Romanian language
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Romanian (Română) is an Eastern Romance language, spoken by about 28 million people, most of them in Romania, Moldova (where it is the official language) and neighbouring countries.
| Romanian (romană) | |
|---|---|
| Spoken | Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, Israel, Serbia, Hungary, the Balkans, Canada, USA, Germany, Finland. |
| Region | Eastern Europe |
| Total speakers | 28 Million |
| Ranking | 36 |
| Dialects | 4 |
| Genetic classification | Indo-European Italic Romance East Romance Romanian |
| Official status | |
| Official language | Romania, Moldova, Serbia and Montenegro (Vojvodina) |
| Regulated by | Academia Romană |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | ro |
| ISO 639-2 | rum, rou |
| SIL | RUM |
| Table of contents |
|
2 Vocabulary 3 Geographic distribution 4 Grammar 5 Writing system 6 Common words and phrases 7 External links |
History
The Romanian territory was inhabited in ancient times by the Dacians, who spoke an Indo-European language, the Dacian language about which there is very little knowledge, but some linguists think that it was fairly close to Latin.
After the Roman conquest, Dacia was transformed in a Roman province and Vulgar Latin was used for administration and commerce. It is noteworthy that only a small portion of Dacia / Romania was romanized, most of the teritory being inhabited by the Free Dacians, populations that were never under the Roman rule.
Although we may never know much about the Dacian language, there are some words that are found only in Romanian (in all dialects), some of them have a cognate in Albanian language and these are generally thought to be inherited from Dacian, most of them being related to the pastoral life. (see: List of Dacian words) The grammar is roughly similar to that of Latin, keeping declensions and the neuter gender, unlike any other Romance language.
| Map of Balkans with regions inhabited by Romanians/Vlachs highlighted |
The first written record of a Romanic language spoken in the Middle Ages in the Balkans was written by the Byzantine chronicler Theophanes Confessor in the 6th century about a military expedition against the Avars from 587, when a Vlach muleteer accompanying the Byzantine army noticed that the load was falling from one of the animals and shouted to a companion "Torna, torna fratre" (meaning "Return, return brother!").
Vocabulary
Most words in Romanian vocabulary (about 75%) are of Latin origin, but the language also contains many words borrowed from its Slavonic neighbours and also from French, Italian, German, Hungarian, Turkish and English.
There are some Slavonic influences, both on the phonetic level and on the lexical level - for example, since Latin does not have a word for yes, Romanian took the Slavonic da. Also Romanian is the only Romance language with /h/. (Although in many dialects of Spanish, particularly in the Americas,
Modern words were often borrowed from French or Italian in the 19th century, later some were borrowed from German and English.
Geographic distribution
Romanian is spoken mostly in Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, Hungary, Serbia and Montenegro, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Greece, but there are also Romanian language speakers in countries like Canada, United States, Germany, Israel, Australia and New Zealand, mainly due to immigration after the World War II.
| Country | Population | Romanian native speakers | Percentage | Notes |
| Romania | 21,698,181 | 19,420,000 | 89.5% | Official language |
| Moldova | 4,430,654 | 3,483,600 | 64.5% | Official language |
| Russia | 145,537,200 | 1,019,000 | 0.7% | many are Moldavians that were deported to Siberia |
| Ukraine | 48,055,439 | 385,000 | 0.8% | in Northern Bukovina and Southern Bessarabia |
| Serbia | 10,662,087 | 200,000 - 500,000 | 0.5% - 4.6% | Official language of Vojvodina |
| Israel | 10,138,844 | 250,000 | 4.2% | |
| Germany | 83,251,851 | 150,000 | 0.2% | |
| United States | 281,421,906 | 100,000 | 0.03% | |
| Hungary | 10,138,844 | 71,000 | 0.7% | |
| Canada | 32,207,113 | 60,520 | 0.2% |
Official status
Romanian is official in Romania and Moldova, where it is named "Moldovan language".
In other Eastern European countries (excepting Hungary) the Romanian minority has very few rights regarding the use of their language in schools and institutions.
Dialects
Romanian has four dialects:
- Daco-Romanian - generally referred as Romanian - spoken North of Danube
- Aromanian - Greece, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, Serbia
- Megleno-Romanian - Northern Greece
- Istro-Romanian - Istria peninsula, Croatia
Grammar
Main article: Romanian grammar
Pronouns
As in Italian, pronouns in Nominative case are generally omitted in Romanian unless required to disambiguate the meaning of a sentence. Usually, the verb ending provides information about the subject. The inflection by gender can be found only on the third person.
| Case | 1st Person | 2nd Person | 3rd Person | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | |||
| masc | fem | masc | fem | |||||
| Nominative | eu | noi | tu | voi | el | ea | ei | ele |
| Genitive | meu | nostru | tău | vostru | lui | ei | lor | |
| Dative | mie | nouă | ţie | vouă | lui | ei | lor | |
| Accusative | mine | noi | tine | voi | el | ea | ei | ele |
| Vocative | - | - | tu | voi | - | - | - | - |
Nouns
Romanian nouns are inflected by gender, number and case.
Gender
Unlike the other Romance languages, Romanian has three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter, keeping the neuter gender from Latin. Nouns of this gender use the masculine form for the singular and the feminine form for the plural.
Words ending in "ă" are feminine, while words ending in consonant are masculine and neuter and the words ending in "e" can be of either gender.
Sometimes it is possible to change the gender using suffixes. From feminine to masculine it is used the suffix "-oi" (pisica (fem) - pisoi (masc) = cat) and the revers with suffix "-ică" (lup (masc) - lupoaică (fem) - wolf).
Number
Romanian distinguishes between singular and plural forms of a noun, the plural being formed with vowel change, but sometimes there are some other sounds that change inside the noun.
Here's a table with the rough general rules of the Romanian plural:
| Gender | Ending - Sg | Ending - Pl |
| Feminine | -ă/-e/-ea | -e/-i/-ele |
| Masculine | -(consonant)/-e/-u | -i |
| Neuter | -(consonant) | -uri/-oare/-e |
| Gender | Noun - Sg | Noun - Pl |
| Feminine | carte = book | cărţi = books | Masculine | călător = traveler | călători = travelers |
| Neuter | drum = road | drumuri = roads | Neuter | măr = apple | mere = apples |
Articles
Definite article
Another peculiarity of Romanian is that it is the only Romance language that has the definite article attached to the end of the noun (as in Swedish) instead of being a separate word in front. They were formed as in other Romance languages from the Latin demonstrative pronouns.
| Gender | Noun | Definite article | Noun with article |
| Feminine | carte = book | -a | cartea = the book |
| Masculine | drum = road | -ul | drumul = the road |
Indefinite article
| Gender | Nominative | Dative | ||
| Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | |
| Feminine | o | niste | unei | unor |
| Masculine | un | unui | ||
| Neuter | ||||
Possession
Possesion is indicated by using the possesive article (see table) and the oblique case of the possessor noun.
| Gender | Singular | Plural |
| Feminine | al | a |
| Masculine | ai | ale |
Verbs
Romanian has the same four groups of verbs as Latin and unlike English, it has no sequence of tenses nor strict rules regarding their use, but it does has many alternatives (for example, it has six different types of future tense).
See also: Romanian conjugation
Writing system
The oldest written text in Romanian is a letter from 1521 ("Neacşu of Campulung's letter"). It is written using the Cyrillic alphabet, like all early Romanian writings (because the usual language for religious services was old Slavonian).
In the late 1700s, Transylvanian scholars started using the Latin alphabet to write Romanian. The Cyrillic alphabet remained in (gradually decreasing) use until 1860, when Romanian writing was first officially regulated.
Romanian alphabet
Main article: Romanian alphabet The Romanian alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet, and has five additional letters (these are not diacriticals, but letters in their own right). Initially, there were as many as 12 additional letters, but some of them disappeared in subsequent reforms. Also, until the early 20th century, a short vowel marker was used.
Today, the Romanian alphabet is largely phonetic, with one exception: the "â" (used inside the words) and "î" (used at the beginning or the end), both representing the same sound. Long and short vowels are not distinguished in writing. Usually, the sounds denoted by letters are similar to Italian.
Here are the letters of the Romanian alphabet, and their pronunciation.
| Letter | Phoneme | Pronunciation |
|---|---|---|
| A a | /a/ | Like in 'Mars' |
| Ă ă (a with breve) | /@/ | Schwa: first sound of above |
| Â â (a with circumflex) | /1/ |
No equivalent in English ы in Russian, ı in Turkish |
| B b | /b/ | |
| C c | /k/ | Like in 'cat' |
| D d | /d/ | |
| E e | /e/ | Like in 'merry' |
| F f | /f/ | |
| G g | /g/ | Like in 'goat' |
| H h | /h/ | Like in 'house' |
| I i | /i/ | Like in 'machine' |
| Î î (i with circumflex) | /1/ | the same as â |
| J j | /Z/ | Like French 'j': 'jour' |
| K k | /k/ | |
| L l | /l/ | Like in 'lamp' |
| M m | /m/ | |
| N n | /n/ | |
| O o | /o/ | Like in 'door' |
| P p | /p/ | |
| R r | /r/ | Trilled - like Italian, Spanish 'r' |
| S s | /s/ | |
| Ș ș (s with comma) (also with cedilla: Ş ş) | /S/ | like in sheep |
| T t | /t/ | |
| Ț ț (t with comma) (also with cedilla: Ţ ţ) | /ts/ | like in nuts |
| U u | /u/ | Like in 'group' |
| V v | /v/ | |
| X x | /ks/ | |
| Z z | /z/ |
Writing letters /S/ and /ts/ with a cedilla instead of a comma is incorrect, but rather widespread, especially in computer environments.
Vowels
There are eight vowels in Romanian:
| Letter | SAMPA | IPA | |
|---|---|---|---|
| a | a | a | |
| e | e | e | |
| i | i | i | |
| i | i_0 | ||
| o | o | o | |
| u | u | u | |
| ă | @ | ə | î, â | 1 | ɨ |
A voiceless terminal "i" that can be found especially on plural forms.
Semivowels
| Letters | SAMPA | IPA | |
|---|---|---|---|
| i | j | ||
| u | w | ||
| ea | e_X | ||
| oa | o_X | ||
Group of letters
These groups of letters are identical to those in Italian:
| Group | Sound | Example |
| ge | dZ | like 'ge' in gentle |
| gi | like 'gi' in gin | |
| ghe | like 'ge' in get | |
| ghi | like gui in guitar | |
| ce | tS | like tche in hatchet |
| ci | like tchi in sketching | |
| che | ke | like ke in kerosen |
| chi | ki | like ki in kimono |
Common words and phrases
The Romanian alphabet is phonetic, so the words are read nearly as in Italian/Latin (with the exception of the quasi-diacriticals).
- Romanian (person): "Român"
- hello: "Salut" or "Salutare"
- good-bye: "La revedere"
- bye: "Pa"
- please: "Vă rog"
- sorry: "Îmi pare rău"
- thank you: "Mulţumesc"
- yes: "Da"
- no: "Nu"
- I don't understand: "Nu înţeleg"
- Where's the bathroom?: "Unde e toaleta?"
- Do you speak English?: "Vorbiţi engleza?"
External links
Learning Romanian
Phrasebooks
Dictionaries
- Wiktionary in Romanian (begun May 1, 2004)
- A complete Romanian-English dictionary
- A very usable online Romanian-English dictionary
- DEX online - Romanian (explicative) dictionary
- Romanian - English Dictionary: from Webster's Rosetta Edition.
- Free downloadable dictionary
Miscellaneous
- SAMPA for Romanian
- Neacşu of Campulung's letter - the oldest written document in Romanian