Talk:Romanian language

Old Talk

No matter what the discussion is about the truth must prevail.How can Kricxjo pretend that the discussion is minor.If you can't explain a fact that means you have to work more to find the truth.No way to give definition before you know the facts.Fact is that nowhere in this world was there seen such a phenomenon.To conquer a small piece of land and the rest of the country to voluntarily change its language and customs.What I want to say is that everybody is saying:"Dacia was conquered" and nothing more.What if there is more.Let's open the door that nobody wants to open.The facts are known to everyone. This is not something I made up in my romanian head.Dacia,England,Italy,Germany have a common history but the truth must be equal for all.How can some one decide that "Dacia was conquered"and don't even know what it is about.The information on Wikipedia must be trustworthy.OK. So if you say the truth about Dacia nobody will trust you?What is going on guys?It is about truth, not Romanians nor English.What we are doing over here is verifying the facts which will bring us closer to the truth. Jacob Stirbu-Ann Arbor Michigan

You deleted the discussion so that no one would see the arguments against your posting of theories, which is a very dishonest tactic. I stand by what I wrote. Wikipedia is too present tried-and-true information. If you have your own theory, you should convince the scholarly community instead of talking about it here on Wikipedia, where you merely make articles less trustworthy and more reminiscent of cranks. Kricxjo 22:22 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Hi Jacob, I'm a Romanian myself, and I'm trying to be as neutral as I can be. I have to say Kricxjo is right, what you're saying is polemics, not verified facts, and this is an encyclopedic project, not a project debating the truth in whatever area. Please note neither Kricxjo nor myself are denying your theories a priori -- just back them up with some substance and everybody will be happy to see them included in the main article. Also, please don't take this personal, I can see you're very patriotic and I appreciate that, but please try to look at this from a NPOV and you'll see pure theories are not really what's expected in an encyclopedia. And finally, I'm sure you deleted the previous discussion only because you thought it wasn't needed anymore -- but Kricxjo is right again, as long as the topic is still debated, please don't delete anything else, it does indeed look like you wanted to remove the other party's replies. Gutza 02:07 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)

"To put an end to this disgraceful arrangement, Trajan resolved to crush the Dacians once and for all. The result of his first campaign (101-102) was the siege of the Dacian capital Sarmizegetusa, and the occupation of a part of the country; of the second (105-106), the suicide of Decebalus, the conquest of the whole kingdom and its conversion into a Roman province. The history of the war is given in Dio Cassius, but the best commentary upon it is the famous Column of Trajan in Rome. The province was limited to Transylvania and Oltenia. It was under a governor of praetorian rank, and Legio XIII Gemina with numerous auxiliaries had their fixed quarters in the province. To make up for the ravages caused by the recent wars colonists were imported to cultivate the land and work the mines, and the old inhabitants gradually returned. Forts were built as a protection against the incursions of the surrounding barbarians, and three great military roads were constructed to unite the chief towns, while a fourth, named after Trajan, traversed the Carpathians and entered Transylvania by the Roteturm pass. The chief towns of the province were Colonia Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa (today Sarmizegetusa, Hunedoara county, Romania), Apulum (today Alba-Iulia, Alba county), Napoca (today Cluj-Napoca, Cluj county) and Potaissa (today Turda, Cluj county). With the religion the Dacians also adopted the language of the conquerors, modern Romanian language being a Romance language.

"In 129, under Hadrian, Dacia was divided into Dacia Superior and Dacia Inferior, the former comprising Transylvania, the latter Little Walachia or Oltenia. Marcus Aurelius redivided it into three (tres Daciae): Porolissensis, from the chief town Porolissum (near Moigrad, Salaj county), Apulensis from Apulum and Malvensis from Malva (site unknown). The tres Daciae formed a commune in so far that they had a common capital, Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa, and a common diet, which discussed provincial affairs, formulated complaints and adjusted the incidence of taxation; but in other respects they were practically independent provinces, each under an ordinary procurator, subordinate to a governor of consular rank."

I deleted the discussion by mistake and I am sorry.It looks like both of you are missing the point.One of you seems to be against only because of"romanian"the other one in favor because of "romanian".I copied a text from Wikipedia only to show you my point.As you can see in the beginning in the same phrase the author says that only a part of the country was occupied and the whole kingdom was conquered and transformed into a Roman province.Do any of you describe what happened?And as you may see everybody is doing almost the same mistake.Take a map and try to see what happened.It is not about some foolish theories,it is just a very simple question.How?I didn't make any affirmation.All I have written was an interrogation.You took it personal.Why?There is someone annoyed by Romanians or by the weaknesses shown by some linguistic theories.Let's try to rewrite the article in a logical way and you will see that the house doesn't have a foundation.

The truth is that only a part of the country was conquered and everything that we know about the Roman conquest in Dacia should refer strictly to that region.Nobody knows exactly what happened in the surrounding Dacian area.And if you say what you don't know you are not telling the truth.As you can see even later Hadrian divided that small part conquered into Dacia Inferior and Superior and the text mentioned those two provinces corectly which still represent about 14% of Dacia.

I'm not sure if we're missing the point, but I'm pretty sure you misunderstood my position: I'm not in favor of these theories. I've read about them in the original book (Nu suntem urmasii Romei - We're not Rome's descendants) and I didn't agree then either.

Now, sticking to the topic at hand, the fact that you deleted the original text confused me (and I guess Kricxjo as well). Looking at the article history I can see you didn't post any theories indeed, but Bogdangiusca. Sorry for the confusion.

So then, what is your opinion on this issue? --Gutza 10:37 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Gutza, I've never heard of the book Nu suntem urmasii Romei and it sounds interesting. Could you do a short article on the book and its thesis? Kricxjo 14:25 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)

You can check the author's site here: http://www.dr-savescu.com

The whole book is available as PDF in Romanian, but there is quite some English content there as well, I think you can get an idea -- take a look at his own NOT "ROME'S DESCENDANTS", BUT RATHER... VICEVERSA! (http://www.dacia.org/history/Noinu_e.html) chapter. --Gutza 16:19 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Still me. I went through the section linked above, and I have to say the English version (although written a lot clumsier than the Romanian one) is a lot better, and does indeed raise some questions. The book itself (in Romanian) is too aggressive to be taken seriously, it has the tone of a scandal tabliod. But the English version is much more tempered (albeit still aggressive on occasion) and much more concise, and I found quite a few intriguing bits of information -- it's worth a read, just keep cool and look for the facts instead of getting annoyed with his arrogance. --Gutza 16:56 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)

just a technical question: Why this link doesn't work ? ro:Limba română ((ro:Limba rom& acirc;n& #259;))

Fixed. See Wikipedia:How to edit a page (also available in Romanian), at "External Links" (or Link extern) under section "Links, URLs, images" (Link-uri, URL-uri, imagini). --Gutza 15:58 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I deleted the page because I couldn't write on it ,or I believed so.The so called studies about Romanian language are substituting the terms"part of Dacia" with "Dacia".It is similar with substituting Sicilia with Italiy this is my point.Everithig writen about this subject is confusing because it does not refear to the region known as Dacia Romana.I read a lot of theories also but as I see it is only about who cries louder.What I propose is something that nobody can deny.As you can see the example above the author has no problem,in order to show up his theories,in swiching from "part of a counry" to "whole kingdom" and next he said"the province was limited to Transilvania and Oltenia".What I am trying to say is my own idea it is not taken from any book.I just noticed that facts doesn't match.The roof is nice but this building doesn't have foundation.We use to say "...because of...".In this particular case"because of"does not exist.Behind a lot of words there is in fact nothing.I didn't hear any comentary about this,and this was my point from the biginning.Do I see wrong?About the deleated text:I was expected the window to be clear,the cursor was on the bottom so I believed is my window and I have to clear it before I write.Anyway I still do not understand how this is working.Jac.

Lucky me.I remembered the thought:"the devil is in details".What I want to say is that all the scolar's theories about Romanian language are based on this confusion -part-whole.If thei would have spoken about-part-they have no theory ,so they decided to trick us and swich part with whole.In everything you read swich back "wole" to "part" and put doun the result.I am preaty sure that our discution is more than what they have. Jac

As I see nobody is more interested to do any comments.So I came back to my first affirmation:there is no proof that Dacia was conquered.

 C c	/c/ 	Like in 'cat'

Something here is wrong - cat has /k/, not /c/, but I don't know enough about romanian to tell whether it really uses /c/ or /k/. Anyone know?

Feel free to change the phonetic representation of the first letter in "cat", the person who wrote that probably didn't know a lot more about phonetics than I do, but I can tell you Romanian uses whatever that first letter in "cat" is phonetically. :) BTW, just to verify this, can you please exemplify the use of /c/ in English, so I can confirm that's not how we use letter "c"? -- Gutza 12:56, 12 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Well, there is no /c/ in English. It's a palatal stop, sort of a cross between <ch> (/tS/) and <k>. Morwen

Ok, checked your changes in the main page, and it looks just fine. Thank you! -- Gutza 21:02, 12 Aug 2003 (UTC)

As I see dear "guta"you have too much of C c or K K in your head to understand how to behave in a disscution.Here is not about yor KK.But as a lot of people you think that by puting his smell on a thing nobody will see the reality.The materils which you reffer to is just childish talk.As you see Dio Casius explain very well how the things happene.The romans conquered a part of Dacia,the population run away and colonists were brought in.So how come that 86% of a teritory together with its population,which fought for centuries against the roman empire,came to change its language into a "vulgar latin"one.I don't have to prove that Romanian is not a latin language.I wait for some one to prove me that it is."Nea Guta"can you prove it ?If not please keep fresh your deep thoughts about C C or KK. JAC.

Just to ackowledge reading this, and to let you know I'm not interested in this kind of discussion. (For the English speakers, "KK" is pronounced much like "sh*t" in Romanian.) --Gutza 00:03, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Happy New Year, Many New Articles in Romanian !

Gentlemen,

Please hit the space bar once or twice after each full dot and comma ! Thank you. As for discussions, please, please, just refer to facts, and discuss them as serenely and as competently as possible. Ad hominem in lieu of ad rem only takes reading time, wiki bandwidth (already congested) - to say nothing about your wasted energy. Energy is good in productive, constructive, standard building processes. Happy new year, peace and prosperity, as well as lots of wiki articles in Romanian ! irismeister 17:54, 2003 Dec 31 (UTC)

"{Dacian words} have a cognate in Albanian language"

195.92.67.78 removed it and claimed it was a false statement. Why false ? The words exist! Bogdan | Talk 12:38, 17 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Currently in article: "In other countries (excepting Hungary) the Romanian minority has very few rights regarding the use of their language in schools and institutions." I would argue strongly that this is not the case for the (admittedly small) Romanian minority in the US. While I am, admittedly, unaware of any public schools offering classes specifically for Romanian speakers, that is entirely to be expected for what is not even among the dozen leading languages of the country. However, I am quite certain that there are no restrictions at all against Romanians in the US privately setting up schools or other institutions that function, to whatever degree they desire, in Romanian. A Romanian-speaker charged with a crime in the US would typically be entitled to the services of an appropriate court interpreter, similarly (at least in most parts of the country) serious efforts would be made to provide appropriate medical interpreters; admittedly, in some regions of the US it would be hard to find a qualified interepreter, but that doesn't seem like a deprivation of rights, just the simple fact that if you venture into (say) Montana, you are going to have a darned hard time finding anyone who speaks anything other than English, probably some Spanish, and maybe something he or she picked up in school, which would probably be French or German. Or did whoever wrote this have something else in mind? Anyway, I suspect the situation in Canada (another mentioned country) would be pretty similar.

If I'm just misunderstanding the sentence (which is entirely possible) it could probably use clarification in the article. -- Jmabel 06:37, 18 Jan 2004 (UTC)

That was about the situation in Eastern European countries (like Serbia, Russia or Greece). I was probably not very clear. (That paragraph should be expanded to be the situation in each country, anyway) Bogdan | Talk 09:15, 18 Jan 2004 (UTC)

The Romanian territory was inhabited in ancient times by the Dacians, who spoke an Indo-European language, the Dacian language about which there is very little knowledge, but some linguists think that it was fairly close to Latin.

Which linguists thing Dacian was fairly close to Latin? Of course they were cousins, for they were presumably both IE languages, but the only people who would assert a closer relationship are the cranks who believe the Romans came to Italy from Romania and so Romania is the original Latin-language homeland.

Romania is one of the possible "homelands" of the Indo-Europeans. See the maps: [1] (http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/indoeuropean.html), [2] (http://www.geocities.com/caraculiambro/Indo-European.html).

We also know that Romans settled in Italy only on about 1000 BC, see roman-empire.net (http://www.roman-empire.net/founding/found-index.html).

Not only this, but the poetic view of Virgilius goes to the founding of Rome by Aeneas, who was of Thracian descent.

I will remove this final clause "but some linguists..." unless someone can give a reason that it should stay there.

AFAIK Bogdan Petriceicu-Hasdeu and Ovid Densusianu were the first to sustain this theory.Bogdan | Talk 20:40, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I say we stick those names in the article rather than "some linguists". Anyone have a problem with that? -- Jmabel 23:26, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)

SAMPA [3] (http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/sampa/rom-uni.htm) says that Romanian has eight vowels, comparing with our article's seven.

Should i_0 -- voiceless i that can be found at the end of some words, mostly plurals, like in "flori" (flowers) -- be considered a different vowel than the regular i, like in "doi" (two) ? Bogdan | Talk 18:56, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

From the point of view of writing out pronunciations, it might be a good idea. As a foreigner who had to learn the language as an adult, I at first found this very confusing, especially because it isn't always totally voiceless, and it does slightly affect the sound of the preceding consonant. -- Jmabel 01:01, 5 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Recent edits

The 3 June 2004 edits by User:198.53.117.140 strike me as basically wrongheaded and possibly driven by nationalistic beliefs rather than a knowledge of linguistic history. However, there are other people involved in this article with more knowledge of the topic than I have, and I hesitate to simply revert. I am calling everyone's attention to these edits: my suspicion is that all or some of the earlier text was more on the mark, and someone with more knowledge of the history of the language than I should examine them point by point. -- Jmabel 21:27, Jun 4, 2004 (UTC)

Hi, I reverted the edits as this guy introduced some nationalistic stuff that can not be supported by any facts. He also removed facts, which he does not like. The thesis that almost all words for tools are of Dacian origin has no point as we know very litle about Dacian language.Yeti 14:29, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)

A recent anon. edit added (without further comment) Ukraine as a place where the Romanian minority has rights regarding the use of their language in schools and institutions. I have no idea of the factuality of this, & no references were provided. Does anyone know more? -- Jmabel 18:41, Jun 23, 2004 (UTC)

Why are my edits vandalized? I wrote that Romanian is well protected in Hungary and Ukraine, and then I see written, that in Serbia and in Ukraine, romanian language has only few rights, and that is not well protected. Please read this article (http://www.gardianul.ro/articol.php?a=reportaj2004031001.xml). Indeed it says that romanians and moldovans are artificialy separated, but that because romanians in Odessa and some romanians from Cernauti tend to declare themselves moldovans in census. That is not Ukraine's fault. Then it says:

In Ucraina functioneaza 107 scoli cu predarea tuturor materiilor de invatamant in limba romana, in care fac studiile mai mult de 25.000 de elevi. Pregatirea cadrelor pentru scoli generale si licee cu predarea in limba romana se efectueaza in Universitatea Nationala din Cernauti, Universitatea de Stat din Ujgorod, Institutul Pedagogic din Izmail si in alte institutii specializate de invatamant.

In limba romana apar 12 ziare, printre care si "Concordia", editia Radei Supreme a Ucrainei. Emisiunile in limba romana la TV cuprind 158 de ore pe an, la radioul public - 356 de ore pe an. In regiunea Cernauti, unde locuieste cea mai numeroasa comunitate romana (15% din totalul populatiei regiunii), emisiunile in limba romana la TV reprezinta 31,5%, la radioul public - 25%.

In Ucraina functioneaza aproape 150 de parohii ortodoxe, in lacasurile carora slujbele religioase se tin in limba romana. In regiunea Cernauti functioneaza 74 case de cultura, 3 scoli de arta plastica, 80 de biblioteci. In anul 2000, cu sustinerea financiara a autoritatilor din Cernauti, a fost instalat monumentul marelui poet roman Mihai Eminescu.

So it makes a summary of how the romanian language is protected. And it is well protected. Of course, it could be better, like you can see in the conclusions:

Ucraina nu respecta articolul 13 din tratatul politic de baza cu privire la minoritatea romana:

nu exista nici un liceu de limba romana in acceptiunea romaneasca a termenului;
nu exista invatamant de specialitate in limba romana la universitatile din Cernauti si Ujgorod: matematica, fizica, chimie, biologie etc.;
exista doar o grupa de limba romana la Facultatea de Filologie din Universitatea de la Cernauti, dar nici acolo nu se predau disciplinele cele mai importante in limba romana;
foarte multi romani au fost ocoliti la recensamant;
"se recomanda" introducerea limbii ucrainene in toate scolile si bisericile romanesti;

bibliotecile si casele de cultura stau inchise;

absolventii care au primit burse in Romania nu sunt angajati cand se intorc acasa.

But that doesn't mean that the language is not protected.

Then again, I'd like to talk to you about Serbia. Of course, the rights granted here to the romanian minority are limited, because the it numbers only some 30.000 people. That all in Vojvodina, where it is an official language. People can study in their native language, romanian language is studied at the Novi Sad University, romanians can interact with the autorities in their native language.

Problems are only in Timok Valley (Serbia), that concerning the Vlachs. They donnot have schools, religios service in their language and cannot contact officials in their native language. And they are not yet reconised officialy as romanians, they are considered to be Vlachs. Then again it is estimated that in Serbia live some 200.000-300.000 Vlachs and not 40.000. So there you have problems with the protection of the minority, and not in Ukraine and Vojvodina (Serbia). --Danutz

In "Ukraine-Romania Treaty" of 1997 you can read on the article 13, about languages:

[...]

"5. Partile contractante vor crea, pentru persoanele apartinând minoritatii române din Ucraina si pentru cele apartinând minoritatii ucrainene din România, aceleasi conditii pentru studierea limbii lor materne. Partile contractante - reafirma ca persoanele sus-mentionate au dreptul sa fie instruite în limba lor materna, într-un numar necesar de scoli si institutii de stat pentru învatamânt si specializare, situate tinând seama de raspândirea geografica a minoritatilor respective."

The fact that you found just one Bucharest newspaper article as source of information is very sugestive about state of isolation of those Romanians and I don't know how is possible to consider that Romanian language is protected, even counting those 107 schools in Ukraine.

--Vasile 15:44, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Danutz, your edit wasn't "vandalized." You made it anonymously, without citing any sources at the time. I left a note (above; if you hadn't been anonymous, I'd have also pinged your talk page) "...I have no idea of the factuality of this, & no references were provided..." No one responded. Someone (not me) reverted your edit. Now you've provided some sources, and we can presumably debate the case on its merits, and some decision will be reached. -- Jmabel 17:28, Jun 29, 2004 (UTC)

I return with some new sources. On the official Ukraine guvernamental site, one can find info about the romanian minority in Cernăuţi Oblast. It says:

Representatives of nationalities are active participants of the state management processes in the region. Among 4153 deputies of regional, city, district, village and settlement councils ? 477 are Romanians and 147 and Moldavians (22,8% of all deputy corps). In Chernivets?ky regional council the number of Romanians and Moldavians constitutes 18%, in Hertsajivs?ky district council ? 95%, Hlybots?ky ? 50%, Novoselyts?ky ? 63,3%, Storozhynets?ky _ 30%. 37 Romanians and 22 Moldavians are heads of 283 regional, city, village and settlement councils, totally? 22,8% on 19,7% of general quantity of Roman speaking population of the region.

Regional power supports national communities in organization of massive national and cultural measures. Traditional are Romanian national holidays in Chernivtsi ? ?Mertsishor?, ?Florile Dalbe? and ?Limba noastre? in which other national and cultural communities take part.

Regional state administration, bodies of local government keep in touch nationalities with ethnical homelands as well as with Ukrainians who live abroad. [4] (http://www.kmu.gov.ua/control/en/publish/article?art_id=116742&cat_id=32596).

So also administratively, romanian comunity is very well represented. But I found some information also about the other regions, where romanians are living. On the official site of the Transcarpatia region, romanian version, I found some info about the romanian minority:

Conform recensământului 1989 în Transcarpatia au fost 29.5 mii români. În regiune sunt 11 şcoli cu predarea în limba română, în două grupe preşcolare se învaţă în limba maternă, la universitetea naţională din Ujgorod funcţionează secţia de fililogie română, în biblioteci sunt 14.000 mii cărţi în limba română. În afară de astă există 7 cluburi naţionale, se petrec festivaluri tradiţionale anuale, apar emisiuni televizate şi radiofonice în limba română, organizaţiile obşteşti funcţionează cu succes, apar altele noi; au apărut primele ziare româneşti din dreapta Tisei: «APŞA» şi «Maramureşenii» [5] (http://www.zakarpattja.westportal.net/rum/8.html)

This all are facts, not lies of the Ukrainian gov. I found this information only on official sites, and on romanian sites that are ok with NPOV. Please donnot quote me romanian sources without NPOV, where suposition are made and so on. --Danutz

These are very interesting informations.

1. About Transcarpatia, that site cant't be considered a trusted source of information. Versions about history of this territory differ for one language to other. The statistics represent information of "last" census of 1989 (or 1986).
2. In my opinion, situation of northern Bukovina as it is shown on Ukraine Gov portal, doesn't represent a proof that Romanian language is protected. You can't say that a language is protected by organizing three anual days of (massive) hollyday in city of Cernauti. Also, I wonder how technically is possible that "the bodies of local government keep in touch nationalities with ethnical homelands" and what is the exact sense of that phrase. From the official site of the region Cernauti (http://www.bucoda.cv.ua/) it is more difficult to understand the way the Romanian language is protected. --Vasile 15:19, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

So let's get the (somewhat contradictory) evidence -- accurately cited, translated, and quoted -- into the article itself. -- Jmabel 18:21, Jul 5, 2004 (UTC)

We may have an official point of view of Ukraine Gov. I don't see the point of view on this matter of those govs that have Romanian as official language: Romania, Moldova and Autonomuos Province of Vojvodina (Republic of Serbia). I don't see any indices that could prove the existence of Romanian free press in Bukovina. What about Romanian cultural organisations if exist any? --Vasile 23:22, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Free press: In limba romana apar 12 ziare, printre care si "Concordia", editia Radei Supreme a Ucrainei. Emisiunile in limba romana la TV cuprind 158 de ore pe an, la radioul public - 356 de ore pe an. In regiunea Cernauti, unde locuieste cea mai numeroasa comunitate romana (15% din totalul populatiei regiunii), emisiunile in limba romana la TV reprezinta 31,5%, la radioul public - 25%. [6] (http://www.gardianul.ro/articol.php?a=reportaj2004031001.xml). Only two-three newspapers are edited by the authorities (e.g. Concordia). The rest is free press.

Cultural institutions: In regiunea Cernauti functioneaza 74 case de cultura, 3 scoli de arta plastica, 80 de biblioteci. - same source

Don't tell me that is not accurate info, becuase that was published in Romania, by an independent newspaper, Gardianul.

What do you mean by point of view? Please, give me an example. A, and what isn't right with the transcarpatian source? What history differs? I didn't cite you history first of all, I cited you an article that can't differ from language to language, because is available only in romanian. And reading some sentences in romanian and english in the history page of that site, I see that those are translations of one other. --Danutz

The transcarpatian source represents nobody. This nobody can not be trusted. Anyway the site is changing. About the other sources, remember the name of the article "Romanian language"; those sources show there are very few rights for use and preserve the Romanian language in Ukraine. In Serbia's case, situation is worst. --Vasile 19:59, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

skatae. etc.

If anyone can decipher "spoken in the skatae's of Prodromos and Lacu" in the article, could you please clarify? -- Jmabel 05:01, Aug 6, 2004 (UTC)

It was actually a typo in skatae. It's sketae (being a plural, no need of an ending s). A sketa is a community of monks, and apparently two of these communities, Prodromos and Lacu also speak Romanian. Found some background information here (http://miscarea.com/libertatea-prodromos.htm) (RO) Defrenrokorit 14:04, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Word origins

I notice that unlike some other languages we have no discussion of (or separate article on) the range of word origins in the language. I always find this kind of thing rather fun, but for Romanian, I'm not too knowledgable. Does anyone know (1) the approximate percentages of Latin, Slavic, and other roots in modern Romanian? How many of the Latin words got there in time immemorial and how many in borrowings from French?

I'll admit that the languages from which only a few words creep into common use border on trivia, but I for one find it fascinating trivia.

This crossed my mind because I had occasion the other day to hear the Arabic word for orange and it is very close to the Romanian portocale, which I would guess (but don't know) comes from the Arabic... or maybe both from a third language?

Anyway, as I say, for Romanian, I'm not too knowledgable on this sort of thing, but I'd be intrigued. -- Jmabel 00:24, Aug 7, 2004 (UTC)

Here's an estimation: [7] (http://countrystudies.us/romania/5.htm) --Vasile 12:48, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It's hard to estimate, but I think there are about (just guessing):

2000 of Latin inherited words (most of the common used words like casa, frate, familie, etc) -- many of these words have internal derivatives (such as "a (se) casatori = to marry")
3000 Slavic words (many of them obsolete)
700 Turkic (many of them obsolete)
400 Dacian (with direct Albanian cognate; many common words, like copil, a baga, a scoate, etcc)
200 Greek words (both from ancient and modern Greek)
200 Balkanic (probably Thracian, Illyrian, Turkic Bulgarian or other sources -- most of them are in common with the South Slavs, especially with Bulgarian)
a lot of other words of uncertain origin

Some words are even of Latin origin, but borrowed from the Slavs, such as:

rom. cufa~r (coffer) <- sl. <- lat. cophinus
rom. oţet (vinegar) <- sl. <-lat. acetus

Regarding to the quantity, if you take a random (old or new) text and count the words of Latin origin, you'd get more than 70%.

For example, in the poetry of Eminescu:

                 Vocabulary      Usage
1. latin inherited:  48,68%      83,00%
2. slavic            16,81%       6,93%
3. french            11,97%       2,52%
4. latin literary     3,41%       1,13%
5. hungarian          1,63%       0,84%
6. neogreek           1,33%       0,29%
7. turkish            1,20%       0,28%

Bogdan | Talk 13:22, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Those numbers on Eminescu don't come near adding up to 100% in either column. What's the missing roughly 14%/10%? unknown origin? -- Jmabel 17:27, Aug 26, 2004 (UTC)

A few are from German (such as "şurub" = screw) and Italian (such as "barca" = boat), but probably most of those left are probably from the substrate (Dacian). Bogdan | Talk 17:58, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Obsolete words shouldn't be included in those figures (such as "3OOO Slavic words"), because they have been dropped out of usage and are not part of the spoken language or contemporary written language. It would be interesting to know the approximate number of Slavic words in the contemporary Romanian language (approximate, because of course a number of etymologies are incorrect). Also, sometimes it's a question whether to include in that number non-Slavic words that entered via Slavic (otzet> Latin 'acetum'). Decius 07:20, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Assistance

The Romanian section of Romance copula needs some attention. If you can describe how the verb "to be" works, go to it! Chameleon 22:58, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Etymology needs Revision

Many Romanian words assumed to derive from Slavic are not definitely derived from Slavic, but in fact derive from native Dacian (and a few from Gothic). Decius

I am not sure what words are you talking about. If it's "stăpân", "jupân", etc., they are still under dispute. Bogdan | Talk 12:44, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Yes, those are under dispute, and rightly so. Yet I'm referring to Romanian words that have been solemnly declared to derive from Slavic. Here is one of the words I'm talking about: Sticla. It is not originally Slavic, it's now confirmed to be from Gothic, according to the latest authorities I referenced. The usual explanation is that this Gothic word entered Romanian via the Slavs, but no proof of this is given. Romanians may have got the word directly from Gothic contact; or Goths may have borrowed the word from Dacians/proto-Romanians, from whom the Slavs also borrowed. Despite what a linguist here and there might say, there is no proof that many of the words generally considered to be "loanwords" are in fact "loanwords" and not native. Being much more civilized in a technological sense than the "goths" or the "slavs" (who lived in scarcely accesible, swampy areas originally, as indicated in the Strategikon), the Dacians would have been the source of many technological terms (tools, manufactured goods, various crops). The Romanian word 'smochina' (fig) is allegedly from slavic, and the slavic word is in turn from "the goths", who had the word as 'smakka' (>fig;delicacy). Yet figs did not grow in the colder regions where the Goths and Slavs came from, so it would be curious if 'smochina' would be from "goths" (who used to live on the shores of the Baltic sea in little huts and dug up clams to eat from the sand, as indicated by archaeological finds). But figs did grow in Thrace, so 'smochina' may in fact be a Daco-Thracian word. When the Goths & Slavs moved onto Romanian territories, they picked up lots of Romanian words, as well as vice versa. Words were passed around like a bottle of beer, & now it's hard to tell where some words originate from. Decius

Decius, I find it very confusing when you make major changes to your remarks in a talk page after other people have responded, especially because (1) you seem never to timestamp your remarks and (2) you simply substitute new text with no indication that the remark has been edited. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:22, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

I'm revising some phrases. Decius 06:56, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Also, some of those "hungarian words" were not originally hungarian words, but Romanian. If you don't beleive me, prove me wrong.I'm addressing anybody who reads this page. Hungarians used to & still do have a habit of trying to appropriate words & derive it from them: for instance, in older English dictionaries, "Vampire" was usually said to be derived from hungarian---because hungarian scholars insisted on deriving it so, and they influenced those who compiled English dictionaries. Later, scholars realized that the word more likely derives from Serbo-Croatian.The reason scholars realized this is because: Serbs & Croats brought it to their attention. And yet I beleive a further correction needs to be made: the word does not derive from Hungarian or Serbo-Croatian, nor is it from Turkic 'ubir'. What we have here is an example of etymological speculation, and Truth does not always come out on top---sometimes the people with the biggest mouths win. The point of this is not this particular word: this is an example of etymological speculation. Decius

It's funny how linguists sometimes refer to "Old Church Slavonic" texts when they want to "authenticate" the Slavic origin of this or that word. The problem is, most of these bozos don't realize that even the oldest of those texts was written in the 9th century, and written in Macedonia or Thrace. So, in other words, by the time the Old Slavonic texts were written many Romanian words already entered the slavic languages in the Balkans; many germanic words did; many greek,etc. So you cannot authenticate the slavicness of a word through such means, so 90% of what these linguists assume about the slavic origin of a word is pure speculation. That's why many of those "slavic words" in Romanian are not necessarily truly slavic words, but in fact Romanian words that slavs took from Romanians. Eventually, these academic idiots will realize that. In the meantime, I'm not beleiving everything I read. Decius

Also, there are quite a number of words in common between Romanians & South Slavs (both eastern & western sub-branches)that may very well derive from Dacian/Thracian substratums. These words should be identified more easily because most of them should be less represented in North & West Slavic: yet Romanian words have entered even Polish, so it's not that clear cut. Of course, you can't depend on your average "etymological dictionary": critical thinking must be applied. Anyway, to sum up, after taking all these things into account & revising the etymology of Romanian words, we see that the percentage of Romanian words that are definitely "borrowed from slavic" is considerably less than the 'standard' figures. Decius

There is another factor that needs to be kept in mind: since both Romanian (including Dacian words) & Slavic were and are Indo-European languages, we should expect some words to have been nearly identical in form & meaning even before contact. For example, the English word 'sister' has an exact cognate in pan-slavic: 'sestra', 'sostra', et cetera. Now, imagine Slavs would have swamped an area of Europe populated by proto-English speakers, & imagine that we didn't have other direct means of verifying word-sources for these hypothetical proto-english speakers: after a thousand years, scholars might say the english word 'sister' is derived from Slavic. This may be exactly what happened in the case of many Romanian words. Now, of course many Romanian words are truly derived from Slavic, but many are not necessarily. The problem is, we don't know enough about the Dacian language (and since a number of linguists beleive the Dacian language was close to Baltic and Slavic, some words thought to be from Slavic could well be from Dacian). Consider this: even between classical Latin & Slavic there are many IE cognates. I predict (I'm not the first to consider this) that in Dacian there were even more baltic and slavic cognates, though the language itself may have been an eastern Italic language. Dacian may be the true source of many "slavic" Romanian words. Decius

I especially question the Slavic origin of Romanian words that are also found in Aromanian. Sure, Aromanians have some slavic borrowings too, but many of these words are good candidates to be in fact derived from Daco-Thracian. I don't even know whether any "authorities" have thought to look into this. Decius

Da

Classical Latin did not have a direct word for "yes", true, but Proto-Romance (and therefore, probably Vulgar Latin), did—*si. The descendant of that word can even be seen in Romanian! So, da came from Slavonic, but not for quite the reason given. Robert Staubs 13:31 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

*si (<'sic') did not originally meant "yes", but rather "thus". Romanian uses it with the meaning "and" (şi < si). Bogdan | Talk 11:00, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Agreed, Proto-Romance did not have a direct word for "yes", but instead each region evolved its own. While the Iberian Peninsula and Italy use "si", Northern France used "hoc ille" and Occitania "Hoc". The situation is much more fragmented than Mr Staubs asserts. Crculver 11:49, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Just because I like to upset people's ideas, let me throw this one at whoever reads this page: there are no Slavic documents older than the 9th century. And like I said, the earliest documents were written in Macedon/Thrace in the 9th century, and already show many lexical borrowings from neighboring peoples. Some Vlachs (Thraco-Vlachs)lived south of the Danube even back then, so Vlachs were neighboring peoples. Romanians/Vlachs,as stated in an 11th century Byzantine document, the Strategikon, are descended from Dacians & Thracians. So, how can you prove that 'Da' was originally Slavonic? It may originally have been Dacian, & the borrowing went the other way. Now, I don't neccesarily hold this view concerning this word, but it is in fact possible. Or, like Sister/Sestra, the word may already have been indigenous to both before contact. Linguistics is a science, but it's not chemistry, & things are not as definite. If we apply Occam's Razor, then yes, I suppose we would say it comes from Slavonic. But that's not a foolproof method. This is not as unlikely as it sounds: according to a recent work on the Slavic language in the Yale University Language series, 'The Dawn of Slavic' the Slavic word for God, 'Bog', was borrowed at some indefinite period from Iranian speakers. Now, if that could happen, there is no reason why 'Da' could not have been borrowed from Dacians. Dacians and Daco-Romanians also lived in ancient Moldova & in what is now Ukraine. So when Slavs first reached Ukraine and Moldova they would have encountered Dacians and Daco-Romans. So it would not be outrageous to suppose Daco-Romano-Slavic lexical interactions during the Dark Ages. Decius

There are some Romanian words that are obviously derived from Slavic: Bogat, which originally in Old Slavic meant something like 'blessed by Bog'(and yet, the Slavs in turn seemed to have got it from Iranians); Otrava, because in Slavic Trava means 'grass, herbs', and from there 'medicine', and from there 'bad medicine', 'poison'. I'm not disputing these types of words. Yet there is an extremely long list of words that I do dispute. I dispute most of those "slavic" words that Daco-Romanian has in common with Aromanian. I don't know whether Aromanians say 'Da'---if they don't, then I may well give 'Da' to the Slavs. I just used 'Da' as an example, I don't neccesarily beleive it's from Dacian. Decius

I read some Aromanian texts (I don't have an Aromanian dictionary to look for it) and I couldn't find a "Da" meaning "Yes", but only with the meaning "to give" and "but" (Romanian: "dar"). However, I can easily find "Nu". Is this the proof that you needed ? Bogdan | Talk 11:22, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

If indeed the word & its kindred were absent from Aromanian , then most likely (but not definitely) Daco-Romanians picked up Da from neighboring Slavic people. Yet, as you say yourself, the word is not quite absent: because Romanian Dar (meaning 'yet','but') is related to Romanian Da (meaning 'yes'), a parallel case being Latin 'Sin', 'QuodSi'. So, the presence of Da (meaning 'but', 'yet')in Aromanian shows that the source of Romanian Da may be Daco-Thracic. If Da meaning 'yes' is absent, perhaps the development from "but" to "yes" (as Quodsi to Si) happened in Daco-Romanian but not in Macedo-Romanian. So, the Slavs aren't getting this one yet, by any stretch. By the way, isn't it annoying that there is no Aromanian dictionary readily available? I don't know if you can find one in Romania, you probably can, but in the U.S. you can't find one.This is ridiculous. It's slowing down everybody's research. So far on the net, I've found one Aromanian-English dictionary advertised on an Aromanian-American website, but it's overpriced. Anyway, what I need is a complete Aromanian-Romanian dictionary, no english needed. I guess I'll have to look. Decius

Just wanted to point out something interesting, but not exactly relevant: Baghdad was named by Iranian speakers, not Arabs, and Baghdad meant 'given by God': Bagh=God,as in Slavic 'Bog'; Dad=given, as in Latin 'Datum'. According to linguists, the Slavs probably in prehistoric times picked up their word for Divinity from Iranian speakers. In fact, Iranian speakers also had the word Bogat, meaning the same thing but I'm not sure how they spelled it. Decius

"The word bog is an Indo-Iranian word signifying riches, abundance, and good fortune." (Britannica)

That was the original meaning, as then, it became a title of the Mithra and then had the meaning of "God". Bogdan | Talk 11:11, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The name Bogdan also of course derives from this Iranian source, but it's a Slavic not Iranian name so far as I know. The Slavs took the word 'bog' from Indo-Iranians at some time in the past. They did not inherit that word from an IE root. Then the Slavs either didn't have a name for God, or the word/name they had was replaced by the borrowed word over time. Decius

"The adoption of the foreign word "bog" probably displaced from the Slavic languages the Indo-European name of the celestial God, Deivos (Ancient Indian Deva, Latin Deus, Old High German Ziu, etc.), which Lithuanian, on the other hand, has conserved as Dievas." (Britannica)

Interesting. Thanks for the info. So, if it originally meant 'riches, abundance', then the Slavs obviously borrowed it at a later time when it meant 'God'. Decius

And like I said, if they borrowed such an important word from Indo-Iranians, why isn't it possible that they took 'Da' from Dacians? Especially considering that Da meaning 'but', 'yet' IS present in Aromanian, and the Aromanian form may be the root of the Daco-Romanian form. It makes sense to me, & I don't know of a solid objection, so: until proven to be Slavic, I will consider 'Da' to be native Romanian. Decius

Dacian remains a big unknown for the time being. The fact that Aromanians have da as "but" is not such a strange event, as it is probably a mere contraction from the long-form "dar". Da' is used in many parts of Romania, especially in Wallachia with the meaning of but, and is a trait of speaking very fast (Both Wallachians and Aromanian are very fast speakers). This is another unknown ethymology, probably not related to da=yes. Da is used in all slavic languages for approval. It is used in Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Croatian and so on. How could, given the routes of the Slavic Migrations, Russian be affected by early Romanian? It is physically impossible. And backspreading, as some authors would suggest it, from Dacia to the East, West and South, can only be regarded as a bad joke. A very bad joke. Bog and Bogdan (I am not a linguist) could be taken from the Iranians, but only indirectly as these people have never met. Slavic tribes were Christianized starting with the 6th Century AD until the 8th Century AD. Before that gods would have names like Triglaw, Svarocic, Svarog, Dazbag, Jarowit, Rod, Rozanicy, or Periun. So NO Bog or Bogdan. Bog appears early in the 9th Century, and most historians consider that it is an extention in meaning as bog presumably meant rich or powerful, and bog was transformed to the All Powerful. It is presumed to be AVAR, not IRANIAN (most historians think so, at least). Avars were closely related in language to Iranians, and, I have done a little research, Bogh in early Persian meant rich, wealthy, Bogh-Dad meant not given by god (god in Ancient Persia, now Iran was Deivos, but by the 6th century BC they were Zoroastrian, and god was called Ahura Mazda, and Deivos became the term for demon). Bogh-Dad can be translated as "Given in Wealth" NOT "Given by God". The transformation from wealth = power to The Powerful, The All-Mighty was probably done by the slavs. The cult of Mithra was a secret cult that spread all over the Roman Empire in the early days of The Roman Empire, a long time before the slavs. And I have never heard of the attribute "wealthy" attributed to Mithra in Persia. BTW, the cult was more widely known not by the name of Mithra but Deus Sol Invictus and it was mostly celebrated by Roman soldiers. And it vanished by 400 AD, therefore I can see no link between the Persians (Iranians) and Slavs. Frankly speaking, this is the first time I have heard of a direct link between Persians and Slavic tribes. My personal belief is that Dacian was a mixture of Thracian and either some kind of early Latin or similar. This is the only plausible explaination why it is the only surviving Romance Language in the area - while Moesia, with longer latinisation fell to slavic peoples. Dacians didn't know anything else to speak but a mixture of Roman and Thracian. Dacian-Roman relations existed since before 65 BC, so language refreshing, and updating could have happened. Anyhow, dacians DID NOT invent the weel, hot water, writing, phylosophy, mathemathics, war tactics, the rocket plane nor the atom bomb as some STUPID historians assess. And as probably most words have been updated before, during and after collonisation, WE ARE THE FOLLOWERS OF ROME. One tell-tale sign is this : Romania is Christian. Not Zalmolxian. Christian. And Christianity is one of the great legacy of The Roman Empire. There is strong evidence that Dacians patented smoking pot (also known as weed, marijuana, etc. - it was written along other medicinal plants - Dacians were quite good at these - featured in latin works and attributed to Dacians) and wine (as part of the Thracian Family). That's why Romania is All Play, No Work. Good Night (Xanthar)

I'm not sure about smoking pot (that was more among the Scythians), but Thracians and Dacians did patent drinking wine. You disagree that 'bog' is from Indo-Iranians---well, that's not my theory, that's actually the accepted theory in any contemporary treatise on the Slavic languages, so email them something if you can disprove the idea. It's actually certain that Slavs once were in long contact with Indo-Iranians, because there are a number of Slavic words of Indo-Iranian origin (gushter, tabar, etc. I have the list somewhere). As for 'Da' being native to Daco-Thracians, I wasn't totally serious, but I'm not totally joking. It is good to question an old unproven assumption. I read those parts of the Strategikon (by Emperor Maurice), and I read about the history of the Slavs, and it wouldn't surprise me if they borrowed the word 'Da' from another people. That translation of Baghdad (true or not) was taken from a book, so it's not my skin. As for the Dacians inventing the A-Bomb, I have no idea where that's from, but that would make a good sci-fi movie. Decius

If being Christian means you are a follower of Rome, then most Australian Aborigines are followers of Rome. And don't forget what Christians went through before being accepted within the empire. You can't use religion to prove genetic descent---I'm sure we Romanians are more Dacian than Roman, and we should be proud of that. BTW, I hope you already know this: when the Romans conquered Dacia, they were still pagans; Christianity is not a legacy of the old Roman Empire. Christianity came many centuries later. Decius

As for 'Slavic migration patterns', you obviously are not the authority on that, because you would have known that Slavs encountered Indo-Iranians (as they certainly did). A word like 'da' could easily have went from Dacia, to what is now Ukraine and Russia, no big deal. Anyway, if somebody can bring me actual proof that 'da' is native to Slavic, I'll accept it. Decius

loanwords

In the examples of loanwords, where the original foreign-language word is not identical, it would be nice to have the original word as well. -- Jmabel | Talk 20:45, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)

Done :-) Bogdan | Talk 21:01, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

German nouns

Why remove the capitals on the German nouns? Aren't German nouns always capitalized? -- Jmabel | Talk 09:26, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC)

Though the Romanian word is probably from German, the German word Bier is from Latin Bibere, as stated in linguistic references. See also Beer. Decius 08:15, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Other example

Duşman is originally an Indo-European word. It is considered to have entered Romanian via Turkish, the Turks in turn picking it up from Persian (an Indo-European language). Yet a linguist (Sorin Paliga) has stated that the Romanian word may not be from Turkish. He's probably wrong in this case, but I'm replacing the duşman example with a much more certain example: cutie (box) is either directly from Turkish or via Bulgarian or something. Decius 03:02, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

duşman

Decius, you can let "cutie" there, but you should know that "duşman" is for sure from Turkish, no matter what some may say.

It can be found in various Turkic language
If it were an ancestral Romanian word, "an" ought to have been transformed into "ân", just like in romanus -> român. Bogdan | Talk 08:22, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The word is Indo-European, though it has entered Turkic languages. Decius

Turkish languages are spread out throughout Central Asia and split long time ago from the common Turkic. If a word is present in all of them, then almost certainly it is a word of Turkic. And as far as I know, the proto-Indo-Europeans and proto-Turks never had any linguistic contacts. (like the proto-IE had, for example, with the proto-Semits and the proto-Fino-Ugrics) Bogdan | Talk 07:53, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I'm not convinced it entered Romanian from Turkish, though it might have: it also might not have. Decius 21:37, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Really common Turkish word, not (to the best of my knowledge) in any other Romance language; I'd be astounded if it got to Romania some other way. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:28, Feb 9, 2005 (UTC)

Seriously, Decius, you seem to have little training in comparative Indo-European linguistics. Can you find evidence that "dusman" is IE in any legitimate IE work, e.g. Pokorny's dictionary? Crculver 07:35, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The Sanskrit word was 'Durmanah' (>literally "ill-mind"; enemy) and in Ancient Greek the word was 'Dusmenes' (enemy), and 'Dusmeneia' (ill-will), et cetera. It is known that Greek 'Dusmenes' is a compound (and Sanskrit 'durmanah' from the same roots), the first part from PIE *Dus (used only as a prefix, and meant 'bad, negative') and the second part is from *Men, 'to think; of the mind'. Literally, Ill-minded, of Ill-will. Dusman is definitely an Indo-European word, and I don't beleive in such fantastic coincidences. The word is Indo-European, and it entered the Turkic languages. How it entered Romanian is an open question. I have a linguist that backs me up, so to be cautious, I replaced the dubious 'dusman' with the certain 'cutie'. Culver, don't assume what I know or don't know. You all can beleive what you want. In the meanwhile, I'm busy. Decius 08:16, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Here: in Sanskrit: *dus was found as 'dush', 'dur' (>durmanah); Avestan, 'dus', 'duz'; Latin 'dis'; Greek 'dus' (>dusmenes). Both *Dus and *Men are listed in "Pokorny", if that makes it legitimate to you: even though Pokorny's work (from 1959) is quite outdated, and even though Pokorny wrote propaganda pamphlets in favor of pan-celtic and pan-germanic, pseudo-scientific visions of history, and even though Pokorny for no sound scientific reason constantly referred to Albanian as an "illyrian" language. But if Pokorny makes it reliable to you, yes, you'll find it in Pokorny. Why don't you read his book more often, and get some more training in "comparative Indo-European linguistics". Decius 08:39, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Dushman is a well-known Persian word, borrowed into Romanian via Turkish. Of course it's Indo-European, but that's not the point. - 208.147.76.23 07:25, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

And you just thought about that, genius? I already considered that, as I also considered the word having entered from Cuman, Avar, Bulgar, or some other Turkic language, but not necessarily Turkish. The Cumans had many Persian loanwords as well. To recap: Dusman is an Indo-European word, and there is no real evidence that it entered Romanian from Turkish, as I said before. Decius 07:38, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

kum te kiama

hi there, i think these two "common phrases in romanian" are a must: - cum te cheama (how do they call you/what's your name) and ce faci (how are you/whatare you doing) ... the italian version would be "como te chiama" and "que fai" ...ehrm, but i don't know how to transcribe them phoneticaly :") -- Criztu

"che fai". "Que" is Spanish. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:24, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)

It's 'Come ti chiami?' in Italian, but there are variants. In Portugese, it's 'Come se chama?'. In Spanish, 'Como te llamas?'. In Aragonese (considered a seperate Romance language), 'Como te clamas?'. This is from a website that listed a long list of examples, but the link doesn't work. Decius 04:29, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Although in Spanish, in most places, at least for adults it's a lot more likely to be "¿Como se llama?", because they are more formal: there's not a lot of chance of using the informal form with someone whose name you don't know. And just for giggles, in Argentine/Uruguayan Spanish that's pronounced more like (using Romanian phonetics here) "Como sei ciama". -- Jmabel | Talk 05:56, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)

ok, i'm just gonna' put the "cum te cheama" and "ce faci" on common phrases, Jmabel, "como te ciama" is silly, forgive me for reverting to kum te kiama, this romanian "che" is pronunced as "ke" (romanian "ci" is pronounced like in english "chill"), and romanian internauts already use "kiar" (like in romanian neologism 'kilometru') instead of romanian "chiar", i hope in a few years the RO Academy will offcialize this "tz" "kiar" "shi" and other evolutions in romanian writing :) -- Criztu 10:59, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Oh, I was just joking around: obviously the pronunciation in rioplatano Spanish, written with Romanian orthography, was intended to be obscure and useless. I didn't realize you were serious about needing a phonetic transcription. We should use theInternational Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), and what's in the article isn't correct. I'm not expert with IPA, but I'll try to fix it. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:10, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)

You (Criztu) put 'komo te kiama' originally. I just changed the k's to c's (though in phonetic practice, the 'k' is used to represent the sound, I didn't like how it looked). Decius 21:27, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

UN text

Thanks for your input, obviously these things are are not fundamentally different to the point where they are likely to alter meaning in any substantial way, it simply caught my eye as something not quite "right" about:

"...trebuie să se comporte unele faţă de altele în spiritul fraternităţii."

Ele trebuie.........fraternitatii? The sisters of the brotherhood?

"Ele" simply replaces "fiinţele umane" (human beings). It does not changes the meaning. Anyway, in Romanian there is no such word as sisterhood.

Anyway, "frate" can be sometimes used to mean both genders. Bogdan | Talk 12:56, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

From the dictionary http://dexonline.ro/search.php?cuv=frate

(La pl.) Nume dat copiilor (în cazul când se află între ei şi băieţi) născuţi din aceiaşi părinţi sau numai din acelaşi tată ori din aceeaşi mamă. 2. Termen familiar, prietenesc, cu care cineva se adresează unei persoane (indiferent de sex).

That's all, I'm sure the UN got it as "right" as they always do...:)

Take care.

I would like to suggest a correction however the process by which to acomphish this, is not readily apparent. So I will post it here instead. I welcome your opinion on this suggestion.

In the Romanian language examples section, the following example was used. First, in English:

"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)"

Then, it was translated into contemporary Romanian as:

"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."

Here is the issue I have with this. In the Romanian translation, "human beings" took on a feminine gender "finţe umane" when in fact the original neutral gender from English could have been retained by using "Omeni" instead of "finţele umane" which takes on the feminie gender of "o finţă, două finţe, etc" when conjugated.

Actually, that is the official UN translation to Romanian, taken from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (http://www.unhchr.ch/udhr/lang/rum.htm) website.

"Human beings" is best translated to Romanian as "fiinţe umane". "Oameni" means something like "people", "men". The feminine gender of "fiinţe" ('beings') does not influence in any way its meaning. Bogdan | Talk 09:30, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

So, as a suggested correction to the translation, I submit that the following translation might be closer to the original English text used for the example.

"Toţi oameni se nasc liberi şi egali în demnitate şi în drepturi. Ei sunt înzestraţi cu raţiune şi conştiinţă şi trebuie să se comporte uni faţă de alţi în spiritul fraternităţii."

- Note: I'm not entirely certain but it is possible that "oameni" may require a second "i" to distinguish one term "oameni" - As in: "All people are mammals./Toţi oameni sînt mamifere." and another version which seems to demand it - As in: "Who is responsible for pollution? People are./Cine este responsabil pentru poluare? Oamenii."

Again, I am not certain but in spoken Romanian there is a definite emphasis on the last "i" of the second variation, sufficient to make me suspect that a second "i" may be required.

Yes, it would need a second "i" as definite article. Bogdan | Talk 09:30, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Anonymous (209.147.192.47) edits

"archaisms" -> "less used today"

I don't see the point of this change. bogdan ʤjuʃkə | ^Talk 22:03, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

..."Da" meaning "yes" is obviously a Slavic borrowing...

Already mentioned in the following paragraph. bogdan ʤjuʃkə | ^Talk 22:03, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Besides vocabulary, however, there are strong Slavonic influences, both on the phonetic level and on the grammatical level that set the language apart from its cousins in Western Europe

Not true. There is little to no influence on the phonetic level. The phonemes that set appart Romanian from Italian such as "î/â" and "ă" were developed before the Slavic contact.

The only important influence on the Romanian grammar since the split from Western Romance is the Balkan linguistic union, and most of those features are not of Slavic origin. bogdan ʤjuʃkə | ^Talk 22:03, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

sge and sgi loanwords from Italian?

I'm Italian and I can say there is no such thing as sg[i,e] to mean Template:Unicode in the Italian language. In fact, Template:Unicode is not even an Italian sound and simply cannot be written in Italian orthography, even though it is used in some loanwords from French (garage is the first one that comes to my mind). Does the sg[i,e] exist in Romanian, or was that someone who generalised too much? Orzetto 08:01, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

No, they don't exist in Romanian as it was written. sg[i,e] should be pronounced just like in Italian. bogdan ʤjuʃkə | ^Talk 09:53, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

(1) Clearly there's a logical flaw here, Template:Unicode cannot both not be able to be represented in Italian orthography while also being written using Italian orthography for French loanwords. (2) I wrote the original based on a pamphlet for Italians travelling in Romania. I'll try to dredge it up to get pubinfo. Tomer ^TALK 16:21, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)

In Romanian, the sound Template:Unicode is always written "j", just as in French.

Also, there are no Romanian words in any dictionary that include the groups of letter "sge" and "sgi". bogdan ʤjuʃkə | ^Talk 18:06, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Pronunciation

How do you pronounce Cretu? --Vladko 18:59, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

I assume it's "Creţu" and it should be pronounced something like "CRE-tzou" (in IPA: 'cre.ʦu) bogdan ʤjuʃkə | ^Talk 19:26, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

Numbers

A recent edit increased the claimed number of Romanian speakers, with no citations at all. I am inclined to revert; I would revert if there were citations for the old numbers, but one uncited number is not that much better than another. Still, I find it almost impossible to believe that there are three million Romanian-speakers in the U.S. As a person who lives in the U.S., has spent time in Romania, and reads Romanian decently, I've seen no evidence of there being more than a few hundred thousand Romanian-speakers in my country.

Could someone do some proper research and add some cited numbers? -- Jmabel | Talk 00:37, May 15, 2005 (UTC)

40 mil. is very exagerated

First of all the last American census shows 367.000 Romanian-Americans. Romanians are the 22nd minority in the USA. If there were 3 mil then that would mean 1% of the whole population and would put Romanians at the 4th of 5th position.

Second of all, where did the 1.019.000 Romanians in Russia come from? The CIA world factbook makes ref. to 0.7% "Maldavians/Romanians" in the Russian Federation but the data is really obsolete. It cites the 1989 census when the 0.7% was for the whole of the USSR outside Moldova not The Russian Federative Soviet Socialist Rep. . The CIA world factbook gives estimates on population even for Romania and states that 22.300.000 people live in Romania right now even though the census showed 21.697.000.The current number in Russia is more like 178.000( according to the last census of 2001). In Khazachstan about 20.000 and no more then 1000 in Tajikistan.

Someone should really change those numbers. (User:Duca 18 May 2005)

I agree. That's why I was calling for cited numbers. Could you put this into the article, with citations? (By the way, US census numbers on European ethnicities should usually be considered minimums rather than precise numbers, but conversely they are unlikely to be off by a factor of more than two, let alone ten.) -- Jmabel | Talk 06:41, May 19, 2005 (UTC)

This constant number juggling in the article is beginning to annoy me. I can assure you all that most Romanians don't give a ****, we just want accurate numbers here. Decius 14:46, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

Yes. Well. If someone will do a little research they could get some decently cited numbers and then it would be relatively easy to keep it stable, because there are a lot of us who will defend a well-cited edit against uncited changes. But one uncited number isn't a lot better than another, so until someone cites, it's cont to keep changing. -- Jmabel | Talk 16:21, May 22, 2005 (UTC)

Moldova and Russia Numbers

Again the numbers are out of proportion. For moldova we just have to look at the last census result 78.2% out of 3.388.071 people are Romanians. In the Transnistrian census the Romanians represent 34% out of the 580.000 people living there. Although this number is dubious beacause the Transnistrian census is not recongnized, its still the best we got. In the Russian census 178.000 people are of Romanian orgin( including what they call "Maldavian"). 1000.000 is way to much, considering that Tatarians are the second largest group in Russia with 3.5 mil. people. This would put Romanians third of fourth which they are certainly not. I am just interested if others have come across the same conclusions and if so then we should change these numbers so they can start to actually resemble reality. (May 22, 2005 User:Duca)

Yes, I think someone is deliberately driving the numbers up. But the point isn't to make more realistic guesses, the point is to find a good source for numbers and make appropriate citations. See Armenian people for an example of what well-cited population data might look like. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:14, May 25, 2005 (UTC)

Some comments on borrowing

Just because a word in a language sounds similar to a word in another language does not mean it was borrowed. Slavic and Dacian are both Indo-European languages, thus they both descend from proto-IE. So it's to be expected that they will have some words in common, it doesn't mean one borrowed from the other. Besides, the idea that "da" is borrowed by Slavs doesn't make sense. The only words people borrow are words for things they do not have a name for. Words such as "yes" or "no" would exist already in every language so they would not be borrowed. The idea that a people do not have a word for "yes" in their language is inconceivable.

Really, the Romans did not had any word for "yes"! The closest word by meaning was "sic" (meaning "like this"), which was developed into Italian/Spanish "si" ('yes') and Romanian "şi" ('and'). The French derived it from Latin "hoc ille". bogdan ʤjuʃkə | ^Talk 22:13, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Languages don't exclusively borrow foreign words they lack their own words for. It's not impossible for one language to borrow the word for "yes" from another language, although it's highly unlikely, since languages do tend to borrow only non-core vocabulary. I don't know about the accuracy of the claims of borrowings, but do you have any evidence that any of those words are in fact directly inherited from Latin, rather than borrowed from another IE language? --Whimemsz 22:16, Jun 10, 2005 (UTC)

Sometimes there are some reasons for borrowing core vocabulary. For example, Romanian is the only Romance language to have lost "amare" (to love) and took Slavic "ljubi" (in Romanian "iubi"). The reason is that the verb "a ama" in Romanian would overlap the verb "a avea" (to have). "Te am" would have to mean both "I love you" and "I have you" and that could lead to some serious confusion. :-) bogdan ʤjuʃkə | ^Talk 22:53, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

In case anybody is wondering whether anonymous above was Decius: no. It is not inconceivable that Romanian 'da' is from Old Slavonic. I'm just not convinced that it is from Old Slavonic, and of course it has not been proven to be from Old Slavonic. But it is quite conceivable that it is from Old Slavonic. It is a commonplace in many languages for such foreign terms to be adopted, so that's not an argument. Old English lost a lot of its native word-stock, and picked up Norman French words in their place, even for terms they already had. With all that said, da could still be from the Daco-Thracians (not from Latin), no sweat: it may have entered Proto-Slavic in its pre-expansion period. Decius 03:40, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

But as I said before, if there is conclusive proof that Romanian da is from Slavic, let's hear it. Or post it on my Talk page. Decius 03:50, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Anonymous' position seems to be that 'da' was native both to Daco-Thracian (with the Romanian word coming from Daco-Thracian, not Slavic) and Slavic. If so, I have no problem with that. Decius 09:42, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Speakers

Changed info in the speakers-table, according to the data for the native speakers in each country's census. See links to the official census web sites in the article Hungarian language (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hungarian_language&oldid=15325912) (at the beginning of the article) --Danutz

For Ukraine

There is no national data stating how many people speak one language native, the census in 2001 just says how many members of one national group (for example Romanians), speak the language of their national group, how many Ukrainian, how many Russian and how many another language.

For example in this page (http://www.ukrcensus.gov.ua/eng/results/nationality_population/nationality_1/s5/?botton=cens_db&box=5.1W&k_t=00&p=60&rz=1_1&rz_b=2_1%20&n_page=4), one can find out that 258619 Moldovans live in Ukraine, out of whom 181,124 of them speak the language of their national group (officialy Moldovan), 27,775 speak Ukrainian, 22 speak Russian, and 45,607 speak another language as their mother tongue (most of those declared Romanian as their mother tongue, the number of those declaring another language than Romanian, Ukrainian or Russian should be no more than 100). So 181,124 + 45,500 ~ 226,600.

Also, 150,989 declared themselves Romanians, out of whom 138,522 declared Romanian as their mother tongue, 9,367 Ukrainian, 4 Russian, and another 2,297 another language (very few declared Moldovan).

Adding another 1,000 members of another nationalities, that declared Romanian as the mother tongue, we get: 226,600 + 138,522 + 1,000 = 366,122 ~ 366,100 .--Danutz

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