Romanian is an Eastern Romance language spoken by approximately 22–26 million people as a native language, primarily in Romania and Moldova, and by another 4 million people as a second language. According to another estimate, there are about 34 million people worldwide who can speak Romanian, of whom 30 million speak it as a native language. It is an official and national language of both Romania and Moldova and is one of the official languages of the European Union.
Shelta is a language spoken by Rilantu Mincéirí, particularly in Ireland and the United Kingdom. It is widely known as the Cant, to its native speakers in Ireland as De Gammon, and to the linguistic community as Shelta. It was often used as a cryptolect to exclude outsiders from comprehending conversations between Travellers, although this aspect is frequently over-emphasised. The exact number of native speakers is hard to determine due to sociolinguistic issues but Ethnologue puts the number of speakers at 30,000 in the UK, 6,000 in Ireland, and 50,000 in the US. The figure for at least the UK is dated to 1990; it is not clear if the other figures are from the same source.
The Eastern Romance languages developed from the Proto-Romanian language, which in turn developed from the Vulgar Latin spoken in a region of the Balkans which has not yet been exactly determined, but is generally agreed to have been a region north of the Jireček Line.
The Romanian alphabet is a variant of the Latin alphabet used for writing the Romanian language. It is a modification of the classical Latin alphabet and consists of 31 letters, five of which have been modified from their Latin originals for the phonetic requirements of the language:
Marzipan is a confection consisting primarily of sugar, honey, and almond meal, sometimes augmented with almond oil or extract.
Castella is a kind of wagashi originally developed in Japan based on the "Nanban confectionery". The batter is poured into large square or rectangular molds, baked in an oven and cut into long rectangular shapes. Since the recipe calls for mizuame, a type of sugar syrup, Castella has a moist texture.
A Gugelhupf is a cake traditionally baked in a distinctive circular Bundt mold that has a circular hole in the middle. There are three main types: cocoa; plain with a hint of vanilla and lemon zest; and a marbled combination of the two. It is popular in a wide region of Central Europe particularly in southern Germany, Alsace, Austria, Switzerland, Croatia, Hungary, Bosnia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Czech Republic and Poland. It is not closely related to the Christmas cake in Italy known as the pandoro nor to the American bundt cake as that is not yeast based. In the cuisine of the Pennsylvania Dutch it is known as Deitscher Kuche.
Etymology is the study of the history of the form of words and, by extension, the origin and evolution of their semantic meaning across time. It is a subfield of historical linguistics, and draws upon comparative semantics, morphology, semiotics, and phonetics.
The Greek language has contributed to the English lexicon in five main ways:
Kugel is a baked pudding or casserole, most commonly made from lokshen or Jewish egg noodles or potato. It is a traditional Ashkenazi Jewish dish, often served on Shabbat and Jewish holidays.
Romanian cuisine is a diverse blend of different dishes from several traditions with which it has come into contact, but it also maintains its own character. It has been mainly influenced by Turkish and a series of European cuisines in particular from the Balkans, or Hungarian cuisine as well as culinary elements stemming from the cuisines of Eastern and Central Europe.
Bryndza is a sheep milk cheese made across much of East-Central Europe, primarily in or around the Carpathian Mountains of Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania and southern Poland. Bryndza cheese is creamy white in appearance, known for its characteristic strong smell and taste. The cheese is white, tangy, crumbly and slightly moist. It has characteristic odor and flavor with a notable taste of butyric acid. The overall flavor sensation begins slightly mild, then goes strong and finally fades to a salty finish. Recipes differ slightly across countries.
A charlotte is a type of dessert or trifle that can be served hot or cold. It is also referred to as an "icebox cake". Bread, sponge cake or biscuits/cookies are used to line a mold, which is then filled with a fruit puree or custard. It can also be made using layers of breadcrumbs.
Brânză de burduf is a salty type of Romanian cheese, made with sheep milk. It has a strong flavour and slightly soft in texture.
The Banat dialect is one of the dialects of the Romanian language (Daco-Romanian). Its geographic distribution extends over the Romanian Banat and parts of the Serbian Banat, but also in parts of the Timok Valley of Serbia.
Plăcintă is a Romanian, Moldovan and Ukrainian traditional pastry resembling a thin, small round or square-shaped cake, usually filled with apples or a soft cheese such as Urdă.
Brânză de coșuleț is a salty type of cheese, with sheep's-milk cheese from Romania, specific of Transylvania. Brânză de coșuleț has a strong flavour and slightly soft in texture. To obtain it, sweet caș is cut into small pieces, salted and then hand-mixed in a large wooden bowl. The mixture is then stuffed into bellows of fir tree bark, very lightly smoked. The cheese gets a specific pine resin flavour.
