The proposed substratal elements in Romanian are mostly lexical items. The process of determining if a word is from the substratum involves comparison to Latin, languages with which Romanian came into contact, or determining if it is an internal construct. If there are no matching results, a comparison to Albanian vocabulary, Thracian remnants or Proto-Indo-European reconstructed words is made.
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 and almond meal, sometimes augmented with almond oil or extract.
Castella is a type of Japanese sponge cake, based on cakes introduced to Japan by Portuguese merchants in the 16th century. It was then popularized in the city of Nagasaki, where it is considered a specialty. Despite its foreign origins, it is considered a kind of wagashi, or traditional Japanese confectionery.
Etymology is the study of the origin and evolution of words, including their constituent units of sound and of meaning, across time. In the 21st century a subfield within linguistics, etymology has become a more rigorously scientific study. Most directly tied to historical linguistics, philology, and semiotics, it additionally draws upon comparative semantics, morphology, pragmatics, and phonetics in order to attempt a comprehensive and chronological catalogue of all meanings and changes that a word carries throughout its history. The origin of any particular word is also known as its etymology.
The Greek language has contributed to the English lexicon in five main ways:
Folk etymology – also known as (generative) popular etymology, analogical reformation, (morphological)reanalysis and etymological reinterpretation – is a change in a word or phrase resulting from the replacement of an unfamiliar form by a more familiar one through popular usage. The form or the meaning of an archaic, foreign, or otherwise unfamiliar word is reinterpreted as resembling more familiar words or morphemes.
Kugel is a baked casserole, most commonly made from lokshen or potato. It is a traditional Ashkenazi Jewish dish, often served on Shabbos and Jewish holidays. American Jews also serve it for Thanksgiving dinner.
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 influenced mainly by Turkish but also a series of European cuisines in particular from the Balkan Peninsula and Hungarian cuisine as well as culinary elements stemming from the cuisines of Central Europe.
Bryndza or brynza is a sheep milk cheese made across the countries in Central and Eastern Europe, most notably in Slovakia. 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.
The lexis of the Romanian language, a Romance language, has changed over the centuries as the language evolved from Vulgar Latin, to Common Romanian, to medieval, modern and contemporary Romanian. A large proportion of present-day Romanian lexis is not inherited from Latin and in some semantic areas loanwords far outnumber inherited ones making Romanian an example of a language with a high degree of lexical permeability.
Paska is a Ukrainian Easter bread. It is particularly spread in Central and Eastern European countries with cultural connections to the ancient Byzantine Empire, Eastern Orthodoxy or Eastern Catholicism. Easter breads are a traditional element in the Easter holiday cuisines of Armenia, Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Georgia, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Poland, Slovakia and Ukraine. It is also eaten in countries with large immigrant populations from Central and Eastern Europe such as the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. Easter bread is also a common tradition amongst the Assyrian-Chaldean-Syriac diaspora.
Vasilopita is a New Year's Day bread, cake or pie in Greece and many other areas in eastern Europe and the Balkans which contains a hidden coin or trinket which gives good luck to the receiver, like the Western European King Cake. It is associated with Saint Basil's day, January 1, in most of Greece, but in some regions, the traditions surrounding a cake or pita with a hidden coin are attached to Epiphany or to Christmas. It is made of a variety of dough, depending on regional and family tradition, including tsoureki. In some families, instead of dough, it is made from a custard base called galatopita. In the Thessaly region a pork filled phyllo pie is made with a hidden coin. The pie is also known as Chronópita, meaning "New Year's pie".
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 and Moldovan 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.
Palatschinke is a thin crêpe-like variety of pancake of Greco-Roman origin. The dessert is common in the Balkans, Central and Eastern Europe.
