Romanian language. Official languages ​​of Romania Which language is Romanian suitable for?

Romanian is spoken by about 25 million people, mainly in Romania and Moldova. It has official status in Romania and the autonomous region of Vojvodina (Serbia). In Moldova it is called both Romanian and Moldavian. During the 2004 census, 16.5% of Moldovan residents named Romanian as their native language, and 60% named Moldovan. Romanian speakers live in many different countries around the world: Italy, Spain, Ukraine, Bulgaria, the United States, Canada, Israel, Great Britain, France and Germany.

Romanian is the official or administrative language of various organizations and institutions, including the Latin Union and the European Union. In addition, it is one of the five languages ​​in which services are held in the monasteries on Mount Athos.

Romanian belongs to the Italic branch of the Indo-European language family and has many similarities with French, Italian and Portuguese. Of the Romance languages, Italian is closest to Romanian. These two languages ​​have a certain degree of asymmetrical mutual understanding: it is much easier for a Romanian to understand an Italian than for an Italian to understand a Romanian. In addition, the Romanian language has obvious grammatical and lexical similarities with French, Catalan, Spanish and Portuguese.

In ancient times, the territory of present-day Romania was inhabited by Dacians. In 106 they were conquered by the Romans, and part of Dacia (Oltenia, Banat and Transylvania) became a Roman province. This province, rich in gold and silver ores, was soon colonized by the Romans, who brought with them vulgar Latin, which became the language of administration and trade. On its basis, the Romanian language began to form.

Scholars speculate that numerous Romanian dialects coalesced into Old Romanian around the 7th to 10th centuries, when what is now Romania came under the influence of the Byzantine Empire. At the same time, the Romanian language was influenced by Greek and Slavic languages, especially in the area of ​​vocabulary.

Due to the geographical isolation of what is now Romania, Romanian was probably the first Romance language to split from Latin. Until the mid-19th century, it experienced virtually no influence from other Romance languages, and therefore can be considered one of the most unified languages ​​of Europe.

For the same reason, the phonetic evolution of the Romanian language proceeded completely differently than that of other Romance languages. However, some changes occurred in exactly the same way as in Italian (for example: Latin clarus - Romanian chiar - Italian chiaro). Notable phonetic processes include iotation (Latin herba – Roman iarba, “grass”), rhotacism (Latin caelum – Roman cer, “sky”) and softening of alveolar sounds (Latin deus – Roman zeu, “god”) ").

Nominal morphology in Romanian is much more archaic than in other Romance languages. The Latin system of declensions has been partially preserved, however, of the six cases of the Latin language, only three remain - nominative-accusative, genitive-dative and vocative. In addition, Romanian nouns retain their neuter form.

Articles, like most adjectives and pronouns, agree in gender, number and case with the noun to which they refer. Romanian is the only Romance language that uses enclitic (i.e. attached to the end of a noun) definite articles, which developed from Latin demonstrative pronouns.

Verb morphology is characterized by the same processes of development of the compound perfect and future tense as other Romance languages. In general, during the evolution of the Romanian language, the original Latin system of grammatical tenses was greatly simplified - in particular, the absence of a sequence of tenses was lost. Verbs, as in all Romance languages, vary in person, number, tense, mood and voice. The usual word order in a sentence is Subject-Predicate-Object.

The Romanian language lexicon contains many words of common Romance (Latin) origin. The degree of its lexical similarity with Italian is estimated at 77%, with French - at 75%, with Spanish - at 71%, with Portuguese - at 72%. The Romanian language has also experienced significant influence from Slavic languages, which can be traced not only at the lexical, but also at the phonetic, morphological and syntactic levels. Approximately 14% of words in the Romanian language are of Slavic origin. This is due to the migration of Slavic tribes that passed through the territory of what is now Romania during the initial period of language evolution.

The first mention of the Romanian language is found in a chronicle written in the 6th century and telling about a military campaign against the Avars. Its author, the Byzantine saint Theophan the Preacher, mentions how a mule driver accompanying the Byzantine army noticed that a load was falling from the back of one of the animals, and shouted to his comrade: Torna, torna fratre! (“Turn around, turn around, brother!”).

The first written evidence, as modern scientists believe, about the Romanian language, which was supposedly spoken in the Middle Ages in the Balkans, belongs to the Byzantine chronicler Theophanes the Confessor. This evidence is connected, imagine, with the military expedition of the Romans against the Obra, during which a certain mule driver, accompanying the Byzantine army as part of the rear service, noticed how a load was falling from one of the animals, and shouted to his companion: “Torna, torna, fratre” (“Turn, turn, brother”). The fact that a significant number of immigrants from Italy lived in Romea was not taken into account by modern scientists. It is believed that the oldest written text in the Romanian language is a letter from Neaksu, dated for some reason to 1521. However, it is written on writing paper, which began to be produced in the 17th century. Thus, the dating is incorrect. Most likely, the manuscript was created in the 18th-19th centuries. In 1818, Gheorghe Lazar founded the first Romanian-language school in Bucharest. A legitimate question arises: did the Romanian language exist in the 18th century, since there weren’t even schools, or was it created artificially in the 19th century?

Rice. 1. Title page of the book by Yu. Venelin “Vlacho-Bulgarian or Daco-Slayan charters”. The material collected by Yu. Venelin, a Russian scientist of the first half of the 19th century, indicates that the Wallachians spoke the Russian dialect back in the 18th century (see Fig. 1-2).

Rice. 2. Certificate written in Russian at the end of the 17th century. The fact that the Wallachians did not know anything about the Romanian language until the 19th century is also proven by G. Henselio’s book “Synopsis”: on page 423, among the Slavic languages ​​(!), instead of Wallachian, the Moldavian language is mentioned (G. Henselio. Synopsis universae philologiae. - N.: Comiss. komanniana, 1741. - P. 423). That is, the Wallachians in the 18th century. belonged to the Moldovans and spoke the Slavic language. The Romanian language did not exist in Moldova at that time and will not exist for another century and a half! If today's Romanians honored the memory of their ancestors, they would bow to the Moldovans of Transnistria and ask them to send teachers to teach them the language of their grandfathers and great-grandfathers. Moreover, the Hungarians (Ugrians, Hungars) in the 18th century. spoke one of the Slavic dialects, since the Hungarian language was artificially created only in the 19th century. The very fact of the artificial creation of the Hungarian language does not at all imply that Orthodox Ugric Rusyns should have immediately spoken it. Under the influence of what people forget their native language, one can guess. The Cyrillic alphabet remained in use in Wallachia until 1862. This year the Romanian alphabet was officially established. The population of the country, despite this, continued to speak their native Wallachian dialect of the Russian language. Of course, the intelligentsia was the first to speak Romanian, but the people did not want to give up their native language. Part of the population of Romania began to speak Romanian only before WWII under the influence of the fascist government. In secondary schools in post-war Romania, teaching was conducted in Romanian, so only in the second half of the 20th century. Romanian became the native language for the population.

Most tourists who come to Romania are greatly impressed by this country. For some reason, many residents of Western Europe and the United States have a not very good opinion of Romania, but it changes in the opposite direction after they personally visit it. Indeed, one cannot remain indifferent to the beautiful Carpathian Mountains, to the unique ancient churches and castles, to the Romanian beach, thermal and ski resorts.

Geography of Romania

Romania is located at the crossroads of many European roads. In the west, Romania borders on Serbia and Hungary, in the northeast and east - on Ukraine and Moldova, and in the south - on Bulgaria. In the east, Romania is washed by the warm Black Sea. The total area of ​​this country is 238,400 square kilometers, and the total length of the state border is 3,195 km.

The territory of Romania is geographically divided into three types of landscape: mountainous in the central part of the country (Carpathians), as well as hilly and flat (Pannonian and Wallachian plains). The country's highest peak is Mount Moldoveanu in the Southern Carpathians (2,5444 meters).

Several large rivers flow through Romania: the Danube, Prut, Siret, and Olt.

Capital

The capital of Romania is Bucharest, which is home to more than 1.7 million people. According to legend, a settlement on the site of modern Bucharest was built in 1368 by a shepherd named Bucur.

Official language

The official language in Romania is Romanian, which belongs to the Eastern Romance group of the Indo-European language family. In Transylvania, some cities and communes have Hungarian as their second official language.

Religion of Romania

About 87% of the Romanian population consider themselves Orthodox Christians belonging to the Greek Catholic Church. In addition, 5.2% of Romanians profess Protestantism, and another 5% profess Catholicism.

State structure

Romania, according to the 1991 Constitution, is a parliamentary republic. The president of the country is elected every 5 years.

The country's parliament is a bicameral National Assembly, consisting of the Senate (140 people) and the Chamber of Deputies (346 people).

Climate and weather in Romania

In Romania, the climate is intermediate between temperate and continental. In different regions of Romania, the climate differs quite significantly from each other. The average air temperature is +11.5C. The warmest months are July and August, when the air temperature rises to +30%, and the coldest is January (the average temperature is -6C). Winter in Romania is cold, with most snow falling in the mountains.

Sea in Romania

In the east, Romania, as we have already said, is washed by the waters of the Black Sea. The length of the Black Sea coast of Romania is 245 kilometers. The beach season lasts from May to September.

In July, the water temperature on the Black Sea coast in Romania is +16-20C, in July and August - +20-28C, and in September - about +20C.

Rivers and lakes

The Danube, the largest river in this country, flows from west to east along the border of Romania with Bulgaria. Other major Romanian rivers are the Prut, Siret, Arges, Olt, Timis, and Mures.

There are more than 3.5 thousand lakes in Romania. The largest Romanian lakes are located on the Black Sea coast (estuaries) - Razim and Sinoe. In the Carpathian Mountains and Transylvanian Alps there are several very beautiful glacial lakes - Zanoaga, Bucura, Capra, Caltun, and Podragu.

History of Romania

In 3000 B.C. Romania is inhabited by Thracian tribes of Indo-European origin.

In the 1st century BC. The Dacian state was created on the territory of Romania (as the Romans called the Thracians). By about 100 AD. The Dacian state reaches its peak. However, in 106 AD. The Romans still managed to defeat the Dacians, and Romania (Dacia) became one of the provinces of Ancient Rome.

In the 12th century, the Romanian lands were divided into three parts: the principalities of Transylvania, Wallachia and Moldavia.

In the 16th-17th centuries, Wallachia, Moldova and Transylvania retained their autonomy, but paid tribute to the Ottoman Empire. In the 18th century, Transylvania and part of the Romanian lands became part of the Austrian Empire.

The national state of Romania was formed in 1862, as a result of the unification of Wallachia and Moldova. Almost twenty years later, Romania becomes a Kingdom.

During the First World War, Romania fights on the side of Germany, thus planning to regain Transylvania, Bessarabia and Bukovina. In 1918, this, in fact, happened. However, in 1940, the above-mentioned territories were given to the Soviet Union.

In 1941, the dictatorship of Marshal Ion Antonescu was established in Romania, and the country entered World War II on the side of Germany to regain Transylvania, Bessarabia and Bukovina.

After World War II, Romanian King Mihai I abdicated the throne. Soon the Romanian People's Republic was proclaimed (this happened in 1947).

At the end of 1989, as a result of the revolution, the Communist Party of Romania was deprived of its power, and its leader Nicolae Ceausescu was executed.

In 1991, the new Constitution of Romania was approved. In 2004, Romania was admitted to the NATO military bloc, and in 2007 - to the EU.

Romanian culture

Romanian culture is very rich in traditions and folklore. Romanians are very hospitable and are always ready to tell ancient legends to inquisitive travelers. The main one, of course, is the legend about the terrible Count Dracula, who, as it turns out, had a real historical prototype of Count Vlad III Dracula.

Tourists in Romania can take part in folk festivities and festivals that date back to the early Middle Ages. Folk holidays are associated primarily with religious holidays: Easter and Christmas.

However, Easter and Christmas are also celebrated in other countries. However, Ignatov Day is unique to Romania.

On Ignatov Day, December 20, a sacrificial animal is offered to the gods - a pig. It is believed that this will help protect a person, for example, from diseases. Romanians should not work on Ignatov Day. However, those Romanians who still need to work on December 20 must first take part in the sacrifice. As a last resort, you can simply inject the chicken, even a few drops of blood will protect against disease.

Ethnographers claim that the sacrifice of a pig on Ignatus Day dates back to ancient times, when human lives were sacrificed to the gods.

During the period from December 20 to January 8, Romanian women do not spin, knit or sew, because... You can reduce the days of your life.

During Ignatus Day, pumpkin has special powers. For some reason, Romanians believe that pumpkin cures a person from various skin problems.

Kitchen

Pork is most often used in Romanian cuisine, although, of course, Romanians love chicken, beef, lamb and fish. But what makes Romanian cuisine so unique? The fact is that it was greatly influenced by the Turks, Hungarians, Poles, Austrians, Bulgarians, and Russians.

In rural Romania, people still use earthenware to cook food, and this gives it a unique taste.

For tourists in Romania who want to experience traditional Romanian cuisine, we do not recommend relying on the taste of dishes prepared in restaurants. Authentic Romanian dishes are prepared only at home. If you are visiting Romanians, ask them to cook some traditional Romanian dishes, and they will not refuse you.

Tourists in Romania are definitely advised to try mititei (beef or pork sausages, grilled or pan-fried), frigărui (pork or chicken grilled on a spit, like a kebab), and şniţel (pork fillet stuffed with cheese and ham). Another traditional Romanian dish is mamaliga, a corn porridge.

Traditional alcoholic drinks in Romania are fruit vodka - tsuica and palyanica, fruit brandy.

Sights of Romania

In addition to ski and beach resorts, Romania has a lot of different attractions. In our opinion, the top ten best attractions in Romania include the following:

Cities and resorts of Romania

The largest cities in Romania are Bucharest, Timisoara, Constanta, Iasi, and Galati.

There are several good ski resorts in the Romanian mountains - Sinaia, Poiana Brasov, Busteni, Azuga, Predeal, Vatra Dornei, and Borsa.

A large number of foreign tourists come to Romania every summer to relax at the local beach resorts. The most popular of them are Navodari, Mamaia, Constanta, Eforie Nord, Eforie Sud, Costinesti, Olympus, Neptune, Aurora, Jupiter, Saturn, Venus, and Mangalia.

Romania has a lot of mineral springs, and therefore this country has several excellent balneological resorts. At the moment, there are more than 70 balneological and thermal resorts in Romania. The most popular of them are Magnalia, Slanic Moldova, Vatra Dornei, and Sovata.

Souvenirs/shopping

Office hours

Romanian language(in rum. limba română/român) belongs to the Romance languages ​​and has about 24 million speakers in Romania, Moldova and Ukraine. Romanian retains a number of features of the Latin language, including noun cases, which have long been lost by other Romance languages. The Romanian language contains many words borrowed from the Slavic languages ​​of neighboring countries, as well as from French, Old Slavic, German, Greek and Turkish.

The first written monuments of the Romanian language appeared in the 16th century. and are primarily religious texts and other documents. The oldest text in Romanian dates back to 1521 - this is a letter from boyar Neaksu from Campulung to the mayor of Brasov. The letter is written in krillic script, similar to the Old Slavic one, which was used in Wallachia and Moldavia before 1859.

From the end of the 16th century. To write Romanian in Transylvania, a variant of the Latin alphabet with Hungarian features was used. At the end of the 18th century. A spelling system based on Italian was adopted.

The Cyrillic script was used in the Moldavian SSR until 1989, when it was replaced by the Romanian version of the Latin alphabet.

Old Romanian alphabet

This version of the Latin alphabet was used during the transition from the Cyrillic script to the Latin one. Currently it is still used mainly in church texts.

Cyrillic alphabet of the Romanian language (1600-1860)

Notes

Some letters had a special shape that was used at the beginning of a word:

The letters Ѯ, Ψ, Ѳ and Ѵ were used in Greek loanwords.

Modern alphabet of the Romanian language

A a

Ă ă

 â

B b

C c

D d

E e

F f

G g

H h

I i

Î î

Jj

K k

a

ă

â

be

ce

de

e

ef

ge

has

i

î

jî

ca

Ll

M m

Nn

O o

P p

R r

Ss

Ș ș

T t

Ț ț

U u

Vv

X x

Z z

el

em

en

o

pe

er

es

șî

te

țî

u

ve

ics

zet

The letters Q (chiu), W (dublu ve) and Y (i grec) are used mainly in foreign loanwords.

Phonetic transcription of the Romanian language

Vowels, diphthongs and triphthongs

Consonants

Notes

• c= [ʧ] before i or e, but [k] in any other position
• g= [ʤ] before i or e, but [g] in any other position
• ch= [k] before i or e
• gh= [g] before i or e
• i= [i ̯] before vowels, but [i] in any other position. When the letter i stands at the end of a polysyllabic word, it is not pronounced, but softens the previous consonant. For example, vorbiţi (you say) = . The exception is words that end in a consonant + r + i, as well as infinitive forms of verbs, for example. “a vorbi” (to speak).
  To convey the full sound [i] at the end of a word, the digraph “ii” is used, for example. "copii" (children) = [kopi].
  iii at the end of a word it is pronounced [iji], e.g. "copiii" (these children) = [kopiji].
• u= [u̯] before vowels, but [u] in any other position
• k, q, w and y are used only in borrowed words

rum (B); ron (T)

ISO 639-3: See also: Project: Linguistics

Romanian language (limba română), IPA: "limba ro’mɨnə; sometimes called Daco-Romanian, previously also Wallachian, Vlach, Voloshian, Wallachian-Moldovan language listen)) is one of the Romance languages, the native language of Romanians. It is the official, native and main spoken language of 90% of the Romanian population. It is also common in a number of regions of Ukraine with the highest concentration of carriers in the Odessa and Chernivtsi regions.

The Romanian language typologically belongs to the Balkan-Romance subgroup of the Eastern Romance group of the Indo-European family of languages. At the same time, the Romanian language is the most unique in the group of Romance languages, revealing the features of the so-called contact languages, formed at the junction of several linguistic areas, in particular, the Balkan Language Union.

The total number of Romanian speakers is about 20 million people. Together with Moldavian and other Balkan-Romance dialects, as well as the Romano-Slavic bilinguals of Serbia, Croatia, Macedonia, Greece and Ukraine, Romanian speakers number about 25 million (about 5% of all Romance-speaking groups in the world). A rich fiction and scientific literature has been created in the Romanian language.

Self-name

The name “Romanian language” comes from the self-name of the people who speak it - Romanians. The Romanians became the only major Romanesque people who retained the original ethnic name of Old Romania - Romani (singular Romanus) > Romanians (singular Romanians). The name of the Romanian language appeared for the first time in the Cyrillic version - “limba romyne”. It is this name that has become entrenched in the Russian language. The preservation of the term Romani specifically on the territory of Romania is partly explained by the fact that the Byzantine Empire, which had been adjacent to it for a long time, from where Orthodoxy came to Romania, called itself Romania until the end of the 15th century. Nevertheless, the exo-ethnonym of Romanians and the Romanian language among the neighboring (Slavic peoples) was completely different - Wallachians (cf. German analogues “Walloons” for the Romance-speaking population of Belgium, “Welsh”, “Welsh” for the Romano-British population, etc.) . In the 19th century in Romania, with the strengthening of purism and currents of linguistic nationalism, seeking to return the country to its Roman origins, the spelling of the word Romanian changed to Romanian, in the Latin alphabet “română”.

General information

Despite its prevalence on the Balkan Peninsula, the Romanian language became the object of study by linguists only at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries. Romanian differs from other Romance languages ​​by its strong foreign (primarily Slavic) influence at all linguistic levels, which makes Romanian speech incomprehensible to speakers of Western Romance languages. Due to its early geographic isolation from the rest of the Western Romance massif (see Romance Europe), the long absence of its own statehood and the low level of material culture of the Romance population, which was engaged mainly in semi-nomadic sheep breeding, writing in the Romanian language appeared only at the beginning of the 16th century, and it arose in Cyrillic. In the 10th-17th centuries, the main written language of the Romanians was not Latin, as in the former provinces of the Western Roman Empire, but Old Church Slavonic.

In 1860-1863, the Romanian government introduced a new modified Romanian alphabet based on the Latin alphabet. This led to the separation of the Romance-speaking group of Moldovans of Bessarabia (Russian Empire) from Romania. Immediately before Moldova gained independence in 1989, the Latinization of the Moldovan language alphabet was carried out, and later an attempt was made to restore the single name “Romanian language” in both countries, which, however, was not successful and was one of the reasons that led to the split of the country (see. Transnistrian conflict). Despite the fact that the Moldovan language is actually a regional variant of Romanian, the two communities are still differentiated for political reasons. Moreover, on the territory of the unrecognized republic of Transnistria, the Moldovan language officially retains the Cyrillic alphabet in the previously established order.

The total number of Romanian speakers reached its peak around 1990 and amounted to about 22 million people, together with Moldovans and Balkan-Romance groups about 25 million. Since then, the number of Romanian speakers has been declining due to the high natural decline among Romanians and Moldovans, their high emigration abroad and partial assimilation of native speakers living outside Romania and Moldova. Currently, about 19 million speakers live in Romania (75% of the total number of speakers), about 2.8 million in Moldova (11%), about 0.4 million in Ukraine (Odessa region, Chernivtsi region, Transcarpathia), 0.2 million in Transnistria, a certain amount in Serbia and Hungary. About 2 million Romanians and Moldovans currently live in EU countries (with the largest numbers in Spain, Italy, Portugal, France, Germany, Great Britain, the USA and Canada), Moldovans live in Russia (especially in Moscow and the Moscow region), in Ukraine, Greece, Portugal, other European countries. According to the 2002 census, Romanian is the native language of 90% of the population of Romania, the second most common language in the country is Hungarian, native to 6.6% of the population.

A a	Ă ă	Â â	B b	C c	D d	E e	F f
G g	H h	I i	Î î	Jj	K k	Ll	M m
Nn	O o	P p	Q q	R r	Ss	Ș ș	T t
Ț ț	U u	Vv	W w	X x	Y y	Z z

Early history

Main article: History of the Romanian language

The history of the Romanian language is as controversial as the history of the Romanian people. This inconsistency is explained by two reasons: the lack of historical sources, especially written ones, as well as political interests. There are several versions of the development of the Romanian language, which are based on different interpretations of the history of the Romanian people. In general, the chronology of the formation of the modern Romanian language on the basis of the folk Latin of Dacia is as follows:

• Autochthonous languages ​​of the Balkans (Getes, Dacians, Meuses, Illyrians, etc.) until the 2nd century AD. e.
• Folk Latin (Roman Dacia as part of the Roman Empire) II-III centuries AD. e.
• Balkan Latin of the 4th-7th centuries before the Slavic migration
• The period of Slavic-Roman bilingualism of the 8th-11th centuries
• Formation of the Proto-Romanian language of the 12th-13th centuries
• Old Romanian language XIV-XVIII centuries
• New Romanian language of the 19th-21st centuries

Romanization

The official version of the history of the Romanian language, accepted by most modern historians, is based on the theory of the rapid Romanization of Dacia. According to this theory, the Roman Empire colonized Dacia in a fairly short period in the 2nd-3rd centuries AD. e. Intensive linguistic Romanization of Dacia probably took place after the capture of the territory north of the Danube after 102-103 AD. e. until the departure of Roman troops and administration in 275 AD. e., thus continuing for 175 years. During this period, colonists arrived in Dacia from all over the empire, but about 90% of them were speakers of folk Latin from northern and central Italy, as well as Dalmatia - the regions of the empire closest to Dacia. The reason for such intensive colonization was the destruction of a significant part of the male population of Dacia in wars with Rome, the desire of the colonists to occupy new areas of land, the connections of Roman soldiers with local women, their desire to settle and retire on the occupied lands. This version is confirmed by the analysis of names in written sources of that time (approximately 4 thousand inscriptions were studied, of which only 2% contained Geto-Dacian names, while in other Roman provinces the number of names of the local population was up to 30%). Moreover, part of the everyday vocabulary of Romanian contains an imprint of the military past of the province:

• sat/sat/ “village” ← lat. fossatum- "ditch"
• bătrân/batryn/ “old” ← lat. veteranus
• mire/world/ “groom” ← lat. miles- "warrior"

Presumably by the end of the 3rd century AD. e. The number of the ethnically mixed Romance-speaking population, the bulk of which lived north of the Danube in the area of ​​the former Roman camps of Julia and Napoca, reached 1 million people, that is, it reached a critical mass that allowed this community to survive in the future.

Substrate influences of the pre-Romanesque period

The assimilation of Latin, a then prestigious trade and political language, by the indigenous peoples of the Balkans began to some extent even before the Roman invasion of Dacia. The population of Albania, Moesia and South Dacia, located south of the Danube, began to assimilate Romance speech back in the 1st century AD. e. and probably used it widely in international and trade contacts. Moreover, even after the departure of the Roman army from Dacia, contacts of the local Romanesque population with Italy and South Dacia did not stop until the 5th century, which means that the Romanization of unassimilated Getae and Dacians, including those living outside the former borders of the empire, continued, as prestige Romanesque speech and Romanesque culture was still quite large until the beginning of the mass migration of the Slavs in the 7th-10th centuries and the gradual decline of the Western Roman and Eastern Roman (Byzantine) empires (in which Latin was the official language until the end of the 7th century, despite the fact that the absolute majority population spoke Greek or knew this language). Mass colonization led to the fact that the local language of the Dacians, Getae and Meuses in the province disappeared almost completely, leaving some traces in vocabulary and phonetics. Thus, many toponyms are Geto-Dacian, including the names of rivers - Danube, Siret, Prut, as well as some body parts, plants, types of food and others. At the moment, in the Romanian language there are more than a hundred words of pure Geto-Dacian origin, among them:

• copac/kopak/ - “tree”
• brad/brad/ - “spruce”
• bucuros/bucuros/ - “cheerful” (where the name of the capital of Romania comes from Bucureşti/bucuresti/ - Bucharest)
• țap/tsap/ - “goat”
• copil/kopil/ - “child”
• rață/race/ - “duck”
• șopârlă/shopyrle/ - “lizard”
• broască/broaske/ - “frog”
• mal/mal/ - “shore”
• buză/buze/ - “lip”

Most scholars are also inclined to believe that the common Romanian ending -esti/-eat/ (as in the word româneşti/romynesti/ - “Romanian”) also has a substrate origin. It also probably left traces in the formation of a number of possessive pronouns.

The transformation of the folk Latin language into Romanian was long-term and gradual. Primary Romanization led to the emergence of an Eastern Romance dialect, called “Balkan Latin,” which largely retained typical Romance features. Long-term multi-level contacts of Balkan Latin with southern and eastern Slavic languages ​​led to the transformation of the original Latin language system and the formation of the Romanian language proper. Thus, Romanization began even before the capture of Dacia by Rome and continued after Rome left the territory of Dacia, but at this stage the formation of the Romanian language was still far from complete.

Folk Latin in the Balkans

Folk Latin speech of Roman Dacia in the 2nd-3rd centuries AD. e. was still in the single linguistic and cultural space of the empire and maintained contact with it. The influence of autochthonous languages ​​intensified only after the weakening of the empire in the 3rd-6th centuries, and for now the Latin speech of the Balkans was only a dialect of the Latin language. Early Celticisms and Italisms, which managed to spread in Dacia, penetrated here, as in all other provinces of the empire:

• Celtic camisia penetrated into the Latin language very early and gave Romanian camaşă/kamashe/ - “shirt” (cf.: Spanish. camisa, port. camisa, Italian camicia, fr. chemise)
• Umbrian fenum → fan/fyn/ - “hay” (cf.: port. feno, Italian fieno, fr. foins)

During the period of Romanesque unity, a gradual simplification of the Latin polycase system also began, suspended by late Slavic influence. Semantic shifts in the original vocabulary of Romanian are also of a general Romance nature:

• Celtic caballus → cal/kal/ replaced the classical lat. equius meaning horse everywhere (cf.: Spanish. caballo, port. cavalo, Italian cavallo, fr. cheval)
• lat. casa“shack”, “shack” → case/kase/ replaced the classical lat. domus in the meaning of house, housing, etc. (cf.: Spanish. casa, port. casa, Italian casa, fr. chez)

At the same time, the main phonetic process in the speech of Dacia, as in other provinces of the empire, is the evolution of Latin itself: the transformation of the stress system from tonic (musical) to dynamic (power) and, as a consequence, simplification and reduction of unstressed syllables, as well as the complete disappearance of sound h in Romanesque speech of those times:

• lat. hibernum → iarnă/yarne/ “winter” (cf.: Spanish. Spanish. invierno, fr. fr. hivers)

As in the West, in Dacia the process of re-decomposition of the elements of classical Latin and their gradual “vulgarization” began, especially with regard to the auxiliary parts of speech, which received a new colloquial connotation through fusion. A number of classical Latin prepositions, pronouns and adverbs were, of course, preserved in Dacia: in → in/yn/ “in”, sub → sub/sub/ “under”, super → spre/spre/ “above”, per → pe/pe/ “by”, de → de/de/ “from”, but the majority now consists of various new formations that arose in the late Latin period:

• din/din/ - “from” ← lat. de + in
• pentru/pentru/ - “for” ← lat. per + inter + hoc
• azi/az/ - “today” ← lat. ad + dies
• cum/kum/ - “how” ← lat. con modo(cf. Spanish) como, fr. comment)

At the same time, the peripheral nature of the area of ​​folk Latin on the Balkan Peninsula gives the processes of evolution a unique character. Firstly, the folk Latin of the Balkans was largely Italianized, since most of the colonists were from Italy and linguistic innovations in the speech of Italy reached Dacia in waves, which explains the closeness of Romanian to the Italian language, with which it has much more in common, than with other Romance languages. Thus, in the Romanian and Italian languages, the unifying form of the plural of nouns in -s, as in all Western Romance languages, did not have time to take root; the same form in -s, but to denote the second person singular of the present tense of the verb, was supplanted by the form in - i in Italian and Romanian.

A number of typically Latin lexemes, for example the word Lat. grandis“big” did not take root in the east, where Lat began to be used in this meaning. talis"such" → tare/container/.

The beginning of the colonization of Dacia also coincided with the period of maximum expansion of the empire and maximum standardization of its language, which had the smallest number of archaisms (unlike, say, the language of Spain, colonized back in the 2nd century BC). Nevertheless, the relative short duration of the Romans’ stay in the Carpathians led to the fact that Latin speech was learned by the local population only in its colloquial form. The absence of cities in Dacia and the strong influence of the primitive communal system of the Getae and Dacians also led to the fact that, unlike the western regions, cities never developed here (a group of Roman military camps was soon destroyed), there was no urban culture, and there were no networks Roman schools and Roman education. Latin writing has not survived in Dacia. Thus, after the departure of the Romans, the folk Latin of the Romanesque and Romanized population of the Balkans remained the spoken language of the rural pastoral population, not burdened by the bookish influence of classical Latin. Culturally, another important legacy of Rome was the adoption of early Christianity by mixed and Romanized families. Therefore, most of the basic common Christian vocabulary of Romanian is of Romance origin:

• lat. deus → zeu/zeu/ - “god”, also lat. dominus deus → dumnezeu/dumnezeu/
• lat. basilica → biserica/biserike/ - “church”
• lat. angelus → înger/ynzher/ - “angel”
• lat. crucis → cruce/steeper/ - “cross”
• lat. rogare → ruga/ruga/ - “to pray”
• lat. baptizare → boteza/boteza/ - “to baptize”
• lat. credere → crede/krede/ - “to believe”
• lat. christianus → creștin/krestin/ - “Christian”

Despite the rapid assimilation of the autochthonous Illyrian and Dacian populations, the folk Latin of the Balkans retained some peripheral lexemes of these languages, and also began to undergo phonetic adaptation in accordance with the linguistic structure of the substrate languages, just as the folk Latin of Gaul adopted Celtic and Spain - Mediterranean elements. In the 3rd-6th centuries, folk Latin underwent a number of quite significant phonetic shifts, specific to this region. Some of the shifts were due to the internal evolution of the Latin language from a tonic to a force stress system, but the final result of phonetic changes was due to the influence of the substrate.

Vowels

• diphthongization of stressed Latin o → oa in an open syllable: lat. forte → foarte/foarte/ - “very” (cf.: Spanish. fuerte)
• diphthongization of stressed Latin e → i in an open syllable: lat. cera → deară/chare/ - “wax”
• iotacism [e] after Latin aspirate h → ie: lat. herba → iarbă/yarbe/ - “grass”

Consonants

• Latin labiodental betacism at the beginning of a word:
  • lat. exvolare- “fly away” → zbura/zbura/ - “to fly”
  • lat. vocire- “vote” → boci/boch/ “to scream”
• Intervocalic rhotacism l → r:
  • lat. secal → secară/sekare/ - “rye”
  • lat. solis → soare/soare/ - “sun”
  • lat. talis → tare/tare/ - “strongly”
  • lat. voleo → vreau/vryau/ - “I want”
• A peculiar assimilation of Latin consonant groups:
  • ks → ps: lat. coxa → coapsă/koapse/ - “thigh” (cf.: French. cuisse)
  • kv → p: lat. aqua → apă/ape/ - “water”
  • cl → кь: lat. oculus → ochi/ok/ - “eye” (cf.: Spanish. ojo)
  • gl → g: lat. glacies → gheaţă/gyatse/ - “ice” (cf.: Italian ghiaccio)
  • gn → pl: lat. lignum → lemn/lemn/ - “tree”
• Assimilation palatalization of Latin consonants c, s, d, t before vowels /i/, /e/:
  • in Romanian, the original Latin palatal “c” (= [k’]) underwent two assimilation:
    • on the one hand, in [h]
      • lat. ceresia → cireaşă/chiryashe/ - “cherry”
    • on the other - [ts]
      • lat. facies → faţă/face/ - “face”
  • lat. sic → şi/shi/ - “and”
  • lat. decem → zece/zeche/ - “ten”
  • lat. terra → ţară/tsare/ - “country”
• Assimilation palatalization of the Latin group “kv” before the vowels [i], [e]:
  • lat. quinque → cinci/chinch/ - “five”
  • lat. quinem → cine/chine/ - “who”
  • lat. que → ce/che/ - “what”
• Loss of intervocalic b, v:
  • lat. experlavare → spălare/spelare/ - “washing”
• Inversion of syllables in hard to pronounce words:
  • lat. paludem → pădure/pedure/ - “forest”
• A peculiar re-decomposition of words begins and the identification of new inflections based on false submorphs: lat. corpus → corporation, where _ora is interpreted as an inflection of the plural and in the balkanized form _ure/_uri begins to be used to form the plural of a number of nouns:
  • gheaţă/gyatse/ → gheţuri/getsur/ - “ice”
• Transition of combinations an, in → ân, în /yn/:
  • lat. angelus → înger/ynzher/ - “angel”
• Under the influence of Slavic vocalism, the combination transitioned to the nasal vowel [õ] with the subsequent loss of the nasal overtone ([õ] → [u]):
  • lat. non → nu/Oh no"
  • lat. con → cu/ku/ - “s”

Phonetic archaisms

However, some classical Latin groups of vowels and consonants have been preserved in Romanian without changes:

• au: lat. aurum → aur/aur/ “gold” (cf.: French. or, Spanish oro); lat. auditire → auzire/auzire/ “listen” (cf.: Spanish. oir)
• fl: lat. floris → floare/floare/ - “flower” (cf.: Italian fiori, but Spanish. flores)
• pl: lat. pluvia → ploaie- “rain”, lat. placere → plăcere/plechere/ - “pleasure”

Slavic period

The migration of the Slavs in the 7th-9th centuries became the second central moment in the formation of the Romanian language. Slavic migrations to the territory of the Byzantine Empire were quite massive and led to the gradual Slavicization of the central regions of the Balkans. As a result, the non-Slavic population survived only on the periphery of the peninsula (in the extreme south - Greeks and Albanians and in the extreme north - the ancestors of modern Romanians - the Vlachs). This fact of mass Slavicization of the population is quite surprising in itself, since Greek, which had a rich history and literary tradition, became the official language of the empire. Although it was spoken by a large part of the population south of the Danube, Greek never became the mother tongue of the majority of the population of the peninsula, and its scope gradually narrowed with each century until it was in danger of being replaced by Turkish at the end of the medieval period. Even more modern linguists and historians are surprised by another fact: as is known, the Slavs moved to the territory of the Balkans from the Ukrainian Carpathians and the Carpathian region, that is, from north to south. But how then can we explain the persistent preservation of the Romance-speaking population precisely to the north, and not to the south of the Danube, where it was mostly assimilated? One way or another, the Slavic population, like the Germans in the Western Roman Empire, quickly became involved in the political, economic and cultural life of the Byzantine Empire and the Balkan Peninsula. The Slavs are making active and fairly successful attempts to create their own statehood; the First Bulgarian Kingdom arises, actively annexing the lands of the former empires. Moreover, unlike the barbarian kingdoms of the west, the Bulgarian kingdom was formed precisely by the Slavic majority (with the Turkic nobility), and the Old Church Slavonic language (and not Latin), for which the Cyrillic alphabet was introduced, became the official language. Moreover, during the Slavic migrations, a significant part of the Slavs transit through the territory of the former Dacia, settle on it, as evidenced by numerous Slavic place names on the territory of Romania and Moldova, and enter into close contacts with the local Romanesque population.

As the Slavic area expands in southern Europe, the influence of the Slavic language becomes comprehensive and is felt at all levels of Balkan Latin, which is finally isolated from the general Romance area and comes into intensive contact with the Slavs and Slavic speech. The process of linguistic interference apparently takes on the scale of mass bilingualism, which covers up to half of the Romance-speaking population due to the economic and military-political domination of the Slavs. A similar situation is observed in Western Romania, where, say, the predominant Gallo-Roman population lives under conditions of undivided domination of the Germanic minority, which has also established a system of discriminatory and segregation laws. Such extremes are not observed in Dacia, and integration is quite peaceful, although the spheres of economic specialization of the Slavic and Roman groups continue to differ. It is characteristic that at the first stage the integration process in the Balkans is clearly one-sided, that is, the Romance-speaking population in areas of dispersed residence south of the Danube quickly assimilates, and even where it absolutely predominates, the Slavic elements are significant due to the fact that most the population is somehow familiar with Slavic speech, especially with Slavic vocabulary. At the same time, in Slavic speech there is much less direct Romance influence. Innovations in Slavic languages ​​arise mainly through the indirect influence of the Balkan Language Union as a whole, which also includes Greek and Albanian.

Slavicisms

The influence of South Slavic dialects leads to a radical change in the internal structure of Balkan Latin. Even in Thessaloniki - the second largest and most important city of the Byzantine Empire, which remained under its rule - a significant part of the population is Slavs. The influence of Rus', the powerful northern neighbor of the Romanians, who also switched to the Old Church Slavonic language when conducting office work, was also an important factor that strengthened the position of the Old Church Slavonic language in Wallachia. The migrations of the Slavs and the spread of the Old Church Slavonic language in Dacia initially led to the cessation of the linguistic laws of Balkan Latin that had been in force until then. Thus, rhotasism of intervocalic l lost its relevance because it was alien to the speech of the Slavs. Later borrowings such as slavs. force → silă/sile/ “violence” no longer turns into a hypothetical “sire”, as required by trends in Balkan Latin (by analogy with Lat. solis → soare/soare/ “sun” in the original vocabulary). As the Slavic area expands in southern Europe, the influence of the Slavic language becomes comprehensive and is felt at all levels of Balkan Latin, which is finally isolated from the general Romance area and intensively comes into contact with Slavic speech, gradually evolving into the Proto-Romanian language.

In phonetics, the influence of the Slavs leads to the development not only of positional palatalization of consonants (lat. oculus → ochi/ok/ “eye”), but also semantically distinctive palatalization by revoicing Latin morphemes (lat. lupi → lupii/lup/ - “wolves”). The overall articulation of speech gradually weakens and no longer has the same intense stress character as in French or Spanish. Neutral middle-language /e/ and /ы/, which are not typical for other Romance languages, develop and are finally consolidated. With Slavic influence, the consonant [x] is restored with a hard, atypically Romanesque fricative: hulub/khulub/ - “dove”. Nevertheless, the connection of words into a single speech stream, typical of other Romance languages, is preserved, with some modification of the intonation pattern in the manner of Slavic speech.

• lat. ovum → ou/ou/ - “egg”, but in Spanish. huevo(masculine)

A real revolution is taking place in the field of morphology of Balkan Latin, as Slavic affixes become an integral part of Romanian word formation and are intertwined with Romance vocabulary:

• -itsa(rus. maiden, lioness) → ice/itse/: portice/portitsa/ - “wicket”
• -ka(rus. Romanian, gypsy ) → că/ke/: țigancă/gypsy/ - “gypsy”, lupoaică/lupoaike/ - “she-wolf”
• Not-(rus. bad, unpretentious ): bun/bun/ “good” → nebun/nebun/ - “crazy”
• race/time-(rus. robber, seedling ): război/razboy/ - “war”
• -Nick(rus. shoemaker) → războinic/robber/ - “warrior”

And the Romance affixes in- / im-, -re of the infinitive are added to the Slavic roots: bolnav/bolnav/ - “sick” → imbolnavire/imbolnavir/ - “disease”, a iubi/yubi/ - “to love” → iubire/yubire/ - “love”. Thus, the boundaries between native and borrowed vocabulary are gradually blurred.

In terms of syntax, Slavic constructions influence Romanian:

Mi-e cald/mi-e kald/ or mi-e bine/mi-e bine/ are calques of the Slavic “I’m hot” or “I feel good” and deviate from the typical Romance, cf.: Spanish. yo estoy bien.

Vocabulary

• Nouns:
  • Ukrainian tato → tată/tate/ - “father”
  • bride → nevastă/nevaste/ - “wife”
  • frying pan → scovardă/skovarde/ - “pancake”
  • plow → plug/plow/
  • swamp → baltă/balte/
  • robbery → război/razboy/ - “war”
  • pleasant → prieten/prieten/ - “friend”
  • pour → nisip/nisip/ - “sand”
  • prince → cneaz/prince/
  • pop → popă/pope/
  • bob → bob/bean/ - “grain”
  • mystery → taină/tine/
  • boyar → boier/boyer/
  • Ukrainian goose → gâscă/gyske/ - “goose”

• Verbs:
  • hope → a nadăjdui/a nedezhdui/
  • read → a city/a chiti/
  • love → a iubi/a yubi/
  • pay → a plate/a pay/

• A characteristic feature of Romanian is its loss of the original Romanesque roots to describe the emotional, psychological and other qualities of a person, replaced by Slavicisms:
  • Serbohorv. drag “dear” → drag/drag/
  • Serbohorv. simple “stupid” → prost/simple/
  • robber → războinic/robber/ - “warrior”
  • cheerful → fun/cheerful/
  • Serbohorv. harmful “useful” → vrednic/harmful/ - “zealous” / “capable” / “worthy”
  • pathetic → jalnic/pityer/
  • Bulgarian pure "honest" → cinstit/chinstit/
  • Serbohorv. weak “thin” → slab/weak/
  • Bulgarian bolnav "sick" → bolnav/bolnav/
  • cute → milă/mile/ - “pity”
  • formidable → groaznic/groaznik/
  • rich → rich/rich/
  • naked → gol/Goal/
  • love, love → a iubi/a yubi/, iubire/yubire/ instead of classic Western ones amare And amor

• An interesting category of action verbs borrowed from the Slavic language is also highlighted:
  • catch → a lovi/a catch/ - “to hit”
  • beat → a izbi/a beat/
  • drive → a goni/drive away/

a special category of Slavic borrowings is vocabulary related to Orthodox rituals. Although the Wallachians became Christians during the late Roman Empire, much earlier than the Slavs (see, for example, church - biserica- from lat. basilica), the Orthodox rite took hold here already in the Middle Ages, along with the Church Slavonic language used in worship.

• rid → a izbăvi/a izbevi/
• eternity → veșnicie/veshnichiye/
• saint → sfont/sfynt/
• serve → a sluji/and serve/
• service → service/service/
• paradise → rai/paradise/
• hell → iad/I/
• prophet → prophet/prophet/
• pop → popă/pope/

Lost vocabulary and archaisms

Main article: Vocabulary of the Romanian language

The attention of linguists is especially drawn to the fact that Romanian has completely lost such typical Romance vocabulary as amare, amor, amicus, mundus, centum, cor, grandis And pater, and replaced it with Slavicisms:

• love, love → a iubi/a yubi/, iubire/yubire/, instead of classic Western ones amare And amor
• buddy → prieten/prieten/ - “friend”, instead of the classic Western amicus
• hundred → sută/sute/, instead of the classic Western centum
• Ukrainian tato → tată/tate/ - “father”, instead of pater (but patrie/patrie/ - “Motherland”)
• word lume/lume/ from lat. luminis- “light” was translated in meaning from the Slavic “light” (meaning “peace”)
• Latin word cor“heart” was not preserved, but was replaced by inimă/inime/ meaning “heart” - from lat. anima"soul"
• Romanian neoplasm suflet/souflet/ - “soul” is a reinterpreted tracing paper from the Slavic word “to blow” ( a sufla/a souffle/), and the word “soul” derived from it [ style!]

At the same time, Romanian is the only Romance language that has preserved the original Latin lexeme albus → alb/alb/ - “white”, while other Romance languages ​​replaced it with Germanism: cf. Spanish blanco, port. branco, Italian bianco, fr. blanc.

Where direct borrowings threatened the disappearance of the Romance dialect of the Balkans itself, the Romance-speaking population resorted to the help of kaleka: borrowing Slavic constructions and adapting them to the Romance vocabulary. This especially applies to numbers from 11 to 20:

• Thus, the Slavic “twelve” was first interpreted by the Romance-speaking population as two-over-twenty, that is, two-over-ten, and then literally translated into the corresponding Latin: dos + super + decem, then developing into două + spre + zece → douăsprezece/douespreseche/ instead of the Spanish typical in the West. doce, port. dose, Italian dodici, fr. douze, descended from lat. duodecim.
• Likewise, after the loss of the Latin root viginti(20), from which Spanish originated. veinte, port. vinte, Italian venti, fr. vingt, Romanian resorted to tracing Slavicism twenty → twenty → two dozen→ lat. dos + deci → două + zece → douăzeci/douazech/.
• The Slavic influence in early medieval Dacia was so strong that the Slavic affirmative particle “yes” passed in the same meaning into Proto-Romanian and caused a shift in the original lexical units. Latin particle sic- “so”, just like in the West, developed the meaning “yes” in Balkan Latin in the form și/shi/. However, after borrowing the actual Slavic root and under the influence of the synonymous Slavic meaning of the particle “yes”, used in the meaning of “and”, the word și took on the meaning "and". To avoid homonymy with si(as in Spanish, French and Italian) Latin si- “if” turned into Dacia in să/se/ - “so that” it has become an integral part of the structure of the formation of the conjunctive. [ style!]

Foreign language influences

In addition to the Illyrian substratum and the South Slavic superstratum, Balkan Latin was in intensive contact with a significant number of other languages ​​(see adstratus), many of which are not even Indo-European, which is explained by the special geography of Dacia. Unlike Spain, Italy and even France, which are limited mainly by oceans and seas, most of the borders of Dacia and Romania are land. In general, in spoken Romanian, native Romance lexemes (not counting late Latinisms) make up no more than half of the total vocabulary, which, however, is partly compensated by their higher frequency compared to borrowed vocabulary. In the past, the Greek language played an important role in the region. Wallachian shepherds, roaming the foothills of the Carpathians and the Balkans, even came into contact with speakers of Polish, Slovak, Czech, Albanian, Italian, Dalmatian, Croatian and Slovenian languages. Currently, the Romanian language space borders on Hungarian, Ukrainian, Russian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Gagauz, Turkish, Gypsy and German language areas and enclaves, from which many borrowings have penetrated into Romanian:

Greek

• Greek όφελος /ofelos/ - “benefit” → folos/folos/ - “useful”
• Greek μπουζουνάρα /buzunara/ → buzunar/buzunar/ - “pocket”
• Greek πρόσφατος /prosfatos/ → proaspăt/proaspet/ - “fresh”
• Greek κυτίον /cution/ → cutie/kutie/ - “box”
• Greek χαρτί /harty/ → hartie/khirtiye/ - “paper”

Hungarian

• Hungarian város → oraș/orash/ - “city”
• Hungarian kolteni → a cheltui/a keltui/ - “to spend”
• Hungarian fogadni → a făgădui/a fagedui/ - “to promise”
• Hungarian menteni → a măntui/a mentui/ - “to save”

Turkish

• tour. kahve → cafea/cafe/ - “coffee”
• tour. pabuç → papuc/papuk/ - “slipper”
• tour. çorba → ciorbă/chorbe/ - “soup”
• tour. çoban → cioban/choban/ - “shepherd”

German

• German Kartoffel → cartof/kartof/ - “potatoes”
• German Bier → bere/bere/ - “beer”
• German Schraube → șurub/screw/ - “screw”
• German Turm → turn/turn/ - “tower”

French

A significant number of Gallicisms became established in the Romanian language at the end of the 19th century thanks to the literary activities of Romanian writers. Among them:

• fr. chomage → şomaj/shomazh/ - “unemployment”
• fr. gare → gară/gare/ - “station”
• fr. merci → Merci/mercy/ - “thank you”

Purism and relatinization

In the 19th century, French continued to serve as the language of international communication and diplomacy, and therefore it gained popularity in Romania. A significant part of the Romanian intelligentsia moves to Paris. A period of active linguistic correction of Romanian begins, from which Slavic lexemes are replaced and new French, Latin and Italian roots are introduced. The period of purism and relatinization begins.

A significant number of scientific Latinisms were introduced into the vocabulary of Romanian in the 19th-20th centuries. In the Western Romanesque area this process never stopped, and therefore had a more natural character. In Romania, it led to an increase in the stylistic gap between oral and written speech, however, most of the Latinisms were adopted quite quickly, although it led to the formation of Slavic-Romance and Romanian-Latin language doublets:

Slavic-Roman

• nădejdă/nedezhde/ = speranță/sperantse/ - “hope”
• time/time/ = timp/timp/ - “time”
• văzduh/vezduh/ = aer/aer/ - “air”
• merciful/merciful/ = Indurat/yndurat/ - “merciful”
• războinic/robber/ = military/military/ - “warrior”

Romanian-Latin

One of the words, greatly modified as a result of phonetic language laws and lexical rethinking, is supplemented with a word newly borrowed from Latin to describe modern realities and is located with it, as it were, in the same nest.

• gheață/gyatse/ - “ice” → glacial/glacial/ - “ice” (from lat. glacies)
• ager/ager/ - “insightful” → agil/agil/ - “dexterous” (from lat. agilis)
• apă/ape/ - “water” → acvatic/aquatic/ - “water” (from lat. aqua)
• drept/drept/ - “right” → direct /direct/ - “straight” (from Lat. directus)

Dialect division

Map of the distribution of the Romanian language and other Balkan-Romance languages

Main article: Dialects of the Romanian language

A characteristic feature of the Romanian language is its relatively small dialectal diversity. The dialects of Muntenia, Moldova, Maramures, Banat and Transylvania are almost the same, with the exception of a small number of regionalisms. Accordingly, the following dialects are distinguished in Romanian: Banat, Crishan, Wallachian. The most distinctive are the dialects of Transylvania, which have experienced some influence from the Hungarian language, as well as the Moldavian dialect, which is the most distinctive. So: lat. petra > rum. “piatră” is realized here as “kyatre”, and vermis > vierme “worm” as “germe”. This pronunciation is typical primarily for rural speakers of the Moldovan language. A number of scholars also consider the Aromanian language, the Megleno-Romanian language and the Istro-Romanian languages ​​as dialects of Romanian, although they are increasingly subject to foreign influence and tend to disappear.

Comparative-historical analysis of the Romanian language

Evolution

The Romanian language, which has a long and complex history, is of particular interest to scientific linguists, especially those involved in comparative historical linguistics and romance studies. Attempts to analyze the place of Romanian in the circle of Romance languages, as well as its evolution from folk Latin, give interesting and sometimes contradictory results. As an impartial analysis shows, the Romanian language indeed has an undeniable folk Latin origin. The main feature of the evolution of folk Latin in the Balkan area is its almost exclusively oral character for at least 10 centuries, with strong influence from the oral and written speech of neighboring peoples, primarily the Slavs, Greeks, Hungarians and Turks. It is important to take into account that the Romanian language belongs to the Balkan language union. At the same time, the forms of number and gender of nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and especially the system of conjugation of verbs, retain in Romanian the main morphological features of folk Latin.

In the circle of Romance languages

The criterion of proximity to classical, and indeed colloquial, Latin is more closely met by Italian, as well as Spanish and Portuguese, where the evolution of oral and written languages ​​occurred in parallel. The same can be said about the French language, which cannot be considered completely peripheral, since, firstly, Romance-speaking speakers in Gaul never lost contact with written Latin speech, and secondly, the so-called innovations of the French language are actually - only extreme manifestations of all-Roman tendencies. Moreover, Celticisms and Germanisms of French affect only positional phonetics and peripheral groups of lexemes. Romanian innovations, on the contrary, have a deeper and almost all-encompassing nature and are poorly correlated with general Romance trends in the West. For example, the definite article in Romanian is postpositive, and not prepositive, as in the West (cf.: Romanian. omul“that man” and fr. L'homme). Moreover, the word formation of adverbs of manner from corresponding adjectives is unmarked in Romanian: rău “bad” and “badly”, while in the West this process is carried out using the suffix “ment(e)”.

Italian language

In general, speakers of Western Romance languages, especially French, do not understand spoken Romanian, nor do uneducated Romanians understand much of their Western counterparts. Still, speakers of Spanish, and especially Italian, can pick up some lexemes and feel the kinship of Romanian speech. At the same time, scientific texts in modern Romanian in the West (including in unrelated English-speaking regions) can be understood depending on the context, thanks to a significant number of newly introduced Latinisms and Gallicisms.

The language closest to Romanian is Italian, which is not surprising given the geographical proximity. It was also important that the capital of the Roman Empire was located in Rome, from where Romanization began in a fan-shaped manner. When comparing Italian and Romanian, deep fundamental parallels are revealed in grammatical development, especially in phonetics (similar affricates and palatalization), verb conjugation (affixes, 2nd person singular present tense) and morphology (preservation of the vocalic plural outcome. including nouns).

However, due to the fact that the Italian language has a strong dialectal fragmentation, Romanian shows similarities with different dialect zones in different ways. Thus, there are lexical similarities with northern dialects, for example the word reu “bad”< лат. reus «подсудный», ср.: сев.-ит. rio, ведь большинство романоязычных колонистов проходили северную Италию на пути в Дакию. Центральные регионы близки румынской речи в плане склонений и спряжений, ведь оттуда произошёл сам латинский язык . Южные регионы обнаруживают сходства в необычной трактовке согласных групп, что объясняется общим для юга Италии и Румынии влиянии (ново)греческого языка. Тем не менее общность румынского с современным стандартным итальянским (тосканский диалект) не стоит преувеличивать, так как имеются и существенные отличия в плане лексики, фонетики и грамматики. При этом эти черты можно обнаружить в других романских языках в большем или меньшем количестве.

French

Romanian is similar to the French language due to the loss of the final “y” and the consonantal outcome of most nouns and adjectives of the masculine gender: Lat. unus > un(y) > un (cf. French un, but Spanish, Italian uno), also Lat. totus > rum. that “whole” (cf.: French tout, but Spanish todo, Italian tutto). At the same time, the reduced “u” at the end of the word was preserved in Old Romanian.

Spanish

Romanian also has a number of important features in common with Spanish. What is most striking in phonetics is the loss in both languages ​​of the phonological significance of vowel length and brevity. In Latin, French, Portuguese and partly Italian, these differences remain. The Megleno-Romanian language of the Balkans, although close to Romanian, differs from it phonetically, primarily on this basis.

Another common feature is the doubling of pronouns, emphasizing the object to which the action is directed:

Yl ved pe profesorul nostra. "I see our teacher." (Literally: I see him to our teacher).

Este libro no lo he leido. "I haven't read this book." (Literally: This book, I haven’t read it).

There is also some similarity in the Spanish use of the preposition [a], when the action is directed towards an animate object: Veo a Helena “I see Helen” and the Romanian use of the preposition ne< лат. per в подобной же ситуации. К слову, в румынском предлог [а] используется для образования описательного инфинитива: а ведя «видеть».

A number of Latin lexemes in Spanish and Romanian have a similar development. Thus, the Latin “passer” “sparrow” and in the Spanish “pájaro” and in the Romanian “paser” developed the meaning “bird”. In both languages, the development products of the folk Latin lexeme plicare (Spanish llegar, Roman pleca (re)), which is opposed to the development products of Lat. adripare (French arriver, Italian arrivare).

Portuguese

The Portuguese language was formed on the opposite edge of the Romanesque area (Western Iberia). And yet, it is the very fact of its peripheral location, despite the absence of strong foreign language influences, that brings it closer to Romanian phonetically due to the abundance of sibilants and affricates, as well as the weakened (reduced) pronunciation of vowels. Portuguese also has phonemes that are close to the Romanian S and E, although etymologically these sounds are not identical to each other. In Portuguese, although to a lesser extent than in Romanian, there is a rhoticism of the sound [l], which also affects borrowed vocabulary, for example germ. blank > port. branco "white". In grammar, both languages ​​are distinguished by the presence of special forms of the infinitive, deviating from the standard independent stems in -re.

Geographical distribution

Countries and territories where Romanian is spoken

a country	speaking (%)	speaking	population