Romanian lexis

Last updated

The lexis of the Romanian language (or Daco-Romanian), 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 (about 42%) 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. [1]

Contents

Thraco-Dacian substrate

Romanian has around 90 words from Thraco-Dacian. [2] [3] [4]

abur, argea, baci, balaur, bală, balegă, baltă, barză, bască, bâlc, bâr, brad, brânză, brâu, brusture, buc, bucur, bunget, buză, căciulă, călbează, căpuşă, cătun, ceafă, cioară, cioc, ciucă, ciuf, ciump, ciupi, ciut, coacăză, copac, copil, curpen, cursă, droaie, druete, fărâmă, fluier, gard, gata, ghimpe, ghionoaie, ghiuj, grapă, gresie, groapă, grumaz, grunz, guşă, jumătate, lete, leurdă, mal, mare (adj.), mazăre, măgar, măgură, mărar, mânz, moş, mugur, murg, muşcoi, năpârcă, noian, pârâu, pupăză, raţă, rânză, sarbăd, scăpăra, scrum, sâmbure, spânz, strepede, strugure, strungă, şopârlă, ştiră, ţap, ţarc, ţeapă, urdă, vatră, viezure, vizuină, zară, zgardă.

Latin

Current distribution of Romance Languages in Europe Romance 20c en.png
Current distribution of Romance Languages in Europe

Romanian has inherited about 2000 Latin words through Vulgar Latin, sometimes referred to as Danubian Latin in this context, that form the essential part of the lexis and without them communication would not be possible. 500 of these words are found in all other Romance languages, and they include prepositions and conjunctions (ex: cu, de, pe, spre), numerals (ex: unu, doi, trei), pronouns (ex: eu, tu, noi, voi), adjectives, adverbs and verbs with multiple meanings (ex: bun, dulce, foarte, avea, veni). [5] Complete phrases can be built using only inherited Latin words. [6]

Of the remaining words some are common to Romanian and only one other Romance language, such as înțelege "to understand" also found in Romansh (Lat. intelligere), trece "to pass" found in Occitan (Lat. traicere), or sui "to climb up" found in Old Spanish (Lat. subire), and around 100 of these words are not found in any other Romance languages. Some examples of the latter are: [3] [4]

adăpost, ager, agest, apuca, armar, asuda, aşterne, cântec, ceață, cerceta, creştin, dezmierda, feri, ferice, flămând, ierta, întâi, judeţ, lânced, lângoare, legăna, leşina, lingură, mărgea, negustor, oaie, ospăț, plăcintă, plăsa, plimba, purcede, puroi, putred, sănătoare (sunătoare), suoară (subsoară), treaptă, trepăda, urca, vânăt, vătăma, veşted, urî.

Of the words preserved in other Romance languages some have not only changed their shape, but also their meaning during their evolution from Latin to Romanian. Such are: [7]

Pre-Modern loanwords

Slavic loanwords

(see also Slavic influence on Romanian)

Contact with Slavic languages has brought numerous loanwords (about 15% of the current lexis) that permeated all the semantic fields of the language. It also brought prefixes (ne-, pre-, răs-) and suffixes (-an,-eț, -iște), introduced new sounds (for example j like in jar from Old Church Slavonic žarŭ), calques (limbă with initial meaning of tongue, language gained the additional sense of people, after Old Church Slavonic językŭ- tongue, language, people) adverbs and interjections (da, ba, iată). The influence of the Slavic languages on Romanian forms the adstratum of the language.

Among the basic Slavic loanwords are:

ceas clock, citi to read, covaci blacksmith, crai king, curvă whore, da yes, drag dear, dragoste love, duh spirit, ghost, haină shirt, iubi to love, izvor source, mândru proud, muncă work, noroc luck, opri stop, porni start, praf dust, prieten friend, prost stupid; simple, rând row; order, sărac poor, sfânt holy, sfert quarter slănină bacon, smântână sour cream, sută hundred, târg market, tigaie pan, trup body, veac century, vreme weather; time, zid wall.

Slavic languages also mediated the entry of Medieval Greek words in the language. Out of 278 words of Greek origin before 15th century 2 were borrowed through Medieval Latin, 22 directly, and 254 through South Slavic languages. [8] Slavic loanwords represent about 9% of the basic vocabulary. [9]

Greek loanwords

From the Latin spoken in the Danube area, Romanian has inherited a number of words from Ancient Greek that did not get transmitted in other Romance languages, for example: cir, ciumă, frică, jur, papură, părângă, plai, spân, sterp, stup. [10]

From Medieval Greek words like folos, lipsi, părăsi, prisos, sosi entered the language. [11]

During the Phanariot Period, Romanian, in particular the southern subdialects, borrowed numerous words like argat, crivat, chivernisi that have since gone out of use, while others, like stafidă for example, have remained part of the vocabulary. [11] According to linguist László Gáldi only about 10% of the words loaned during this period remained in use in the language. [12]

Some of the Greek words in Romanian can be recognise by the -isi (-asi, -esi, -osi, -arisi) (ex: chivernisi, fandosi), -os, -icos (plicticos, politicos), -adă, or -ache (in particular with names for example Costache, Manolache). [12]

Hungarian loanwords

Hungarian loanwords are notably absent from the other 3 Eastern Romance languages. [13]

Words of Hungarian origin have entered the basic vocabulary and represent 1.27% of this category. [13]

Some examples of Hungarian loanwords in Romanian are: [14]

Food and beverage words of Hungarian origin:

Turkish loanwords

Large parts of modern-day Romania were under Ottoman suzerainty for several centuries. As a result, exchanges in language, food and culture occurred, and Romanian has absorbed several loanwords of Turkish origin. Even though Turkish language had an influence on the Romanian language, only a few loanwords remain used today on a daily basis. Dobrogea region was part of Rumelia for centuries, as a result there exists a Turkish community there. Ada Kaleh was a small island located in Banat region on Danube river that was inhabited entirely by Turkish people from all parts of the Ottoman Empire who mostly produced Turkish goods for the region. [15]

Examples of Turkish loanwords in Romanian language are:

Food and beverage loanwords of Turkish origin:

Many Ottoman and Phanariot Greek words have acquired pejorative meanings compared with their original meaning:

German loanwords

Less numerous, German loanwords first entered the language with the contact with Saxons colonists. Words like turn - tower referring to medieval architecture, but also şanţ; joagăr, buştean, şindrilă, leaț, şopron, şură from the field of woodwork [18] were then joined by others such as cartof, bere, șurub, șvaițer, șpriț, and șnițel.

Modern Romanian

Romanian dialect, called Daco-Romanian in specialty literature to distinguish it from the other dialects of Common Romanian, inherited from Latin about 2000 words (a similar number to other Romance languages), a relatively small number compared to its modern lexis of 150000. [19] In the 19th century, as the Romanian society transitioned from rural and agricultural towards urban and industrial, the lexis underwent a vigorous enrichment with loanwords from its Romance relatives, French and Italian. Many scholarly and technical terms were also imported from Neo-Latin. Some words, especially of Greek ( arvună , ipochimen , simandicos ) and Turkish ( acadea , beizadea , hatâr ) origin, fell into relative disuse or acquired an ironic connotation.

Among the words which entered the language:

Romanian's core lexicon (2,581 words); Marius Sala, VRLR (1988) CuvinteleLimbiiRomane.svg
Romanian's core lexicon (2,581 words); Marius Sala, VRLR (1988)

A statistical analysis sorting Romanian words by etymological source carried out by Macrea (1961) [20] based on the DLRM [21] (49,649 words) showed the following makeup: [22]

If the analysis is restricted to a core vocabulary of 2,500 frequent, semantically rich and productive words, then the Latin inheritance comes first, followed by Romance and classical Latin neologisms, whereas the Slavic borrowings come third.

Romanian has a lexical similarity of 77% with Italian, 75% with French, 74% with Sardinian, 73% with Catalan, 72% with Portuguese and Rheto-Romance, 71% with Spanish. [24]

Romanian according to word origin [25] [26]
Romance and Latin
78%
Slavic
14%
Germanic (German-based influence, English loanwords)
2.54%
Greek
1.7%
Others
5.49%

Nowadays, the longest word in Romanian is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcaniconioză, with 44 letters, [27] but the longest one admitted by the Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române ("Explanatory Dictionary of the Romanian Language", DEX) is electroglotospectrografie, with 25 letters. [28] [29]

English loanwords

An increasing number of words from English entered the language in recent times. Among them are: interviu, miting, manager. [18]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Romanian language</span> Eastern Romance language

Romanian is the official and main language of Romania and Moldova. Romanian is part of the Eastern Romance sub-branch of Romance languages, a linguistic group that evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin which separated from the Western Romance languages in the course of the period from the 5th to the 8th centuries. To distinguish it within the Eastern Romance languages, in comparative linguistics it is called Daco-Romanian as opposed to its closest relatives, Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian, and Istro-Romanian. It is also spoken as a minority language by stable communities in the countries surrounding Romania, and by the large Romanian diaspora. In total, it is spoken by 25 million people as a first language.

Several theories, in great extent mutually exclusive, address the issue of the origin of the Romanians. The Romanian language descends from the Vulgar Latin dialects spoken in the Roman provinces north of the "Jireček Line" in Late Antiquity. The theory of Daco-Roman continuity argues that the Romanians are mainly descended from the Daco-Romans, a people developing through the cohabitation of the native Dacians and the Roman colonists in the province of Dacia Traiana north of the river Danube. The competing immigrationist theory states that the Romanians' ethnogenesis commenced in the provinces south of the river with Romanized local populations spreading through mountain refuges, both south to Greece and north through the Carpathian Mountains. Other theories state that the Romanized local populations were present over a wide area on both sides of the Danube and the river itself did not constitute an obstacle to permanent exchanges in both directions; according to the "admigration" theory, migrations from the Balkan Peninsula to the lands north of the Danube contributed to the survival of the Romance-speaking population in these territories.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Substrate in Romanian</span>

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.

Common Romanian, also known as Ancient Romanian, or Proto-Romanian, is a comparatively reconstructed Romance language evolved from Vulgar Latin and spoken by the ancestors of today's Romanians, Aromanians, Megleno-Romanians, Istro-Romanians and related Balkan Latin peoples (Vlachs) between the 6th or 7th century AD and the 10th or 11th centuries AD. The evidence for this can be found in the fact that Romanian, Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian, and Istro-Romanian share with each other their main language innovations comparative to Vulgar Latin on one hand, and distinctive from the other Romance languages on the other, according to Romanian linguist Marius Sala.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eastern Romance languages</span> Romance subfamily of Southeast Europe

The Eastern Romance languages are a group of Romance languages. The group, also called the Balkan Romance or Daco-Romance languages, comprises the Romanian language (Daco-Romanian), the Aromanian language and two other related minor languages, Megleno-Romanian and Istro-Romanian.

This is a glossary of historical Romanian ranks and titles used in the principalities of Moldavia, Wallachia and Transylvania, and later in Romania. Many of these titles are of Slavic etymology, with some of Greek, Latin, and Turkish etymology; several are original. Various boier titles correspond to various honorary services at the Court, but often they were associated with various actual governmental duties as well.

The Romanian dialects are the several regional varieties of the Romanian language (Daco-Romanian). The dialects are divided into two types, northern and southern, but further subdivisions are less clear, so the number of dialects varies between two and occasionally twenty. Most recent works seem to favor a number of three clear dialects, corresponding to the regions of Wallachia, Moldavia, and Banat, and an additional group of varieties covering the remainder of Transylvania, two of which are more clearly distinguished, in Crișana and Maramureș, that is, a total of five.

The history of the Romanian language started in Roman provinces north of the Jireček Line in Classical antiquity. There are three main hypotheses around its exact territory: the autochthony thesis, the discontinuation thesis, and the "as-well-as" thesis that supports the language development on both sides of the Danube. Between the 6th and 8th centuries AD, following the accumulated tendencies inherited from the vernacular Latin and, to a much smaller degree, the influences from an unidentified substratum, and in the context of a lessened power of the Roman central authority, the language evolved into Common Romanian. This proto-language then came into close contact with the Slavic languages and subsequently divided into Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian, Istro-Romanian, and Daco-Romanian. Because of limited attestations between the 6th and 16th centuries, entire stages from its history are reconstructed by researchers, often with proposed relative chronologies and loose limits.

The Slavic influence on Romanian is noticeable on all linguistic levels: lexis, phonetics, morphology and syntax.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alexandru Philippide</span> Romanian linguist and philologist

Alexandru I. Philippide was a Romanian linguist and philologist. Educated in Iași and Halle, he taught high school for several years until 1893, when he secured a professorship at the University of Iași that he would hold until his death forty years later. He began publishing books on the Romanian language around the time he graduated from university, but it was not until he became a professor that he drew wider attention, thanks to a study of the language's history. Although not particularly ideological, he penned sharp, witty polemics directed at various intellectual figures, both at home and, in one noted case, in Germany.

Dicționarul Limbii Române, abbreviated DLR, also called Thesaurus Dictionary of the Romanian Language, is the most important lexicographical work of the Romanian language, developed under the aegis of the Romanian Academy during more than a century. It was compiled and edited in two stages, in 37 volumes and contains about 175,000 words and variations, with more than 1,300,000 quotes. The development of electronic version was made in 2007–2010.

The re-latinization of Romanian is the reinforcement of the Romance features of the Romanian language that started in the 18th and 19th centuries. Romanian adopted a Latin-based alphabet to replace the Cyrillic script and borrowed many words from French as well as from Latin and Italian, in order to acquire the lexical tools necessary for modernization. This deliberate process coined words for recently introduced objects or concepts (neologisms), added Latinate synonyms for some Slavic and other loanwords, and strengthened some Romance syntactic features. Some linguistic researchers emphasize that the use of this term is inappropriate as it conflates the larger process of modernization of the language with the more extreme, and in the end unsuccessful, current of eliminating non-Latin influences, and, secondly, the term's lack of precision is susceptible to lead to confusion as the Latin character of the Romanian language had already been noticed since at least the 15th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Albanian–Eastern Romance linguistic parallels</span> Study of the similarities of the Albanian and Eastern Romance languages

The Albanian–Eastern Romance linguistic parallels are subject of historical and contact linguistic research applied to the Albanian and Eastern Romance languages. It has also been studied to understand the history of Albanian and Eastern Romance speakers. The common phonological, morphological and syntactical features of the two language families have been studied for more than a century. Both are part of the Balkan sprachbund but there are certain elements shared only by Albanian and Eastern Romance languages that descended from Common Romanian. Aside from Latin, and from shared Greek, Slavic and Turkish elements, other characteristics and words are attributed to the Palaeo-Balkan linguistic base. Similarities between Eastern Romance and Albanian are not limited to their common Balkan features and the assumed common lexical items: the two language families share calques and proverbs, and display analogous phonetic changes, some of the latter especially shared between Tosk Albanian and Common Romanian.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Old Romanian</span> Historical stage of the Romanian language

Old Romanian is the period of Romanian language from the 16th century until 1780. It continues the intermediary stage when the dialect continuum known as ‘Daco-Romanian’ developed from Common Romanian, and Modern Romanian, the period of Romanian language set in post-Enlightenment times.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Romanian Language Day</span> Holiday about the Romanian language

The Romanian Language Day is a public holiday in Romania and Moldova celebrated every 31 August for the Romanian language. Romanian is a Romance language, being part of the same linguistic family as the French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish languages.

Grigore Brâncuș was a Romanian linguist and philologist, Albanologist, member of the Romanian Academy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marius Sala</span> Notable Academics, Romanian linguist, Romanian Academy member and vice-president

Marius Sala was a Romanian linguist, member of the Romanian Academy. His activity gained international academic recognition in the study of Romance languages.

Although the direction of language contact between Romanian and Slavic languages is overwhelmingly towards Romanian as well as its other Eastern Romance sister languages, there is evidence of lesser influence in the opposite direction. Romanian and Eastern Romance influence on Slavic languages is generally limited to neighbouring languages, and of those to the South Slavic languages more than the northern counterparts.

Modern Romanian is the historical stage of the Romanian language starting from the end of the 18th century until today. In general, it is agreed that the modern epoch comprises three distinct periods: the premodern period starting from 1780 and lasting until 1830, the modern period from 1830 until 1880, and the contemporary period after 1881. Some researchers place the end of this last category roughly after the Second World War and the "Socialist Period", thus separating the current state of the Romanian language from a different epoch. Modern Romanian is characterized by the development of the Romanian alphabet and modern system of writing, initial Latin and Italian lexical item entries, followed by the central role of French in the development of the Romanian lexis, the development of literary styles, and standardization of the language.

References

  1. Schulte, Kim (2009). "Loanwords in Romanian". In Haspelmath, Martin; Tadmor, Uri (eds.). Loanwords in the World's Languages: A Comparative Handbook. De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 249–250. ISBN   978-3-11-021843-5.
  2. Berciu-Drăghicescu, Adina (coord.), Frățilă, Vasile (2012). Aromâni, Meglenoromâni și Istroromâni: Aspecte identitare și culturale, capitolul Dialectul istroromân.Privire generală[Aromanian, Megleno-Romanians, and Istro-Romanians: Aspects of Identity and Culture, chapter Istro-Romanian dialect.General View]. Editura Universității din București. p. 678. ISBN   978-606-16-0148-6.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  3. 1 2 Sala, Marius (2012). De la Latină la Română][From Latin to Romanian]. Editura Pro Universitaria. p. 39. ISBN   978-606-647-435-1.
  4. 1 2 Brâncuș, Grigore (2005). Introducere în istoria limbii române][Introduction to the History of Romanian Language]. Editura Fundaţiei România de Mâine. p. 31. ISBN   973-725-219-5.
  5. Brâncuș, Grigore (2005). Introducere în istoria limbii române][Introduction to the History of Romanian Language]. Editura Fundaţiei România de Mâine. pp. 19–31. ISBN   973-725-219-5.
  6. Sala, Marius (2012). De la Latină la Română][From Latin to Romanian]. Editura Pro Universitaria. p. 65. ISBN   978-606-647-435-1.
  7. Sala, Marius (2012). De la Latină la Română][From Latin to Romanian]. Editura Pro Universitaria. pp. 70–71. ISBN   978-606-647-435-1.
  8. Brâncuș, Grigore (2005). Introducere în istoria limbii române][Introduction to the History of Romanian Language]. Editura Fundaţiei România de Mâine. p. 83. ISBN   973-725-219-5.
  9. Sala, Marius (2012). De la Latină la Română][From Latin to Romanian]. Editura Pro Universitaria. p. 90. ISBN   978-606-647-435-1.
  10. Sala, Marius (2012). De la Latină la Română][From Latin to Romanian]. Editura Pro Universitaria. p. 87. ISBN   978-606-647-435-1.
  11. 1 2 Sala, Marius (2012). De la Latină la Română][From Latin to Romanian]. Editura Pro Universitaria. p. 99. ISBN   978-606-647-435-1.
  12. 1 2 Brâncuș, Grigore (2005). Introducere în istoria limbii române][Introduction to the History of Romanian Language]. Editura Fundaţiei România de Mâine. p. 84. ISBN   973-725-219-5.
  13. 1 2 Sala, Marius (2012). De la Latină la Română][From Latin to Romanian]. Editura Pro Universitaria. p. 98. ISBN   978-606-647-435-1.
  14. "dexonline". dexonline.ro. Retrieved 2023-07-28.
  15. Vainovski-Mihai, Irina and Grigore, George (January 2019). "From Dobrudja to Ada-Kaleh: A Bridge between Empires". Romano-Arabica.
  16. 1 2 3 Funeriu, Ionel (2019). "Turcisme". Biografii lexicale (in Romanian). Brumar. Retrieved 17 October 2020.
  17. Cioranescu, Alexandru (1958–1966). "rahát". Dicționarul etimologic român (in Romanian). Tenerife: Universidad de la Laguna. Retrieved 17 October 2020.
  18. 1 2 Sala, Marius (2012). De la Latină la Română][From Latin to Romanian]. Editura Pro Universitaria. pp. 100–101. ISBN   978-606-647-435-1.
  19. Sala, Marius (2012). De la Latină la Română][From Latin to Romanian]. Editura Pro Universitaria. pp. 37–49. ISBN   978-606-647-435-1.
  20. Macrea, Dimitrie (1961). "Originea și structura limbii româneb (7–45)". Probleme de lingvistică română (in Romanian). Bucharest: Editura Științifică. p. 32.
  21. Macrea, Dimitrie, ed. (1958). Dictionarul limbii române moderne (in Romanian). Bucharest: Academia Română.{{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  22. Pană Dindelegan, Gabriela, ed. (2013). The Grammar of Romanian (First ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 3. ISBN   9780199644926.
  23. Hans Dama, "Lexikale Einflüsse im Rumänischen aus dem österreichischen Deutsch" ("Lexical influences of 'Austrian'-German on the Romanian Language") Archived 18 August 2011 at the Wayback Machine (in German)
  24. "Romanian". Ethnologue.
  25. Marius Sala (coord), Mihaela Bîrlădeanu, Maria Iliescu, Liliana Macarie, Ioana Nichita, Mariana Ploae-Hanganu, Maria Theban, Ioana Vintilă-Rădulescu, Vocabularul reprezentativ al limbilor romanice (VRLR) (Bucharest: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, 1988).
  26. Vocabularul reprezentativ diferă de vocabularul fundamental (VF) și de fondul principal lexical (FP). Cf. SCL (Studii și cercetări lingvistice), an XXVII (1976), nr. 1, p. 61-66 și SCL (1974) nr. 3, p. 247. Cf. Theodor Hristea, "Structura generală a lexicului românesc", Sinteze de limba română, eds., Theodor Hristea (coord.), Mioara Avram, Grigore Brâncuș, Gheorghe Bulgăr, Georgeta Ciompec, Ion Diaconescu, Rodica Bogza-Irimie & Flora Șuteu (Bucharest: 1984), 13.
  27. Bălhuc, Paul (15 January 2017). "Câte litere are cel mai lung cuvânt din limba română și care este singurul termen ce conține toate vocalele". Adevărul (in Romanian).
  28. "Electroglotospectrografie". Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române (in Romanian). Retrieved 10 February 2021.
  29. "Curiozități lingvistice: cele mai lungi cuvinte din limba română". Dicție.ro (in Romanian). Retrieved 10 February 2021.