Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română [ˈlimba roˈmɨnə] ( listen) ("the Romanian language") or româneşte (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language extinct: Anatolian · Paleo-Balkans (Dacian, spoken by around 24 to 28 million people,[1][2] primarily in Romania Romania (pronounced /roʊˈmeɪniə/ roe-MAY-nee-ə; dated: Rumania, Roumania; Romanian: România [romɨˈni.a] ( listen)) is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, north of the Balkan Peninsula, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea. Almost all of the Danube Delta and Moldova Moldova /mɒlˈdoʊvə/ , officially the Republic of Moldova (Moldovan/Romanian: Republica Moldova) is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east and south. It declared itself an independent state with the same boundaries as the preceding Moldovan SSR in 1991, as part of the. It has official status in Romania, Republic of Moldova, the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina Vojvodina, officially called Autonomous Province of Vojvodina (Serbian: Аутономна Покрајина Војводина, Autonomna Pokrajina Vojvodina, listen ; Hungarian: Vajdaság Autonóm Tartomány; Slovak: Autonómna Pokrajina Vojvodina; Romanian: Provincia Autonomă Voivodina; Croatian: Autonomna Pokrajina Vojvodina; Russian: Авт in Serbia 2 Titular rulers of Serbia in Hungarian exile claimed Serbian throne until 1540. Belgrade fell to Ottomans only in 1521. Serbia was briefly reestablished by Jovan Nenad 1526–7 and in the autonomous Mount Athos Mount Athos is a mountain on the peninsula of the same name in Macedonia, of northern Greece, called in Greek Agion Oros (Άγιον Όρος, transliterated often as Hagion Oros), or in English, "Holy Mountain". In Classical times, the peninsula was called Akté (Ακτή) (sometimes Acte or Akte). Politically it is known in Greece as in Greece Greece (English: /ˈɡriːs/ ; Greek: Ελλάδα, Elláda, IPA: [eˈlaða] ( listen); Ancient Greek: Ἑλλάς, Hellás, IPA: [helːás]), also known as Hellas and officially the Hellenic Republic (Ελληνική Δημοκρατία, Ellīnikī́ Dīmokratía, IPA: [eliniˈci ðimokraˈtia]), is a country in southeastern Europe, situated on. In the Republic of Moldova, the language is officially called limba moldovenească ("Moldovan Moldovan , written in the Latin script, is one of the names of the official language of the Republic of Moldova. The language spoken in Moldova is identical to Romanian, sharing the same literary standard, but for political reasons both names Moldovan and Romanian are used inside the country") for political reasons.

Romanian speakers Predominantly Romanian Orthodox, but also including Romanian Catholic, Roman Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Atheist are scattered across many other countries, notably Italy Italy (pronounced /ˈɪtəli/ ; Italian: Italia [iˈtaːlja]), officially the Italian Republic (Italian: Repubblica italiana), is a country located partly on the European Continent and partly on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine, Spain Spain (pronounced /ˈspeɪn/ spayn; Spanish: España, pronounced [esˈpaɲa] ( listen)), officially the Kingdom of Spain (Spanish: Reino de España), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.[note 6] Its mainland is bordered to the south and east by the Mediterranean Sea except for, Ukraine Ukraine (pronounced /juːˈkreɪn/ ew-KRAYN; Ukrainian: Україна, transliterated: Ukrayina, [ukrɑˈjinɑ]) is the second largest country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by the Russian Federation to the east; Belarus to the north; Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary to the west; Romania and Moldova to the southwest; and the Black Sea and Sea of, United States ^ b. English is the de facto language of American government and the sole language spoken at home by 80% of Americans age five and older. Spanish is the second most commonly spoken language, Canada The land occupied by Canada was inhabited for millennia by various groups of Aboriginal peoples. Beginning in the late 15th century, British and French expeditions explored, and later settled, along the Atlantic coast. France ceded nearly all of its colonies in North America in 1763 after the Seven Years' War. In 1867, with the union of three, Israel Israel , officially the State of Israel (Hebrew: מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל (help·info), Medīnat Yisrā'el; Arabic: دَوْلَةُ إِسْرَائِيلَ‎, Dawlat Isrā'īl), is a country in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan and the, Russia Russia (pronounced /ˈrʌʃə/ ; Russian: Россия, tr. Rossiya, pronounced [rɐˈsʲijə] ( listen)), also officially known as the Russian Federation (Russian: Российская Федерация, tr. Rossiyskaya Federatsiya, pronounced [rɐˈsʲijskəjə fʲɪdʲɪˈraʦəjə] ( listen)), is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal, Portugal Portugal /ˈpɔɹtʃʉɡəl/ (Portuguese: Portugal, Mirandese: Pertual), officially the Portuguese Republic (Portuguese: República Portuguesa; Mirandese: República Pertuesa), is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west and, United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland[note 7] is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of the island of Ireland, and many small islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK with a land, France France (pronounced /ˈfrænts/ frantss or /ˈfrɑːnts/ frahnts; French pronunciation (help·info): [fʁɑ̃s]), officially the French Republic (French: République française, pronounced: [ʁepyblik fʁɑ̃sɛz]), is a state in Western Europe with several of its overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian,, and Germany A region named Germania, inhabited by several Germanic peoples, has been known and documented before AD 100. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire, which lasted until 1806. During the 16th century, northern Germany became the centre of the Protestant Reformation. As a modern nation-state,.

Contents

History

Main articles: History of Romanian language and Origin of the Romanians The Romanians are a people speaking Romanian, a Romance language, and living in Central and Eastern Europe

The Dacians In ancient geography, especially in Roman sources, Dacia was the land inhabited by the Dacians and Getae - the North-Danubian branches of the Thracians. Dacia had in the middle the Carpathian Mountains and was bounded approximately by the Danubius river, in Greek sources Istros or, at its greatest extent, by the Haemus Mons (the Balkan Mountains), an Indo-European people, were the ancient inhabitants of Romanian territory. They were defeated by the Romans The Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean. The term is used to describe the Roman state during and after the time of the first emperor, Augustus in 106, and part of Dacia In ancient geography, especially in Roman sources, Dacia was the land inhabited by the Dacians and Getae - the North-Danubian branches of the Thracians. Dacia had in the middle the Carpathian Mountains and was bounded approximately by the Danubius river, in Greek sources Istros or, at its greatest extent, by the Haemus Mons (the Balkan Mountains) (Oltenia Oltenia is a historical province and geographical region of Romania, in western Wallachia. It is situated between the Danube, the Southern Carpathians and the Olt river (although counties to the east run across the river in Muntenia in some areas). The name "Oltenia" comes from the Latin word Altina, meaning "The Latins". The, Banat The Banat is a geographical and historical region in Central Europe currently divided between three countries: the eastern part lies in Romania , the western part in Serbia (the Serbian Banat, mostly included in the Vojvodina region, except for a small part included in Central Serbia), and a small northern part in Hungary (Csongrád county). It is, and Transylvania Transylvania (Romanian: Ardeal or Transilvania; Hungarian: Erdély; German: Siebenbürgen , see also other denominations) is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term frequently) became a Roman province Roman Dacia, also Dacia Traiana or Dacia Felix, was a province of the Roman Empire . Its territory consisted of eastern and southeastern Transylvania, the Banat, and Oltenia (regions of modern Romania). Dacia was from the very beginning organized as an imperial province and remained so throughout the Roman occupation. It was one of the empire’s. This province, which was rich in ores, especially silver and gold,[4] was colonized by the Romans,[5] who brought with them Vulgar Latin Vulgar Latin was the nonstandard form of the Latin language; because of its nonstandard nature, it had no official orthography, and only Classical Latin was used in writing. It is sometimes called colloquial Latin as the language of administration and commerce, and who started a period of intense romanization Romanization or latinization indicate different historical processes, such as acculturation, integration and assimilation of newly incorcorporated and peripheral populations by the Roman republic and the later Roman empire. Ancient Roman historiography and Italian historiography until the fascist period used to call these various processes the &, which gave birth to the proto-Romanian language.[6][7] But in the 3rd century CE, under the pressure of Free Dacians and from invasions of migratory populations such as Goths The Goths were a heterogeneous East Germanic tribe, who played an important role in the history of the Roman Empire after they appeared on its lower Danube frontier in the third century, the Roman Empire The Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean. The term is used to describe the Roman state during and after the time of the first emperor, Augustus was forced to withdraw from Dacia In ancient geography, especially in Roman sources, Dacia was the land inhabited by the Dacians and Getae - the North-Danubian branches of the Thracians. Dacia had in the middle the Carpathian Mountains and was bounded approximately by the Danubius river, in Greek sources Istros or, at its greatest extent, by the Haemus Mons (the Balkan Mountains), in 271 CE, leaving it to the Goths.[8][9] It is a matter of debate whether modern-day Romanians are descendants of the people that abandoned the area and settled south of the Danube or of the romanized people that remained in Dacia.

Map of Balkans The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains, which run through the centre of Bulgaria into eastern Serbia. The region has a combined area of 550,000 km2 (212,000 sq mi) and a population of 55 million people.[citation needed] with regions inhabited by Romanians/Vlachs highlighted

Owing to its people's geographical isolation, Romanian was probably among the first of the Romance languages extinct: Anatolian · Paleo-Balkan (Dacian, to split from Latin.[citation needed] It received little influence from other Romance languages until the modern period (the middle of the 19th century), and is therefore one of the most uniform languages in Europe. It is the most important of the remaining Eastern Romance languages The Eastern Romance languages, sometimes known as the Vlach languages, are a group of Romance languages that developed in Southeastern Europe from the local eastern variant of Vulgar Latin and is more conservative than other Romance languages in nominal This article on Romanian nouns is related to the Romanian grammar and belongs to a series of articles on the Romanian language. It describes the morphology of the noun in this language, and includes details about its declension according to number, case, and application of the definite article, all of which depend on specific gender and plural morphology Morphology is the identification, analysis and description of the structure of words . While words are generally accepted as being (with clitics) the smallest units of syntax, it is clear that in most (if not all) languages, words can be related to other words by rules. For example, English speakers recognize that the words dog, dogs, and dog. Romanian has preserved a part of the Latin declension In linguistics, declension is the occurrence of inflection in nouns, pronouns, articles, and adjectives, indicating such features as number , case (subject, object, and so on), gender, and possession. Declension occurs in a great many of the world's languages, and features very prominently in many European languages, but is much less prominent in, but whereas Latin had six cases, Romanian has three: the nominative The nominative case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or the predicate noun or predicate adjective, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments. (Generally, it is a noun that is doing something.)-accusative The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of (some or all) prepositions. It is a noun that is having something done to it, usually joined (such as in Latin) with the nominative case, the genitive In grammar, the genitive case is the case that marks a noun as modifying another noun. It often marks a noun as being the possessor of another noun but it can also indicate various relationships other than possession; certain verbs may take arguments in the genitive case; and it may have adverbial uses (see Adverbial genitive). Modern English does-dative The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given. For example, in "John gave Mary a book", and marginally the vocative The vocative case is the case used for a noun identifying the person (animal, object, etc.) being addressed and/or occasionally the determiners of that noun. A vocative expression is an expression of direct address, wherein the identity of the party being spoken to is set forth expressly within a sentence. For example, in the sentence, "I don'. Romanian nouns also preserve the neuter gender In linguistics, grammatical genders are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words; every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be very few that belong to several classes at once. However, the verb In syntax, a verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that conveys action (bring, read, walk, run, murder), or a state of being (exist, stand). In most languages, verbs are inflected (modified in form) to encode tense, aspect, mood and voice. A verb may also agree with the person, gender, and/or number of some of its arguments, such as morphology of Romanian has shown the same move towards a compound perfect In linguistics, the perfect tense usually refers to the present perfect tense used to describe actions now completed . The term "perfect" comes from the Latin perfectum, meaning "completed", from the verb perficio. The word refers to the completed aspect of the action. Though suggestive of a past action, it is in fact a present and future tense In grammar, the future tense is a verb form that marks the event described by the verb as not having happened yet, but expected to happen in the future (in an absolute tense system), or to happen subsequent to some other event, whether that is past, present, or future (in a relative tense system) as the other Romance languages. Compared to the other Romance languages extinct: Anatolian · Paleo-Balkans (Dacian, , during its evolution, Romanian simplified the original Latin tense Tense is one of at least four qualities, along with mood, voice, and aspect, which utterances may express system in extreme ways,[10] in particular the original Latin absence of sequence of tenses.[11]

All the dialects of Romanian are believed to have been unified in a Proto-Romanian language up to sometime between the 7th and 10th centuries, when the area came under the influence of the Byzantine Empire. It was then that Romanian became influenced by the Slavic languages[12] and to some degree the Greek. For example, Aromanian, one of the closest relatives of Romanian, has very few Slavic words.[citation needed] Also, the variations in the "Daco-Romanian" dialect (spoken throughout Romania and Moldova) are very small. The use of this uniform "Daco-Romanian" dialect extends well beyond the borders of the Romanian state: a Romanian-speaker from Moldova speaks the same language as a Romanian-speaker from the Serbian Banat. Romanian was influenced by Slavic, Greek (Byzantine, then Phanariote), Turkish, and Hungarian, while the other Romance languages were influenced by Germanic, Celtic and Arabic.

Geographic distribution

See also: Romanian-American
Românofonia

Click on the coloured regions on the map to get to the related article:

*Romanian is also an official language of the Latin Union.

Official and national language Official but not primary language National minority language EU Romanian diaspora

Romanian language in Moldova Romanian language in Romania Romanian language in Vojvodina Romanian language in Timok Romanian language on Mount Athos Romanian language in Israel Romanian language in Ukraine Romanian diaspora Romanian diaspora Romanian diaspora Romanian diaspora Romanian diaspora Romanian diaspora Romanian diaspora Romanian diaspora Romanian language in the European Union Romanian language in the European Union Romanian language in the European Union Romanian language in the European Union Romanian language in the European Union
Romanian speaking countries and territories
Country Speakers (%) Speakers (native) Population
Europe
Romania 91% 19,736,517 21,698,181
Moldova ² 76.4% 2,588,355 3,388,071
Transnistria (Eastern Moldova)³ 31.9% 177,050 555,500
Vojvodina (Serbia) 1.5% 29,512 2,031,992
not official:
Timočka Krajina (Serbia) 4 8.2% 58,221 712,050
Spain 1.7% 796,576[13] 46,661,950
Italy 1.06% 640,000[14] 60,345,000
Ukraine 5 0.8% 327,703 48,457,000
Hungary 0.1% 8,480[15] 10,198,315
Asia
not official:
Israel 3.7% 250,000 6,800,000
Kazakhstan 1 0.1% 20,054 14,953,126
Russia 1 0.12% 169,698 [16] 145,537,200
The Americas
not official:
Canada 0.34% 110,000 32,207,113
United States 6 0.11% 340,000 281,421,906

1 Many are Moldovans 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). [17] 6

Romanian is spoken mostly in Southeastern, Central 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,[18] and 4% of the Romance-speaking population of the world.[19]

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), Hungary (Gyula) and Bulgaria (Vidin). Large immigrant communities are found in Italy, Spain, France, and Portugal.

As of 1995, the largest Romanian-speaking community in Asia is found in Israel, where Romanian is spoken by 5% of the population.[20][21] 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.[22] 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 don't make up a large homogeneous community state-wide.

Legal status

In Romania

According to the Constitution of Romania of 1991, as revised in 2003, Romanian is the official language of the Republic.[23]

Romania mandates the use of Romanian in official government publications, public education and legal contracts; advertisements must bear a translation of foreign words.

The Romanian Language Institute (Institutul Limbii Române), 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.[24]

In Moldova

Main article: Moldovan language

The Constitution of Moldova names the state language of the country "Moldovan." However, linguists consider it to be largely identical to Romanian. It has been the sole official language since the adoption of the Law on State Language of the Moldavian SSR in 1989.[25] This law mandates the use of Moldovan in all the political, economical, cultural and social spheres, as well as asserting the existence of a "linguistic Moldo-Romanian identity".[26] 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 2004 census, out of the 3,383,332 people living in Moldova, 16.5% (558,508) stated Romanian as their mother tongue, whereas 60% stated Moldovan. While 40% of all urban Romanian/Moldovan speakers identified their native tongue as Romanian, in the countryside under 12% of Romanian/Moldovan speakers indicated Romanian as their mother tongue.[27] However, the group of experts from the international census observation Mission to the Republic of Moldova concluded that the items in the questionnaire dealing with nationality and language proved to be the most sensitive ones, particularly with reference to the recording of responses to these questions as being "Moldovan" or "Romanian", and therefore it concluded that special care would need to be taken in interpreting them.[28]

In Vojvodina

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

The Constitution of the Republic of Serbia [29] 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.

The Statute of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina [30] determines that, together with the Serbo-Croat language and the Cyrillic script, and the Latin script as stipulated by the law, the 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. The bodies of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina are: the Assembly, the Executive Council and the Provincial administrative bodies.[31]

The Romanian language and script are officially used in eight municipalities: Alibunar, Biserica Albă (Serbian: Bela Crkva), Zitişte (Žitište), Zrenianin (Zrenjanin), Kovăciţa (Kovačica), Cuvin (Kovin), Plandişte (Plandište) and Sečanj. In the municipality of Vârşeţ (Vršac), Romanian is official only in the villages of Voivodinţ (Vojvodinci), Marcovăţ (Markovac), Straja (Straža), Jamu Mic (Mali Žam), Srediştea Mică (Malo Središte), Mesici (Mesić), Jablanka, Sălciţa (Salčica), Râtişor (Ritiševo), Oreşaţ (Orašac) and Coştei (Kuštilj).[32]

In the 2002 Census, the last carried out in Serbia, 1.5% of Vojvodinians chose Romanian as their mother tongue.

In other countries and organisations

See also: Romanian diaspora

In parts of Ukraine where Romanians constitute a significant share of the local population (districts in Chernivtsi, Odessa and Zakarpattia oblasts) Romanian is being taught in schools as a primary language and there are newspapers, TV, and radio broadcasting in Romanian.[33][34] The University of Chernivtsi trains teachers for Romanian schools in the fields of Romanian philology, mathematics and physics.[35]

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 monk communities of Prodromos and Lacu.

Distribution of first-language native Romanian speakers by country

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 training courses in Romanian for language teachers in these countries.[36] In some of the schools, there are non-Romanian nationals 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 various tertiary institutions, mostly in European countries such as Germany, France and Italy, as well as the Netherlands, and elsewhere, like the USA. Overall, it is taught as a foreign language in 38 countries around the world.[37]

Popular culture

Romanian has become popular in other countries through movies and songs performed in the Romanian language. Examples of recent Romanian acts that had a great success in non-Romanophone countries are the bands O-Zone (which had great success with their #1 single Dragostea din tei/Numa Numa across the world), Akcent (popular in the Netherlands, Poland and other European countries), Activ (successful in some Eastern European countries) 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 prestigious Cannes Film Festival).

On the other hand, some artists wrote songs dedicated to the Romanian language. The multiplatinum 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 entitled "The Romanian language".

Dialects

Main article: Varieties of the Romanian language See also: Proto-Romanian language and Origin of Romanians#Daco-Romanian continuity

The term "Romanian" is sometimes[38] (although not often) used also in a more general sense, which envelops four hardly mutually intelligible languages: Romanian, Istro-Romanian, Aromanian, and Megleno-Romanian. The four languages are the offspring of the Romance varieties spoken both to the north and to south of Danube, before the settlement of the Slavonian tribes south of the river - Romanian in the North, the latter two in the south, while Istro-Romanian is believed to be the offspring of a 11th century migration from Romania. These four are also known as the Eastern Romance languages. When the term "Romanian" is used in this larger sense, the term "Daco-Romanian" is used for Romanian itself. The origin of the term "Daco-Romanian" can be traced back to the first printed book of Romanian grammar in 1780,[39] by Samuil Micu and Gheorghe Şincai. 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 (though it is spoken also south of the Danube, in Dobrudja, Central Serbia and northern Bulgaria).

This article deals with Romanian language, and thus only its regional variations are discussed here. The differences between these varieties are usually small, usually consisting in a few dozen regional words and some phonetic changes, but also grammar aspects. Standard literary Romanian language is identical when it comes to writing, regardless of the region or country.

Romanian (specifically Daco-Romanian) varieties (graiuri). Blue: Southern varieties Red: Northern varieties

Like most natural languages, Romanian can be regarded as a dialect continuum. The dialects of Romanian are distinguished by minor differences in pronunciation. Romanians themselves speak of the differences as accents or "speeches" (in Romanian: accent or grai). Several regional accents are usually distinguished:

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

Classification

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 French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish.

However, the languages closest to Romanian are the other Eastern Romance languages, spoken south of Danube: Aromanian/Macedo-Romanian, Megleno-Romanian and Istro-Romanian, which are sometimes classified as dialects of Romanian. An alternative name for Romanian used by linguists to disambiguate with the other Eastern Romance languages is "Daco-Romanian", referring to the area where it is spoken (which corresponds roughly to the onetime Roman province of Dacia).

Compared with the other Romance languages, the closest relative of Romanian is Italian; the two languages show a limited degree of asymmetrical mutual intelligibility, especially in their cultivated forms: speakers of Romanian seem to understand Italian more easily than the other way around.[citation needed] Even though Romanian has obvious grammatical and lexical similarities with French, Catalan, Spanish or Portuguese, it is not mutually intelligible with them to a practical extent; Romanian speakers will usually need some formal study of basic grammar and vocabulary before being able to understand even the simplest sentences in those languages (and vice-versa).

In the following sample sentence (meaning "She always closes the window before having dinner.") cognates are written in bold:

Illa semper fenestram claudit antequam cenat. (Latin)
Ea închide totdeauna fereastra înainte de a cina. (Romanian)
Lei chiude sempre la finestra prima di cenare. (Italian)
Elle ferme toujours la fenêtre avant de dîner. (French)
Ella siempre cierra la ventana antes de cenar. (Spanish)
Ela sempre fecha a janela antes de jantar (cear). (Portuguese)
Eilla pecha siempre la ventana enantes de cenare. (Leonese)
Idda sempri chiudi la finestra àntica cina. (Sicilian)
Ella sempre tanca la finestra abans de sopar. (Catalan)
Ela pecha sempre a xanela denantes de cear. (Galician)
Essa nzerra sempe 'a fenesta primme de cenà. (Neapolitan)
Ea sempre sera 'a fenestra prima de cenà. (Venetian)[citation needed]

A study done by Italian-American linguist Mario Pei in 1949, which analyzed the evolutionary degree of languages in comparison to their inheritance language (in the case of Romance languages to Latin comparing phonology, inflection, discourse, syntax, vocabulary, and intonation) revealed the following percentages:[40]

The lexical similarity with Italian is estimated at 77%, followed by French at 75%, Sardinian 74%, Catalan 73%, Spanish 71%, Portuguese, and Rhaeto-Romance at 72%.

In modern times Romanian vocabulary has been strongly influenced by French, Italian and other international words.

Contacts with other languages

Dacian language

The Dacian language was an Indo-European language spoken by the ancient Dacians. It may have been the first language to influence the Latin spoken in Dacia, but little is known about it. About 300 words found only in Romanian or with a cognate in the Albanian language may be inherited from Dacian, many of them being related to pastoral life (for example: balaur "dragon", brânză "cheese", mal "shore"). Some linguists have asserted that Albanians are Dacians who were not romanized and migrated southward.[41]

A different view is that these non-Latin words (many with Albanian cognates) are not necessarily Dacian, but rather were brought into the territory that is modern Romania by Romance-speaking shepherds migrating north from Albania, Serbia, and northern Greece who became the Romanian people. However, the Eastern Romance substratum appears to have been a satem language, while the Paleo-Balkan languages spoken in northern Greece (Ancient Macedonian) were most likely centum languages. The general opinion is that Dacian was a satem language, as was Thracian, which, however, was indeed spoken in the south.[41]

Balkan linguistic union

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 languages of the Balkan linguistic union belong to individual branches of the Indo-European language family: Bulgarian and Albanian, and in some cases Greek and Serbian. The shared features include a suffixed definite article, the syncretism of genitive and dative case, the formation of the future and perfect tenses, and the lack of infinitives.

Slavic languages

Main article: Slavic superstratum in Romanian

The Slavic influences on Romanian are especially noticeable and can be observed at all linguistic levels: lexis, phonetics, morphology and syntax. About 20% of Romanian words are of Slavic origin. This is due to the migration of Slavic tribes who traversed the territory of present-day Romania during the early evolution of the language. This process of the introduction of Slavic in Dacia was similar to the appearance of various Germanic dialects in the Western Roman Empire, where Gallic Latin and Northern Italian dialects became strongly germanized.[citation needed] However, due to lower Romance-speaking populace in the East, Slavic remained spoken for much longer and did not die out immediately.

Other influences

Even before the 19th century, Romanian came in contact with several other languages. Some notable examples include:

French, Italian and other international words

Since the 19th century, many modern 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 the number of words in Romanian are of French and/or Italian origin (in many cases both languages); and adding this to the words that were inherited from Latin, about 75%-85% of Romanian words can be traced to Latin. The use of these Romanianized French and Italian loanwords 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, many of the words already existing as Latin direct heritage, as a part of its core or popular vocabulary, have been doubled by words borrowed from other Romance languages, thus forming a further and more modern and literary lexical layer. Typically, the popular word is a noun and the borrowed word an adjective. Some examples:

Latin Romanian direct Latin heritage Romanian neologism
agilis (quick) ager (astute) agil (it.<agile, fr.<agile) (agile)
aqua (water) apă (water) acvatic (it. <acquatico, fr.<aquatique) (aquatic)
dens, dentem (tooth) dinte (tooth) dentist (it.<dentista, fr.<dentiste) (dentist)
directus (straight) drept (straight, right) direct (it.<diretto, fr.<direct) (direct)
frigus (cold) frig (cold - noun) frigid (it.<frigido, fr.<frigide) (frigid)

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; sandviş < sandwich; bişniţă < business; ciungă < chewing gum; chec < cake). These words are assigned grammatical gender in Romanian and handled according to Romanian rules; thus "the manager" is managerul. Some of these English words are in turn Latin lexical constructions - calqued, borrowed or constructed from Latin or other Romance languages, like "management" and "interview" (from the French "entrevue").

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 reference.

Romanian is the only Romance language where definite articles are enclitic: that is, attached to the end of the noun (as in North Germanic languages), instead of in front (proclitic). 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, voice. The usual word order in sentences is SVO (Subject - Verb - Object). 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 nine vowels; the more "exotic" ones are /ɨ/, /ə/ (also in stressed positions), and the diphthongs /e̯a/ and /o̯a/. Additionally, /ø/ and /y/ may appear in some borrowed words. There are also 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

Due to its isolation from the other Romance languages, the phonetic evolution of Romanian was quite different, but does share a few changes with Italian, such as [kl] > [kj] (Lat. clarus > Rom. chiar, Ital. chiaro) and also a few with Dalmatian, such as /ɡn/ (probably phonetically [ŋn]) > [mn] (Lat. cognatus > Rom. cumnat, Dalm. comnut).

Among the notable phonetic changes are:

  • Lat. cera → Rom. ceară (wax)
  • Lat. sole → Rom. soare (sun)
  • Lat. herba → Rom. iarbă (grass, herb)
  • 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)
  • Lat. deus → Rom. zeu (god)
  • Lat. tenem → Rom. ţine (hold)

On the other hand, it (along with French) has lost /kw/ (qu) sound before /a/ from original Latin, turning it either into /p/ (Lat. quattuor → Rom.patru, "four"; cf. It. quattro) or /k/ (Lat. quando → Rom.când, "when"; Lat. qualitas → Rom.calitate, "quality").

Writing system

Neacşu's letter is the oldest surviving document written in Romanian

The first written record of a Romance language spoken in the Middle Ages in the Balkans was written by the Byzantine chronicler Theophanes Confessor in the 6th century about a military expedition against the Avars from 587, when 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!").

The oldest written text in Romanian is a letter from late June 1521, in which Neacşu of Câmpulung wrote to the mayor of Braşov about an imminent attack of the Turks. It was written using the Cyrillic alphabet, like most early Romanian writings. The earliest 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 late 1700s, Transylvanian scholars noted the Latin origin of Romanian and adapted the Latin alphabet to the Romanian language, using some 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, a special version of the Cyrillic alphabet derived from the Russian version was used, until 1989, when it returned to the Romanian Latin alphabet.

Romanian alphabet

Main article: Romanian alphabet

The Romanian alphabet is as follows:

A, a (a); Ă, ă (ă); Â, â (â din a); B, b (be), C, c (ce); D, d (de), E, e (e); F, f (fe / ef); G, g (ghe / ge); H, h (ha / haş); I, i (i); Î, î (î din i); J, j (je), K, k (ka / kapa), L, l (le / el); M, m (me / em); N, n (ne / en); O, o (o); P, p (pe); Q (chiu); R, r, (re / er); S, s (se / es); Ș, ș (șe); T, t (te); Ţ, ţ (ţe); U, u (u); V, v (ve); W (dublu ve); X, x (ics); Y (i grec); Z, z (ze / zet).

K, Q, W and Y are 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 alphabet with five additional letters Ă, Â, Î, Ș , Ţ. 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 short vowel marker was used.

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 single 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

See also: Romanian alphabet#Î versus Â
Group Phoneme Pronunciation Examples
ce, ci /tʃ/ ch in chest, cheek cerc (circle), cine (who)
che, chi /k/ k in kettle, kiss chem (I call), chimie (chemistry)
ge, gi /dʒ/ j in jelly, jigsaw ger (frost), gimnast (gymnast)
ghe, ghi /ɡ/ g in get, give gheţar (glacier), ghid (guide)

Punctuation and capitalization

Uses of punctuation peculiar to Romanian are:

Spelling issues between Romania's and Moldova's usage

There are minor spelling differences between standard forms of Romanian language used in Romania and the variant (also called Moldovan) used in the Republic of Moldova— the Academy of Sciences of Moldova hadn't switched to the new spelling rules introduced by the Romanian Academy in 1993. In 2000, the Moldovan Academy recommended adopting the spelling rules used in Romania; in practice, however, many Moldovans persist in using the older spellings.[44] Romanian is also an official or administrative language in various communities and organisations (such as the Latin Union and the European Union).

Language sample

Look up Category:Romanian language in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

English 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)

Contemporary Romanian - highlighted words are French or Italian loanwords:

Toate fiinţele umane se nasc libere şi egale în demnitate şi în drepturi. Ele sunt înzestrate cu raţiune şi conştiinţă şi trebuie să se comporte unele faţă de altele în spiritul fraternităţii.

Romanian, excluding French and Italian loanwords - highlighted words are Slavic loanwords:

Toate fiinţele omeneşti se nasc slobode şi deopotrivă în destoinicie şi în drepturi. Ele sunt înzestrate cu înţelegere şi cuget şi trebuie să se poarte unele faţă de altele în duh de frăţietate.

Romanian, excluding loanwords:

Toate fiinţele omeneşti se nasc nesupuse şi asemenea în preţuire şi în drepturi. Ele sunt înzestrate cu înţelegere şi cuget şi se cuvine să se poarte unele faţă de altele după firea frăţiei.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ a b The Latin Union reports 28 million speakers for Romanian, out of whom 24 million are native speakers of the language: Latin Union - The odyssey of languages: ro, es, fr, it, pt; see also Ethnologue report for Romanian
  2. ^ a b "Languages Spoken by More Than 10 Million People". Languages Spoken by More Than 10 Million People. Microsoft Encarta 2006. http://encarta.msn.com/media_701500404/Languages_Spoken_by_More_Than_10_Million_People.html.
  3. ^ The constitution of the Republic of Moldova refers to the country's language as Moldovan rather than Romanian, though in practice it is often called "Romanian". The introduction of the law concerning the functioning of the languages (September 1989), still effective in the Republic of Moldova according to the Constitution [1], asserts the linguistic identity between the Romanian language and the Moldovan language. [2].
  4. ^ "Dacia-Province of the Roman Empire". United Nations of Roma Victor. http://www.unrv.com/provinces/dacia.php.
  5. ^ Deletant, Dennis (1995). Colloquial Romanian. New York: Routledge. p. 1.
  6. ^ Matley, Ian (1970). Romania; a Profile. Praeger. p. 85.
  7. ^ Giurescu, Constantin C. (1972). The Making of the Romanian People and Language. Bucharest: Meridiane Publishing House. pp. 43, 98–101,141.
  8. ^ Eutropius; Justin, Cornelius Nepos (1886). Eutropius, Abridgment of Roman History. London: George Bell and Sons. http://www.ccel.org/p/pearse/morefathers/eutropius_breviarium_2_text.htm.
  9. ^ Watkins, Thayer. "The Economic History of the Western Roman Empire". http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/barbarians.htm.
  10. ^ Yves D’hulst, Martine Coene, Larisa Avram, “Syncretic and analytic tenses in Romanian”, in “Balkan Syntax ans Semantics”, pag. 366: "In its evolution, Romanian simplified the original Latin tense system in extreme ways."
  11. ^ Yves D’hulst et al., “Syncretic and analytic tenses in Romanian”, in “Balkan Syntax ans Semantics”, p.355: "general absence of consecutio temporum."
  12. ^ Graham Mallinson, “Rumanian”, in “The Romance Languages”, Taylor & Francis, 1997, p. 413: "Much more substantial than the Germanic adstrate in the Western Romance Languages is the Slavic adstrate in Balkan Romance."
  13. ^ Instituto Nacional de Estadística: Avance del Padrón municipal a 1 de enero de 2009. Datos provisionales. [3].
  14. ^ http://www.istat.it/dati/catalogo/20080528_00/inbreve5.pdf
  15. ^ "Number of speakers of Romanian in Hungarry in 1995 according to Ethnologue". Ethnologue.com. http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=ron. Retrieved 2010-05-23.
  16. ^ [4] Perepis 2002
  17. ^ [5]
  18. ^ "Latin Union - Languages and cultures online 2005". Dtil.unilat.org. http://dtil.unilat.org/LI/2005/ro/rezultatele_detaliate.htm. Retrieved 2010-05-23.
  19. ^ MSN Encarta - Languages Spoken by More Than 10 Million People
  20. ^ According to the 1993 Statistical Abstract of Israel there were 250,000 Romanian speakers in Israel, at a population of 5,548,523 (census 1995).
  21. ^ "Reports of about 300,000 Jews that left the country after WW2". Eurojewcong.org. http://www.eurojewcong.org/ejc/news.php?id_article=110. Retrieved 2010-05-23.
  22. ^ "Evenimentul Zilei". Evz.ro. http://www.evz.ro/article.php?artid=185041. Retrieved 2010-05-23.
  23. ^ "Constitution of Romania". Cdep.ro. http://www.cdep.ro/pls/dic/site.page?den=act2_1&par1=1. Retrieved 2010-05-23.
  24. ^ Ministry of Education of Romania
  25. ^ Dalby, Andrew. Dictionary of Languages. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 518. ISBN 0-7475-3117-X.
  26. ^ Legea cu privire la functionarea limbilor vorbite pe teritoriul RSS Moldovenesti Nr.3465-XI din 01.09.89 Vestile nr.9/217, 1989 (Law regarding the usage of languages spoken on the territory of the Republic of Moldova): "Moldavian RSS supports the desire of the Moldovans 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."
  27. ^ National Bureau of Statistics of the Republic of Moldova: Census 2004
  28. ^ Experts Offering to Consult the National Statistics Bureau in Evaluation of the Census Data, Moldova Azi, May 19, 2005, story attributed to AP Flux. Retrieved October 11, 2005.
  29. ^ Official Gazette of Republic of Serbia, No. 1/90
  30. ^ Official Gazette of Autonomous Province of Vojvodina
  31. ^ Official use of languages and scripts in the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina published by the Provincial Secretariat for Regulations, Administration and National Minorities
  32. ^ Provincial Secretariat for Regulations, Administration and National Minorities: Official use of the Romanian language in the APV
  33. ^ Ukrainian Center for Independent Political Research: [6], [7]
  34. ^ Slovak Academy of Sciences in Kosice
  35. ^ Kramar Andriy. "University of Chernivtsi". Chnu.cv.ua. http://www.chnu.cv.ua/index.php?page=ua/gradinf/rules/02bac_d. Retrieved 2010-05-23.
  36. ^ Cursuri de perfecţionare, published in Ziua on August 19, 2005
  37. ^ Romanian Language Institute: Data concerning the teaching of the Romanian language abroad
  38. ^ Encyclopaedia Britannica article on "Romanian"
  39. ^ Samuil Micu, Gheorghe Şincai, Elementa linguae daco-romanae sive valachicae, Vienna, 1780.
  40. ^ >Pei, Mario (1949). Story of Language. ISBN 0397004001.
  41. ^ a b Vladimir Georgiev (Gheorghiev), (Romanian) Raporturile dintre limbile dacă, tracă şi frigiană, "Studii Clasice" Journal, II, 1960, 39-58
  42. ^ (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.
  43. ^ (Romanian) Mioara Avram, Ortografie pentru toți, Editura Litera, Chișinău, 1997, p. 29
  44. ^ The new edition of "Dicţionarul ortografic al limbii române (ortoepic, morfologic, cu norme de punctuaţie)" – 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 return to "â" and "sunt" in the orthography of the Romanian language. (Introduction, Institute of Linguistics of the Academy of Sciences of Moldova) The decision is mandatory in schools.[citation needed]

References

External links

Romanian language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wikibooks has a book on the topic of Romanian
Romanian language edition of Wiktionary, the free dictionary/thesaurus

Learning Romanian

Phrasebooks

Romanian language (articles)
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