.[105]

Other influences

Even before the 19th century, Romanian came in contact with several other languages. Notable examples of lexical borrowings include:

  • German: cartof < Kartoffel "potato", bere < Bier "beer", șurub < Schraube "screw", turn < Turm "tower", ramă < Rahmen "frame", muștiuc < Mundstück "mouth piece", bormașină < Bohrmaschine "drilling machine", cremșnit < Kremschnitte "cream slice", șvaițer < Schweizer "Swiss cheese", șlep < Schleppkahn "barge", șpriț < Spritzer "wine with soda water", abțibild < Abziehbild "decal picture", șnițel < (Wiener) Schnitzel "a battered cutlet", șmecher < Schmecker "taster (not interested in buying)", șuncă < dialectal Schunke (Schinken) "ham", punct < Punkt "point", maistru < Meister "master", rundă < Runde "round".

Furthermore, during the Habsburg and, later on, Austrian rule of Banat, Transylvania, and Bukovina, a large number of words were borrowed from Austrian High German, in particular in fields such as the military, administration, social welfare, economy, etc.[106] Subsequently, German terms have been taken out of science and technics, like: șină < Schiene "rail", știft < Stift "peg", liță < Litze "braid", șindrilă < Schindel "shingle", ștanță < Stanze "punch", șaibă < Scheibe "washer", ștangă < Stange "crossbar", țiglă < Ziegel "tile", șmirghel < Schmirgelpapier "emery paper";

  • Greek: folos < ófelos "use", buzunar < buzunára "pocket", proaspăt < prósfatos "fresh", cutie < cution "box", portocale < portokalia "oranges". While Latin borrowed words of Greek origin, Romanian obtained Greek loanwords on its own. Greek entered Romanian through the apoikiai (colonies) and emporia (trade stations) founded in and around Dobruja, through the presence of Byzantine Empire in north of the Danube, through Bulgarian during Bulgarian Empires that converted Romanians to Orthodox Christianity, and after the Greek Civil War, when thousands of Greeks fled Greece.
  • Hungarian: a cheltui < költeni "to spend", a făgădui < fogadni "to promise", a mântui < menteni "to save", oraș < város "city";
  • Turkish: papuc < pabuç "slipper", ciorbă < çorba "wholemeal soup, sour soup", bacșiș < bahşiş "tip" (ultimately from Persian baksheesh);
  • Additionally, the Romani language has provided a series of slang words to Romanian such as: mișto "good, beautiful, cool" < mišto,[107] gagică "girlie, girlfriend" < gadji, a hali "to devour" < halo, mandea "yours truly" < mande, a mangli "to pilfer" < manglo.

French, Italian, and English loanwords

Further information: Re-latinization of Romanian

Since the 19th century, many literary or learned words were borrowed from the other Romance languages, especially from French and Italian (for example: birou "desk, office", avion "airplane", exploata "exploit"). It was estimated that about 38% of words in Romanian are of French and/or Italian origin (in many cases both languages); and adding this to Romanian's native stock, about 75%–85% of Romanian words can be traced to Latin. The use of these Romanianized French and Italian learned loans has tended to increase at the expense of Slavic loanwords, many of which have become rare or fallen out of use. As second or third languages, French and Italian themselves are better known in Romania than in Romania's neighbors. Along with the switch to the Latin alphabet in Moldova, the re-latinization of the vocabulary has tended to reinforce the Latin character of the language.

In the process of lexical modernization, much of the native Latin stock have acquired doublets from other Romance languages, thus forming a further and more modern and literary lexical layer. Typically, the native word is a noun and the learned loan is an adjective. Some examples of doublets:

Latin and native doublets in Romanian
Latin Native stock Learned loan
agilis 'quick’ ager 'astute’ agil 'agile' (< French, Italian agile)
aqua apă 'water’ acvatic 'aquatic' (< Fr aquatique)
dens, dentem dinte 'tooth’ dentist 'dentist' (< Fr dentiste, It dentista)
directus drept 'straight; right’ direct 'direct' (< Fr direct)
frigidus 'cold' (adj.) frig 'cold' (noun) frigid 'frigid' (< Fr frigide)
rapidus repede 'quick’ rapid 'quick' (< Fr rapide, It rapido)

In the 20th century, an increasing number of English words have been borrowed (such as: gem < jam; interviu < interview; meci < match; manager < manager; fotbal < football; sandviș < sandwich; bișniță < business; chec < cake; veceu < WC; tramvai < tramway). These words are assigned grammatical gender in Romanian and handled according to Romanian rules; thus "the manager" is managerul. Some borrowings, for example in the computer field, appear to have awkward (perhaps contrived and ludicrous) 'Romanisation,' such as cookie-uri which is the plural of the Internet term cookie.

Lexis

 
Romanian's core lexicon (2,581 words); Marius Sala, VRLR (1988)
Main article: Romanian lexis

A statistical analysis sorting Romanian words by etymological source carried out by Macrea (1961)[97] based on the DLRM[108] (49,649 words) showed the following makeup:[98]

  • 43% recent Romance loans (mainly French: 38.42%, Latin: 2.39%, Italian: 1.72%)
  • 20% inherited Latin
  • 11.5% Slavic (Old Church Slavonic: 7.98%, Bulgarian: 1.78%, Bulgarian-Serbian: 1.51%)
  • 8.31% Unknown/unclear origin
  • 3.62% Turkish
  • 2.40% Modern Greek
  • 2.17% Hungarian
  • 1.77% German (including Austrian High German)[106]
  • 2.24% Onomatopoeic

If the analysis is restricted to a core vocabulary of 2,500 frequent, semantically rich and productive words, then the Latin inheritance comes first, followed by Romance and classical Latin neologisms, whereas the Slavic borrowings come third.

Romanian has a lexical similarity of 77% with Italian, 75% with French, 74% with Sardinian, 73% with Catalan, 72% with Portuguese and Rheto-Romance, 71% with Spanish.[109]

  1. ^ German-based influence and English loanwords
Romanian according to word origin[95][110]
Romance and Latin
 
 78%
Slavic
 
 14%
Germanic[a]
 
 2.54%
Greek
 
 1.7%
Others
 
 5.49%

Although they are rarely used nowadays, the Romanian calendar used to have the traditional Romanian month names, unique to the language.[111]

The longest word in Romanian is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcaniconioză, with 44 letters,[112] but the longest one admitted by the Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române ("Explanatory Dictionary of the Romanian Language", DEX) is electroglotospectrografie, with 25 letters.[113][114]

Grammar

Main article: Romanian grammar

Romanian nouns are characterized by gender (feminine, masculine, and neuter), and declined by number (singular and plural) and case (nominative/accusative, dative/genitive and vocative). The articles, as well as most adjectives and pronouns, agree in gender, number and case with the noun they modify.

Romanian is the only Romance language where definite articles are enclitic: that is, attached to the end of the noun (as in Scandinavian, Bulgarian and Albanian), instead of in front (proclitic).[115] They were formed, as in other Romance languages, from the Latin demonstrative pronouns.

As in all Romance languages, Romanian verbs are highly inflected for person, number, tense, mood, and voice. The usual word order in sentences is subject–verb–object (SVO). Romanian has four verbal conjugations which further split into ten conjugation patterns. Verbs can be put in five moods that are inflected for the person (indicative, conditional/optative, imperative, subjunctive, and presumptive) and four impersonal moods (infinitive, gerund, supine, and participle).

Phonology

Main article: Romanian phonology

Romanian has seven vowels: /i/, /ɨ/, /u/, /e/, /ə/, /o/ and /a/. Additionally, /ø/ and /y/ may appear in some borrowed words. Arguably, the diphthongs /e̯a/ and /o̯a/ are also part of the phoneme set. There are twenty-two consonants. The two approximants /j/ and /w/ can appear before or after any vowel, creating a large number of glide-vowel sequences which are, strictly speaking, not diphthongs.

In final positions after consonants, a short /i/ can be deleted, surfacing only as the palatalization of the preceding consonant (e.g., [mʲ]). Similarly, a deleted /u/ may prompt labialization of a preceding consonant, though this has ceased to carry any morphological meaning.

Phonetic changes

Main article: Latin-to-Romanian sound changes

Owing to its isolation from the other Romance languages, the phonetic evolution of Romanian was quite different, but the language does share a few changes with Italian, such as [kl] → [kj] (Lat. clarus → Rom. chiar, Ital. chiaro, Lat. clamare → Rom. chemare, Ital. chiamare) and [ɡl] → [ɡj] (Lat. *glacia (glacies) → Rom. gheață, Ital. ghiaccia, ghiaccio, Lat. *ungla (ungula) → Rom. unghie, Ital. unghia), although this did not go as far as it did in Italian with other similar clusters (Rom. place, Ital. piace); another similarity with Italian is the change from [ke] or [ki] to [tʃe] or [tʃi] (Lat. pax, pacem → Rom. and Ital. pace, Lat. dulcem → Rom. dulce, Ital. dolce, Lat. circus → Rom. cerc, Ital. circo) and [ɡe] or [ɡi] to [dʒe] or [dʒi] (Lat. gelu → Rom. ger, Ital. gelo, Lat. marginem → Rom. and Ital. margine, Lat. gemere → Rom. geme (gemere), Ital. gemere). There are also a few changes shared with Dalmatian, such as /ɡn/ (probably phonetically [ŋn]) → [mn] (Lat. cognatus → Rom. cumnat, Dalm. comnut) and /ks/ → [ps] in some situations (Lat. coxa → Rom. coapsă, Dalm. copsa).

Among the notable phonetic changes are:

  • diphthongization of e and o → ea and oa, before ă (or e as well, in the case of o) in the next syllable:
  • Lat. cera → Rom. ceară (wax)
  • Lat. sole → Rom. soare (sun)
  • iotation [e] → [ie] in the beginning of the word
  • Lat. herba → Rom. iarbă (grass, herb)
  • velar [k ɡ] → labial [p b m] before alveolar consonants and [w] (e.g. ngu → mb):
  • Lat. octo → Rom. opt (eight)
  • Lat. lingua → Rom. limbă (tongue, language)
  • Lat. signum → Rom. semn (sign)
  • Lat. coxa → Rom. coapsă (thigh)
  • Lat. caelum → Rom. cer (sky)
  • Alveolars [d t] assibilated to [(d)z] [ts] when before short [e] or long [iː]
  • Lat. deus → Rom. zeu (god)
  • Lat. tenem → Rom. ține (hold)

Romanian has entirely lost Latin /kw/ (qu), turning it either into /p/ (Lat. quattuor → Rom. patru, "four"; cf. It. quattro) or /k/ (Lat. quando → Rom. când, "when"; Lat. quale → Rom. care, "which"). In fact, in modern re-borrowings, while isolated cases of /kw/ exist, as in cuaternar "quaternary", it usually takes the German-like form /kv/, as in acvatic, "aquatic". Notably, it also failed to develop the palatalised sounds /ɲ/ and /ʎ/, which exist at least historically in all other major Romance languages, and even in neighbouring non-Romance languages such as Serbian and Hungarian. However, the other Eastern Romance languages kept these sounds, so it's likely old Romanian had them as well.

Writing system

 
Neacșu's letter is the oldest surviving document written in Romanian.

The first written record about a Romance language spoken in the Middle Ages in the Balkans is from 587. A Vlach muleteer accompanying the Byzantine army noticed that the load was falling from one of the animals and shouted to a companion Torna, torna, fratre! (meaning "Return, return, brother!"). Theophanes Confessor recorded it as part of a 6th-century military expedition by Comentiolus and Priscus against the Avars and Slovenes.[116]

The oldest surviving written text in Romanian is a letter from late June 1521,[117] in which Neacșu of Câmpulung wrote to the mayor of Brașov about an imminent attack of the Turks. It was written using the Cyrillic alphabet, like most early Romanian writings. The earliest surviving writing in Latin script was a late 16th-century Transylvanian text which was written with the Hungarian alphabet conventions.

 
A sample of Romanian written in the Romanian Cyrillic alphabet, which was still in use in the early 19th century

In the 18th century, Transylvanian scholars noted the Latin origin of Romanian and adapted the Latin alphabet to the Romanian language, using some orthographic rules from Italian, recognized as Romanian's closest relative. The Cyrillic alphabet remained in (gradually decreasing) use until 1860, when Romanian writing was first officially regulated.

In the Soviet Republic of Moldova, the Russian-derived Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet was used until 1989, when the Romanian Latin alphabet was introduced; in the breakaway territory of Transnistria the Cyrillic alphabet remains in use.[118]

Romanian alphabet

Main articles: Romanian alphabet and Romanian braille

The Romanian alphabet is as follows:

Capital letters
A Ă Â B C D E F G H I Î J K L M N O P Q R S Ș T Ț U V W X Y Z
Lower case letters
a ă â b c d e f g h i î j k l m n o p q r s ș t ț u v w x y z
Phonemes
/a/ /ə/ /ɨ/ /b/ /k/,
/t͡ʃ/ 		/d/ /e/,
/e̯/,
/je/ 		/f/ /ɡ/,
/d͡ʒ/ 		/h/,
mute 		/i/,
/j/,
/ʲ/ 		/ɨ/ /ʒ/ /k/ /l/ /m/ /n/ /o/,
/o̯/ 		/p/ /k/ /r/ /s/ /ʃ/ /t/ /t͡s/ /u/,
/w/ 		/v/ /v/,
/w/,
/u/ 		/ks/,
/ɡz/ 		/j/,
/i/ 		/z/

K, Q, W and Y, not part of the native alphabet, were officially introduced in the Romanian alphabet in 1982 and are mostly used to write loanwords like kilogram, quasar, watt, and yoga.

The Romanian alphabet is based on the Latin script with five additional letters Ă, Â, Î, Ș, Ț. Formerly, there were as many as 12 additional letters, but some of them were abolished in subsequent reforms. Also, until the early 20th century, a breve marker was used, which survives only in ă.

Today the Romanian alphabet is largely phonemic. However, the letters â and î both represent the same close central unrounded vowel /ɨ/. Â is used only inside words; î is used at the beginning or the end of non-compound words and in the middle of compound words. Another exception from a completely phonetic writing system is the fact that vowels and their respective semivowels are not distinguished in writing. In dictionaries the distinction is marked by separating the entry word into syllables for words containing a hiatus.

Stressed vowels also are not marked in writing, except very rarely in cases where by misplacing the stress a word might change its meaning and if the meaning is not obvious from the context. For example, trei copíi means "three children" while trei cópii means "three copies".

Pronunciation

 
A close shot of some keys with Romanian characters on the keyboard of a laptop
See also: Romanian alphabet § Î versus Â
  • h is not silent like in other Romance languages such as Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Catalan and French, but represents the phoneme /h/, except in the digraphs ch /k/ and gh /g/ (see below)
  • j represents /ʒ/, as in French, Catalan or Portuguese (the sound spelled with s in the English words "vision, pleasure, treasure").
  • There are two letters with a comma below, Ș and Ț, which represent the sounds /ʃ/ and /t͡s/. However, the allographs with a cedilla instead of a comma, Ş and Ţ, became widespread when pre-Unicode and early Unicode character sets did not include the standard form.
  • A final orthographical i after a consonant often represents the palatalization of the consonant[citation needed] (e.g., lup /lup/ "wolf" vs. lupi /lupʲ/ "wolves") – it is not pronounced like Italian lupi (which also means "wolves"), and is an example of the Slavic influence on Romanian[citation needed].
  • ă represents the schwa, /ə/.
  • î and â both represent the sound /ɨ/. In rapid speech (for example in the name of the country) the â sound may sound similar to a casual listener to the short schwa sound ă (in fact, Aromanian does merge the two, writing them ã) but careful speakers will distinguish the sound. The nearest equivalent is the vowel in the last syllable of the word Beatles for some English speakers or the second syllable of the word "rhythm". It is also roughly equivalent to European Portuguese /ɨ/, the Polish y or the Russian ы.
  • The letter e generally represents the mid front unrounded vowel [e], somewhat like in the English word set. However, the letter e is pronounced as [je] ([j] sounds like 'y' in 'you') when it is the first letter of any form of the verb a fi "to be", or of a personal pronoun, for instance este /jeste/ "is" and el /jel/ "he".[119][120] This addition of the semivowel /j/ does not occur in more recent loans and their derivatives, such as eră "era", electric "electric" etc. Some words (such as iepure "hare", formerly spelled epure) are now written with the initial i to indicate the semivowel.
  • x represents either the phoneme sequence /ks/ as in expresie = expression, or /ɡz/ as in exemplu = example, as in English.
  • As in Italian, the letters c and g represent the affricates /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ before i and e, and /k/ and /ɡ/ elsewhere. When /k/ and /ɡ/ are followed by vowels /e/ and /i/ (or their corresponding semivowels or the final /ʲ/) the digraphs ch and gh are used instead of c and g, as shown in the table below. Unlike Italian, however, Romanian uses ce- and ge- to write /t͡ʃ/ and /d͡ʒ/ before a central vowel instead of ci- and gi-.
Group Phoneme Pronunciation Examples
ce, ci /tʃ/ ch in chest, cheek cerc (circle), ceașcă (cup), cercel (earring), cină (dinner), ciocan (hammer)
che, chi /k/ k in kettle, kiss cheie (key), chelner (waiter), chioșc (kiosk), chitară (guitar), ureche (ear)
ge, gi /dʒ/ j in jelly, jigsaw ger (frost), gimnast (gymnast), gem (jam), girafă (giraffe), geantă (bag)
ghe, ghi /ɡ/ g in get, give ghețar (glacier), ghid (guide), ghindă (acorn), ghidon (handle bar), stingher (lonely)

Punctuation and capitalization

Uses of punctuation peculiar to Romanian are:

  • The quotation marks use the Polish format in the format „quote «inside» quote”, that is, „. . .” for a normal quotation, and double angle symbols for a quotation inside a quotation.
  • Proper quotations which span multiple paragraphs do not start each paragraph with the quotation marks; one single pair of quotation marks is always used, regardless of how many paragraphs are quoted.
  • Dialogues are identified with quotation dashes.
  • The Oxford comma before "and" is considered incorrect ("red, yellow and blue" is the proper format).
  • Punctuation signs which follow a text in parentheses always follow the final bracket.
  • In titles, only the first letter of the first word is capitalized, the rest of the title using sentence capitalization (with all its rules: proper names are capitalized as usual, etc.).
  • Names of months and days are not capitalized (ianuarie "January", joi "Thursday").
  • Adjectives derived from proper names are not capitalized (Germania "Germany", but german "German").

Academy spelling recommendations

In 1993, new spelling rules were proposed by the Romanian Academy. In 2000, the Moldovan Academy recommended adopting the same spelling rules,[121] and in 2010 the Academy launched a schedule for the transition to the new rules that was intended to be completed by publications in 2011.[122]

On 17 October 2016, Minister of Education Corina Fusu signed Order No. 872, adopting the revised spelling rules as recommended by the Moldovan Academy of Sciences, coming into force on the day of signing (due to be completed within two school years). From this day, the spelling as used by institutions subordinated to the ministry of education is in line with the Romanian Academy's 1993 recommendation. This order, however, has no application to other government institutions and neither has Law 3462 of 1989 (which provided for the means of transliterating of Cyrillic to Latin) been amended to reflect these changes; thus, these institutions, along with most Moldovans, prefer to use the spelling adopted in 1989 (when the language with Latin script became official).

Examples of Romanian text

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
(Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

The sentence in contemporary Romanian. Words inherited directly from Latin are highlighted:

Toate ființele umane se nasc libere și egale în demnitate și în drepturi. Ele sunt înzestrate cu rațiune și conștiință și trebuie să se comporte unele față de altele în spiritul fraternității.

The same sentence, with French and Italian loanwords highlighted instead:

Toate ființele umane se nasc libere și egale în demnitate și în drepturi. Ele sunt înzestrate cu rațiune și conștiință și trebuie să se comporte unele față de altele în spiritul fraternității.

The sentence rewritten to exclude French and Italian loanwords. Slavic loanwords are highlighted:

Toate ființele omenești se nasc slobode și deopotrivă în destoinicie și în drepturi. Ele sunt înzestrate cu înțelegere și cuget și trebuie să se poarte unele față de altele în duh de frățietate.

The sentence rewritten to exclude all loanwords. The meaning is somewhat compromised due to the paucity of native vocabulary:

Toate ființele omenești se nasc nesupuse și asemenea în prețuire și în drepturi. Ele sunt înzestrate cu înțelegere și cuget și se cuvine să se poarte unele față de altele după firea frăției.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ The constitution of the Republic of Moldova refers to the country's language as Moldovan, whilst the 1991 Declaration of Independence names the official language Romanian. In December 2013, an official decision of the Constitutional Court of Moldova ruled that the Declaration of Independence takes precedence over the Constitution and that the state language is therefore Romanian, not 'Moldovan'. "Moldovan court rules official language is 'Romanian,' replacing Soviet-flavored 'Moldovan'"

References

  1. ^ лимба ромынэ (in Moldovan Cyrillic; solely applied to a moderate extent nowadays in Moldova)
  2. ^ Romanian at Ethnologue (19th ed., 2016)  
  3. ^ "Româna" [Romania]. Union Latine (in Romanian).
  4. ^ Pană Dindelegan, Gabriela, The Grammar of Romanian, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013, ISBN 978-0-19-964492-6, page 1
  5. ^ "Istoria limbii române" ("History of the Romanian Language"), II, Academia Română, Bucharest, 1969
  6. ^ Sala, Marius (2012). De la Latină la Română] [From Latin to Romanian]. Editura Pro Universitaria. p. 13. ISBN 978-606-647-435-1.
  7. ^ Brâncuș, Grigore (2005). Introducere în istoria limbii române] [Introduction to the History of Romanian Language]. Editura Fundaţiei România de Mâine. p. 16. ISBN 973-725-219-5.
  8. ^ Pană Dindelegan, Gabriela, The Grammar of Romanian, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013, ISBN 978-0-19-964492-6, pages 3 and 4
  9. ^ Sala, Marius (2012). De la Latină la Română] [From Latin to Romanian]. Editura Pro Universitaria. p. 44. ISBN 978-606-647-435-1.
  10. ^ Schulte, Kim (2009). "Loanwords in Romanian". In Haspelmath, Martin; Tadmor, Uri (eds.). Loanwords in the World's Languages: A Comparative Handbook. De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 231–250. ISBN 978-3-11-021843-5.
  11. ^ a b Pană Dindelegan, Gabriela, The Grammar of Romanian, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013, ISBN 978-0-19-964492-6, page 5
  12. ^ Sala, Marius (2012). De la Latină la Română] [From Latin to Romanian]. Editura Pro Universitaria. pp. 63–64. ISBN 978-606-647-435-1.
  13. ^ a b c d Petrucci 1999, p. 4.
  14. ^ Andreose & Renzi 2013, p. 287.
  15. ^ a b c Pană Dindelegan, Gabriela, The Grammar of Romanian, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013, ISBN 978-0-19-964492-6, page 4
  16. ^ Romanian letter-writing: a cultural-rhetorical perspective
  17. ^ "scoasem ... pre limbă românească 5 cărți ale lui Moisi prorocul ... și le dăruim voo fraților rumâni" Pamfil, V. (1968) Palia de la Orǎstie 1581-1582 : text, facsimile, indice. Bucureşti. (p.1-11)
  18. ^ Ștefan Pascu, Documente străine despre români, ed. Arhivelor statului, București 1992, ISBN 973-95711-2-3
  19. ^ Dahmen, Wolfgang (2008). "Externe Sprachgeschichte des Rumänischen". In Ernst, Gerhard; Gleßgen, Martin-Dietrich; Schmitt, Christian; Schweickard, Wolfgang (eds.). Romanische Sprachgeschichte: Ein internationales Handbuch zur Geschichte der romanischen Sprachen (in German). Vol. 1. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. p. 738. ISBN 978-3-11-014694-3.
  20. ^ Tomescu, Mircea (1968). Istoria cărții românești de la începuturi până la 1918 (in Romanian). București: Editura Științifică. p. 40.
  21. ^ Tranquillo Andronico în Endre Veress, Fontes rerum transylvanicarum: Erdélyi történelmi források, Történettudományi Intézet, Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, Budapest, 1914, S. 204
  22. ^ "... si dimandano in lingua loro Romei...se alcuno dimanda se sano parlare in la lingua valacca, dicono a questo in questo modo: Sti Rominest ? Che vol dire: Sai tu Romano ?" Claudiu Isopescu, "Notizie intorno ai romeni nella letteratura geografica italiana del Cinquecento", Bulletin de la Section Historique, XVI, 1929, pp. 1–90
  23. ^ "Ex Vlachi Valachi, Romanenses Italiani,/Quorum reliquae Romanensi lingua utuntur.../Solo Romanos nomine, sine re, repraesentantes. Ideirco vulgariter Romuini sunt appelanti." Ioannes Lebelius, De opido Thalmus, Carmen Istoricum, Cibinii, 1779, pp. 11–12
  24. ^ "qui eorum lingua Romini ab Romanis, nostra Walachi, ab Italis appellantur". St. Orichovius, "Annales polonici ab excessu Sigismundi", in I. Dlugossus, Historiae polonicae vol. XII, col 1555
  25. ^ "Valacchi, qui se Romanos nominant ..." "Gens quae ear terras (Transsylvaniam, Moldaviam et Transalpinam) nostra aetate incolit, Valacchi sunt, eaque a Romania ducit originem, tametsi nomine longe alieno..." "De situ Transsylvaniae, Moldaviae et Transaplinae", in Monumenta Hungariae Historica, Scriptores; II, Pesta, 1857, p. 120
  26. ^ "Tout ce pays: la Wallachie, la Moldavie et la plus part de la Transylvanie, a esté peuplé des colonies romaines du temps de Trajan l'empereur ... Ceux du pays se disent vrais successeurs des Romains et nomment leur parler romanechte, c'est-à-dire romain". "Voyage fait par moy, Pierre Lescalopier l'an 1574 de Venise a Constantinople", in: Paul Cernovodeanu, Studii și materiale de istorie medievală, IV, 1960, p. 444
  27. ^ "Anzi essi si chiamano romanesci, e vogliono molti che erano mandati quì quei che erano dannati a cavar metalli". Maria Holban, Călători străini despre Țările Române, Bucharest: Editura Stiințifică, 1970, vol. II, pp. 158–161
  28. ^ "În ţara Ardealului nu lăcuiescu numai unguri, ce şi saşi peste samă de mulţi şi români peste tot locul, de mai multu-i ţara lăţită de români decât de unguri." Grigore Ureche, Letopisețul Țării Moldovei, pp. 133–134
  29. ^ Constantiniu, Florin, O istorie sinceră a poporului român [An honest history of the Romanian people], Univers Enciclopedic, Bucharest, 1997, ISBN 97-3924-307-X, p. 175
  30. ^ "Valachos ... dicunt enim communi modo loquendi: Sie noi sentem Rumeni: etiam nos sumus Romani. Item: Noi sentem di sange Rumena: Nos sumus de sanguine Romano". Martinus Szent-Ivany, "Dissertatio Paralimpomenica rerum memorabilium Hungariae", Tyrnaviae, 1699, p. 39
  31. ^ From Descriptio Moldaviae: "Valachiae et Transylvaniae incolis eadem est cum Moldavis lingua, pronunciatio tamen rudior, ut dziur, Vlachus proferet zur, jur, per z polonicum sive j gallicum; Dumnedzeu, Deus, val. Dumnezeu: akmu, nunc, val. akuma, aczela hic, val: ahela."
  32. ^ Munteanu, Eugen. "Dinamica istorică a cultivării instituţionalizate a limbii române". Revista română., în Iași, vol. IV, no. 4 (34), December 2003, p. 6 (I), no. 1 (35), March 2004, p. 7 (II); no. 2, June 2004, p. 6 (III); no. 3, October 2004, p. 6 (IV); no. 4 (38), December 2004, p. 6 (V). Retrieved 11 May 2016.
  33. ^ N. Felecan - Considerations on the First Books of Romanian Grammar
  34. ^ Michael J. F. Suarez; H. R. Woudhuysen (24 October 2013). The Book: A Global History. OUP Oxford. pp. 753–. ISBN 978-0-19-166875-3. Retrieved 30 June 2016.
  35. ^ Sala, Marius (2012). De la Latină la Română] [From Latin to Romanian]. Editura Pro Universitaria. p. 159. ISBN 978-606-647-435-1.
  36. ^ Pană Dindelegan, Gabriela (ed.); Maiden, Martin (consultant ed.): The Grammar of Romanian, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013, ISBN 978-0-19-964492-6, p. 5
  37. ^ History of Romanian Academy
  38. ^ Sala, Marius (2012). De la Latină la Română] [From Latin to Romanian]. Editura Pro Universitaria. p. 160. ISBN 978-606-647-435-1.
  39. ^ Pană Dindelegan, Gabriela, The Grammar of Romanian, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013, ISBN 978-0-19-964492-6, page 5
  40. ^ a b Micu, Samuil; Șincai, Gheorghe (1780). Elementa linguae daco-romanae sive valachicae (in Latin). Vienna.
  41. ^ (in Russian)Charter for the organization of the Bessarabian Oblast, 29 April 1818, in "Печатается по изданию: Полное собрание законов Российской империи. Собрание первое.", Vol 35. 1818, Sankt Petersburg, 1830, pg. 222–227. Available online at hrono.info
  42. ^ King, Charles (2000). The Moldovans: Romania, Russia, and the Politics of Culture. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press. pp. 21–22. ISBN 08-1799-792-X.
  43. ^ D’hulst, Yves; Coene, Martine; Avram, Larisa (2004). "Syncretic and Analytic Tenses in Romanian: The Balkan Setting of Romance". In Mišeska Tomić, Olga (ed.). Balkan Syntax and Semantics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing. p. 355. doi:10.1075/la.67.18dhu. ISBN 978-90-272-2790-4. general absence of consecutio temporum.
  44. ^ (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 25 February 2021. Retrieved 26 August 2012.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  45. ^ (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 17 July 2019. Retrieved 2 April 2013.
  46. ^ Ethnologue.com
  47. ^ 2010 Russia Census 22 April 2021 at the Wayback Machine Perepis 2010
  48. ^ . CBS, Statistical Abstract of Israel 2013. Israel Central Bureau of Statistics. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 March 2016.
  49. ^ Bureau, US Census. "Detailed Languages Spoken at Home and Ability to Speak English for the Population 5 Years and Over: 2009-2013". Census.gov. Retrieved 12 May 2022.
  50. ^ Government of Canada, Statistics Canada (2 August 2017). "Mother Tongue (263), Single and Multiple Mother Tongue Responses (3), Age (7) and Sex (3) for the Population Excluding Institutional Residents of Canada, Provinces and Territories, Census Divisions and Census Subdivisions, 2016 Census - 100% Data". www12.statcan.gc.ca. Retrieved 12 May 2022.
  51. ^ Statistics, c=AU; o=Commonwealth of Australia; ou=Australian Bureau of. "Redirect to Census data page". www.abs.gov.au.
  52. ^ RDSCJ.ro 22 March 2008 at the Wayback Machine
  53. ^ . Dtil.unilat.org. Archived from the original on 28 January 2011. Retrieved 23 May 2010.
  54. ^ . MSN Encarta. Archived from the original on 29 October 2009.
  55. ^ According to the 1993 Statistical Abstract of Israel there were 250,000 Romanian speakers in Israel, of a population of 5,548,523 in 1995 (census).
  56. ^ . Eurojewcong.org. Archived from the original on 31 August 2006. Retrieved 23 May 2010.
  57. ^ Laslau, Andi (27 April 2005). . Evz.ro (in Romanian). Archived from the original on 24 December 2007. Retrieved 23 May 2010.
  58. ^ "Constitution of Romania". Cdep.ro. Retrieved 23 May 2010.
  59. ^ Legea "Pruteanu": 500/2004 – Law on the Protection of the Romanian Language
  60. ^ Art. 27 (3), Legea nr. 26/1990 privind Registrul Comerțului
  61. ^ . Archived from the original on 29 June 2006. Retrieved 19 April 2006.
  62. ^ "31 august - Ziua Limbii Române". Agerpres (in Romanian). 31 August 2020.
  63. ^ "De ce este sărbătorită Ziua Limbii Române la 31 august". Historia (in Romanian). 31 August 2020.
  64. ^ (in Romanian). Moldova-suverana.md. Archived from the original on 5 February 2008. Retrieved 9 October 2013.
  65. ^ (PDF). European Commission. Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 February 2007. Retrieved 9 October 2013.
  66. ^ "Moldovan Court Rules Official Language is 'Romanian', Replacing Soviet-Flavored 'Moldovan'". Fox News. Associated Press. 25 March 2015.
  67. ^ . Realitatea .NET. Archived from the original on 11 May 2011. Retrieved 7 October 2009.
  68. ^ Dalby, Andrew (1998). Dictionary of Languages. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 518. ISBN 07-4753-117-X.
  69. ^ Legea cu privire la functionarea limbilor vorbite pe teritoriul RSS Moldovenesti Nr.3465-XI din 01.09.89 Vestile nr.9/217, 1989 19 February 2006 at the Wayback Machine (Law regarding the usage of languages spoken on the territory of the Republic of Moldova): "Moldavian RSS supports the desire of the Moldavian that live across the borders of the Republic, and – considering the existing Moldo-Romanian linguistic identity – of the Romanians that live on the territory of the USSR, of doing their studies and satisfying their cultural needs in their maternal language."
  70. ^ National Bureau of Statistics of the Republic of Moldova: Census 2014
  71. ^ "Biroul Național de Statistică, acuzat că a falsificat rezultatele recensământului". Independent (in Romanian). 29 March 2017. Retrieved 27 February 2022.
  72. ^ Official Gazette of Republic of Serbia, No.1/90
  73. ^ Article 24, "The Statute of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina", published in the Official Gazette of AP Vojvodina No.20/2014
  74. ^ "Official Use of Languages and Scripts in the AP Vojvodina". Provincial Secretariat for Education, Regulations, Administration and National Minorities – National Communities. Retrieved 27 February 2022.
  75. ^ Provincial Secretariat for Regulations, Administration and National Minorities: "Official use of the Romanian language in the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina (APV)"
  76. ^ Sorescu-Marinković, Annemarie; Huțanu, Monica (2018). "Non-Dominant Varieties of Romanian in Serbia: Between Pluricentricity and Division". In Muhr, Rudolf; Meisnitzer, Benjamin (eds.). Pluricentric Languages and Non-Dominant Varieties Worldwide: New Pluricentric Languages – Old Problems. Frankfurt: Peter Lang Verlag. pp. 233–246. hdl:21.15107/rcub_dais_5795 – via DAIS - Digital Archive of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts.
  77. ^
    • . Ukrainian Center for Independent Political Research. Archived from the original on 30 September 2011. Retrieved 23 January 2006.
    • . Archived from the original on 27 April 2012. Retrieved 23 January 2006.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  78. ^ . www.clovekaspolocnost.sk. Archived from the original on 14 May 2009.
  79. ^ Kramar Andriy. "University of Chernivtsi". Chnu.cv.ua. Retrieved 23 May 2010.
  80. ^ "Cursuri de perfecționare" 25 February 2007 at the Wayback Machine, Ziua, 19 August 2005
  81. ^ "Data concerning the teaching of the Romanian language abroad" 7 December 2010 at the Wayback Machine, Romanian Language Institute.
  82. ^ Delyusto, Maryna (2016). "Mul'tilingval'nyy atlas mezhdurech'ya Dnestra i Dunaya: Istochniki i priyemy sozdaniya" Мультилингвальный атлас междуречья Днестра и Дуная:источники и приемы создания [Multi-Lingual Atlas of Dialects Spread Between the Danube and the Dniester Rivers: Sources and Tools of Creation]. Journal of Danubian Studies and Research (in Russian). 6 (1): 362–369.
  83. ^ Arjocu, Florin (29 June 2020). "Satul din România unde se vorbește o limbă secretă. Tălăuzeşti gumuțeasca?". Știri România (in Romanian).
  84. ^ Florea, Sorin (1 June 2020). "Care este satul din România unde se vorbește o limbă secretă?". Shtiu (in Romanian).
  85. ^ "În localitatea Totoi, județul Alba, se vorbește o limbă specifică locului". Realitatea TV (in Romanian). 19 January 2009.
  86. ^ Arsenie, Dan (9 December 2011). "Totoiana – messengerul de pe uliță. Povestea unei limbi inventate de români". GreatNews.ro (in Romanian).
  87. ^ "'Limba intoarsă' vorbită în Totoi". Ziare.com (in Romanian). 2 November 2009.
  88. ^ a b Stoica, Vasile (1919). The Roumanian Question: The Roumanians and their Lands. Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh Printing Company. p. 50.
  89. ^ Pei, Mario (1949). Story of Language. ISBN 03-9700-400-1.
  90. ^ Ethnologue, Romanian
  91. ^ Sandiuc, Corina (1 November 2014). "Languages and cultures in contact: The French language and the maritime terminology". Diversitate Si Identitate Culturala in Europa. 11 (2). ISSN 2067-0931.
  92. ^ Mišeska Tomić, Olga (2006). Balkan Sprachbund Morpho-Syntactic Features. Springer. p. 27. ISBN 978-1-4020-4487-8.
  93. ^ Schulte, Kim (2009). "Loanwords in Romanian". In Haspelmath, Martin; Tadmor, Uri (eds.). Loanwords in the World's Languages: A Comparative Handbook. De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 230–259. ISBN 978-3-11-021843-5.
  94. ^ Lindstedt, J. (2000). "Linguistic Balkanization: Contact-induced change by mutual reinforcement". In D. G. Gilbers; et al. (eds.). Languages in Contact. Studies in Slavic and General Linguistics, 28. Amsterdam & Atlanta, GA: Rodopi. p. 235. ISBN 90-4201-322-2.
  95. ^ a b Marius Sala (coord), Mihaela Bîrlădeanu, Maria Iliescu, Liliana Macarie, Ioana Nichita, Mariana Ploae-Hanganu, Maria Theban, Ioana Vintilă-Rădulescu, Vocabularul reprezentativ al limbilor romanice (VRLR) (Bucharest: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, 1988).
  96. ^ Schulte, Kim. "Loanwords in Romanian". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)[dead link], published in Martin Haspelmath; Uri Tadmor (22 December 2009). Loanwords in the World's Languages: A Comparative Handbook. Walter de Gruyter. p. 243. ISBN 978-3-11-021844-2.
  97. ^ a b Macrea, Dimitrie (1961). "Originea și structura limbii române (7–45)". Probleme de lingvistică română (in Romanian). Bucharest: Editura Științifică. p. 32.
  98. ^ a b Pană Dindelegan, Gabriela, ed. (2013). The Grammar of Romanian (1st ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 3. ISBN 9780199644926.
  99. ^ a b c Keith Hitchins (20 February 2014). A Concise History of Romania. Cambridge University Press. p. 19. ISBN 978-0-521-87238-6.
  100. ^ Virginia Hill; Gabriela Alboiu (2016). Verb Movement and Clause Structure in Old Romanian. Oxford University Press. p. xv. ISBN 978-0-19-873650-9.
  101. ^ a b Bernard Comrie (13 January 2009). The World's Major Languages. Routledge. p. 266. ISBN 978-1-134-26156-7.
  102. ^ Millar, Robert McColl; Trask, Larry (2015). Trask's Historical Linguistics. Routledge. p. 292. ISBN 9781317541776. The Romance language Romanian has borrowed so many Slavonic words that scholars for a while believed it was a Slavonic language."
  103. ^ Boia, Lucian (2001). Romania: Borderland of Europe. Reaktion Books. ISBN 9781861891037.
  104. ^ Еmil Fischer (1904). Die Herkunft Der Rumanen: Eine Historisch-Linguistisch-Etnographische Studie. Handels-Druckerei. p. 132–3.
  105. ^ Margaret E. L. Renwick (2014). The Phonetics and Phonology of Contrast: The Case of the Romanian Vowel System. De Gruyter. pp. 44–5. ISBN 978-3-11-036277-0.
  106. ^ a b Dama, Hans (2006). [Lexical influences of 'Austrian'-German on the Romanian language] (PDF). Philologica Jassyensia (in German). 2 (1): 105–110. Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 March 2022. Retrieved 27 February 2022.
  107. ^ Zafiu, Rodica (2009). . România literară (in Romanian). No. 6. Archived from the original on 21 September 2018. Retrieved 21 September 2018. There is no doubt among linguists about the Romany etymology of the Romanian word mișto, but a fairly widespread folk etymology and urban legend maintains that the German phrase mit Stock 'with stick' would be its true origin.
  108. ^ Macrea, Dimitrie, ed. (1958). Dicționarul limbii române moderne (in Romanian). Bucharest: Academia Română.
  109. ^ "Romanian". Ethnologue.
  110. ^ Vocabularul reprezentativ diferă de vocabularul fundamental (VF) și de fondul principal lexical (FP). Cf. SCL (Studii și cercetări lingvistice), an XXVII (1976), nr. 1, p. 61-66 și SCL (1974) nr. 3, p. 247. Cf. Theodor Hristea, "Structura generală a lexicului românesc", Sinteze de limba română, eds., Theodor Hristea (coord.), Mioara Avram, Grigore Brâncuș, Gheorghe Bulgăr, Georgeta Ciompec, Ion Diaconescu, Rodica Bogza-Irimie & Flora Șuteu (Bucharest: 1984), 13.
  111. ^ *Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române, Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică "Iorgu Iordan", Editura Univers Enciclopedic, 1998
  112. ^ Bălhuc, Paul (15 January 2017). "Câte litere are cel mai lung cuvânt din limba română și care este singurul termen ce conține toate vocalele". Adevărul (in Romanian).
  113. ^ "Electroglotospectrografie". Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române (in Romanian). Retrieved 10 February 2021.
  114. ^ "Curiozități lingvistice: cele mai lungi cuvinte din limba română". Dicție.ro (in Romanian). Retrieved 10 February 2021.
  115. ^ Săvescu, Oana (2012). "When Syncretism Meets Word Order. On Clitic Order in Romanian". Probus. 24 (2): 233–256. doi:10.1515/probus-2012-0010. S2CID 194568315.
  116. ^ Baynes, Thomas Spencer, ed. (1898). "Vlachs". Encyclopædia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and General Literature. Vol. 24 (9th ed.). Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black. p. 269.
  117. ^ Sarlin, Mika (2014). Romanian Grammar (2nd ed.). Helsinki: Books on Demand. p. 15. ISBN 9789522868985.
  118. ^ Dyer, Donald L. (1999). "Some Influences of Russian on the Romanian of Moldova during the Soviet Period". The Slavic and East European Journal. 43 (1): 85–98. doi:10.2307/309907. JSTOR 309907.
  119. ^ (in Romanian) Several Romanian dictionaries specify the pronunciation [je] for word-initial letter e in some personal pronouns: el, ei, etc. and in some forms of the verb a fi (to be): este, eram, etc.
  120. ^ (in Romanian) Mioara Avram, Ortografie pentru toți, Editura Litera, Chișinău, 1997, p. 29
  121. ^ The new edition of "Dicționarul ortografic al limbii române (ortoepic, morfologic, cu norme de punctuație)" – introduced by the Academy of Sciences of Moldova and recommended for publishing following a conference on 15 November 2000 – applies the decision of the General Meeting of the Romanian Academy from 17 February 1993, regarding the reintroduction to "â" and "sunt" in the orthography of the Romanian language. (Introduction, Institute of Linguistics of the Academy of Sciences of Moldova)
  122. ^ (in Romanian). Allmoldova. 4 June 2010. Archived from the original on 22 July 2011. Retrieved 3 January 2011.

Bibliography

  • Andreose, Alvise; Renzi, Lorenzo (2013). "Geography and Distribution of the Romance Languages in Europe". In Maiden, Martin; Smith, John Charles; Ledgeway, Adam (eds.). The Cambridge History of the Romance Languages. Vol. 2: Contexts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 283–334. ISBN 978-0-521-80073-0.
  • Giurescu, Constantin C. (1972). The Making of the Romanian People and Language. Bucharest: Meridiane.
  • Kahl, Thede, ed. (2009). Das Rumänische und seine Nachbarn (in German). Berlin: Frank & Timme.
  • Paliga, Sorin (2010). "When Could Be Dated the 'Earliest Slavic Borrowings in Romanian'?" (PDF). Romanoslavica. 46 (4): 101–119.
  • Petrucci, Peter R. (1999). Slavic Features in the History of Rumanian. München: LINCOM Europa. ISBN 38-9586-599-0.
  • Rosetti, Alexandru (1965–1969). Istoria limbii române (in Romanian). Vol. 1–2. Bucureşti: Editura ştiinţifică.
  • Hinrichs, Uwe, ed. (1999). Handbuch der Südosteuropa-Linguistik (in German). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.

External links

  • Romanian language at Curlie
  • SAMPA for Romanian
  • Romanian Reference Grammar, by Dana Cojocaru, University of Bucharest (183 pages) – 4.6 MB – pdf
  • USA Foreign Service Institute (FSI) Romanian basic course
  • Romanian basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database

March 05, 2023
romanian, language, confused, with, romani, romansh, aromanian, languages, limba, română, romanophone, redirect, here, magazine, limba, română, magazine, countries, speaking, romance, languages, romance, speaking, world, romanian, obsolete, spellings, rumanian. Not to be confused with the Romani Romansh or Aromanian languages Limba romană and Romanophone redirect here For the magazine see Limba Romană magazine For countries speaking Romance languages see Romance speaking world Romanian obsolete spellings Rumanian or Roumanian autonym limba romană ˈlimba roˈmɨne listen or romanește lit in Romanian is the official and main language of Romania and the Republic of Moldova As a minority language it is spoken by stable communities in the countries surrounding Romania Bulgaria Hungary Serbia and Ukraine and by the large Romanian diaspora In total it is spoken by 28 29 million people as an L1 L2 language of whom c 24 million are native speakers In Europe Romanian is rated as a medium level language occupying the 10th position among 37 official languages 4 RomanianDaco Romanianlimba romană 1 Pronunciation roˈmɨne Native toRomania MoldovaRegionCentral Europe Southeastern Europe and Eastern EuropeEthnicityRomanians including Moldovans Native speakers23 6 24 million 2016 2 Second language 4 millionL1 L2 speakers 28 million 3 Language familyIndo European ItalicLatino FaliscanRomanceEastern RomanceDaco RomanceRomanianEarly formsOld Latin Vulgar Latin Proto RomanianDialectsTransylvanian Crișana Moldavian Banat Wallachian Maramureș BukovinianWriting systemLatin Romanian alphabet Cyrillic Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet Transnistria only Romanian Cyrillic alphabet until 1860s Romanian BrailleOfficial statusOfficial language in Moldova Romania Serbia in Vojvodina Transnistria European UnionRecognised minoritylanguage in Hungary UkraineRegulated byRomanian AcademyAcademy of Sciences of MoldovaLanguage codesISO 639 1 span class plainlinks ro span ISO 639 2 span class plainlinks rum span B span class plainlinks ron span T ISO 639 3 a href https iso639 3 sil org code ron class extiw title iso639 3 ron ron a Glottologroma1327Linguasphere51 AAD c varieties 51 AAD ca to ck Blue region where Romanian is the dominant language Cyan areas with a notable minority of Romanian speakers Distribution of the Romanian language in Romania Moldova and surroundingsThis article contains IPA phonetic symbols Without proper rendering support you may see question marks boxes or other symbols instead of Unicode characters For an introductory guide on IPA symbols see Help IPA source source source source source source source source source source A Romanian speaker with a Transylvanian accent recorded in Romania Romanian is part of the Eastern Romance sub branch of Romance languages a linguistic group that evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin which separated from the Western Romance languages in the course of the period from the 5th to the 8th centuries 5 To distinguish it within the Eastern Romance languages in comparative linguistics it is called Daco Romanian as opposed to its closest relatives Aromanian Megleno Romanian and Istro Romanian Romanian is also known as Moldovan in Moldova although the Constitutional Court of Moldova ruled in 2013 that the official language of Moldova is Romanian nb 1 Contents 1 Overview 2 History 2 1 Common Romanian 2 2 Old Romanian 2 3 Modern Romanian 2 3 1 Pre modern period 2 3 2 Modern period 2 3 3 Contemporary period 2 3 4 Modern history of Romanian in Bessarabia 2 4 Historical grammar 3 Geographic distribution 3 1 Legal status 3 1 1 In Romania 3 1 2 In Moldova 3 1 3 In Serbia 3 1 3 1 Vojvodina 3 1 3 2 Timok Valley 3 1 4 Regional language status in Ukraine 3 1 5 In other countries and organizations 3 2 As a second and foreign language 3 3 Popular culture 3 4 Dialects 4 Classification 4 1 Romance language 4 2 Balkan language area 4 3 Slavic influence 4 4 Other influences 4 5 French Italian and English loanwords 4 6 Lexis 5 Grammar 6 Phonology 6 1 Phonetic changes 7 Writing system 7 1 Romanian alphabet 7 2 Pronunciation 7 3 Punctuation and capitalization 7 4 Academy spelling recommendations 7 5 Examples of Romanian text 8 See also 9 Notes 10 References 11 Bibliography 12 External linksOverview EditThe history of the Romanian language started in the Roman provinces north of the Jirecek Line in Classical antiquity over a large area Between the 6th and 8th century following the accumulated tendencies inherited from the vernacular spoken in this large area and to a much smaller degree the influences from native dialects and in the context of a lessened power of the Roman central authority the language evolved into Common Romanian This proto language then came into close contact with the Slavic languages and subsequently divided into Aromanian Megleno Romanian Istro Romanian and Daco Romanian 6 7 Due to limited attestation between the 6th and 16th century entire stages from its history are re constructed by researchers often with proposed relative chronologies and loose limits 8 As a separate entity starting from the 12th or 13th century Romanian was superseded citation needed in official documents and religious texts by Old Church Slavonic a language that had a similar role to Medieval Latin in Western Europe The oldest dated text in Romanian is a letter written in 1521 with Cyrillic letters and until late 18th century including during the development of printing the same alphabet was used The period after 1780 starting with the writing of its first grammar books represents the modern age of the language a phase when the Latin alphabet became official the literary language was standardized and a large number of words from Modern Latin and other Romance languages entered the lexis In the process of language evolution from less than 2500 attested words from Late Antiquity to a lexicon of over 150 000 words in its contemporary form 9 Romanian showed a high degree of lexical permeability reflecting contact with Thraco Dacian Slavic languages including Old Slavic Serbian Bulgarian Ukrainian and Russian Greek Hungarian German Turkish and to languages that served as cultural models during and after the Age of Enlightenment in particular French 10 This lexical permeability is continuing today with the introduction of English words 11 Yet while the overall lexis was enriched with foreign words and internal constructs in accordance with the history and development of the society and the diversification in semantic fields the fundamental lexicon the core vocabulary used in every day conversation remains governed by inherited elements from the Latin spoken in the Roman provinces bordering Danube without which no coherent sentence can be made 12 History EditMain article History of Romanian Common Romanian Edit Main article Proto Romanian language See also Slavic superstratum in Romanian and Substrate in Romanian Romanian descended from the Vulgar Latin spoken in the Roman provinces of Southeastern Europe 13 Roman inscriptions show that Latin was primarily used to the north of the so called Jirecek Line a hypothetical boundary between the predominantly Latin and Greek speaking territories of the Balkan Peninsula in the Roman Empire Most scholars agree that two major dialects developed from Common Romanian by the 10th century 13 Daco Romanian the official language of Romania and Moldova and Istro Romanian a language spoken by no more than 2 000 people in Istria descended from the northern dialect 13 Two other languages Aromanian and Megleno Romanian developed from the southern version of Common Romanian 13 These two languages are now spoken in lands to the south of the Jirecek Line 14 Of the features that individualize Common Romanian inherited from Latin or subsequently developed of particular importance are 15 appearance of the ă vowel growth of the plural inflectional ending uri for the neuter gender analytic present conditional ex Daco Romanian aș canta analytic future with an auxiliary derived from Latin volo ex Aromanian va s cantu enclisis of the definite article ex Istro Romanian care carele nominal declension with two case forms in the singular feminine Old Romanian Edit See also Romanian Cyrillic alphabet Neacșu s letter is the oldest surviving document written in Old Romanian The oldest extant document written in Romanian remains Neacșu s letter 1521 and was written using the Romanian Cyrillic alphabet which was used until the late 19th century The letter is oldest testimony of Romanian epistolary style and uses a prevalent lexis of Romanic origin 16 In Palia de la Orăștie 1582 first known translation from the Bible in Romanian stands written we printed in the Romanian language The Five Books of Moses and we gift them to you Romanian brothers 17 The use of the denomination Romanian romană for the language and use of the demonym Romanians Romani for speakers of this language predates the foundation of the modern Romanian state Romanians always used the general term ruman roman or regional terms like ardeleni or ungureni moldoveni or munteni to designate themselves Both the name of rumană or rumaniască for the Romanian language and the self designation ruman roman are attested as early as the 16th century by various foreign travelers into the Carpathian Romance speaking space 18 as well as in other historical documents written in Romanian at that time such as Cronicile Țării Moldovei ro The Chronicles of the land of Moldova by Grigore Ureche An attested reference to Romanian comes from a Latin title of an oath made in 1485 by the Moldavian Prince Stephen the Great to the Polish King Casimir in which it is reported that Haec Inscriptio ex Valachico in Latinam versa est sed Rex Ruthenica Lingua scriptam accepta This Inscription was translated from Valachian Romanian into Latin but the King has received it written in the Ruthenian language Slavic 19 20 In 1534 Tranquillo Andronico notes Valachi nunc se Romanos vocant The Wallachians are now calling themselves Romans 21 Francesco della Valle it writes in 1532 that Romanians are calling themselves Romans in their own language and he subsequently quotes the expression Sti Rominest for Știi Romanește Do you know Romanian 22 The Transylvanian Saxon Johann Lebel writes in 1542 that Vlachi call themselves Romuini 23 The Polish chronicler Stanislaw Orzechowski Orichovius notes in 1554 that In their language they call themselves Romini from the Romans while we call them Wallachians from the Italians 24 The Croatian prelate and diplomat Antun Vrancic recorded in 1570 that Vlachs in Transylvania Moldavia and Wallachia designate themselves as Romans 25 Pierre Lescalopier writes in 1574 that those who live in Moldavia Wallachia and the vast part of Transylvania consider themselves as true descendants of the Romans and call their language romanechte which is Roman 26 After travelling through Wallachia Moldavia and Transylvania Ferrante Capecci accounts in 1575 that the vallachian population of these regions call themselves romanesci romanești 27 In Letopisețul Țării Moldovei 17th century the Moldavian chronicler Grigore Ureche wrote In Transylvania there live not only Hungarians but also very many Saxons and Romanians everywhere around so much so that the country is inhabited more by Romanians than by Hungarians 28 Miron Costin in his De neamul moldovenilor 1687 while noting that Moldavians Wallachians and the Romanians living in the Kingdom of Hungary have the same origin says that although people of Moldavia call themselves Moldavians they name their language Romanian romanește instead of Moldavian moldovenește 29 The Transylvanian Hungarian Martin Szentivanyi in 1699 quotes the following Si noi sentem Rumeni We too are Romanians and Noi sentem di sange Rumena We are of Romanian blood 30 Notably Szentivanyi used Italian based spellings to try to write the Romanian words Dimitrie Cantemir in his Descriptio Moldaviae Berlin 1714 points out that the inhabitants of Moldavia Wallachia and Transylvania spoke the same language He notes however some differences in accent and vocabulary 31 Cantemir s work provides one of the earliest histories of the language in which he notes like Ureche before him the evolution from Latin and notices the Greek and Polish borrowings Additionally he introduces the idea that some words must have had Dacian roots Cantemir also notes that while the idea of a Latin origin of the language was prevalent in his time other scholars considered it to have derived from Italian The slow process of Romanian establishing itself as an official language used in the public sphere in literature and ecclesiastically began in the late 15th century and ended in the early decades of the 18th century by which time Romanian had begun to be regularly used by the Church The oldest Romanian texts of a literary nature are religious manuscripts Codicele Voronețean Psaltirea Scheiană translations of essential Christian texts These are considered either propagandistic results of confessional rivalries for instance between Lutheranism and Calvinism or as initiatives by Romanian monks stationed at Peri Monastery in Maramureș to distance themselves from the influence of the Mukacheve eparchy in Ukraine 32 Modern Romanian Edit Samuil Micu Klein The modern age of Romanian starts in 1780 with the printing in Vienna of a very important grammar book 15 titled Elementa linguae daco romanae sive valachicae The author of the book Samuil Micu Klein and the revisor Gheorghe Șincai both members of the Transylvanian School chose to use Latin as the language of the text and presented the phonetical and grammatical features of Romanian in comparison to its ancestor 33 The Modern age of Romanian language can be further divided into three phases pre modern or modernizing between 1780 and 1830 modern phase between 1831 and 1880 and contemporary from 1880 onwards Pre modern period Edit Beginning with the printing in 1780 of Elementa linguae daco romanae sive valachicae the pre modern phase was characterized by the publishing of school textbooks appearance of first normative works in Romanian numerous translations and the beginning of a conscious stage of re latinization of the language 15 Notable contributions besides that of the Transylvanian School are the activities of Gheorghe Lazăr founder of the first Romanian school and Ion Heliade Rădulescu The end of this period is marked by the first printing of magazines and newspapers in Romanian in particular Curierul Romanesc and Albina Romanească 34 Lithograph of a group portrait by Constantin Daniel Rosenthal showing Paris based revolutionaries during the early 1840s From left Rosenthal wearing a Phrygian cap C A Rosetti anonymous Wallachian Modern period Edit Starting from 1831 and lasting until 1880 the modern phase is characterized by the development of literary styles scientific administrative and belletristic It quickly reached a high point with the printing of Dacia Literară a journal founded by Mihail Kogălniceanu and representing a literary society which together with other publications like Propășirea and Gazeta de Transilvania spread the ideas of Romantic nationalism and later contributed to the formation of other societies that took part in the Revolutions of 1848 Their members and those that shared their views are collectively known in Romania as pașoptiști literally meaning of 48 a name that was extended to the literature and writers around this time such as Vasile Alecsandri Grigore Alexandrescu Nicolae Bălcescu Timotei Cipariu 35 Between 1830 and 1860 transitional alphabet s were used adding Latin letters to the Romanian Cyrillic alphabet In 1860 the Latin alphabet became official 36 citation needed by whom Following the unification of Moldavia and Wallachia further studies on the language were made culminating with the founding of Societatea Literară Romană on 1 April 1866 on the initiative of C A Rosetti an academic society that had the purpose of standardizing the orthography formalizing the grammar and via a dictionary vocabulary of the language and promoting literary and scientific publications This institution later became the Romanian Academy 37 Ion Creangă Contemporary period Edit The third phase of the modern age of Romanian language starting from 1880 and continuing to this day is characterized by the prevalence of the supradialectal form of the language standardized with the express contribution of the school system and Romanian Academy bringing a close to the process of literary language modernization and development of literary styles 11 It is distinguished by the activity of Romanian literature classics in its early decades Mihai Eminescu Ion Luca Caragiale Ion Creangă 38 The current orthography with minor reforms to this day and using Latin letters was fully implemented in 1881 regulated by the Romanian Academy on a fundamentally phonological principle with few morpho syntactic exceptions 39 Modern history of Romanian in Bessarabia Edit The first Romanian grammar was published in Vienna in 1780 40 Following the annexation of Bessarabia by Russia in 1812 Moldavian was established as an official language in the governmental institutions of Bessarabia used along with Russian 41 The publishing works established by Archbishop Gavril Bănulescu Bodoni were able to produce books and liturgical works in Moldavian between 1815 and 1820 42 Bessarabia during the 1812 1918 era witnessed the gradual development of bilingualism Russian continued to develop as the official language of privilege whereas Romanian remained the principal vernacular citation needed The period from 1905 to 1917 was one of increasing linguistic conflict with the re awakening of Romanian national consciousness citation needed In 1905 and 1906 the Bessarabian zemstva asked for the re introduction of Romanian in schools as a compulsory language and the liberty to teach in the mother language Romanian language At the same time Romanian language newspapers and journals began to appear such as Basarabia 1906 Viața Basarabiei 1907 Moldovanul 1907 Luminătorul 1908 Cuvint moldovenesc 1913 Glasul Basarabiei 1913 From 1913 the synod permitted that the churches in Bessarabia use the Romanian language Romanian finally became the official language with the Constitution of 1923 Historical grammar Edit Romanian has preserved a part of the Latin declension but whereas Latin had six cases from a morphological viewpoint Romanian has only three the nominative accusative genitive dative and marginally the vocative Romanian nouns also preserve the neuter gender although instead of functioning as a separate gender with its own forms in adjectives the Romanian neuter became a mixture of masculine and feminine The verb morphology of Romanian has shown the same move towards a compound perfect and future tense as the other Romance languages Compared with the other Romance languages during its evolution Romanian simplified the original Latin tense system 43 Geographic distribution EditSee also List of countries where Romanian is an official language and Romanian American Geographic distribution of Romanian Country Speakers Speakers native Country PopulationWorldWorld 0 33 23 623 890 7 035 000 000official Countries where Romanian is an official languageRomania 90 65 17 263 561 44 19 043 767Moldova 2 82 1 2 184 065 2 681 735Transnistria Moldova 3 33 0 156 600 475 665Vojvodina Serbia 1 32 29 512 1 931 809minority regional co official language Ukraine 5 0 8 327 703 48 457 000not official Other neighboring European states except for CIS where Romanian is not official Hungary 0 14 13 886 45 9 937 628Central Serbia 0 4 35 330 7 186 862Bulgaria 0 06 4 575 46 full citation needed 7 364 570114 050 000CISnot official Russia 1 0 06 92 675 47 142 856 536Kazakhstan 1 0 1 14 666 14 953 126AsiaIsrael 1 11 82 300 48 7 412 200UAE 0 1 5 000 citation needed 4 106 427Singapore 0 02 1 400 citation needed 5 535 000Japan 0 002 2 185 citation needed 126 659 683South Korea 0 0006 300 citation needed 50 004 441China 0 0008 12 000 citation needed 1 376 049 000The Americasnot official United States 0 049 154 625 49 315 091 138Canada 0 0289 100 610 50 34 767 250Argentina 0 03 13 000 citation needed 40 117 096Venezuela 0 036 10 000 citation needed 27 150 095Brazil 0 002 4 000 citation needed 190 732 694Oceanianot official Australia 0 09 12 251 51 21 507 717New Zealand 0 08 3 100 citation needed 4 027 947Africanot official South Africa 0 007 3 000 citation needed 44 819 7781 Many are Moldavians who were deported2 Data only for the districts on the right bank of Dniester without Transnistria and the city of Tighina In Moldova it is sometimes referred to as the Moldovan language 3 In Transnistria it is officially called Moldovan language and is written in Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet 4 Officially divided into Vlachs and Romanians5 Most in Northern Bukovina and Southern Bessarabia according to a Moldova Noastră study based on the latest Ukrainian census 52 Romanian is spoken mostly in Central South Eastern and Eastern Europe although speakers of the language can be found all over the world mostly due to emigration of Romanian nationals and the return of immigrants to Romania back to their original countries Romanian speakers account for 0 5 of the world s population 53 and 4 of the Romance speaking population of the world 54 Romanian is the single official and national language in Romania and Moldova although it shares the official status at regional level with other languages in the Moldovan autonomies of Gagauzia and Transnistria Romanian is also an official language of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina in Serbia along with five other languages Romanian minorities are encountered in Serbia Timok Valley Ukraine Chernivtsi and Odessa oblasts and Hungary Gyula Large immigrant communities are found in Italy Spain France and Portugal In 1995 the largest Romanian speaking community in the Middle East was found in Israel where Romanian was spoken by 5 of the population 55 56 Romanian is also spoken as a second language by people from Arabic speaking countries who have studied in Romania It is estimated that almost half a million Middle Eastern Arabs studied in Romania during the 1980s 57 Small Romanian speaking communities are to be found in Kazakhstan and Russia Romanian is also spoken within communities of Romanian and Moldovan immigrants in the United States Canada and Australia although they do not make up a large homogeneous community statewide Legal status Edit In Romania Edit According to the Constitution of Romania of 1991 as revised in 2003 Romanian is the official language of the Republic 58 Romania mandates the use of Romanian in official government publications public education and legal contracts Advertisements as well as other public messages must bear a translation of foreign words 59 while trade signs and logos shall be written predominantly in Romanian 60 The Romanian Language Institute Institutul Limbii Romane established by the Ministry of Education of Romania promotes Romanian and supports people willing to study the language working together with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Department for Romanians Abroad 61 Since 2013 the Romanian Language Day is celebrated on every 31 August 62 63 In Moldova Edit Main article Moldovan language Romanian is the official language of the Republic of Moldova The 1991 Declaration of Independence names the official language Romanian 64 65 The Constitution of Moldova names the state language of the country Moldovan In December 2013 a decision of the Constitutional Court of Moldova ruled that the Declaration of Independence takes precedence over the Constitution and the state language should be called Romanian 66 Scholars agree that Moldovan and Romanian are the same language with the glottonym Moldovan used in certain political contexts 67 It has been the sole official language since the adoption of the Law on State Language of the Moldavian SSR in 1989 68 This law mandates the use of Moldovan in all the political economic cultural and social spheres as well as asserting the existence of a linguistic Moldo Romanian identity 69 It is also used in schools mass media education and in the colloquial speech and writing Outside the political arena the language is most often called Romanian In the breakaway territory of Transnistria it is co official with Ukrainian and Russian In the 2014 census out of the 2 804 801 people living in Moldova 24 652 394 stated Romanian as their most common language whereas 56 stated Moldovan While in the urban centers speakers are split evenly between the two names with the capital Chișinău showing a strong preference for the name Romanian i e 3 2 in the countryside hardly a quarter of Romanian Moldovan speakers indicated Romanian as their native language 70 Unofficial results of this census first showed a stronger preference for the name Romanian however the initial reports were later dismissed by the Institute for Statistics which led to speculations in the media regarding the forgery of the census results 71 In Serbia Edit Main article Romanian language in Serbia Vojvodina Edit Official usage of Romanian language in Vojvodina Serbia Romanian language in entire Serbia see also Romanians in Serbia census 2002 1 5 5 10 10 15 15 25 25 35 over 35 The Constitution of the Republic of Serbia determines that in the regions of the Republic of Serbia inhabited by national minorities their own languages and scripts shall be officially used as well in the manner established by law 72 The Statute of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina determines that together with the Serbian language and the Cyrillic script and the Latin script as stipulated by the law the Croat 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 in the manner established by the law 73 74 The bodies of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina are the Assembly the Executive Council and the provincial administrative bodies The Romanian language and script are officially used in eight municipalities Alibunar Bela Crkva Romanian Biserica Albă Zitiste Zitiște Zrenjanin Zrenianin Kovacica Kovăcița Kovin Cuvin Plandiste Plandiște and Secanj In the municipality of Vrsac Varșeț Romanian is official only in the villages of Vojvodinci Voivodinț Markovac Marcovăț Straza Straja Mali Zam Jamu Mic Malo Srediste Srediștea Mică Mesic Mesici Jablanka Socica Sălcița Ritisevo Ratișor Oresac Oreșaț and Kustilj Coștei 75 In the 2002 Census the last carried out in Serbia 1 5 of Vojvodinians stated Romanian as their native language Timok Valley Edit The Vlachs of Serbia are considered to speak Romanian as well 76 Regional language status in Ukraine Edit In parts of Ukraine where Romanians constitute a significant share of the local population districts in Chernivtsi Odessa and Zakarpattia oblasts Romanian is taught in schools as a primary language and there are Romanian language newspapers TV and radio broadcasting 77 78 The University of Chernivtsi in western Ukraine trains teachers for Romanian schools in the fields of Romanian philology mathematics and physics 79 In Hertsa Raion of Ukraine as well as in other villages of Chernivtsi Oblast and Zakarpattia Oblast Romanian has been declared a regional language alongside Ukrainian as per the 2012 legislation on languages in Ukraine In other countries and organizations Edit See also Romanian diaspora Romanian is an official or administrative language in various communities and organisations such as the Latin Union and the European Union Romanian is also one of the five languages in which religious services are performed in the autonomous monastic state of Mount Athos spoken in the monastic communities of Prodromos and Lakkoskiti In the unrecognised state of Transnistria Moldovan is one of the official languages However unlike all other dialects of Romanian this variety of Moldovan is written in Cyrillic script Distribution of first language native Romanian speakers by country Voivodina is an autonomous province of northern Serbia bordering Romania while Altele means Other As a second and foreign language Edit Romanian is taught in some areas that have Romanian minority communities such as Vojvodina in Serbia Bulgaria Ukraine and Hungary The Romanian Cultural Institute ICR has since 1992 organised summer courses in Romanian for language teachers 80 There are also non Romanians who study Romanian as a foreign language for example the Nicolae Bălcescu High school in Gyula Hungary Romanian is taught as a foreign language in tertiary institutions mostly in European countries such as Germany France and Italy and the Netherlands as well as in the United States Overall it is taught as a foreign language in 43 countries around the world 81 Romanian as secondary or foreign language in Central and Eastern Europe Native Above 3 1 3 Under 1 N A Popular culture Edit Romanian has become popular in other countries through movies and songs performed in the Romanian language Examples of Romanian acts that had a great success in non Romanophone countries are the bands O Zone with their No 1 single Dragostea Din Tei Numa Numa across the world in 2003 2004 Akcent popular in the Netherlands Poland and other European countries Activ successful in some Eastern European countries DJ Project popular as clubbing music SunStroke Project known by viral video Epic sax guy and Alexandra Stan worldwide no 1 hit with Mr Saxobeat and Inna as well as high rated movies like 4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days The Death of Mr Lazarescu 12 08 East of Bucharest or California Dreamin all of them with awards at the Cannes Film Festival Also some artists wrote songs dedicated to the Romanian language The multi platinum pop trio O Zone originally from Moldova released a song called Nu mă las de limba noastră I won t forsake our language The final verse of this song Eu nu mă las de limba noastră de limba noastră cea romană is translated in English as I won t forsake our language our Romanian language Also the Moldovan musicians Doina and Ion Aldea Teodorovici performed a song called The Romanian language Dialects Edit Main article Romanian dialects Romanian is also called Daco Romanian in comparative linguistics to distinguish from the other dialects of Common Romanian Aromanian Megleno Romanian and Istro Romanian The origin of the term Daco Romanian can be traced back to the first printed book of Romanian grammar in 1780 40 by Samuil Micu and Gheorghe Șincai There the Romanian dialect spoken north of the Danube is called lingua Daco Romana to emphasize its origin and its area of use which includes the former Roman province of Dacia although it is spoken also south of the Danube in Dobruja the Timok Valley and northern Bulgaria This article deals with the Romanian i e Daco Romanian language and thus only its dialectal variations are discussed here The differences between the regional varieties are small limited to regular phonetic changes few grammar aspects and lexical particularities There is a single written and spoken standard literary Romanian language used by all speakers regardless of region Like most natural languages Romanian dialects are part of a dialect continuum The dialects of Romanian are also referred to as sub dialects and are distinguished primarily by phonetic differences Romanians themselves speak of the differences as accents or speeches in Romanian accent or grai 82 Depending on the criteria used for classifying these dialects fewer or more are found ranging from 2 to 20 although the most widespread approaches give a number of five dialects These are grouped into two main types southern and northern further divided as follows The southern type has only one member the Wallachian dialect spoken in the southern part of Romania in the historical regions of Muntenia Oltenia and the southern part of Northern Dobruja but also extending in the southern parts of Transylvania The northern type consists of several dialects the Moldavian dialect spoken in the historical region of Moldavia now split among Romania the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine Bukovina and Bessarabia as well as northern part of Northern Dobruja the Banat dialect spoken in the historical region of Banat including parts of Serbia a group of finely divided and transition like Transylvanian varieties among which two are most often distinguished those of Crișana and Maramureș Over the last century however regional accents have been weakened due to mass communication and greater mobility Some argots and speech forms have also arisen from the Romanian language Examples are the Gumuțeasca spoken in Mărgău 83 84 and the Totoiana an inverted version of Romanian spoken in Totoi 85 86 87 Classification EditRomance language Edit See also Romance languages Romanian language in the Romance language family Romanian is a Romance language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo European language family having much in common with languages such as Italian Spanish French and Portuguese 88 Compared with the other Romance languages the closest relative of Romanian is Italian 88 Romanian has had a greater share of foreign influence than some other Romance languages such as Italian in terms of vocabulary and other aspects A study conducted by Mario Pei in 1949 which analyzed the degree of differentiation of languages from their parental language in the case of Romance languages to Latin comparing phonology inflection discourse syntax vocabulary and intonation produced the following percentages the higher the percentage the greater the distance from Latin 89 Sardinian 8 Italian 12 Spanish 20 Romanian 23 5 Occitan 25 Portuguese 31 French 44 The lexical similarity of Romanian with Italian has been estimated at 77 followed by French at 75 Sardinian 74 Catalan 73 Portuguese and Rhaeto Romance 72 Spanish 71 90 The Romanian vocabulary became predominantly influenced by French and to a lesser extent Italian in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries 91 Balkan language area Edit While most of Romanian grammar and morphology are based on Latin there are some features that are shared only with other languages of the Balkans and not found in other Romance languages The shared features of Romanian and the other languages of the Balkan language area Bulgarian Macedonian Albanian Greek and Serbo Croatian include a suffixed definite article the syncretism of genitive and dative case and the formation of the future and the alternation of infinitive with subjunctive constructions 92 93 According to a well established scholarly theory most Balkanisms could be traced back to the development of the Balkan Romance languages these features were adopted by other languages due to language shift 94 Slavic influence Edit Main article Slavic influence on Romanian Slavic influence on Romanian is especially noticeable in its vocabulary with words of Slavic origin constituting about 10 15 of modern Romanian lexicon 95 96 and with further influences in its phonetics morphology and syntax The greater part of its Slavic vocabulary comes from Old Church Slavonic 97 98 which was the official written language of Wallachia and Moldavia from the 14th to the 18th century although not understood by most people as well as the liturgical language of the Romanian Orthodox Church 99 100 As a result much Romanian vocabulary dealing with religion ritual and hierarchy is Slavic 101 99 The number of high frequency Slavic derived words is also believed to indicate contact or cohabitation with South Slavic tribes from around the 6th century though it is disputed where this took place see Origin of the Romanians 99 Words borrowed in this way tend to be more vernacular compare sfarși to end with săvarși to commit 101 The extent of this borrowing is such that some scholars once mistakenly viewed Romanian as a Slavic language 102 103 104 It has also been argued that Slavic borrowing was a key factor in the development of ɨ i and a as a separate phoneme 105 Other influences Edit Even before the 19th century Romanian came in contact with several other languages Notable examples of lexical borrowings include German cartof lt Kartoffel potato bere lt Bier beer șurub lt Schraube screw turn lt Turm tower ramă lt Rahmen frame muștiuc lt Mundstuck mouth piece bormașină lt Bohrmaschine drilling machine cremșnit lt Kremschnitte cream slice șvaițer lt Schweizer Swiss cheese șlep lt Schleppkahn barge șpriț lt Spritzer wine with soda water abțibild lt Abziehbild decal picture șnițel lt Wiener Schnitzel a battered cutlet șmecher lt Schmecker taster not interested in buying șuncă lt dialectal Schunke Schinken ham punct lt Punkt point maistru lt Meister master rundă lt Runde round Furthermore during the Habsburg and later on Austrian rule of Banat Transylvania and Bukovina a large number of words were borrowed from Austrian High German in particular in fields such as the military administration social welfare economy etc 106 Subsequently German terms have been taken out of science and technics like șină lt Schiene rail știft lt Stift peg liță lt Litze braid șindrilă lt Schindel shingle ștanță lt Stanze punch șaibă lt Scheibe washer ștangă lt Stange crossbar țiglă lt Ziegel tile șmirghel lt Schmirgelpapier emery paper Greek folos lt ofelos use buzunar lt buzunara pocket proaspăt lt prosfatos fresh cutie lt cution box portocale lt portokalia oranges While Latin borrowed words of Greek origin Romanian obtained Greek loanwords on its own Greek entered Romanian through the apoikiai colonies and emporia trade stations founded in and around Dobruja through the presence of Byzantine Empire in north of the Danube through Bulgarian during Bulgarian Empires that converted Romanians to Orthodox Christianity and after the Greek Civil War when thousands of Greeks fled Greece Hungarian a cheltui lt kolteni to spend a făgădui lt fogadni to promise a mantui lt menteni to save oraș lt varos city Turkish papuc lt pabuc slipper ciorbă lt corba wholemeal soup sour soup bacșiș lt bahsis tip ultimately from Persian baksheesh Additionally the Romani language has provided a series of slang words to Romanian such as mișto good beautiful cool lt misto 107 gagică girlie girlfriend lt gadji a hali to devour lt halo mandea yours truly lt mande a mangli to pilfer lt manglo French Italian and English loanwords Edit Further information Re latinization of Romanian Since the 19th century many literary or learned words were borrowed from the other Romance languages especially from French and Italian for example birou desk office avion airplane exploata exploit It was estimated that about 38 of words in Romanian are of French and or Italian origin in many cases both languages and adding this to Romanian s native stock about 75 85 of Romanian words can be traced to Latin The use of these Romanianized French and Italian learned loans has tended to increase at the expense of Slavic loanwords many of which have become rare or fallen out of use As second or third languages French and Italian themselves are better known in Romania than in Romania s neighbors Along with the switch to the Latin alphabet in Moldova the re latinization of the vocabulary has tended to reinforce the Latin character of the language In the process of lexical modernization much of the native Latin stock have acquired doublets from other Romance languages thus forming a further and more modern and literary lexical layer Typically the native word is a noun and the learned loan is an adjective Some examples of doublets Latin and native doublets in Romanian Latin Native stock Learned loanagilis quick ager astute agil agile lt French Italian agile aqua apă water acvatic aquatic lt Fr aquatique dens dentem dinte tooth dentist dentist lt Fr dentiste It dentista directus drept straight right direct direct lt Fr direct frigidus cold adj frig cold noun frigid frigid lt Fr frigide rapidus repede quick rapid quick lt Fr rapide It rapido In the 20th century an increasing number of English words have been borrowed such as gem lt jam interviu lt interview meci lt match manager lt manager fotbal lt football sandviș lt sandwich bișniță lt business chec lt cake veceu lt WC tramvai lt tramway These words are assigned grammatical gender in Romanian and handled according to Romanian rules thus the manager is managerul Some borrowings for example in the computer field appear to have awkward perhaps contrived and ludicrous Romanisation such as cookie uri which is the plural of the Internet term cookie Lexis Edit Romanian s core lexicon 2 581 words Marius Sala VRLR 1988 Main article Romanian lexis A statistical analysis sorting Romanian words by etymological source carried out by Macrea 1961 97 based on the DLRM 108 49 649 words showed the following makeup 98 43 recent Romance loans mainly French 38 42 Latin 2 39 Italian 1 72 20 inherited Latin 11 5 Slavic Old Church Slavonic 7 98 Bulgarian 1 78 Bulgarian Serbian 1 51 8 31 Unknown unclear origin 3 62 Turkish 2 40 Modern Greek 2 17 Hungarian 1 77 German including Austrian High German 106 2 24 OnomatopoeicIf the analysis is restricted to a core vocabulary of 2 500 frequent semantically rich and productive words then the Latin inheritance comes first followed by Romance and classical Latin neologisms whereas the Slavic borrowings come third Romanian has a lexical similarity of 77 with Italian 75 with French 74 with Sardinian 73 with Catalan 72 with Portuguese and Rheto Romance 71 with Spanish 109 German based influence and English loanwordsRomanian according to word origin 95 110 Romance and Latin 78 Slavic 14 Germanic a 2 54 Greek 1 7 Others 5 49 Although they are rarely used nowadays the Romanian calendar used to have the traditional Romanian month names unique to the language 111 The longest word in Romanian is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcaniconioză with 44 letters 112 but the longest one admitted by the Dicționarul explicativ al limbii romane Explanatory Dictionary of the Romanian Language DEX is electroglotospectrografie with 25 letters 113 114 Grammar EditMain article Romanian grammar Romanian nouns are characterized by gender feminine masculine and neuter and declined by number singular and plural and case nominative accusative dative genitive and vocative The articles as well as most adjectives and pronouns agree in gender number and case with the noun they modify Romanian is the only Romance language where definite articles are enclitic that is attached to the end of the noun as in Scandinavian Bulgarian and Albanian instead of in front proclitic 115 They were formed as in other Romance languages from the Latin demonstrative pronouns As in all Romance languages Romanian verbs are highly inflected for person number tense mood and voice The usual word order in sentences is subject verb object SVO Romanian has four verbal conjugations which further split into ten conjugation patterns Verbs can be put in five moods that are inflected for the person indicative conditional optative imperative subjunctive and presumptive and four impersonal moods infinitive gerund supine and participle Phonology EditMain article Romanian phonology Romanian has seven vowels i ɨ u e e o and a Additionally o and y may appear in some borrowed words Arguably the diphthongs e a and o a are also part of the phoneme set There are twenty two consonants The two approximants j and w can appear before or after any vowel creating a large number of glide vowel sequences which are strictly speaking not diphthongs In final positions after consonants a short i can be deleted surfacing only as the palatalization of the preceding consonant e g mʲ Similarly a deleted u may prompt labialization of a preceding consonant though this has ceased to carry any morphological meaning Phonetic changes Edit Main article Latin to Romanian sound changes Owing to its isolation from the other Romance languages the phonetic evolution of Romanian was quite different but the language does share a few changes with Italian such as kl kj Lat clarus Rom chiar Ital chiaro Lat clamare Rom chemare Ital chiamare and ɡl ɡj Lat glacia glacies Rom gheață Ital ghiaccia ghiaccio Lat ungla ungula Rom unghie Ital unghia although this did not go as far as it did in Italian with other similar clusters Rom place Ital piace another similarity with Italian is the change from ke or ki to tʃe or tʃi Lat pax pacem Rom and Ital pace Lat dulcem Rom dulce Ital dolce Lat circus Rom cerc Ital circo and ɡe or ɡi to dʒe or dʒi Lat gelu Rom ger Ital gelo Lat marginem Rom and Ital margine Lat gemere Rom geme gemere Ital gemere There are also a few changes shared with Dalmatian such as ɡn probably phonetically ŋn mn Lat cognatus Rom cumnat Dalm comnut and ks ps in some situations Lat coxa Rom coapsă Dalm copsa Among the notable phonetic changes are diphthongization of e and o ea and oa before ă or e as well in the case of o in the next syllable Lat cera Rom ceară wax Lat sole Rom soare sun iotation e ie in the beginning of the wordLat herba Rom iarbă grass herb velar k ɡ labial p b m before alveolar consonants and w e g ngu mb Lat octo Rom opt eight Lat lingua Rom limbă tongue language Lat signum Rom semn sign Lat coxa Rom coapsă thigh rhotacism l r between vowelsLat caelum Rom cer sky Alveolars d t assibilated to d z ts when before short e or long iː Lat deus Rom zeu god Lat tenem Rom ține hold Romanian has entirely lost Latin kw qu turning it either into p Lat quattuor Rom patru four cf It quattro or k Lat quando Rom cand when Lat quale Rom care which In fact in modern re borrowings while isolated cases of kw exist as in cuaternar quaternary it usually takes the German like form kv as in acvatic aquatic Notably it also failed to develop the palatalised sounds ɲ and ʎ which exist at least historically in all other major Romance languages and even in neighbouring non Romance languages such as Serbian and Hungarian However the other Eastern Romance languages kept these sounds so it s likely old Romanian had them as well Writing system Edit Neacșu s letter is the oldest surviving document written in Romanian The first written record about a Romance language spoken in the Middle Ages in the Balkans is from 587 A Vlach muleteer accompanying the Byzantine army noticed that the load was falling from one of the animals and shouted to a companion Torna torna fratre meaning Return return brother Theophanes Confessor recorded it as part of a 6th century military expedition by Comentiolus and Priscus against the Avars and Slovenes 116 The oldest surviving written text in Romanian is a letter from late June 1521 117 in which Neacșu of Campulung wrote to the mayor of Brașov about an imminent attack of the Turks It was written using the Cyrillic alphabet like most early Romanian writings The earliest surviving writing in Latin script was a late 16th century Transylvanian text which was written with the Hungarian alphabet conventions A sample of Romanian written in the Romanian Cyrillic alphabet which was still in use in the early 19th century In the 18th century Transylvanian scholars noted the Latin origin of Romanian and adapted the Latin alphabet to the Romanian language using some orthographic rules from Italian recognized as Romanian s closest relative The Cyrillic alphabet remained in gradually decreasing use until 1860 when Romanian writing was first officially regulated In the Soviet Republic of Moldova the Russian derived Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet was used until 1989 when the Romanian Latin alphabet was introduced in the breakaway territory of Transnistria the Cyrillic alphabet remains in use 118 Romanian alphabet Edit Main articles Romanian alphabet and Romanian braille The Romanian alphabet is as follows Capital lettersA Ă A B C D E F G H I I J K L M N O P Q R S Ș T Ț U V W X Y ZLower case lettersa ă a b c d e f g h i i j k l m n o p q r s ș t ț u v w x y zPhonemes a e ɨ b k t ʃ d e e je f ɡ d ʒ h mute i j ʲ ɨ ʒ k l m n o o p k r s ʃ t t s u w v v w u ks ɡz j i z K Q W and Y not part of the native alphabet were officially introduced in the Romanian alphabet in 1982 and are mostly used to write loanwords like kilogram quasar watt and yoga The Romanian alphabet is based on the Latin script with five additional letters Ă A I Ș Ț Formerly there were as many as 12 additional letters but some of them were abolished in subsequent reforms Also until the early 20th century a breve marker was used which survives only in ă Today the Romanian alphabet is largely phonemic However the letters a and i both represent the same close central unrounded vowel ɨ A is used only inside words i is used at the beginning or the end of non compound words and in the middle of compound words Another exception from a completely phonetic writing system is the fact that vowels and their respective semivowels are not distinguished in writing In dictionaries the distinction is marked by separating the entry word into syllables for words containing a hiatus Stressed vowels also are not marked in writing except very rarely in cases where by misplacing the stress a word might change its meaning and if the meaning is not obvious from the context For example trei copii means three children while trei copii means three copies Pronunciation Edit A close shot of some keys with Romanian characters on the keyboard of a laptop See also Romanian alphabet I versus A h is not silent like in other Romance languages such as Spanish Italian Portuguese Catalan and French but represents the phoneme h except in the digraphs ch k and gh g see below j represents ʒ as in French Catalan or Portuguese the sound spelled with s in the English words vision pleasure treasure There are two letters with a comma below Ș and Ț which represent the sounds ʃ and t s However the allographs with a cedilla instead of a comma S and Ţ became widespread when pre Unicode and early Unicode character sets did not include the standard form A final orthographical i after a consonant often represents the palatalization of the consonant citation needed e g lup lup wolf vs lupi lupʲ wolves it is not pronounced like Italian lupi which also means wolves and is an example of the Slavic influence on Romanian citation needed ă represents the schwa e i and a both represent the sound ɨ In rapid speech for example in the name of the country the a sound may sound similar to a casual listener to the short schwa sound ă in fact Aromanian does merge the two writing them a but careful speakers will distinguish the sound The nearest equivalent is the vowel in the last syllable of the word Beatles for some English speakers or the second syllable of the word rhythm It is also roughly equivalent to European Portuguese ɨ the Polish y or the Russian y The letter e generally represents the mid front unrounded vowel e somewhat like in the English word set However the letter e is pronounced as je j sounds like y in you when it is the first letter of any form of the verb a fi to be or of a personal pronoun for instance este jeste is and el jel he 119 120 This addition of the semivowel j does not occur in more recent loans and their derivatives such as eră era electric electric etc Some words such as iepure hare formerly spelled epure are now written with the initial i to indicate the semivowel x represents either the phoneme sequence ks as in expresie expression or ɡz as in exemplu example as in English As in Italian the letters c and g represent the affricates tʃ and dʒ before i and e and k and ɡ elsewhere When k and ɡ are followed by vowels e and i or their corresponding semivowels or the final ʲ the digraphs ch and gh are used instead of c and g as shown in the table below Unlike Italian however Romanian uses ce and ge to write t ʃ and d ʒ before a central vowel instead of ci and gi Group Phoneme Pronunciation Examplesce ci tʃ ch in chest cheek cerc circle ceașcă cup cercel earring cină dinner ciocan hammer che chi k k in kettle kiss cheie key chelner waiter chioșc kiosk chitară guitar ureche ear ge gi dʒ j in jelly jigsaw ger frost gimnast gymnast gem jam girafă giraffe geantă bag ghe ghi ɡ g in get give ghețar glacier ghid guide ghindă acorn ghidon handle bar stingher lonely Punctuation and capitalization Edit Uses of punctuation peculiar to Romanian are The quotation marks use the Polish format in the format quote inside quote that is for a normal quotation and double angle symbols for a quotation inside a quotation Proper quotations which span multiple paragraphs do not start each paragraph with the quotation marks one single pair of quotation marks is always used regardless of how many paragraphs are quoted Dialogues are identified with quotation dashes The Oxford comma before and is considered incorrect red yellow and blue is the proper format Punctuation signs which follow a text in parentheses always follow the final bracket In titles only the first letter of the first word is capitalized the rest of the title using sentence capitalization with all its rules proper names are capitalized as usual etc Names of months and days are not capitalized ianuarie January joi Thursday Adjectives derived from proper names are not capitalized Germania Germany but german German Academy spelling recommendations Edit In 1993 new spelling rules were proposed by the Romanian Academy In 2000 the Moldovan Academy recommended adopting the same spelling rules 121 and in 2010 the Academy launched a schedule for the transition to the new rules that was intended to be completed by publications in 2011 122 On 17 October 2016 Minister of Education Corina Fusu signed Order No 872 adopting the revised spelling rules as recommended by the Moldovan Academy of Sciences coming into force on the day of signing due to be completed within two school years From this day the spelling as used by institutions subordinated to the ministry of education is in line with the Romanian Academy s 1993 recommendation This order however has no application to other government institutions and neither has Law 3462 of 1989 which provided for the means of transliterating of Cyrillic to Latin been amended to reflect these changes thus these institutions along with most Moldovans prefer to use the spelling adopted in 1989 when the language with Latin script became official Examples of Romanian text Edit All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood Universal Declaration of Human Rights dd The sentence in contemporary Romanian Words inherited directly from Latin are highlighted Toate ființele umane se nasc libere și egale in demnitate și in drepturi Ele sunt inzestrate cu rațiune și conștiință și trebuie să se comporte unele față de altele in spiritul fraternității The same sentence with French and Italian loanwords highlighted instead Toate ființele umane se nasc libere și egale in demnitate și in drepturi Ele sunt inzestrate cu rațiune și conștiință și trebuie să se comporte unele față de altele in spiritul fraternității The sentence rewritten to exclude French and Italian loanwords Slavic loanwords are highlighted Toate ființele omenești se nasc slobode și deopotrivă in destoinicie și in drepturi Ele sunt inzestrate cu ințelegere și cuget și trebuie să se poarte unele față de altele in duh de frățietate The sentence rewritten to exclude all loanwords The meaning is somewhat compromised due to the paucity of native vocabulary Toate ființele omenești se nasc nesupuse și asemenea in prețuire și in drepturi Ele sunt inzestrate cu ințelegere și cuget și se cuvine să se poarte unele față de altele după firea frăției See also Edit Romania portal Moldova portal Language portalAlbanian Romanian linguistic relationship Legacy of the Roman Empire Romanian lexis Romanianization Moldovan language BABEL Speech Corpus Controversy over ethnic and linguistic identity in Moldova Moldova Romania relationsNotes Edit The constitution of the Republic of Moldova refers to the country s language as Moldovan whilst the 1991 Declaration of Independence names the official language Romanian In December 2013 an official decision of the Constitutional Court of Moldova ruled that the Declaration of Independence takes precedence over the Constitution and that the state language is therefore Romanian not Moldovan Moldovan court rules official language is Romanian replacing Soviet flavored Moldovan References Edit limba romyne in Moldovan Cyrillic solely applied to a moderate extent nowadays in Moldova Romanian at Ethnologue 19th ed 2016 Romana Romania Union Latine in Romanian Pană Dindelegan Gabriela The Grammar of Romanian Oxford Oxford University Press 2013 ISBN 978 0 19 964492 6 page 1 Istoria limbii romane History of the Romanian Language II Academia Romană Bucharest 1969 Sala Marius 2012 De la Latină la Romană From Latin to Romanian Editura Pro Universitaria p 13 ISBN 978 606 647 435 1 Brancuș Grigore 2005 Introducere in istoria limbii romane Introduction to the History of Romanian Language Editura Fundaţiei Romania de Maine p 16 ISBN 973 725 219 5 Pană Dindelegan Gabriela The Grammar of Romanian Oxford Oxford University Press 2013 ISBN 978 0 19 964492 6 pages 3 and 4 Sala Marius 2012 De la Latină la Romană From Latin to Romanian Editura Pro Universitaria p 44 ISBN 978 606 647 435 1 Schulte Kim 2009 Loanwords in Romanian In Haspelmath Martin Tadmor Uri eds Loanwords in the World s Languages A Comparative Handbook De Gruyter Mouton pp 231 250 ISBN 978 3 11 021843 5 a b Pană Dindelegan Gabriela The Grammar of Romanian Oxford Oxford University Press 2013 ISBN 978 0 19 964492 6 page 5 Sala Marius 2012 De la Latină la Romană From Latin to Romanian Editura Pro Universitaria pp 63 64 ISBN 978 606 647 435 1 a b c d Petrucci 1999 p 4 Andreose amp Renzi 2013 p 287 a b c Pană Dindelegan Gabriela The Grammar of Romanian Oxford Oxford University Press 2013 ISBN 978 0 19 964492 6 page 4 Romanian letter writing a cultural rhetorical perspective scoasem pre limbă romanească 5 cărți ale lui Moisi prorocul și le dăruim voo fraților rumani Pamfil V 1968 Palia de la Orǎstie 1581 1582 text facsimile indice Bucuresti p 1 11 Ștefan Pascu Documente străine despre romani ed Arhivelor statului București 1992 ISBN 973 95711 2 3 Dahmen Wolfgang 2008 Externe Sprachgeschichte des Rumanischen In Ernst Gerhard Glessgen Martin Dietrich Schmitt Christian Schweickard Wolfgang eds Romanische Sprachgeschichte Ein internationales Handbuch zur Geschichte der romanischen Sprachen in German Vol 1 Berlin Walter de Gruyter p 738 ISBN 978 3 11 014694 3 Tomescu Mircea 1968 Istoria cărții romanești de la inceputuri pană la 1918 in Romanian București Editura Științifică p 40 Tranquillo Andronico in Endre Veress Fontes rerum transylvanicarum Erdelyi tortenelmi forrasok Tortenettudomanyi Intezet Magyar Tudomanyos Akademia Budapest 1914 S 204 si dimandano in lingua loro Romei se alcuno dimanda se sano parlare in la lingua valacca dicono a questo in questo modo Sti Rominest Che vol dire Sai tu Romano Claudiu Isopescu Notizie intorno ai romeni nella letteratura geografica italiana del Cinquecento Bulletin de la Section Historique XVI 1929 pp 1 90 Ex Vlachi Valachi Romanenses Italiani Quorum reliquae Romanensi lingua utuntur Solo Romanos nomine sine re repraesentantes Ideirco vulgariter Romuini sunt appelanti Ioannes Lebelius De opido Thalmus Carmen Istoricum Cibinii 1779 pp 11 12 qui eorum lingua Romini ab Romanis nostra Walachi ab Italis appellantur St Orichovius Annales polonici ab excessu Sigismundi in I Dlugossus Historiae polonicae vol XII col 1555 Valacchi qui se Romanos nominant Gens quae ear terras Transsylvaniam Moldaviam et Transalpinam nostra aetate incolit Valacchi sunt eaque a Romania ducit originem tametsi nomine longe alieno De situ Transsylvaniae Moldaviae et Transaplinae in Monumenta Hungariae Historica Scriptores II Pesta 1857 p 120 Tout ce pays la Wallachie la Moldavie et la plus part de la Transylvanie a este peuple des colonies romaines du temps de Trajan l empereur Ceux du pays se disent vrais successeurs des Romains et nomment leur parler romanechte c est a dire romain Voyage fait par moy Pierre Lescalopier l an 1574 de Venise a Constantinople in Paul Cernovodeanu Studii și materiale de istorie medievală IV 1960 p 444 Anzi essi si chiamano romanesci e vogliono molti che erano mandati qui quei che erano dannati a cavar metalli Maria Holban Călători străini despre Țările Romane Bucharest Editura Stiințifică 1970 vol II pp 158 161 In ţara Ardealului nu lăcuiescu numai unguri ce si sasi peste samă de mulţi si romani peste tot locul de mai multu i ţara lăţită de romani decat de unguri Grigore Ureche Letopisețul Țării Moldovei pp 133 134 Constantiniu Florin O istorie sinceră a poporului roman An honest history of the Romanian people Univers Enciclopedic Bucharest 1997 ISBN 97 3924 307 X p 175 Valachos dicunt enim communi modo loquendi Sie noi sentem Rumeni etiam nos sumus Romani Item Noi sentem di sange Rumena Nos sumus de sanguine Romano Martinus Szent Ivany Dissertatio Paralimpomenica rerum memorabilium Hungariae Tyrnaviae 1699 p 39 From Descriptio Moldaviae Valachiae et Transylvaniae incolis eadem est cum Moldavis lingua pronunciatio tamen rudior ut dziur Vlachus proferet zur jur per z polonicum sive j gallicum Dumnedzeu Deus val Dumnezeu akmu nunc val akuma aczela hic val ahela Munteanu Eugen Dinamica istorică a cultivării instituţionalizate a limbii romane Revista romană in Iași vol IV no 4 34 December 2003 p 6 I no 1 35 March 2004 p 7 II no 2 June 2004 p 6 III no 3 October 2004 p 6 IV no 4 38 December 2004 p 6 V Retrieved 11 May 2016 N Felecan Considerations on the First Books of Romanian Grammar Michael J F Suarez H R Woudhuysen 24 October 2013 The Book A Global History OUP Oxford pp 753 ISBN 978 0 19 166875 3 Retrieved 30 June 2016 Sala Marius 2012 De la Latină la Romană From Latin to Romanian Editura Pro Universitaria p 159 ISBN 978 606 647 435 1 Pană Dindelegan Gabriela ed Maiden Martin consultant ed The Grammar of Romanian Oxford Oxford University Press 2013 ISBN 978 0 19 964492 6 p 5 History of Romanian Academy Sala Marius 2012 De la Latină la Romană From Latin to Romanian Editura Pro Universitaria p 160 ISBN 978 606 647 435 1 Pană Dindelegan Gabriela The Grammar of Romanian Oxford Oxford University Press 2013 ISBN 978 0 19 964492 6 page 5 a b Micu Samuil Șincai Gheorghe 1780 Elementa linguae daco romanae sive valachicae in Latin Vienna in Russian Charter for the organization of the Bessarabian Oblast 29 April 1818 in Pechataetsya po izdaniyu Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossijskoj imperii Sobranie pervoe Vol 35 1818 Sankt Petersburg 1830 pg 222 227 Available online at hrono info King Charles 2000 The Moldovans Romania Russia and the Politics of Culture Stanford CA Hoover Institution Press pp 21 22 ISBN 08 1799 792 X D hulst Yves Coene Martine Avram Larisa 2004 Syncretic and Analytic Tenses in Romanian The Balkan Setting of Romance In Miseska Tomic Olga ed Balkan Syntax and Semantics Amsterdam John Benjamins Publishing p 355 doi 10 1075 la 67 18dhu ISBN 978 90 272 2790 4 general absence of consecutio temporum Archived copy PDF Archived from the original PDF on 25 February 2021 Retrieved 26 August 2012 a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a CS1 maint archived copy as title link Hungarian Census 2011 PDF Archived from the original PDF on 17 July 2019 Retrieved 2 April 2013 Ethnologue com 2010 Russia Census Archived 22 April 2021 at the Wayback Machine Perepis 2010 Jews by Country of Origin 1 and Age CBS Statistical Abstract of Israel 2013 Israel Central Bureau of Statistics Archived from the original PDF on 4 March 2016 Bureau US Census Detailed Languages Spoken at Home and Ability to Speak English for the Population 5 Years and Over 2009 2013 Census gov Retrieved 12 May 2022 Government of Canada Statistics Canada 2 August 2017 Mother Tongue 263 Single and Multiple Mother Tongue Responses 3 Age 7 and Sex 3 for the Population Excluding Institutional Residents of Canada Provinces and Territories Census Divisions and Census Subdivisions 2016 Census 100 Data www12 statcan gc ca Retrieved 12 May 2022 Statistics c AU o Commonwealth of Australia ou Australian Bureau of Redirect to Census data page www abs gov au RDSCJ ro Archived 22 March 2008 at the Wayback Machine Latin Union Languages and cultures online 2005 Dtil unilat org Archived from the original on 28 January 2011 Retrieved 23 May 2010 Languages Spoken by More Than 10 Million People MSN Encarta Archived from the original on 29 October 2009 According to the 1993 Statistical Abstract of Israel there were 250 000 Romanian speakers in Israel of a population of 5 548 523 in 1995 census Reports of about 300 000 Jews that left the country after WW2 Eurojewcong org Archived from the original on 31 August 2006 Retrieved 23 May 2010 Laslau Andi 27 April 2005 Arabii din Romania radiografie completa Evz ro in Romanian Archived from the original on 24 December 2007 Retrieved 23 May 2010 Constitution of Romania Cdep ro Retrieved 23 May 2010 Legea Pruteanu 500 2004 Law on the Protection of the Romanian Language Art 27 3 Legea nr 26 1990 privind Registrul Comerțului Ministry of Education of Romania Archived from the original on 29 June 2006 Retrieved 19 April 2006 31 august Ziua Limbii Romane Agerpres in Romanian 31 August 2020 De ce este sărbătorită Ziua Limbii Romane la 31 august Historia in Romanian 31 August 2020 Declarația de independența a Republicii Moldova Moldova Suverană in Romanian Moldova suverana md Archived from the original on 5 February 2008 Retrieved 9 October 2013 A Field Guide to the Main Languages of Europe Spot that language and how to tell them apart PDF European Commission Archived from the original PDF on 24 February 2007 Retrieved 9 October 2013 Moldovan Court Rules Official Language is Romanian Replacing Soviet Flavored Moldovan Fox News Associated Press 25 March 2015 Marian Lupu Romana și moldoveneasca sunt aceeași limbă Realitatea NET Archived from the original on 11 May 2011 Retrieved 7 October 2009 Dalby Andrew 1998 Dictionary of Languages Bloomsbury Publishing p 518 ISBN 07 4753 117 X Legea cu privire la functionarea limbilor vorbite pe teritoriul RSS Moldovenesti Nr 3465 XI din 01 09 89 Vestile nr 9 217 1989 Archived 19 February 2006 at the Wayback Machine Law regarding the usage of languages spoken on the territory of the Republic of Moldova Moldavian RSS supports the desire of the Moldavian that live across the borders of the Republic and considering the existing Moldo Romanian linguistic identity of the Romanians that live on the territory of the USSR of doing their studies and satisfying their cultural needs in their maternal language National Bureau of Statistics of the Republic of Moldova Census 2014 Biroul Național de Statistică acuzat că a falsificat rezultatele recensămantului Independent in Romanian 29 March 2017 Retrieved 27 February 2022 Official Gazette of Republic of Serbia No 1 90 Article 24 The Statute of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina published in the Official Gazette of AP Vojvodina No 20 2014 Official Use of Languages and Scripts in the AP Vojvodina Provincial Secretariat for Education Regulations Administration and National Minorities National Communities Retrieved 27 February 2022 Provincial Secretariat for Regulations Administration and National Minorities Official use of the Romanian language in the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina APV Sorescu Marinkovic Annemarie Huțanu Monica 2018 Non Dominant Varieties of Romanian in Serbia Between Pluricentricity and Division In Muhr Rudolf Meisnitzer Benjamin eds Pluricentric Languages and Non Dominant Varieties Worldwide New Pluricentric Languages Old Problems Frankfurt Peter Lang Verlag pp 233 246 hdl 21 15107 rcub dais 5795 via DAIS Digital Archive of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts Regionalnij portret Ukrayini 2003 r Chernivecka oblast Ukrainian Center for Independent Political Research Archived from the original on 30 September 2011 Retrieved 23 January 2006 Archived copy Archived from the original on 27 April 2012 Retrieved 23 January 2006 a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a CS1 maint archived copy as title link Internetovy casopis clovek a spolocnost www clovekaspolocnost sk Archived from the original on 14 May 2009 Kramar Andriy University of Chernivtsi Chnu cv ua Retrieved 23 May 2010 Cursuri de perfecționare Archived 25 February 2007 at the Wayback Machine Ziua 19 August 2005 Data concerning the teaching of the Romanian language abroad Archived 7 December 2010 at the Wayback Machine Romanian Language Institute Delyusto Maryna 2016 Mul tilingval nyy atlas mezhdurech ya Dnestra i Dunaya Istochniki i priyemy sozdaniya Multilingvalnyj atlas mezhdurechya Dnestra i Dunaya istochniki i priemy sozdaniya Multi Lingual Atlas of Dialects Spread Between the Danube and the Dniester Rivers Sources and Tools of Creation Journal of Danubian Studies and Research in Russian 6 1 362 369 Arjocu Florin 29 June 2020 Satul din Romania unde se vorbește o limbă secretă Tălăuzesti gumuțeasca Știri Romania in Romanian Florea Sorin 1 June 2020 Care este satul din Romania unde se vorbește o limbă secretă Shtiu in Romanian In localitatea Totoi județul Alba se vorbește o limbă specifică locului Realitatea TV in Romanian 19 January 2009 Arsenie Dan 9 December 2011 Totoiana messengerul de pe uliță Povestea unei limbi inventate de romani GreatNews ro in Romanian Limba intoarsă vorbită in Totoi Ziare com in Romanian 2 November 2009 a b Stoica Vasile 1919 The Roumanian Question The Roumanians and their Lands Pittsburgh Pittsburgh Printing Company p 50 Pei Mario 1949 Story of Language ISBN 03 9700 400 1 Ethnologue Romanian Sandiuc Corina 1 November 2014 Languages and cultures in contact The French language and the maritime terminology Diversitate Si Identitate Culturala in Europa 11 2 ISSN 2067 0931 Miseska Tomic Olga 2006 Balkan Sprachbund Morpho Syntactic Features Springer p 27 ISBN 978 1 4020 4487 8 Schulte Kim 2009 Loanwords in Romanian In Haspelmath Martin Tadmor Uri eds Loanwords in the World s Languages A Comparative Handbook De Gruyter Mouton pp 230 259 ISBN 978 3 11 021843 5 Lindstedt J 2000 Linguistic Balkanization Contact induced change by mutual reinforcement In D G Gilbers et al eds Languages in Contact Studies in Slavic and General Linguistics 28 Amsterdam amp Atlanta GA Rodopi p 235 ISBN 90 4201 322 2 a b Marius Sala coord Mihaela Birlădeanu Maria Iliescu Liliana Macarie Ioana Nichita Mariana Ploae Hanganu Maria Theban Ioana Vintilă Rădulescu Vocabularul reprezentativ al limbilor romanice VRLR Bucharest Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică 1988 Schulte Kim Loanwords in Romanian a href Template Cite journal html title Template Cite journal cite journal a Cite journal requires journal help dead link published in Martin Haspelmath Uri Tadmor 22 December 2009 Loanwords in the World s Languages A Comparative Handbook Walter de Gruyter p 243 ISBN 978 3 11 021844 2 a b Macrea Dimitrie 1961 Originea și structura limbii romane 7 45 Probleme de lingvistică romană in Romanian Bucharest Editura Științifică p 32 a b Pană Dindelegan Gabriela ed 2013 The Grammar of Romanian 1st ed Oxford University Press p 3 ISBN 9780199644926 a b c Keith Hitchins 20 February 2014 A Concise History of Romania Cambridge University Press p 19 ISBN 978 0 521 87238 6 Virginia Hill Gabriela Alboiu 2016 Verb Movement and Clause Structure in Old Romanian Oxford University Press p xv ISBN 978 0 19 873650 9 a b Bernard Comrie 13 January 2009 The World s Major Languages Routledge p 266 ISBN 978 1 134 26156 7 Millar Robert McColl Trask Larry 2015 Trask s Historical Linguistics Routledge p 292 ISBN 9781317541776 The Romance language Romanian has borrowed so many Slavonic words that scholars for a while believed it was a Slavonic language Boia Lucian 2001 Romania Borderland of Europe Reaktion Books ISBN 9781861891037 Emil Fischer 1904 Die Herkunft Der Rumanen Eine Historisch Linguistisch Etnographische Studie Handels Druckerei p 132 3 Margaret E L Renwick 2014 The Phonetics and Phonology of Contrast The Case of the Romanian Vowel System De Gruyter pp 44 5 ISBN 978 3 11 036277 0 a b Dama Hans 2006 Lexikale Einflusse im Rumanischen aus dem osterreichischen Deutsch Lexical influences of Austrian German on the Romanian language PDF Philologica Jassyensia in German 2 1 105 110 Archived from the original PDF on 22 March 2022 Retrieved 27 February 2022 Zafiu Rodica 2009 Mișto și legenda bastonului Romania literară in Romanian No 6 Archived from the original on 21 September 2018 Retrieved 21 September 2018 There is no doubt among linguists about the Romany etymology of the Romanian word mișto but a fairly widespread folk etymology and urban legend maintains that the German phrase mit Stock with stick would be its true origin Macrea Dimitrie ed 1958 Dicționarul limbii romane moderne in Romanian Bucharest Academia Romană Romanian Ethnologue Vocabularul reprezentativ diferă de vocabularul fundamental VF și de fondul principal lexical FP Cf SCL Studii și cercetări lingvistice an XXVII 1976 nr 1 p 61 66 și SCL 1974 nr 3 p 247 Cf Theodor Hristea Structura generală a lexicului romanesc Sinteze de limba romană eds Theodor Hristea coord Mioara Avram Grigore Brancuș Gheorghe Bulgăr Georgeta Ciompec Ion Diaconescu Rodica Bogza Irimie amp Flora Șuteu Bucharest 1984 13 Dicționarul explicativ al limbii romane Academia Romană Institutul de Lingvistică Iorgu Iordan Editura Univers Enciclopedic 1998 Bălhuc Paul 15 January 2017 Cate litere are cel mai lung cuvant din limba romană și care este singurul termen ce conține toate vocalele Adevărul in Romanian Electroglotospectrografie Dicționarul explicativ al limbii romane in Romanian Retrieved 10 February 2021 Curiozități lingvistice cele mai lungi cuvinte din limba romană Dicție ro in Romanian Retrieved 10 February 2021 Săvescu Oana 2012 When Syncretism Meets Word Order On Clitic Order in Romanian Probus 24 2 233 256 doi 10 1515 probus 2012 0010 S2CID 194568315 Baynes Thomas Spencer ed 1898 Vlachs Encyclopaedia Britannica A Dictionary of Arts Sciences and General Literature Vol 24 9th ed Edinburgh Adam and Charles Black p 269 Sarlin Mika 2014 Romanian Grammar 2nd ed Helsinki Books on Demand p 15 ISBN 9789522868985 Dyer Donald L 1999 Some Influences of Russian on the Romanian of Moldova during the Soviet Period The Slavic and East European Journal 43 1 85 98 doi 10 2307 309907 JSTOR 309907 in Romanian Several Romanian dictionaries specify the pronunciation je for word initial letter e in some personal pronouns el ei etc and in some forms of the verb a fi to be este eram etc in Romanian Mioara Avram Ortografie pentru toți Editura Litera Chișinău 1997 p 29 The new edition of Dicționarul ortografic al limbii romane ortoepic morfologic cu norme de punctuație introduced by the Academy of Sciences of Moldova and recommended for publishing following a conference on 15 November 2000 applies the decision of the General Meeting of the Romanian Academy from 17 February 1993 regarding the reintroduction to a and sunt in the orthography of the Romanian language Introduction Institute of Linguistics of the Academy of Sciences of Moldova Gheorghe Duca Trebuie schimbată atitudinea de sorginte proletară față de savanți și in genere față de intelectuali in Romanian Allmoldova 4 June 2010 Archived from the original on 22 July 2011 Retrieved 3 January 2011 Bibliography EditAndreose Alvise Renzi Lorenzo 2013 Geography and Distribution of the Romance Languages in Europe In Maiden Martin Smith John Charles Ledgeway Adam eds The Cambridge History of the Romance Languages Vol 2 Contexts Cambridge Cambridge University Press pp 283 334 ISBN 978 0 521 80073 0 Giurescu Constantin C 1972 The Making of the Romanian People and Language Bucharest Meridiane Kahl Thede ed 2009 Das Rumanische und seine Nachbarn in German Berlin Frank amp Timme Paliga Sorin 2010 When Could Be Dated the Earliest Slavic Borrowings in Romanian PDF Romanoslavica 46 4 101 119 Petrucci Peter R 1999 Slavic Features in the History of Rumanian Munchen LINCOM Europa ISBN 38 9586 599 0 Rosetti Alexandru 1965 1969 Istoria limbii romane in Romanian Vol 1 2 Bucuresti Editura stiinţifică Hinrichs Uwe ed 1999 Handbuch der Sudosteuropa Linguistik in German Wiesbaden Harrassowitz Verlag External links EditRomanian language at Curlie SAMPA for Romanian Romanian Reference Grammar by Dana Cojocaru University of Bucharest 183 pages 4 6 MB pdf USA Foreign Service Institute FSI Romanian basic course Romanian basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical DatabaseRomanian language at Wikipedia s sister projects Definitions from Wiktionary Media from Commons Textbooks from Wikibooks Resources from Wikiversity Phrasebook from Wikivoyage Romanian Edition from Wikipedia Data from Wikidata Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Romanian language amp oldid 1142923279, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

article

, read, download, free, free download, mp3, video, mp4, 3gp, jpg, jpeg, gif, png, picture, music, song, movie, book, game, games.