Romanian language

Romanian is a redirect to this article. Further meanings are listed under Romanian (disambiguation) .

Romanian (limba română)
Spoken in	See under “Distribution and legal status” ( official language and recognized minority language ) below; also as a minority language in: Serbia Bulgaria
Linguistic classification	Indo-European languages Italian languages Romance languages Balkan Romance languages Romanian
Official status
Official language in	Moldova Romania Vojvodina , Serbia Athos , Greece European Union Latin Union
Recognized minority / regional language in	Bulgaria Hungary Ukraine Serbia ( Central Serbia )
Language codes
ISO 639 -1	ro
ISO 639 -2	( B ) around	( T ) ron
ISO 639-3	ron

Romanian is a Romance language and thus part of the Italian branch of the Indo-European language family . Romanian is in the broader sense an umbrella term for the four languages Dakor- Romanian , Aromanian , Meglenor- Romanian and Istror- Romanian and in the narrower sense only means Dakor-Romanian. The four languages, together with the extinct Dalmatian, form the group of Balkan Romance languages . (Dako) Romanian is the official language of Romania and the Republic of Moldova . In total, it is spoken by 34 million people, around 30 million of whom are native speakers. In the Republic of Moldova, Romanian was referred to as “ Moldovan ” from 1994 to 2013 , which the Transnistria region continues to adhere to.

Distribution and legal status

Romanian is spoken as the official language in Romania and the Republic of Moldova. Of the 20.1 million inhabitants (2011) of Romania, 85% are native speakers. There are 2.57 million native speakers in the Republic of Moldova, which is 64.5% of the total population. 10.58 million speakers live outside the current borders of Romania and the Republic of Moldova. B. in Ukraine 400,000, in Serbia 150,000 and in Hungary 20,000; in the US and Canada 3.58 million. In the rest of the world there are also around three million Romanians.

Romanian in Europe

Official language

Recognized minority language

The Romanian dialects

genesis

See also: Dako-Romance continuity theory

Romanian is the easternmost Romance language. It is derived from the Latin spoken in the Roman provinces of Dacia and Moesia , i.e. H. north or south of the Danube. The short period of Roman rule in Dacia from AD 107 to AD 271 is not sufficient to explain the development of Romanian in this area. Both the more Romanized areas south of the Danube, which remained under Roman rule, as well as the strong economic and cultural contacts of the population remaining in Dacia with the Roman-Byzantine Empire must be taken into account. Other important influences on Romanian are the Thracodacian substratum and membership of the Balkan language union .

Spelling and pronunciation

Until 1862, Romanian was written in the Cyrillic script . The Transylvanian School developed the Latin writing system with special characters, which is still used today, over several intermediate stages . In the Transnistrian Moldavian Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic , founded in 1924, Romanian was written in Cyrillic letters again from 1930, as was the case in the Socialist Soviet Republic, which was expanded to include Romanian territories to form the Moldavian SSR in 1940, until its fall in 1989, which the breakaway region of Transnistria still holds today.

Today the Romanian alphabet includes the Latin script with five special characters :

a, ă, â, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, î, j, (k), l, m, n, o, p, (q), r, s, ș , t, ț , u, v, (w), x, (y), z

Most letters correspond to exactly one sound. The letters in brackets only appear in loan words.

Example of the confusion surrounding the development of Romanian spelling and diacritics: on the right the old street sign with the new spelling of the word sfânt 'Heilig' and the auxiliary letter Ş , on the left the new sign with the old spelling “sfînt” and the correct letter Ș

Before the introduction of Unicode version 3.0 (September 1999), the makeshift letters Ş ş and Ţ ţ were used instead of the letters Șș and .

At the beginning of the writing, Romanian had significantly more special characters than today, as an attempt was made to preserve the etymology . However, since the general population did not speak Latin, there were great difficulties with the correct use of the special characters, which is why a largely phonetic spelling was introduced in 1904, which was repeatedly reformed until 1993:

• român> romîn> român
• vênt> vînt> vânt
• sûnt> sînt> sunt
• adevěr> adevăr
• fiĭ> fii
• fiŭ> fiu
• ḑice> zice

According to the regulation that has been in effect since 1993, î is written at the beginning and end of the word and â in the middle of the word if it is not a compound word .

The following table shows the Romanian letters whose pronunciation differs from the German:

grapheme	IPA	Pronunciation example	Pronunciation in German
ă	[ə]	mămăligă	Unrounded, half-open central vowel, almost like the "e" in the German Matt e , can be spoken slightly rounded and thus come acoustically close to an œ .
â	[ɨ]	România	has no equivalent in the German language (Can acoustically come close to ü as in "Mütze".)
c	[k]	Casa	as K"
ce	[t͡ʃe]	Decembrie	like "tsche" (like in Italian " Ce mbalo")
ci	[t͡ʃi]	Măcin	like "Tschi" (like in " Chi nchilla")
che	[ce]		palatalized "ke" (as in Italian "bar che tta")
chi	[ci]	China	palatalized "ki" (as in Italian " Chi anti")
e	[e] ; [i̯e]	Melancolia Eşti	always a closed "e", as in German "tar". For personal pronouns and forms of the verb "fi" that begin with "e", as in German " Je rusalem"
G	[G]	Galați	so G"
ge	[d͡ʒe]	Argeș	like voiced "dsche" (like it. "An ge lo" or im en. " ge ntleman")
gi	[d͡ʒi]	Medgidia	like voiced "ji" (as in Italian " Gi golo")
ghe	[ɟe]	Angela Gheorghiu	palatized "ge"
ghi	[ɟi]	Harghita	palatalized "gi"
H	[h] ; [ç] ~ [x]	Hunedoara	like "h", but partly depending on the position between "ch" in "ich" and "Bach"
i	[i] , [ʲ]	Mărțișor Bucureşti	like "i"; unstressed at the end of a word, not syllabic and almost inaudible (palatalized)
î	[ɨ]	Cîmpina	just like â, the differences in the spelling are due to linguistic history
j	[ʒ]	Cluj	voiced "sh" as in " J ," Gara ournalist " g e"
r	[r]	Marea Neagră	the r is rolled
s	[s]	Constantin Silvestri	voiceless "s" (like "ss" in German "Gasse")
ș	[ʃ]	Brașov	like German "sch" in "ash"
ț	[t͡s]	Constanța	like German "z" in "tongue"
v	[v]	Craiova	like German "w" in "apartment"
y	[i]		like "i" (only in foreign words)
z	[z]	Buzau	voiced "s" (like in "soup", like "z" in English "zero")

Example text:

Latin script : Privea în zare cum pe mări Răsare și străluce, Pe mișcătoarele cărări Corăbii negre duce.

IPA legend : prive̯a ɨn zare kum pe mərʲ rəsare ʃi strəlut͡ʃe pe miʃkəto̯arele kərərʲ korəbi neɡre dut͡ʃe

Romanian Cyrillic script : Привѣ́ ꙟ̃ зáрє кꙋ́м пє мъ́рй Ръсáрє шѝ стръʌꙋ́чє, Пє мишкътѡáрєʌє къръ́рй Кѡръ́бïй нє́грє дꙋ́чє.

( Mihai Eminescu : " Luceafărul ")

Phonology

Vowels

Romanian has 7 monophthongs .

Romanian monophthongs

	front	central	back
closed	​i​	​ɨ​	​u​
medium	​e​	​ə​	​O​
open	​a​

Sliding sounds

Romanian has four gliding sounds.

Romanian semivowels / semiconsonants

	front	back
closed	​i̯​	​u̯​
open	​e̯​	​O​

These four gliding sounds form a total of 22 diphthongs and 11 triphthongs :

• 13 falling diphthongs: [ai̯], [au̯], [ei̯], [eu̯], [ii̯], [iu̯], [oi̯], [ui̯], [əi̯], [əu̯], [ɨi̯] and [ɨu̯ ].
• 9 ascending diphthongs: [e̯a], [e̯o], [i̯a], [i̯e], [i̯o], [i̯u], [o̯a], [u̯a] and [u̯ə].
• 11 Triphthongs: [e̯ai̯], [e̯au̯], [i̯ai̯], [i̯au̯], [i̯ei̯], [i̯eu̯], [i̯oi̯], [i̯ou̯], [o̯ai̯], [e̯o̯a] and [i̯o̯a].

With this inventory of sounds, Romanian can be characterized as a very diphthong and triphthong-rich language.

You can only form whole sentences with vowels, diphthongs, etc. E.g .: <Eu iau o oaie> [i̯eu̯.i̯au̯.o.o̯a.i̯e] "I'll take a sheep".

Consonants

Romanian has 20 consonants .

Romanian consonants

	bilabial	labio- dental	alveolar	post- alveolar	velar	glottal
Plosives	​p ​ b​​		​t ​ d​​	​c ​ ɟ​​	​k ​ g​​
Fricatives		​f ​ v​​	​s ​ z​​	​ʃ ​ ʒ​​		​H​
Affricates			​t͡s​	​t͡ʃ ​ d͡ʒ​​
Nasals	​m​		​n​
Vibrants			​r​
Lateral			​l​

Source: Mika Sarlin (2014): Romanian Grammar . Helsinki: Books on Demand: 16–22

grammar

→ Main article : Romanian grammar

Romanian is the only Romance language that still partially has a declension with the cases nominative , genitive , dative , accusative and vocative . However, it is controversial within Romance studies whether the case inflection is a direct continuation of the Latin relationships or whether it represents a new formation. The written tradition of Romanian only from the 16th century contributes to this uncertainty. Due to pronounced syncretisms , many cases of nouns are not formally differentiated or only marked by articles:

Nominative / accusative: domn ; fată - genitive / dative: domn ; fete - vocative: domnule ; fato

Nominative / accusative: domnul ; fata - genitive / dative: domnului ; fetei - vocative: domnule ; fato

Romanian is the only Romance language spoken today that, in addition to the masculine and feminine, has a fully developed third nominal class. Traditionally, this is called a neuter , but has no form of its own; Instead, Romanian neutrals are ambiguous: in the singular they appear as masculine and in the plural as feminine. All adjectives only know masculine and feminine forms: un scaun înalt 'one high chair', but două scaune înalte 'two high chairs'.

vocabulary

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.

As is customary for languages ​​with many neighboring languages, Romanian has borrowed words from all directions and from all lexical areas. The vocabulary is structured as follows according to origin:

• approx. 75% Romansh (including many French and Italian loanwords )
• approx. 15% Slavic
• approx. 10% other languages ​​(Dacisch, German, Greek, Hungarian, Turkish, English etc.)

According to various other studies, more than 60%, in most cases even more than 80% of words are inherited from Latin in general usage . Less than 10% are therefore of Slavic origin.

heritage

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.

The Romanian language developed from Vulgar Latin and accordingly has many words of Latin origin. Word similarity is currently estimated at 77% with Italian , 75% with French , 73% with Catalan , 72% with Portuguese and Romansh , and 71% with Spanish .

In order to enable a comparison of the similarities and differences of the modern Romance languages, the sentence "She always closes the window before eating / before she eats" follows in the respective language as well as in Latin.

Ea semper fenestram claudit antequam cenet. (vulgar Latin)

Fenestra clausa femina cenat. (classical Latin)

Ea închide întotdeauna fereastra înainte de a cina. (Romanian)

Lei chiude semper la finestra prima di cenare. (Italian)

Elle ferme toujours la fenêtre avant le dîner. (French)

Ella semper tanca la finestra abans de sopar. (Catalan)

Ella siempre cierra la ventana antes de cenar. (Spanish)

Ela semper fecha a janela antes de jantar. (Portuguese)

Jê e siere simpri il barcon prime di cenâ. (Friulian)

Some common Roman roots are not recorded in Romanian:

Latin	Italian	French	Catalan	Spanish	Portuguese	Romanian	German
causa	cosa	chose	cosa	cosa	causa	cauza	reason
res		rien 'nothing'	res		coisa	lucru	Thing
fun	gioia	joie	goig (verb: gaudir)	gozo	gozo	bucurie	joy
laborare	lavorare	laborer	llaurar	labrar	laborar	a lucra	work
sapere	sapere	savoir	drool	drool	drool	a ști	knowledge

Lehngut

For historical reasons, Romanian, especially that of previous centuries, has several borrowings from other languages.

Common Romanian-Albanian vocabulary

Interestingly, Romanian and Albanian share a supposedly very old layer of words, some of which are typical of remote grazing . These are not necessarily borrowings from Albanian, but rather words that Romanian has borrowed from a preliminary stage of Albanian, which, however, cannot be reliably identified. Examples:

• Albanian bredh ~ Romanian brad 'Tanne'
• Albanian buzë ~ Romanian buză 'lip'
• Albanian cjap ~ Romanian țap ' billy goat'
• Albanian dhallë ~ Romanian zară 'buttermilk'
• Albanian mëz ~ Romanian mânz 'foal'
• Albanian modhullë ~ Romanian mazǎre 'pea'
• Albanian vjedhullë ~ Romanian viezure 'badger'

Slavisms

Especially the South Slavic languages and especially the Central Bulgarian language have borrowed many words from Romanian. This influence is particularly evident in the field of religion through the common Orthodox religion, but also in the field of family and love. One can therefore assume for the Middle Ages a strong mixture of speakers of Romanian and Slavic through marriage:

• Old Church Slavonic :
  • oldest:
    • Old Church Slavonic blato (cf. Serbo-Croatian blȁto , Bulgarian bláto ) → Romanian baltă , puddle, pond '; aksl. dlato → Romanian daltă , chisel '; Old Church Slavonic metla (cf. Serbo-Croatian mètla , Bulgarian metlá ) → Romanian mătură 'broom'; Old Church Slavonic * stěnъka (cf. Czech stěnka ) → Romanian stâncă , rock (s) '; Old Church Slavonic sŭto (cf. Bulgarian sto , Serbo-Croatian stȏ ) → Romanian sută 'Hundred'
  • later:
    • Old Church Slavonic * mogyla 'burial mound' (cf. Serbo-Croatian mògila 'grave') → Old Romanian moghilă → movilă 'hill'; Old Church Slavonic * mȏldŭ ‚young '→ * Moldika ‚ little tree' (cf. Serbo-Croatian mladić , Bulgarian mladok ) → Romanian dialectal molidf, molitf , standard molid ‚spruce '; Old Church Slavonic pola → Romanian poală ‚lap '; Old Church Slavonic rana (cf. bulg. rana , skr. rȁna ) → rum. rană 'wound, injury'; Old Church Slavonic skǫpŭ (cf. Serbo-Croatian skȕp , Bulgarian skǎp ) → Romanian scump 'expensive'; Old Church Slavonic sŭdravĭnŭ → Romanian zdravăn , strong, strong '; Old Church Slavonic * sŭgrŭčiti sę (cf. Czech skrciti ) → Romanian zgârci (next to sgârci ) 'squat, crouch'; Old Church Slavonic tŭrgŭ (cf. Bulgarian tǎrg , Serbo-Croatian tȑg ) → Romanian târg , market, trading place.
• south slavic:
  • Serbo-Croatian / Bulgarian baba → Romanian babă ‚old woman '; Serbo-Croatian glȍg , Bulgarian glog 'hawthorn' → Romanian ghioagă 'club; Log of hawthorn '; Serbo-Croatian ìzvor , Bulgarian izvor → Romanian izvor 'source'; Serbo-Croatian kȍpile , Bulgarian kópele 'illegitimate child' → Romanian copil 'child'
• Bulgarian :
  • Bulgarian Gorun → Romanian Gorun , Traubeneiche '; mbulg. hvruljam , zahvurljam (cf. Bulgarian hvărljam (хвърлям), Macedonian frli (фрли)) → Romanian azvârli (next to zvârli ), to hurl, to throw, to hurry '; Bulgarian kopája 'hollow out' → Arumanian copaci → Romanian copac 'tree' (cf. Albanian kopaç 'tree stump'); Bulgarian melčev , melčov → Old Romanian melciu → Romanian melc 'snail'; Bulgarian močilo ‚puddle, swamp '→ Romanian mocirlă ‚ moor'
• Serbo-Croatian :
  • Serbo-Croatian lȁtica 'petal' → Romanian altiță 'red wool embroidery over the shoulder'; Serbo-Croatian lèšina 'carrion, animal carcass' → Romanian leșina 'to faint'; Serbo-Croatian vȁtra 'fire' → Romanian vatră 'home, fireplace'
• Ukrainian :
  • Ukrainian bort ' boring ', bortyly 'drilling' → Romanian bortă ' boring ', bort (el) i 'drilling'; Ukrainian taraš , pillar, post '→ Romanian țăruș , tent peg '; Ukrainian žyvec 'fish spawn ' → Romanian juvete ' fry , small fish'
• Polish:
  • Polish pawęża → Romanian pavăză 'shield'
• bolnav 'sick'
• ceas 'clock'
• clădi 'build'
• corenie 'origin, family'
• curvă 'whore'
• drag 'dear', dragoste 'love'
• gol 'naked'
• iubi 'love'
• jale 'sadness'
• magar 'donkey'
• nevoie 'need'
• cinste 'honesty, honor'
• rudǎ 'relatives'
• tată 'father'
• zid 'wall'

Graecisms

Under the influence of the Byzantine Empire , Middle Greek words were also adopted into Romanian from the 6th century :

• fríkē (φρίκη) 'shudder, horror' → frică 'fear'
• kárabos (κάραβος) 'cancer, longhorn buck ' → caraban ' rhinoceros beetle '
• lípō (λείπω; fut. lípsō , λείψω) 'left' → lipsi 'missing'
• makári (μακάρι) 'hopefully, if only ...' → măcar 'at least'
• Late Middle Greek ófelos (όφελος) → folos 'use'
• early Middle Greek prósɸatos (πρόσφατος) → proaspăt 'fresh'
• sklábos (σκλάβος) ‚Sklawe '→ outdated șcheau , șchiau , Bulgarian, Bulgarian'

By teaching South Slavonic (cf. Old Church Slavonic, Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian) further Byzantinisms were borrowed:

• Greek drómos (δρόμος) → Old Church Slavonic drumŭ → Romanian drum 'way'
• Greek efthinós (εὐθηνός) 'successful' → Serbo-Croatian ieftin , Bulgarian evtin (евтин) → Romanian ieftin , (earlier) eftin 'cheap' (cf. modern Greek φθηνός fthinós 'cheap')
• Greek myrízomai (μυρίζομαι) → Old Church Slavonic mirosati → Romanian mirosi 'smell'

Some modern Greek words were also borrowed , especially during the rule of the Phanariots :

• bufos (μποῦϕος), eagle owl, idiot '→ bufă (next to buhă ), owl, tangled hair; Child's play '
• buzunára (μπουζουνάρα) → buzunar 'trouser or jacket pocket'
• fasóli (φασόλι) → fasole 'bean'
• kukuvágia (κουκουβάγια) → cucuvea (next to cucuvaie , cucuveică , cucumea (gă) ) ' little owl '
• orfanós (ορφανός) → orfan 'orphan' (opposite aromanian oarfãn from Vulgar Latin )

Hungarianisms

The number of loanwords from the neighboring language Hungarian varies greatly from region to region: In Transylvania there are many colloquial words that have not found their way into the Romanian high-level language. Hungarian loanwords in general vocabulary include:

• Hungarian bunda → Romanian bundă , fur coat '
• Hungarian dialectal döböny , cylindrical, wooden crockery made of one piece, with a lid, for honey and the like '→ Transylvanian Romanian ghiob , wooden vessel'
• Hungarian fogadni → Romanian făgădui , promise '
• Hungarian gazda → Romanian gazdă , landlord, host '
• hungarian gond → romanian gând 'thought'
• Hungarian kocsi → Romanian cocie , carriage '
• Hungarian költeni → Romanian cheltui 'spend money'
• Hungarian marha → Romanian marfǎ ‚Ware '
• Hungarian menteni → Romanian mântui 'save, preserve'
• Hungarian oltvány → Romanian altoi 'ennoble trees'
• Hungarian szoba → Romanian sobǎ 'room, oven' (the Hungarian word itself is borrowed from German parlor )
• Hungarian város → Romanian oraș 'city'

Loan words from German

• Potato → cartof
• Half (beer) → half a
• Screw → șurub
• Calliper → șubler
• Executioner → go 'dog catcher',
• Bavarian schlampat , sloppy '→ șlampăt
• Emery → șmirghel
• Switch → șaltăr (dialect)
• Rail → șină
• Drilling machine → bormașină
• Splash → șpriț
• servus (greeting) → servus (Transylvanian)
• Decal → abțibild
• Seagrass → zegras
• Bavarian food 'pantry' → șpais (dialect)
• Ham → șuncă
• Clapboard → șindrilă
• Schnitzel → șnițel
• Teat → țâță
• Table runner → tișlaifer (dialect)
• Tower → turn
• Confectioner → țucărpecărița (dialect)
• Backpack → rucsac
• Flatfoot → platfus
• Gläserei → glăjărie (Transylvanian)
• Iron → biglais (dialect in Banat)
• Letter → brif (dialect in Bukovina)
• Liver → lebăr 'liver sausage'
• Waiter → chelner
• Horseradish sausages → crenvurști
• Kremschnitte → cremșnit
• Monastery → cloașter (medieval name for Catholic monasteries)
• Streif → ștraif
• stiff (adj.) → ștaif (addition to stiffening: collar, peak [cap], ...)
• Strudel → ștrudel (only in the gastronomic sense!)
• Stanitzel → ștanițăl
• Slipper → pantof 'shoe'

Turzisms

Romanian has several layers of borrowings from the Turkic languages , e.g. B.

• West Turkish
  • Pechenegic and Cumanian :
    • Romanian beci ‚cellar '(Cuman beči ‚ fortification'), coman ‚devil; Monster '(Cuman Koman ), oină ' Romanian ball game '(cf. Turkish oyun ' game ', Aromanian oină ' card game '), toi ' climax, summit '(Cuman toy ), perhaps also capcană ' trap '(cf. Turkish kapkan ).
  • Tatar :
    • Romanian arcan 'lasso', ceaun 'boiler' (Tatar ca (h) un ), Moldovan gigăt 'brave, daring', han 'Tatar prince', mârzac 'Tatar nobleman, nobleman' (Tatar mïrza ), oba 'Tatar house' .
• Turkey Turkish
  • Ottoman Turkish
    • Colloquial or dialect:
      • dialect dövlek (compared to standard devlek ) → Romanian dovleac , pumpkin '; colloquially farfuri (standard fağfuri ) → Romanian farfurie 'porcelain plate '; Colloquially tuç (standard tunc ) → tuci 'brass' etc.
    • Obsolete:
      • ağami ( New Turkish acemi ) → Romanian ageamiu , beginner, newcomer '; hergele ( New Turkish meaning '( stud, draft) stallion') → Romanian herghelie 'stud, stall'; kerhana ( New Turkish meaning ' whore house ') → Romanian cherhana 'factory' etc.
    • In addition to largely outdated military vocabulary, there are e.g. B. the following words with identical New Turkish equivalents:
      • Turkish baş → Romanian baci , shepherd '; Turkish çoban → Romanian cioban , shepherd '; çorap → ciorap 'socks'; çorba → ciorbă 'soup'; dolap → dulap 'closet'; fıstık → fistic 'pistachio'; kahve → cafea 'coffee'; köfte → chiftea 'meatball'; kutu → cutie 'box'; pabuç → papuc , slippers' etc.

Vocabulary of unclear origin

As in every language, there are also words in Romanian whose origins cannot be explained either from the Latin genome or from contact with later languages. It is possible that such words are substratum from older languages ​​that were spoken in the area of ​​today's Romania before the Latin colonization, such as Dacish . However, as these languages ​​are rarely used, it is seldom possible to assign these words to a specific language. Examples of such words in Romanian are:

• băiat 'boy'
• gașcă 'clique'
• hoț 'thief'
• strugure 'grape'
• brânză , cheese '
• balaur , dragon '

Internal language history

The oldest document in Romanian is Neacșu's letter from 1521.

Old Romanian already shows most of the features of New Romanian. Here is a brief overview of the characteristics:

syntax

• Word order: subject-verb-object
• enclitic article: ajutoriul "the help"
• Proclitical article for proper names: luna lu Mai "the month of May"
• the auxiliary in the perfect is always a avea : am scris "I wrote"

morphology

• the plural of most masculines (and some feminines) is -i , that of most feminines (and some neuter) is -e , neuter forms the plural of -uri .
• Existence of a relative pronoun for the genitive and dative plural: care <Latin. QUALEM
• In addition to the enclitic article -ul, there is an enclitic article -lu , e.g. B. fiulu "the son".
• regular increase in bine "good"
• Genitive formation possible through inflection ( casǎ domnului ) or preposition ( casǎ de domnu )
• The four Latin verb classes have been preserved: I. CANTARE> cânta , II. HABERE> avea , III. MERGERE> merge , IV. VENIRE> veni , whereby only classes I and IV are productive.
• The infinitive fading has already taken place, the subjunctive is usually formed with sǎ + indicative forms.

vocabulary

• Even in the oldest surviving Romanian text, there are over 90% words of Latin origin.

According to the system

→ Main article : Phonetic shifts of Latin hereditary words in Romanian

Due to the fact that it is isolated from the other Romance languages, there are several special sound developments in the Romanian language. There are also some similarities, for example with the Italian language [kl]> [kj] (Lat. Cl arus> Rum. Chi ar, Ital. Chi aro = famous, actually) and with the Dalmatian language , e.g. B. [gn]> [mn] (Lat. Co gn atus> Rum. Cu mn at, Dalm. Co mn ut = brother-in-law).

Some of the notable shifts:

• Diphthongization of e and o

  Lat. c e ra> rum. c ea ră (wax)

  Lat. s o l> Rum. s oa re (sun)

• Iotazism [e] → [ie] at the beginning of the word

  Lat. h e rba> Rum. i arbă (grass, herb)

• Velars [k], [g] → labials [p], [b], [m] before alveolar consonants:

  Lat. o ct o> rum. o pt (eight)

  Lat. qu attuor> Rum. p atru (four)

  Lat. li ng ua> Rum. li mb ă (tongue, language)

  Lat. si gn um> Rum. se mn (characters)

  Lat. co x a> Rum. coa ps ă (thigh, thigh)

• Rhotazism [l] → [r] between vowels

  Lat. cae l um> rum. ce r (heaven)

  Lat. so l > Rum. soa r e (sun)

  Lat. sa l em> Rum. sa r e (salt)

• Alveolar [d] and [t] palatalized to [dz] / [z] and [ts] if recently [e] or long [i]

  Lat. d eus> Rum. z eu (God)

  Lat. t enere> rum. ț ine (hold)

  Lat. have t is> Rum. ave ț i (you have)

Dialect characteristics

morphology

• the masculine article in the singular is -u (the vulgar Latin accusative suffix ): porcu (the pig) vs. rum. (Standard) porcul
• Simplified inflection: this is mostly limited to feminines, while prepositions are used instead of flexives.
• In the dative case, la is also used instead of lu , regardless of gender.
• As far as the plural formation is concerned, the change -a> -e> -i occurred without regard to gender.
• double marking in the comparison: tare foarte bine instead of foarte bine or tare bine .
• Verbs: in the perfect perfect, fost is often only spoken [fos] or [foz], the compound perfect predominates. Some strong perfect tenses are used instead of weak ones : văst instead of văzut (seen), vint instead of venit (come), aust instead of auzit (heard).

literature

• Klaus Bochmann, Heinrich Stiehler: Introduction to the Romanian language and literary history. Romanistic publishing house, Bonn 2010.
• Ioana Chițoran: The Phonology of Romanian. A constraint-based approach . Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2001; Reprint 2013.
• Wolfgang Dahmen: External Language History of Romanian . In: Gerhard Ernst u. a. (Ed.): Romance language history. An international handbook on the history of the Romance languages . 1st subband. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2003. pp. 727-746.
• Gabriela Pană Dindelegan (Ed.): The Grammar of Romanian . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2013.
• Gabriela Pană Dindelegan u. a. (Ed.): Diachronic Variation in Romanian . Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne 2015.
• Günter Holtus, Michael Metzeltin u. Christian Schmitt (ed.): Lexicon of Romance Linguistics . 12 volumes. Niemeyer, Tübingen 1988-2005; Volume III: The individual Romance languages ​​and language areas from the Renaissance to the present. Romanian, Dalmatian / Istra Romansh, Friulian, Ladin, Grisons Romansh. 1989.
  • Michael Metzeltin, Otto Winkelmann: Romanian: Lexicology and Semantics . Pp. 81-101.
• Maria Iliescu , Victoria Popovici: Romanian grammar . Buske, Hamburg 2013, ISBN 978-3-87548-490-8 .
• Thede Kahl (Ed.): The Romanian and its neighbors. Frank and Timme, Berlin 2009, Forum: Romania, Volume 2, ISBN 978-3-86596-195-2 .
• Michael Metzeltin : Gramatică explicativă a limbilor romanice. Sintaxă și semantică. Editură Universității Alexandru Ioan Cuza, Jassy 2011.
• Andreas Liviu de Papp: Instructions for learning the Romance language . Teschen 1852, textbook of the Romanian language for German speakers taking into account the Latin etymology of Romanian words from 1852 (PDF)
• Klaus-Henning Schroeder: Introduction to studying Romanian . Schmidt, Berlin 1967.

to Old Romanian:

• Lorenzo Renzi: Nuova introduzione alla filologia romanza. il Mulino, Bologna 1994, pp. 411-420.
• Ina Arapi: The use of infinitive and subjunctive in Old Albanian with a view to Romanian. Hamburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-8300-4572-4 .

to dialectology:

• Gerhard Ernst u. a. (Ed.): Romance language history. An international handbook on the history of the Romance languages . 3rd subband. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2009.
  • Stelian Dumistrăcel, Doina Hreapcă: Histoire des dialectes dans la Romania: Romania du Sud-Est . Pp. 2459-2477.
  • Larisa Schippel: History of regional varieties and urban languages ​​in Romania: Südostromania . Pp. 2532-2540.
  • Rodica Zafiu: Les variétés diastratiques et diaphasiques des langues romanes du point de vue historique: roumain . Pp. 2319-2333.
• Josef Popovici: Romanian dialects [sic!]. Halle an der Saale 1904 (Reprint: La Vergine, USA, 2011).
• Rudolf Windisch: Romanian: Variety Linguistics of Romanian . In: Günter Holtus, Michael Metzeltin , Christian Schmitt (Hrsgg.): Lexicon of Romance Linguistics . Volume 3: The individual Romance languages ​​and language areas from the Renaissance to the present. Romanian, Dalmatian / Istra Romansh, Friulian, Ladin, Grisons Romansh. Niemeyer, Tübingen 1989. pp. 464-480.

to the fiefdom and language contact:

• Vasile Arvinte: The German borrowings in the Romanian dialects . Translated into German by Siegfried Bronsert. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1971.
• Wolfgang Dahmen: Language contacts: Greek and Romanian . In: Gerhard Ernst u. a. (Ed.): Romance language history. An international handbook on the history of the Romance languages. 2nd subband. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2006. pp. 1611–1617.
• Jouko Lindstedt: Balkan Slavic and Balkan Romance from Congruence to Convergence. In: Juliane Besters-Dilger, Cynthia Dermarkar, Stefan Pfänder u. Achim Rabus (Ed.): Congruence in Contact-Induced Language Change. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2014.
• Sorin Paliga: The Earliest Slavic Borrowings in Romanian . In: Romanoslavica. Volume XLVI, No. 4. Editura Universității din Bucureşti, Bucharest 2010.
• Peter R. Petrucci: Slavic Features in the History of Rumanian. Lincom Europe, Munich 1999.
• Emil Suciu: 101 cuvinte de origine turcă. Humanitas, Bucharest 2011.
• Lajos Tamás: Etymological-historical dictionary of the Hungarian elements in Romanian. Mouton, Budapest 1967.
• Heinz F. Wendt: The Turkish elements in Romanian. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1960.
• Wiecher Zwanenburg : German Influence in Romanian . In: Randall Scott Gess, Deborah Arteaga (Eds.): Historical Romance Linguistics. Retrospective and Perspectives . John Benjamin, Amsterdam 2006.

Web links

Wiktionary: Romanian  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Wiktionary: Category: Romanian  - explanations of meanings, origins of words, synonyms, translations

Commons : Romanian language  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Commons : Romanian pronunciation  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Wikisource: Romanian Dictionaries  - Sources and Full Texts

Wikiquote: Romanian Proverbs  - Quotes

• Entry on the Romanian language (PDF; 627 kB) In: Encyclopedia of the European East

Individual evidence

1. ^ UNHCR - Ethnic Hungarian Minorities in Central and Eastern Europe
2. ↑ http://www.bmas.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/PDF-Publikationen/a871-die-laender-europas.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=10
3. ↑ ec.europa.eu (PDF)
4. ↑ Information on the composition of the Ukrainian population in 2001 ( Memento from November 1, 2004 in the Internet Archive )
5. ↑ Romanian BBC.com
6. ^ Petit Futé: Roumanie . Editions 2004–2005, ISBN 2-7469-1132-9 , p. 37.
7. ↑ 2011 census results by native language (xls) www.recensamantromania.ro, website of the Romanian Institute of Statistics. Retrieved May 5, 2015.
8. ↑ Despre folosirea literelor î și â. dexonline.ro, 1992, accessed May 20, 2016 (Romanian). 
9. ↑ 150 de ani de la înființarea Academiei Române
10. ↑ Special aspects of this lexical heritage dealt with: Kamil Stachowski: The volume of Ottoman lexical influence on Romanian. In: Gabriel Altmann, Radek Čech, Ján Mačutek, Ludmila Uhlířová (Eds.): Empirical Approaches to Text and Language Analysis dedicated to Luděk Hřebíček on the occasion of his 80th birthday. RAM-Verlag, Lüdenscheid 2014, pages 207–228. ISBN 978-3-942303-24-8 .
11. ^ Klaus-Henning Schroeder: Introduction to the Study of Romanian . Schmidt, Berlin 1967, pp. 43-44
12. ^ Ethnologue, Romanian
13. ↑ nominal formation to a se bucura , be happy '; Pre-Romanesque according to Manfred Trummer: "Southeast European Languages ​​and Romance". In: Günter Holtus, Michael Metzeltin, Christian Schmitt (Eds.): Lexicon of Romance Linguistics. (LRL). Volume 7: Contact, Migration and Artificial Languages. Contrastivity, Classification and Typology. Max Niemeyer, Tübingen 1998. p. 164 books.google.de
14. ^ ^{A b c d e} Emil Suciu: "Contacts linguistiques: turc et roumain". In: Gerhard Ernst (Hrsg.): Romance language history. An international handbook on the history of the Romance languages . 2nd subband. De Gruyter, Berlin 2006. pp. 1673–1676.