On the origins of Romanian language

The romanian language - I mean, the daco-romanian language wich is the romanian spoken at north of Danube - the language of romanian people doesn t have dialects. Just local particularityes, diferent vowels etc. A northern romanian - from Bucovina or Maramures and a southern romanian, from Oltenia, Bucharest or Giurgiu can perfectly understand each other.

Somebody can say " a few" or "many" romanian linguists considered that the romanian language have 4 or 5 sub-dialects but this is just an oppinion. nothing more. not a real scietific theory.

This post has been edited by Dan Po on September 03, 2005 07:54 pm

just be atentive at the period: 1955 - 1961. What is mean this ? Is mean an edge when all history was full with the historical friendly relations between romanians and eastern brothers, when the slavic heritage was higly overestimated.

This choice, to change the way to write the sound "a" from e.g the word "vanatoare" with "i" was a pollitical decision and not a scientifical one. So, in the comunist era, the word "vanatoare" was writen as "vinatoare". Just to change the latin stile with a more slavic one.

The difference between "Romania" and "Rominia" have the same reason. A politic one.

Its a scientific theory, Dan.

If you browse the thread you'll see that the theory is not forwarded by "somebody", but by the "Mic Dictionar de Terminologie Lingvistica" .

Most of the linguistic imports of 19th century was juridical, technical, administrative, medical, etc. For day to day life we was already well prepared with words

We choose to import those new words from french becouse the french was more close to the romanian sounds, and also becouse France was a great source of ispiration for all our modern institutions.
I will give you an example: The base of romanian juridical system is french. The romanian Civil Code from 1864 is basicaly a "lite" variant of the Naponeonian Code from 1807. The romanian constitution from 1866 - the very first romanian constitution - was close inspired by the belgian constitution. Also, the Civil procedure code, the Penal code, the Penal procedure code was all of them very owned to the french laws. So in this frech flood its very natural to have many latin - french words when we talk in romanian about law and stuff.

But the base of romanian language and the gramatical structure wasn t affected.

So is not proper to said that in 19th century the romanian language was re-latinisated, becouse we were already latinisated . Its more proper to use the term "modernisation". For a new era, for a new style of life and a new way of live - and I m talking here about the traslation from 2 otoman vassals to the modern Romania - new words was higly needed. The old romanian didn t have proper words for modern trade, for engineering, machinery etc becouse we wasn t a part of the modern world. Only after 1821 this proces of modernisation was started.

(off topic: and also, the proper term for my english is "romanisation" )

This post has been edited by Dan Po on September 04, 2005 01:37 am

Its a scientific theory, Dan.

If you browse the thread you'll see that the theory is not forwarded by "somebody", but by the "Mic Dictionar de Terminologie Lingvistica" .

I asume that I didn t browse enough this thread. But I m a natural born digger ....

I think best would be to take it from the start. Some things you mentioned have already been "covered" somewhat. And you'd be surprised of the intensity of this thread, really.
So better get it from the start.

take care

In the clear light of the Encyclopedia Britannica i have to re-think some of my previous words

Hi people! I haven't read everything posted here, so excuse me if I'm repeating what was already said. I just want to clarify this whole discution.

1) There are 4 Romanian dialects: Daco-Romanian, Istro-Romanian, Megleno-Romanian and Aromanian/Macedo-Romanian. The Daco-Romanian dialect is further divided into several "graiuri", sub-dialects. Between the 4 dialects there are many differences in grammar, words and, of course, accents. The only difference between the "graiuri" is the accent. It's the same language, with the same grammar and the same words, but pronounced with an accent. If this makes them dialects in their own right or not, I don't know. I'm not a proffesional linguist.

2) The Romanian language, for most of its history, changed much slower than the English language. Probably that's why Sid said he can't understand why there are no dialects on such a large area. The proof to my statement is the first document written in the Romanian language, the letter of Neacsu from Campulung. I can understand it perfectly, although it was written almost 500 years ago. On the other hand, Shakespear's language, although it's "only" 400 years old, is considerably different from the English language spoken today.

http://www.cimec.ro/Istorie/neacsu/eng/default.htm

And the Romanian version: http://www.cimec.ro/Istorie/neacsu/rom/scrisoare.htm

3) There was a movement in the XIXth century to "relatinise" the Romanian language, but it was not the only one and it ultimately failed. Its main effect was to eliminate the words of Slavic origin, but only when there was already a synonim of Latin origin. Ex: we had two words for the verb "to bless": a binecuvanta, of Latin origin; a blagoslovi, of Slavic origin; nowadays, everybody uses the first word, not the second. However, there weren't many such cases, so the effect was minimal. And notice that it didn't replace existing words with neologisms, the most it could do was to emphasize the use of a word which already existed in the romanian language.

4) Many new words entered the Romanian language in the XIXth century, but not because of a directive from above. The great majority appeared from two reasons: they described new objects or concepts; or they were simply "fashionable". Examples from the first category: creion (pencil), from the French word "crayon"; birou; stilou; tren; vagon; the great majority of the juridical words etc. Examples from the second category: "circumstanta", although we had "imprejurare" (I know the example was already given); "imediat", for which we had "de indata" etc.

In the first case, the new words were a necessity. If a Romanian student came home from Paris with a pencil and people asked him what was that thing, he could only name it: creion (pronounced like the french "crayon", but without a nasal 'n'). In the second case, it was probably just a snobism.

5) The large proportion of French loan-words is not necessarily due to the fact that it was a Romance language (although this factor certainly played a part), but also to the fact that it was the international language of the time. Nowadays, we have lots of English loan-words pouring into the Romanian language, although English is a Germanic language. The irony is that many of the 'English' words have Latin roots: card; CD - compact disc (both of the words are Latin); discount (I count it as a 'snob' word; we already have the word "reducere", which has exactly the same meaning); credit (idem) etc. The problem is further complicated by the fact that in many cases it is difficult to establish a clear ethymology of a word. Which is the origin of the word "vagon": the French word "vagon" or the German word "Wagon" (I hope I'm not making a mistake here; I'm speaking entirely from my memory)?

I hope I managed to bring light on some aspects of this discution. If not, at least I've stated my oppinions.

Hi bogmih,

Thanks.

1) We have seen above that there seems to be no consensus as to whether Romanian is a language or a dialect. Whether Romania has dialects or subdialects is dependent on this. As Victor posted long since, this is basically a matter of definitions.

2) If languages have very similar vocabularies, then glottochronolgy holds that they have diverged only relatively recently. If Romanian dialects, sub-dialects or graiuri are almost identical, this implies that the speakers only separated from each other very recently. This in turn implies that Romanians have diverged and migrated from a common source very recently. This has significant implications for the proposition that Romanian-speakers have lived continuously in Romania since Roman times. The proposal that Romanians have been in long term occupation of the area would be better served by more varied dialects, because this implies longevity.

The cut off point in English occurs about 200 years before Shakespeare. Shakespeare is performed in the original everywhere in the English speaking world without insurmountable problems of understanding. However, Chaucer, who was writing two hundred years before Shakespeare, looks almost like a foreign language and is barely comprehensible to the layman.

This discussion is not so much about whether we, today, can understand what our ancestors wrote. This is relatively simple because most of their vocabulary has come down to us. The problem arises the other way around. Most of our current vocabulary would be new to them.

3) I have suggested the word "Romancisation" better serves to reflect what occurred, because only a couple of percent of the current Romanian vocabulary seems to have been drawn directly from classical Latin, rather than about 20%inherited from old Romanian or about 40% imported indirectly from other Romance languages.

If Slavic words are being squeezed out in favour of existing Latin-derived words, this may be argued is a way of both increasing the Latin-based proportion of the language and of modifying dialectic quirks. According to one source above, half the words of Slavic origin in the Romanian vocabulary are now considered archaic.

4) If it was simply a matter of importing new words with new concepts then one would have expected loan words to come more frequently from English or German than French. One notable exception is in the study of linguistics, in which the French Port Royal Grammarians were the leaders. Apart from the Romanian word for "Word" I could not find any grammatical terms used in Romanian that are not drawn directly from French. I asked if anyone else could find any, but have got no reply as yet.

The word "snobism" is also interesting. It is of English origin (snob), but the word "snobism" is not in normal English dictionaries. We normally say "snobbery" or "snobbishness". Thus even some English words reaching Romanian appear to do so through French.

It must also be asked why your notional student was in Paris, rather than London or Berlin. The political, military and cultural orientation of Bucharest ("The Paris of the Balkans") was generally towards France in the 19th and early 20th Centuries. As a consequence French was by far the dominant external influence on the development of the Romanian language, both through unforced assimilation and through such French-modelled institutions as the Academia Romana.

I would suggest that the combined effect has been to make the vocabulary of today's Romanians significantly more Latin-based than it was two hundred years ago.

Cheers,

Sid.

Romanian is definetly a language. A language developed from the daco-roman dialect. I still dont see whats so hard for you to understand.

Finally, its clear what was the point you were trying to force through when starting this whole discussion about the Romanian language in the Transylvania History thread... The agenda/goal of the discussion is suddenly revealed.

Depends what you understand by "more varied". Being a subjective appreciation. As pointed out, the Romanian language has ~ 5 subdialects.

I must have missed it. What was the source that claimed that? I only saw you saying that. Whats the source?

Silly me! And I thought you had some homework to do and you came here for some help

Sid,

This afirmation is almost an offence for Romanians. You seems to be an inteligent man and I really dont understand how or where you can conclude that is not clear about the rank of romanian (language) - dialect or language.

We cannot said that megleno-romanian or istro-romanian are at the same level with the daco-romanian. They don t have a literature, academic books etc - i mean thingh characteristical for a mature and a real language.

Are you serious ?

In your oppinion, how recetly we start to migrate ? Maybe my grandpa was still a mounted shepherd .....

This post has been edited by Dan Po on September 05, 2005 12:08 pm

Now, to answer this new claim of yours.

Linguists have identified a common romanian language, in the 6th-8th century. Named protoromanian or traco-romanica. It was the common source that then split into 4 dialects:

-- daco-romanian
-- macedo-romanian
-- meglenoromanian
-- istroromanian

Only the speakers of the first dialect managed to make it the basis of a literary and national language.

Says who?

Not neccessarily. For instance, sheephearding was an important Romanian trade and it involved a lot of moving around between the mountains and the plains, according to the season. Transylvanian sheepherders would often come down in Walachia or Moldavia, especially when going to ports like Braila to sell their stuff. And this was well before 1918. Walachian and Moldavian princes had, at times, large land postions in Transylvania. Why not also mention the invasions of one pronvince by one or even the other two. People moved around and there was a lot of contact between the provinces of present-day Romania. It is only natural that, with much contact between them, the Romanians north of the Danube would not develop substantial differences. To strengthen this argument, I could bring up the three dialects south of the Danube, which were created by Romanians surrounded by other cultures and isolated.

The obvious differences generated by the passing of time are not only in accent as bogmih said. There are also particular words ("regionalisms") that would make sense only to a Moldavian (for example), like:

- "curechi" (from Lat. cauliculus) instead of the official "varza" for cabbage
- "chiperi" instead for "ardei" for peppers
- "harbuz" (from Ukr. harbuz) instead of "pepene" for watermelon
- "pepene" (from Lat. pepo) instead of castravete for cucumber
- "papusoi" instead of "porumb" for corn
and examples could go on with other words, not related to plants and agriculture. Here is for example a webpage with regionalism specific to Tara Oasului, arguably one of the most traditionalistic part of Romania: http://www.oas.ro/a.htm (it starts with A and has listings for every letter of the alphabet).

The Romanians of our days are the offspring of generations that were exposed to large scale education within a system that, like everywhere else in Europe at that time, was trying to bring uniformity (it was the age of the national states after all). Most of the regionalisms are out of use today, with only the accent remaining predominant. But after some years of living in Bucharest, even a Bessarabian like my grandmother can lose her accent.

I would also like to appeal to everyone to adopt a more serious attitude. We could do very well without pointless ironies, as this is not the place for them.

Hi Sid

I see this comment has made many people angry. What Sid was trying to say is - I think - that there is a controversy regarding the clasification of Aromanian, Istroromanian and Meglenoromanian as dialects of the Romanian language or independent languages. If they are independent languages, then Dacoromanian is a separate language itself, making the 'graiuri' dialects, not sub-dialects. What he said next - "Whether Romania has dialects or subdialects is dependent on this" - makes me believe this is the case.

The two Romanian medieval states were founded in the late XIIIth century (Wallachia/Tara Romaneasca) and mid XIVth century (Moldova), by Romanians coming from Transilvania. There were Romanians in those territories even before that, but not many - the Mongol invasion of 1241 might have something to do with that, as well as the fact that the territories East and South of the Carpathians have been under the Mongols' rule for some time, unlike the territories to the West. The actual number of people setling in these two states is impossible to estimate, but their arrival must have changed the language of the people already there.

The teritory actually inhabited by large numbers of Romanians was not as large as nowadays. Until the XIXth century, the population density in Moldova and Wallachia was, paradoxically, higher in the mountains and hills than in the plains. The plains were not a safe place to be in medieval Romania, you had no place to hide if a foreign army (or horde - the last Tatar raid took place in the XVIIIth century) invaded the country.

The Hungarian historians say the Romanians came to Transylvania after the Mongol invasion, invited by the Hungarian kings to repopulate the land. However, we see that the opposite is true. In the XIIIth/XIVth centuries, the Romanians were leaving Transylvania to found states where they would be free.

I studied Shakespeare in highschool. My impression was that his language is considerably different from modern English. It is still easy to understand, but the differences are noticeable ('thy' instead of 'you' is the easiest example one might give). The Romanian from 'The letter of Neacsu', however, is almost undistinguishable from the Romanian language spoken nowadays. And none of the words used in this letter are archaic (with one exception - lotru/thief). All of them are still in use. This shows that the Romanian language used to change slower than English. I have heard (but I can bring no proof) that a modern Pole can understand the Polish language of the XIIIth century. If this were true, it would support my view that languages change with different speeds.

Sorry. I told you I haven't read everything.

The Slavic words I told you about were already squeezed out. The use of the present tense is thus incorrect. At the moment, there is no drive to eliminate the Slavic words from the Romanian language. But the number of Latin/Slavic synonims was quite low. The only other source of Slavic archaic words I can think of is the names of different ranks. When the country modernized, those ranks dissappeared and the words naming them (most of them of Slavic origin) dissappeared, too.

Another thing: the fact that a Slavic word is now archic doesn't mean it was replaced by a word of Latin/Neolatin origin. I mentioned above that the word 'lotru' is now archaic. I looked in the dictionary and saw it's of Polish origin. The modern word for thief is 'hot' (pronounced 'hotz', not hot ), of unknown origin (certainly not Latin).

I'm not contesting the figure you gave, but half of 15% is still under 10% of the Romanian vocabulary, a relatively small proportion of the language. If a few percent of the words had Latin synonims and a few percent were replaced naturaly, then we can see the change was not so drastic.

You also mentioned some time ago that no Slavic words entered the Romanian language in the XIXth century. I can give you a few examples: 'chiolbashi' represents a tool used when drilling for oil. It entered the language after the XIXth century, since this is when drilling began. It's origin is Polish, where it means sausages (a chiolbash looks vaguely like a sausage ). I know that many other words naming drilling tools are of Polish origin, but I don't know exactly which ones. I know the words in Romanian, I just can't tell for sure which ones are Polish. This shows the Romanians were open to influence from anywhere, for practical puposes (such as giving a name to a new object).

Why should the Romanians take gramatical terms from English or German? The French grammar is much more simmilar to the Romanian grammar. The French language could offer a name for all the tenses and cases of the Romanian language, while English or German couldn't. I don't speak German, but English simply doesn't have the same structure as our language.

It was my mistake. The 'ism' ending is also specific to Romanian language. I believe the word 'snob' came directly from Britain (but I could be wrong).

In the XIXth century, students studied equally in France and in Germany/Austria. Our two main political parties were the Liberals (whose members studied in France) and the Conservatives (whose members studied in Germany and Austria). Also, I believe it was you who mentioned that Romania's constitution imitated the Belgian one. This was not because the Belgians were half French, but because Belgium was a neutral country. Since our only neighbours were three empires much more powerfull than Romania, people wanted to achieve as much security as possible, through any means possible.

Germany contributed words to our language, but mainly in the technical fields (blitz, tzol etc). The 'humanities' (if that's the right word) belonged to the French, simply because they were the best at it. Examples: I don't know when the first German constitution appeared, but it was after 1848. When righting a constitution, what model could the Romanians follow? The Romanian law was inspired from Napoleon's code. Did the Germans had something simmilar (this is real question, I think they didn't, but I'm not sure)? The grammar - I have already talked about it. If the Romanians had simply wanted to make the language as 'Latin' as possible, they could have borrowed the new words from Italian or even directly from the source - Latin. The fact they didn't do so suggests the reasons for adopting new words was different. I'm not saying there was no affinity between the Romanians and the French, only that it wasn't the driving force behind the adoption of so many French words into the Romanian vocabulary.

As a sidenote: another thing going against the Germans is that they avoided the apparition of many synonims in their language by creating composed words from the existing German words. The new words are long and quite hard to pronounce, so its not hard to see they were avoided.

I believe that, in the XIXth century, most of the European languages became more Latin-based. The conscious effort of the linguists trying to change the language showed little results. The main factor was the international supremacy of French in several fields, as well as its condition of being the main language of diplomacy. That's why, in the XIXth century, the romanian language became more latin based. But only in the XIXth. In the XXth century, the language became less Latin-based, and the trend seems to continue into the XXIst century.

I see around me every day people using English words out of snobbery (I got it right, this time ), although there are many Romanian equivalents for those words. This makes me believe the reason behind adopting so many French words was also snobbery.

P.S. I'm not talking about computer, mouse and all the other words describing new objects. Their inclusion in the Romanian language is normal and justified.

This post has been edited by bogmih on September 05, 2005 04:03 pm