Romanian Română
Pronunciation:	[roˈmɨnə]
Spoken in:	Romania, European Union, Republic of Moldova, Bulgaria, Canada, USA, Russia, Spain, Ukraine, Israel, Serbia, Hungary; various communities around the wider Balkan peninsula and beyond. Romania ( dated: Rumania, Roumania The European Union ( EU) is a political and economic union of twenty-seven member states, located primarily in Moldova, officially the Republic of Moldova ( Republica Moldova) is a Landlocked country in Eastern Europe, located between Romania The state of Bulgaria (България transliterated bg-Latn ''Balgaria'' The country preserves the traditions (in ethnic name language and alphabet of the First Bulgarian Country to "Dominion of Canada" or "Canadian Federation" or anything else please read the Talk Page The United States of America —commonly referred to as the Russia (Россия Rossiya) or the Russian Federation ( Rossiyskaya Federatsiya) is a transcontinental Country extending Spain () or the Kingdom of Spain (Reino de España is a country located mostly in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Ukraine (Україна Ukrayina, /ukrɑˈjinɑ/ is a country in Eastern Europe. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Israel topics. Serbia (Србија Srbija) officially the Republic of Serbia (Република Србија Republika Srbija) is a Landlocked Country Hungary (Magyarország 'mɔɟɔrorsaːg) officially in English the Republic of Hungary ( Magyar Köztársaság, literally Magyar (Hungarian Republic
Region:	Southeastern Europe, some communities in the Middle East
Total speakers:	First language: 24 million Second language: 4 million [1]
Ranking:	34 (native)
Language family:	Indo-European  Italic   Romance    East Romance     Romanian
Official status
Official language in:	Moldova [2]  Romania  Vojvodina (Serbia)  European Union
Regulated by:	Academia Română
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	ro
ISO 639-2:	rum (B)	ron (T)
ISO 639-3:	ron
Map of the Romanian-speaking territories
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. The Middle East is a Subcontinent with no clear boundaries often used as a synonym to Near East, in opposition to Far East. This is a list of languages, ordered by the number of native-language speakers, with some data for second-language use List of language familiesA language family is a group of Languages related by descent from a common ancestor called the Proto-language of that family The Italic subfamily is a member of the Indo-European language family's Centum branch The Romance languages (sometimes referred to as Romanic languages, or Neolatin languages) are a branch of the Indo-European language family comprising all The Eastern Romance languages, sometimes known as the Vlach languages, are a group of Romance languages that developed in Southeastern Europe Moldova, officially the Republic of Moldova ( Republica Moldova) is a Landlocked country in Eastern Europe, located between Romania Romania ( dated: Rumania, Roumania The Autonomous Province of Vojvodina ( Serbian: Аутономна Покрајина Војводина or Autonomna Pokrajina Vojvodina; Hungarian: Vajdaság Serbia (Србија Srbija) officially the Republic of Serbia (Република Србија Republika Srbija) is a Landlocked Country The European Union ( EU) is a political and economic union of twenty-seven member states, located primarily in This is a list of bodies that regulate Standard languages Natural languages Auxiliary languages Interlingua The auxiliary language The Romanian Academy ( Romanian: Academia Română) is a cultural forum founded in Romania in 1866. ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages ISO 639 -3 (ISO 639-32007 is an international standard for Language codes The standard describes three‐letter codes for identifying languages In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's

Romanian (dated: Rumanian or Roumanian; self designation: limba română, IPA: [ˈlimba roˈmɨnə]) is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people,^[1] primarily in Romania and Moldova. The Romance languages (sometimes referred to as Romanic languages, or Neolatin languages) are a branch of the Indo-European language family comprising all Romania ( dated: Rumania, Roumania Moldova, officially the Republic of Moldova ( Republica Moldova) is a Landlocked country in Eastern Europe, located between Romania It has official status in Romania, Moldova and the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina in Serbia. Romania ( dated: Rumania, Roumania Moldova, officially the Republic of Moldova ( Republica Moldova) is a Landlocked country in Eastern Europe, located between Romania The Autonomous Province of Vojvodina ( Serbian: Аутономна Покрајина Војводина or Autonomna Pokrajina Vojvodina; Hungarian: Vajdaság Serbia (Србија Srbija) officially the Republic of Serbia (Република Србија Republika Srbija) is a Landlocked Country The official form of the Moldovan language ^[2] in the Republic of Moldova is identical to that of Romanian; a minor difference in spelling was abolished in 2000. History and politics Moldova, officially the Republic of Moldova ( Republica Moldova) is a Landlocked country in Eastern Europe, located between Romania ^[3] Romanian is also an official or administrative language in various communities and organisations (such as the Latin Union and the European Union). The Latin Union is an International organization of nations that use a Romance language. The European Union ( EU) is a political and economic union of twenty-seven member states, located primarily in

Romanian speakers are scattered across many other countries, notably Italy, Spain, Israel, Portugal, United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, France and Germany. The Romanians (dated Rumanians or Roumanians; Romanian: români or historically and today rather seldom and only regional rumâni Italy (Italia officially the Italian Republic, (Repubblica Italiana is located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe, and on the two largest Spain () or the Kingdom of Spain (Reino de España is a country located mostly in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Israel topics. Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic (República Portuguesa is a country on the Iberian Peninsula. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located The United States of America —commonly referred to as the Country to "Dominion of Canada" or "Canadian Federation" or anything else please read the Talk Page This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe.

Contents 1 History 2 Geographic distribution 2.1 Legal status in Romania 2.2 Legal status in Moldova 2.3 Legal status in Vojvodina 2.4 Legal status in other countries and organisations 2.5 Romanian as a second and foreign language 2.6 Popular culture 2.7 Dialects 3 Classification 3.1 Contacts with other languages 3.1.1 Dacian language 3.1.2 Balkan linguistic union 3.1.3 Slavic languages 3.1.4 Other influences 3.1.5 French, Italian and other international words 4 Grammar 5 Phonology 5.1 Diphthongs 5.2 Triphthongs 5.3 Phonetic changes 6 Writing system 6.1 Romanian alphabet 6.2 Pronunciation 6.3 Punctuation and capitalization 7 Language sample 8 See also 9 Notes 10 References 11 External links 11.1 Learning Romanian 11.2 Phrasebooks 11.3 Dictionaries 11.4 Miscellaneous

History

Main article: History of Romanian language

The Dacians, an Indo-European people, were the ancient inhabitants of Romanian territory. Dacia and Romanization See also Dacian language, Roman Dacia The Romanian territory was inhabited in ancient times by the Dacians an Indo-European Dacia, in ancient geography was the land of the Dacians. It was named by the ancient Hellenes ( Greeks) " Getae " They were defeated by the Romans in 106, and part of Dacia (Oltenia, Banat and Transylvania) became a Roman province. The Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial Oltenia ( Lesser Wallachia in antiquated versions with the alternate Latin names Wallachia Minor, Wallachia Alutana, Wallachia Caesarea The Banat is a geographical and historical region in Central Europe currently divided between three countries the eastern part lies in Romania (the counties Transylvania (Ardeal or ro ''Transilvania'' Erdély, see also other denominations) is a Central European region located in the eastern half of the Carpathian This province, which was rich in ores, especially silver and gold,^[4] was colonized by the Romans,^[5] who brought with them Vulgar Latin as the language of administration and commerce, and who started a period of intense romanization, which gave birth to proto-Romanian language. Vulgar Latin (in Latin sermo vulgaris, "folk speech" is a Blanket term covering the popular Dialects and Sociolects of the Latin In Linguistics, romanization (or latinization, also spelled romanisation or latinisation) is the representation of a Word or ^{[6] [7]} But in the 3rd century AD, under the pressure of Free Dacians and from invasions of migratory populations such as Goths, the Roman Empire was forced to withdraw from Dacia, in 271 AD, leaving it to the Goths. The Free Dacians were the Dacians whose territory was not conquered by the Roman Empire, in the regions of Eastern Wallachia, Moldavia, Crişana The Goths ( Gothic: Gothic usvg|14px|u]]Gothic asvg|14px|a]]Gothic s The Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial Dacia, in ancient geography was the land of the Dacians. It was named by the ancient Hellenes ( Greeks) " Getae " ^[8][9] It is matter of debate whether modern-day Romanians are descendants of the people that abandoned the area and settled south of the Danube or of the people that remained in Dacia. (See also Origin of the Romanians. The Romanians (also sometimes referred to along with other Balkan Latin peoples as Vlachs) are a people speaking Romanian, a Romance language )

Owing to its people's geographical isolation, Romanian was probably among the first of the Romance languages to split from Latin. The Romance languages (sometimes referred to as Romanic languages, or Neolatin languages) are a branch of the Indo-European language family comprising all It received little influence from other Romance languages until the modern period (until the middle of the 18th century), and is therefore one of the most uniform languages in Europe. It is the most important of the remaining Eastern Romance languages and is more conservative than other Romance languages in nominal morphology. The Eastern Romance languages, sometimes known as the Vlach languages, are a group of Romance languages that developed in Southeastern Europe This article on Romanian nouns is related to the Romanian grammar and belongs to a series of articles on the Romanian language. Morphology is the field of Linguistics that studies the internal structure of words Romanian has preserved declension, but whereas Latin had seven cases, Romanian has five: the nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, and the vocative, and still holds the neuter gender. In Linguistics, declension (or declination) is the occurrence of Inflection in Nouns Pronouns and Adjectives indicating The nominative case is a Grammatical case for a Noun, which generally marks the subject of a Verb, as opposed to its object or other The accusative case ( abbreviated ACC) of a Noun is the Grammatical case used to mark the Direct object of a Transitive In Grammar, the genitive case or possessive case (also called the second case) is the case that marks a Noun as modifying another The dative case is a Grammatical case generally used to indicate the Noun to whom something is given The vocative case is the case used for a Noun identifying the person (animal object etc In Linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called Noun classes are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words every noun must belong However, the verb morphology of Romanian has shown the same move towards a compound perfect and future tense as the other Romance languages. For English usage of verbs see the wiki article English verbs. The perfect aspect is variously considered either an aspect or tense which calls a listener's attention to the consequences generated by an action rather than the In Grammar, the future tense is a verb form that marks the event described by the verb as not having happened yet but expected to happen in the future (in an Absolute tense

All the dialects of Romanian are believed to have been unified in a Proto-Romanian language up to sometime between the 7th and 10th centuries, when the area came under the influence of the Byzantine Empire. Proto-Romanian (also known as "Common Romanian" româna comună or "Ancient Romanian" străromâna) is a hypothetical Language considered It was then that Romanian became influenced by the Slavic languages and to some degree the Greek. The Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages) a group of closely related Languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages Greek (el ελληνική γλώσσα or simply el ελληνικά — "Hellenic" is an Indo-European language, spoken today by 15-22 million people mainly For example, Aromanian, one of the closest relatives of Romanian, has very few Slavic words. Aromanian ( limba armãneascã, armãneshce or armãneashti) also known as Macedo-Romanian, Arumanian or Vlach in most Also, the variations in the Daco-Romanian dialect (spoken throughout Romania and Moldova) are very small. See also Origin of Romanians Daco-Romanian continuity The use of this uniform Daco-Romanian dialect extends well beyond the borders of the Romanian state: a Romanian-speaker from Moldova speaks the same language as a Romanian-speaker from the Serbian Banat. The Banat is a geographical and historical region in Central Europe currently divided between three countries the eastern part lies in Romania (the counties Romanian was influenced by Slavic (due to migration/assimilation, and feudal/ecclesiastical relations), Greek (Byzantine, then Phanariote), Turkish, and Hungarian, while the other Romance languages adopted words and features of Germanic. Phanariotes, Phanariots, or Phanariote Greeks ( Greek:Φαναριώτες Romanian: Fanarioţi, Bulgarian:Фанариоти The Germanic languages are a group of related languages that constitute a branch of the Indo-European (IE Language family.

Geographic distribution

Romanian speaking countries and territories

Country	Speakers (%)	Speakers (native)	Population (2005)
Europe
Romania	91%	19,736,517	21,698,181
Moldova ²	76. Romania ( dated: Rumania, Roumania Moldova, officially the Republic of Moldova ( Republica Moldova) is a Landlocked country in Eastern Europe, located between Romania 4%	2,588,355	3,388,071
Transnistria (Moldova)³	31. Transnistria, also known as Trans-Dniester, Transdniestria, and Pridnestrovie (full name Pridnestrovian 9%	177,050	555,500
Vojvodina (Serbia)	1. The Autonomous Province of Vojvodina ( Serbian: Аутономна Покрајина Војводина or Autonomna Pokrajina Vojvodina; Hungarian: Vajdaság Serbia (Србија Srbija) officially the Republic of Serbia (Република Србија Republika Srbija) is a Landlocked Country 5%	29,512	2,031,992
not official:
Timočka Krajina (Serbia) 4	8. Timočka Krajina (Тимочка Крајина is a geographical region located in Serbia. 2%	58,221	712,050
Ukraine 5	0. Ukraine (Україна Ukrayina, /ukrɑˈjinɑ/ is a country in Eastern Europe. 8%	327,703	48,457,000
Spain	0. Spain () or the Kingdom of Spain (Reino de España is a country located mostly in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. 83%	312,000[10]	44,708,964
Italy	0. Italy (Italia officially the Italian Republic, (Repubblica Italiana is located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe, and on the two largest 51%	297,570	58,462,375
Hungary	~1%	100,000[11]	10,198,315
Asia
not official:
Israel	3. Hungary (Magyarország 'mɔɟɔrorsaːg) officially in English the Republic of Hungary ( Magyar Köztársaság, literally Magyar (Hungarian Republic For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Israel topics. 7%	250,000	6,800,000
Kazakhstan 1	0. Kazakhstan, also Kazakstan ( Қазақстан, Qazaqstan, qɑzɑqˈstɑn Казахстан, Kazakhstán,) officially the 1%	20,054	14,953,126
Russia 1	0. Russia (Россия Rossiya) or the Russian Federation ( Rossiyskaya Federatsiya) is a transcontinental Country extending 12%	169,698 [12]	145,537,200
The Americas
not official:
Canada	0. The Americas are the lands of the Western hemisphere or New World, consisting of the Continents of North America and South America Country to "Dominion of Canada" or "Canadian Federation" or anything else please read the Talk Page 2%	60,520	32,207,113
United States 6	0. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the 11%	340,000	281,421,906
1 Many are Moldovans who were deported ² Data only for the districts on the right bank of Dniester (without Transnistria and the city of Tighina) In Moldova, it is called "Moldovan language" ³ In Transnistria, it is officially called "Moldovan language" and is written in Cyrillic alphabet 4 Officially divided into Vlachs and Romanians 5 Most in Northern Bukovina and Southern Bessarabia; according to a Moldova Noastră study (based on the latest Ukrainian census). History and politics History and politics The Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet is a Cyrillic alphabet derived from the Russian alphabet and developed for the Romanian / Moldovan language [7] 6 See Romanian-American

Romanian is spoken mostly in Southeastern Europe, although speakers of the language can be found all over the world, mostly due to emigration of Romanian nationals and the return of immigrants from Romania to their original countries. See also List of Romanian Americans A Romanian American is a Citizen of the United States who has significant Romanian heritage Romanian speakers account for 0,5% of the world's population,^[13] and 4% of the Romance-speaking population of the world. ^[14]

Romanian is the single official and national language in Romania and Moldova, although it shares the official status at regional level with other languages in the Moldovan autonomies of Gagauzia and Transnistria. Romania ( dated: Rumania, Roumania Moldova, officially the Republic of Moldova ( Republica Moldova) is a Landlocked country in Eastern Europe, located between Romania Gagauzia ( Gagauz: Gagauziya or Gagauz-Yeri; Moldovan/Romanian: Găgăuzia Гагаузия formally known as the Autonomous Territorial Transnistria, also known as Trans-Dniester, Transdniestria, and Pridnestrovie (full name Pridnestrovian Romanian is also an official language of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina in Serbia along with five other languages. The Autonomous Province of Vojvodina ( Serbian: Аутономна Покрајина Војводина or Autonomna Pokrajina Vojvodina; Hungarian: Vajdaság Serbia (Србија Srbija) officially the Republic of Serbia (Република Србија Republika Srbija) is a Landlocked Country Romanian minorities are encountered in Serbia (Timok Valley), Ukraine (Chernivtsi and Odessa oblasts), Hungary (Gyula) and Bulgaria (Vidin). Serbia (Србија Srbija) officially the Republic of Serbia (Република Србија Republika Srbija) is a Landlocked Country Timočka Krajina (Тимочка Крајина is a geographical region located in Serbia. Ukraine (Україна Ukrayina, /ukrɑˈjinɑ/ is a country in Eastern Europe. Chernivtsi Oblast (Чернівецька область translit Odessa Oblast, also written as Odesa Oblast (Одеська область translit Hungary (Magyarország 'mɔɟɔrorsaːg) officially in English the Republic of Hungary ( Magyar Köztársaság, literally Magyar (Hungarian Republic Gyula is a Hungarian male given name It was adopted as a Given name sometime after the establishment of the Kingdom of Hungary. The state of Bulgaria (България transliterated bg-Latn ''Balgaria'' The country preserves the traditions (in ethnic name language and alphabet of the First Bulgarian Vidin (Видин is a town on the southern bank of the Danube in northwestern Bulgaria. Large immigrant communities are found in Italy, Spain, France, and Portugal. Italy (Italia officially the Italian Republic, (Repubblica Italiana is located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe, and on the two largest Spain () or the Kingdom of Spain (Reino de España is a country located mostly in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic (República Portuguesa is a country on the Iberian Peninsula.

The largest Romanian-speaking community in Asia is found in Israel, where as of 1995 Romanian is spoken by 5% of the population. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Israel topics. ^[15][16] Romanian is also spoken as a second language by people from Arabic-speaking countries who have studied in Romania. Romania ( dated: Rumania, Roumania It is estimated that almost half a million Middle Eastern Arabs studied in Romania during the 1980s. The Middle East is a Subcontinent with no clear boundaries often used as a synonym to Near East, in opposition to Far East. ^[17] Small Romanian-speaking communities are to be found in Kazakhstan and Russia. Kazakhstan, also Kazakstan ( Қазақстан, Qazaqstan, qɑzɑqˈstɑn Казахстан, Kazakhstán,) officially the Russia (Россия Rossiya) or the Russian Federation ( Rossiyskaya Federatsiya) is a transcontinental Country extending Romanian is also spoken within communities of Romanian and Moldovan immigrants in the United States, Canada and Australia, although they don't make up a large homogeneous community state-wide. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the Country to "Dominion of Canada" or "Canadian Federation" or anything else please read the Talk Page For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Australia topics.

Legal status in Romania

According to the Constitution of Romania of 1991, as revised in 2003, Romanian is the official language of the Republic. The 1991 Constitution of Romania is the fundamental law that establishes the structure of the government of Romania, the rights and obligations of the country's citizens and ^[18]

Romania mandates the use of Romanian in official government publications, public education and legal contracts; advertisements must bear a translation of foreign words. Romania ( dated: Rumania, Roumania Education encompasses both the Teaching and Learning of Knowledge, proper conduct, and technical competency A contract is an exchange of promises between two or more parties to do or refrain from doing an act which is enforceable in a court of law Advertising is a form of Communication that typically attempts to persuade potential Customers to Purchase or to consume more of a particular Brand

The Romanian Language Institute (Institutul Limbii Române), established by the Ministry of Education of Romania, promotes Romanian and supports people willing to study the language, working together with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Department for Romanians Abroad. ^[19]

Legal status in Moldova

Main article: Moldovan language

About 10% of the world's Romanian-speaking population is Moldovan, and Romanian is the single official language of Moldova. History and politics Moldova, officially the Republic of Moldova ( Republica Moldova) is a Landlocked country in Eastern Europe, located between Romania In the Constitution, the language is officially called Moldovan, although most linguists consider it to be largely identical to Romanian. History and politics ^[20] It is also used in schools, mass media, education and in the colloquial speech and writing is often called "Romanian". Romanian has been the only official language of Moldova since the endorsement of the law on language of the Moldavian SSR. Moldova, officially the Republic of Moldova ( Republica Moldova) is a Landlocked country in Eastern Europe, located between Romania The Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic ( Moldovan: Република Советикэ Сочиалистэ Молдовеняскэ or Republica Sovietică Socialistă This law, still in force today, mandates the use of Moldovan in all the political, economical, cultural and social spheres, as it also asserts the existence of a "linguistic Moldo-Romanian identity". History and politics ^[21] In the unrecognized state of Transnistria, it is co-official with Ukrainian and Russian. Diplomatic recognition in international law is a unilateral political act with domestic and international legal consequences whereby a state acknowledges an act Transnistria, also known as Trans-Dniester, Transdniestria, and Pridnestrovie (full name Pridnestrovian Ukrainian (in Ukrainian украї́нська мо́ва ukrayins'ka mova,) is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. Russian ( transliteration:,) is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages

In the 2004 census, out of the 3,383,332 people living in Moldova, 16. The 2004 Republic of Moldova Census was carried October 5 &ndash October 12, 2004. 5% (558,508) stated Romanian as their mother tongue, whereas 60% stated Moldovan. While 40% of all urban Romanian/Moldovan speakers chose Romanian as their mother tongue, in the countryside under 12% of Romanian/Moldovan speakers indicated Romanian as their mother tongue. ^[22] However, the group of experts from the international census observation Mission to the Republic of Moldova concluded that the items in the questionnaire dealing with nationality and language proved to be the most sensitive ones, particularly with reference to the recording of responses to these questions as being "Moldovan" or "Romanian", and therefore it concluded that special care would need to be taken in using them. ^[23]

Legal status in Vojvodina

Main article: Official status of Romanian language in Vojvodina

The Constitution of the Republic of Serbia ^[24] determines that in the regions of the Republic of Serbia inhabited by national minorities, their own languages and scripts shall be officially used as well, in the manner established by law. The Romanian language is one of six official languages in the Serbian province of Vojvodina. The Autonomous Province of Vojvodina ( Serbian: Аутономна Покрајина Војводина or Autonomna Pokrajina Vojvodina; Hungarian: Vajdaság Timočka Krajina (Тимочка Крајина is a geographical region located in Serbia. The current Constitution of Serbia was approved by a referendum held in 2006 during October 28 and October 29.

The Statute of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina ^[25] determines that, together with the Serbo-Croat language and the Cyrillic script, and the Latin script as stipulated by the law, the Hungarian, Slovak, Romanian and Rusyn languages and their scripts, as well as languages and scripts of other nationalities, shall simultaneously be officially used in the work of the bodies of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, in the manner established by the law. The Autonomous Province of Vojvodina ( Serbian: Аутономна Покрајина Војводина or Autonomna Pokrajina Vojvodina; Hungarian: Vajdaság Hungarian ( magyar nyelv) is a Uralic language (more specifically a Ugric language) unrelated to most other languages in Europe. The Slovak language ( slovenčina, slovenský jazyk, not to be confused with Slovenščina) sometimes referred to as "Slovakian" Rusyn (ry русинськый язык) is an East Slavic language (along with Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian, with which it shares The bodies of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina are: the Assembly, the Executive Council and the Provincial administrative bodies. ^[26]

The Romanian language and script are officially used in 8 municipalities: Alibunar, Biserica Albă, Zitişte, Zrenianin, Kovăciţa, Cuvin, Plandişte and Secanj. Alibunar (Алибунар is a town and municipality in South Banat District of Vojvodina, Serbia. Also see Bela Crkva (disambiguation Bela Crkva (Бела Црква is a Town and municipality in the South Banat District Žitište (Житиште is a town and municipality in Central Banat District of Vojvodina, Serbia. Zrenjanin ( Serbian Cyrillic: Зрењанин is a city and a municipality located in Serbia. Kovačica ( Serbian: Ковачица or Kovačica, Slovak: Kovačica, Hungarian: Antalfalva, Romanian: Kovin (Ковин is a town and municipality in South Banat District of Vojvodina, Serbia. Plandište (Пландиште is a village and municipality in South Banat District of Vojvodina, Serbia. Sečanj (Сечањ Seceani is a village and municipality in Central Banat District of Vojvodina, Serbia. In the municipality of Vârşeţ, Romanian is official only in the villages of Voivodinţ, Marcovăţ, Straja, Jamu Mic, Srediştea Mică, Mesici, Jablanka, Sălciţa, Râtişor, Oreşaţ and Coştei. Vršac ( Вршац) is a town and municipality located in Serbia. Vojvodinci ( Serbian: Vojvodinci (Војводинци Romanian: Voivodinţ, Hungarian: Vajdalak, German: Markovac or Marcovăţ (Марковац or Markovac Marcovăţ is a Village in Serbia. Straja is a ski resort in Hunedoara County, Romania. Mali Žam ( Serbian Cyrillic: Мали Жам Jamu Mic is a Village in Serbia. Jablanka ( Serbian: Јабланка Romanian: Iablanca is a village in Serbia. Orešac or Oreşaţ (Орешац or Orešac Oreşaţ is a Village in Serbia. ^[27]

In the 2002 Census, the last carried out in Serbia, 1,5% Vojvodinians chose Romanian as their mother tongue.

Legal status in other countries and organisations

In parts of Ukraine where Romanians constitute a significant share of the local population (districts in Chernivtsi, Odessa and Zakarpattia oblasts) Romanian is being taught in schools as a primary language and there are newspapers, TV, and radio broadcasting in Romanian. Chernivtsi Oblast (Чернівецька область translit Odessa Oblast, also written as Odesa Oblast (Одеська область translit Oblast (во́бласць oblast о́бласт oblast о́бласть област/ oblast; oblasť област о́бласть is a type of Administrative division ^[28][29] The University of Chernivtsi trains teachers for Romanian schools in the fields of Romanian philology, mathematics and physics. The Chernivtsi University (current full name Yuriy Fedkovych Chernivtsi National University) is the leading Ukrainian institution for higher education in Northern Bukovina ^[30]

Romanian is an official or administrative language in various communities and organisations, such as the Latin Union and the European Union. The Latin Union is an International organization of nations that use a Romance language. The European Union ( EU) is a political and economic union of twenty-seven member states, located primarily in Romanian is also one of the five languages in which religious services are performed in the autonomous monastic state of Mount Athos, spoken in the monk communities of Prodromos and Lacu. Mount Athos (Όρος Άθως is a mountain on the Peninsula of the same name in Macedonia, of northern Greece, called in Greek Άγιον The Romanian Skete Prodromos (Schitul românesc Prodromu is a Romanian Cenobitic Skete belonging to the Great Lavra Monastery located in the

Romanian as a second and foreign language

See also: Romanian diaspora

Romanian is taught in some areas that have Romanian minority communities, such as Vojvodina in Serbia, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Hungary. " Romanian diaspora " is a term that encompasses the total Ethnic Romanian population located outside Romania and Moldova. The Autonomous Province of Vojvodina ( Serbian: Аутономна Покрајина Војводина or Autonomna Pokrajina Vojvodina; Hungarian: Vajdaság The state of Bulgaria (България transliterated bg-Latn ''Balgaria'' The country preserves the traditions (in ethnic name language and alphabet of the First Bulgarian Ukraine (Україна Ukrayina, /ukrɑˈjinɑ/ is a country in Eastern Europe. Hungary (Magyarország 'mɔɟɔrorsaːg) officially in English the Republic of Hungary ( Magyar Köztársaság, literally Magyar (Hungarian Republic The Romanian Cultural Institute (ICR) has since 1992 organised summer training courses in Romanian for language teachers in these countries. The Romanian Cultural Institute ( Romanian: Institutul Cultural Român, abbreviation ICR) is a state-funded institution that promotes Romanian culture and ^[31] In some of the schools, there are non-Romanian nationals who study Romanian as a foreign language (for example the Nicolae Bălcescu High-school in Gyula, Hungary). Gyula is a Hungarian male given name It was adopted as a Given name sometime after the establishment of the Kingdom of Hungary.

Romanian is taught as a foreign language in various tertiary institutions, mostly in neighboring European countries such as Germany, France and Italy, as well as the Netherlands, and elsewhere, like the USA. A foreign language is a Language not spoken by the people of a certain place for example English is a foreign language in Japan. Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe. This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. Italy (Italia officially the Italian Republic, (Repubblica Italiana is located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe, and on the two largest The Netherlands ( Dutch:, ˈnedərlɑnt is the European part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which consists of the Netherlands the Netherlands The United States of America —commonly referred to as the Overall, it is taught as a foreign language in 38 countries around the world. ^[32]

Popular culture

Romanian has become popular in other countries through movies and songs performed in the Romanian language. Examples of recent Romanian acts that had a great success in non-Roumanophone countries are the bands O-Zone (which had great success with their #1 single Dragostea din tei/Numa Numa across the world), Akcent (popular in the Netherlands, Poland and other European countries), Activ (successful in some Eastern European countries) as well as high-rated movies like 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, 12:08 East of Bucharest or California Dreamin' (all of them with awards at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival). O-Zone was a Moldovan Pop music trio that gained global popularity for their song Dragostea din tei. " Dragostea din tei " ( pronounced /ˈdragoste̯a din tei̯/ is the most successful single by the Moldovan pop group O-Zone. Akcent is a Romanian Dance-pop act Members Group consisting of Adrian Claudiu Sana Sorin Ştefan Brotnei The Netherlands ( Dutch:, ˈnedərlɑnt is the European part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which consists of the Netherlands the Netherlands Poland (Polska officially the Republic of Poland Activ is a Romanian Disco band Nowadays its trance techno music band 4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days (4 luni 3 săptămâni şi 2 zile is a 2007 Romanian film written and directed by Cristian Mungiu. The Death of Mr Lazarescu ( Romanian title Moartea domnului Lăzărescu) is a Romanian Drama made in 2005 by California Dreamin (California Dreamin' (Nesfârşit is a 2007 Romanian film by Cristian Nemescu. The Cannes Film Festival (le Festival de Cannes founded in 1946 is one of the world's oldest most influential and prestigious Film festivals alongside Venice,

• Trailer of 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days on YouTube

On the other hand, some artists wrote songs dedicated to the Romanian language. The multi-platinum pop trio O-Zone (original from Moldova) released a song called "Nu mă las de limba noastră" (in Romanian I don't let our language). O-Zone was a Moldovan Pop music trio that gained global popularity for their song Dragostea din tei. Moldova, officially the Republic of Moldova ( Republica Moldova) is a Landlocked country in Eastern Europe, located between Romania The final verse of this song, Eu nu mă las de limba noastră, de limba noastră cea română is translated in English as I don't let our language, our Romanian language. English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States Also, the Moldovan musicians Doina and Ion Aldea Teodorovici performed a song entitled "The Romanian language". Moldova, officially the Republic of Moldova ( Republica Moldova) is a Landlocked country in Eastern Europe, located between Romania

• O-Zone - Nu mă las de limba noastră on YouTube
• Doina and Ion Aldea Teodorovici - Limba română on YouTube

Dialects

Main article: Romanian dialects

The term "Romanian" in a general sense envelops four hardly mutually intelligible speech varieties commonly regarded as independent languages. Romanian dialects/varieties are not as varied as in many other Romance languages. It is thought that the Romanian language appeared north and south of the Danube. All the four dialects are offsprings of the Romance language spoken both in the northern and southern Danube, before the settlement of the Slavonian tribes south of the river - Daco-Romanian in the North, and the other three dialects in the south. The Romance languages (sometimes referred to as Romanic languages, or Neolatin languages) are a branch of the Indo-European language family comprising all

However, this article deals primarily with Daco-Romanian, and thus the regional variations of that will be discussed here instead. See also Origin of Romanians Daco-Romanian continuity The differences between these varieties are usually very small, usually consisting in a few dozen regional words and some phonetic changes.

Like all other languages, Romanian can be regarded as a dialect continuum. A dialect continuum is a range of Dialects spoken across a large geographical area differing only slightly between areas that are geographically close and gradually decreasing Romanian cannot be neatly divided into separate dialects and Romanians themselves speak of the differences as accents or "speeches" (in Romanian: "accent" or "grai"). This correctly conveys the linguistics notion of accent, as language variants that only feature slight pronunciation differences (Romanian accents are fully mutually intelligible). In Linguistics, an accent is a manner of Pronunciation of a language Several accents are usually distinguished:

• Muntenian accent (Graiul muntenesc), spoken mainly in Wallachia and southern parts of Dobruja. This article is about the region in what is now Southern Romania
• Moldavian accent (Graiul moldovenesc), spoken mainly in Moldavia, northern parts of Dobruja and the Republic of Moldova. Moldavia (Moldova is a geographic and historical region and former Principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between Eastern Carpathians Moldova, officially the Republic of Moldova ( Republica Moldova) is a Landlocked country in Eastern Europe, located between Romania Written <p> is realised as /k/; written <c> before front vowels is realised as /ʃ/. Written <ă>, in final position, is palatalized.
• Maramureşian accent (Graiul maramureşean), spoken mainly in Maramureş.
• Transylvanian accent (Graiul ardealean), spoken mainly in Ardeal. Transylvania (Ardeal or ro ''Transilvania'' Erdély, see also other denominations) is a Central European region located in the eastern half of the Carpathian
• Banatian accent (Graiul bănăţean), spoken mainly in Banat. The Banat is a geographical and historical region in Central Europe currently divided between three countries the eastern part lies in Romania (the counties Written <t> before front vowels is realised as /ʧ/ and <d> as /dʒ/.
• Oltenian accent (Graiul oltenesc), spoken mainly in Oltenia and by the Romanian minority in Timok region of Serbia. Oltenia ( Lesser Wallachia in antiquated versions with the alternate Latin names Wallachia Minor, Wallachia Alutana, Wallachia Caesarea In Oltenia a notable dialectal feature is the usage of the simple perfect tense rather than the compound perfect which is used elsewhere. This article on Romanian verbs is related to the Romanian grammar and belongs to a series of articles on the Romanian language.

Over the last century, however, regional accents have been weakened due to mass communications and greater mobility.

Classification

See also: Romance languages

Romanian is a Romance language, belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European language family, having much in common with languages such as French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. The Romance languages (sometimes referred to as Romanic languages, or Neolatin languages) are a branch of the Indo-European language family comprising all The Italic subfamily is a member of the Indo-European language family's Centum branch French ( français,) is a Romance language spoken around the world by 118 million people as a native language and by about 180 to 260 million people Italian ( or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 63 million people as a First language, primarily in Italy. Portuguese ( or língua portuguesa) is a Romance language that originated in what is now Galicia (Spain and northern Portugal.

However, the languages closest to Romanian are the other Eastern Romance languages, spoken south of Danube: Aromanian/Macedo-Romanian, Megleno-Romanian and Istro-Romanian, which are sometimes classified as dialects of Romanian. The Eastern Romance languages, sometimes known as the Vlach languages, are a group of Romance languages that developed in Southeastern Europe Aromanian ( limba armãneascã, armãneshce or armãneashti) also known as Macedo-Romanian, Arumanian or Vlach in most Megleno-Romanian (known as Vlăheşte by speakers and Moglenitic, Meglenitic or Megleno-Romanian by linguists is a Romance language Istro-Romanian is an Eastern Romance language, or a Dialect of the Romanian language. An alternative name for Romanian used by linguists to disambiguate with the other Eastern Romance languages is "Daco-Romanian", referring to the area where it is spoken (which corresponds roughly to the onetime Roman province of Dacia). The Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial Dacia, in ancient geography was the land of the Dacians. It was named by the ancient Hellenes ( Greeks) " Getae "

Compared with the major Romance languages, Romanian is closest to Italian, and the two show limited degree of asymmetrical mutual intelligibility, especially in their cultivated forms: speakers of Romanian seem to understand Italian more easily than the other way around. Italian ( or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 63 million people as a First language, primarily in Italy. In Linguistics, mutual intelligibility is recognized as a relationship between Languages in which speakers of different but related languages can readily understand Even though Romanian has obvious grammatical and lexical similarities with French, Catalan, Spanish or Portuguese, it is not mutually intelligible with them to a practical extent; Romanian speakers will usually need some formal study of basic grammar and vocabulary before being able to understand even the simplest sentences in those languages (and vice-versa). In Linguistics, lexical similarity is a measure of the degree to which the word sets of two given Languages are similar French ( français,) is a Romance language spoken around the world by 118 million people as a native language and by about 180 to 260 million people Catalan ˈkætəˌlæn ( català kətəˈla or) is a Romance language, the national and official language of Andorra, and a co-official Portuguese ( or língua portuguesa) is a Romance language that originated in what is now Galicia (Spain and northern Portugal.

In the following sample sentence (meaning "She always closes the window before having dinner. ") cognates are written in bold:

Ea semper fenestram claudit antequam cenet. Cognates in Linguistics are words that have a common origin They may occur within a language such as shirt and skirt as two English words descended from (Latin)

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

Ella chiude sempre la finestra prima di cenare. (Italian)

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

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

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

Idda sempri chiudi la finestra àntica cina. (Sicilian)

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

On the other hand, Romanian vocabulary has been strongly influenced by French and Italian in the modern times (see French, Italian and other international words). At present, the lexical similarity with Italian is estimated at 77%, followed by French at 75%, Sardinian 74%, Catalan 73%, Spanish 71%, and Portuguese and Rhaeto-Romance at 72%. In Linguistics, lexical similarity is a measure of the degree to which the word sets of two given Languages are similar Rhaeto-Romance languages are a Romance language sub-family which includes multiple languages spoken in North-Eastern Italy and Switzerland. ^[33]

Contacts with other languages

Dacian language

The Dacian language was an Indo-European language spoken by the ancient Dacians. The Dacian language was spoken by the ancient inhabitants of Dacia. It may have been the first language to influence the Latin spoken in Dacia, but little is known about it. About 300 words found only in Romanian or with a cognate in the Albanian language may be inherited from Dacian, many of them being related to pastoral life (for example: balaur "dragon", brânză "cheese", mal "shore"). Albanian (sq ''Gjuha shqipe'' ˈɟuha ˈʃcipɛ is an Indo-European language spoken by nearly 6 million peoplewhile others claim that it derives from Daco - Some linguists have asserted that Albanians are Dacians who were not Romanized have migrated south. ^[34]

A different view is that these non-Latin words (many with Albanian cognates) are not necessarily Dacian, but rather were brought into the territory that is modern Romania by Romance-speaking shepherds migrating north from Albania, Serbia, and northern Greece who became the Romanian people. However, the Eastern Romance substratum appears to have been a satem language, while the Paleo-Balkan languages spoken in northern Greece (Ancient Macedonian) and Albania (Illyrian) were most likely centum languages. For the unrelated modern Slavic language see Macedonian language. The Illyrian languages are a group of Indo-European languages that were spoken in the western part of the Balkans in former times by groups identified as The general opinion is that Dacian was a satem language, as was Thracian. The Thracian language was the Indo-European language spoken in ancient times by the Thracians in South-Eastern Europe ^[34]

Balkan linguistic union

While most of Romanian grammar and morphology are based on Vulgar Latin, there are some features that are shared only with other languages of the Balkans and not found in other Romance languages. Vulgar Latin (in Latin sermo vulgaris, "folk speech" is a Blanket term covering the popular Dialects and Sociolects of the Latin The languages of the Balkan linguistic union belong to individual branches of the Indo-European language family: Bulgarian and Albanian, and in some cases Greek and Serbian. The Balkan Sprachbund or linguistic area is the ensemble of Areal features —similarity in grammar syntax vocabulary and phonology—among languages of Greek (el ελληνική γλώσσα or simply el ελληνικά — "Hellenic" is an Indo-European language, spoken today by 15-22 million people mainly Serbian (sr-Cyrl српски језик sr-Latn ''srpski jezik'' is a South Slavic language, The shared features include a suffixed definite article, the syncretism of genitive and dative case, the formation of the future and perfect tenses, and the lack of infinitives. In Linguistics, syncretism is the identity of form of distinct morphological forms of a word

Slavic languages

The Slavic influence was primarily due to the migration of Slavic tribes who traversed the territory of present-day Romania during the early evolution of the language. It is interesting to note that Slavs were assimilated north of the Danube, whereas they almost completely assimilated the Romanized population (Vlachs) living south of Danube. Vlachs is a blanket term covering several modern Latin peoples descending from the Latinised population in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe An important part of this population was still Vlach in the 10th century, only to fade away along with Vlach political power. The other surrounding languages (all Slavic, with the exception of Hungarian) also influenced Romanian through centuries of interaction.

Of great importance was the influence of Old Church Slavonic, as it was the liturgical language of the Romanian Orthodox Church (compared to western and central European countries which used Latin) from the Middle Ages, until the 18th century. to make sure old Cyrillic letters are displayed properly (For example instead of just Ѣ write Ѣ A sacred language, or liturgical language, is a Language that is cultivated for religious reasons by people who speak another language in their daily life The Romanian Orthodox Church ( Biserica Ortodoxă Română in Romanian) is a Autocephalous Eastern Orthodox church Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. However, Latin held an important position in Transylvania during the Middle Ages, a part of the western-styled feudal Kingdom of Hungary at that moment. Transylvania (Ardeal or ro ''Transilvania'' Erdély, see also other denominations) is a Central European region located in the eastern half of the Carpathian The Kingdom of Hungary (short form Hungary) was a considerable state in Central Europe that existed from 1001 to 1918 then from 1919 to 1946 Liturgical Romanian was first officially used there after the union of the Romanian Orthodox Church in Transylvania with Rome,^[35] giving birth to the Romanian Greek-Catholic Church in 1698 ^[36] (the most numerous church in Transylvania until the World War II ^[37]). The Romanian Church United with Rome Greek-Catholic (Biserica Română Unită cu Roma Greco-Catolică is an Eastern Rite or Greek-Catholic Church ranked as a Major World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including This caused Romanian to lose many of its borrowings form Slavonic as the first standardisation of it (among others the switch to the Latin alphabet) was done by Şcoala Ardeleană, founded in Transylvania. The Transylvanian School ( Şcoala Ardeleană in Romanian) was a cultural movement which was founded after part of the Romanian Orthodox Church in Habsburg ^[35]

Borrowings from Old Church Slavonic include: a izbăvi < izbaviti "to deliver", veşnicie < vĕčinŭ "forever, perpetual, undying", sfânt < svĕntŭ "holy, saint", a sluji < služiti "to serve", amvon < amŭvonŭ "pulpit", rai < raj "paradise", iad < jadŭ "hell", proroc < prorokŭ "prophet".

Most of these words have traditional or neological Latin-based synonyms that are usually preferred in the use of the modern language.

As was characteristic of the Middle Ages, the Church had a great influence on people's lives. Thus even basic words such as a iubi "to love", glas "voice", nevoie "need", and prieten "friend" are of Church Slavonic origin. Names were also influenced by the use of Slavonic in Church and in administration. However, many Slavic words are archaisms, and it is estimated that in modern Romanian 90% of the vocabulary is of Latin origin, the remainder representing Slavic, Greek, Hungarian, and Turkic borrowings as well as the Dacian substratum. In Language, an archaism is the use of a form of speech or writing that is no longer current In Contact linguistics, a substratum ( lat sub: under + stratum: layer → lower layer) is a Language Slavonic influences are also encountered in some phonetic particularities as well as in many suffixes.

Other influences

Even before the 19th century, Romanian came in contact with several other languages. Some notable examples include:

• Greek: folos < ófelos "use", buzunar < buzunára "pocket", proaspăt < prósfatos "fresh", cutie < cution "box"
• Hungarian: oraş < város "town", a cheltui < költeni "to spend", a făgădui < fogadni "to promise", a mântui < menteni "to save"
• Turkish: cafea < kahve "coffee", papuc < papuç "slipper", ciorbă < çorba "wholemeal soup, sour soup"
• German: cartof < Kartoffel "potato", bere < Bier "beer", şurub < Schraube "screw", turn < Turm "tower"

French, Italian and other international words

Since the 19th century, many modern words were borrowed from the other Romance languages, especially from French and Italian (for example: birou "desk, office", avion "airplane", exploata "exploit"). Greek (el ελληνική γλώσσα or simply el ελληνικά — "Hellenic" is an Indo-European language, spoken today by 15-22 million people mainly Hungarian ( magyar nyelv) is a Uralic language (more specifically a Ugric language) unrelated to most other languages in Europe. Turkish ( tr Türkçe IPA) is a language spoken by over 63 million people worldwide making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages. French ( français,) is a Romance language spoken around the world by 118 million people as a native language and by about 180 to 260 million people Italian ( or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 63 million people as a First language, primarily in Italy. It was estimated that about 38% of the number of words in Romanian are of French and/or Italian origin (in many cases both languages); and adding this to the words that were inherited from Latin, about 75%-85% of Romanian words can be traced to Latin. The use of these Romanianized French and Italian loanwords has tended to increase at the expense of Slavic loanwords, many of which have become rare or fallen out of use. As second or third languages, French and Italian themselves are better known in Romania than in Romania's neighbors. Along with the switch to the Latin alphabet in Moldova has tended to reinforce the Latin character of the language. Moldova, officially the Republic of Moldova ( Republica Moldova) is a Landlocked country in Eastern Europe, located between Romania

In the process of lexical modernization, many of the words already existing as Latin direct heritage, as a part of its core or popular vocabulary, have been doubled by words borrowed from other Romance languages, thus forming a further and more modern and literary lexical layer. The Romance languages (sometimes referred to as Romanic languages, or Neolatin languages) are a branch of the Indo-European language family comprising all Typically, the popular word is a noun and the borrowed word an adjective. Some examples:

Latin	Romanian direct Latin heritage	Romanian neologism
agilis (quick)	ager (astute)	agil (it. <agile, fr. <agile) (agile)
aqua (water)	apă (water)	acvatic (it. <acquatico, fr. <aquatique) (aquatic)
dens, dentem (tooth)	dinte (tooth)	dentist (it. <dentista, fr. <dentiste) (dentist)
directus (straight)	drept (straight, right)	direct (it. <diretto, fr. <direct) (direct)
frigus (cold)	frig (cold - noun)	frigid (it. <frigido, fr. <frigide) (frigid)

In the 20th century, an increasing number of English words have been borrowed (such as: gem < jam; interviu < interview; meci < match; manager < manager; fotbal < football; sandviş < sandwich; bişniţă < business; ciungă < chewing gum). English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States These words are assigned grammatical gender in Romanian and handled according to Romanian rules; thus "the manager" is managerul. Some of these English words are in turn Latin lexical constructions - calqued, borrowed or constructed from Latin or other Romance languages, like "management" and "interview" (from the French "entrevue").

Grammar

Main article: Romanian grammar

Romanian nouns are inflected by gender (feminine, masculine and neuter), number (singular and plural) and case (nominative/accusative, dative/genitive and vocative). Romanian (technically called Daco-Romanian) shares practically the same Grammar and most of the vocabulary and phonological processes with the other three surviving The articles, as well as most adjectives and pronouns, agree in gender with the noun they reference. In Languages agreement is a form of cross-reference between different parts of a sentence or phrase

Romanian is the only Romance language where definite articles are enclitic: that is, attached to the end of the noun (as in North Germanic languages), instead of in front (proclitic). In Linguistics, a clitic is a grammatically independent and phonologically dependent Word. The North Germanic languages or Scandinavian languages make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages, a sub-family of the Indo-European languages In Linguistics, a clitic is a grammatically independent and phonologically dependent Word. They were formed, as in other Romance languages, from the Latin demonstrative pronouns.

As in all Romance languages, Romanian verbs are highly inflected for person, number, tense, mood, voice. The usual word order in sentences is SVO (Subject - Verb - Object). Romanian has four verbal conjugations which further split into ten conjugation patterns. In Linguistics, conjugation is the creation of derived forms of a Verb, Noun or Adjective from its Principal parts by Inflection Verbs can be put in five moods that are inflected for the person (indicative, conditional/optative, imperative, subjunctive, and presumptive) and four impersonal moods (infinitive, gerund, supine, and participle). Grammatical mood is one of a set of distinctive Verb forms that are used to signal modality. Grammatical mood is one of a set of distinctive Verb forms that are used to signal modality. The optative mood is a Grammatical mood that indicates a wish or hope The imperative mood is a Grammatical mood that expresses direct commands or requests In Grammar, the subjunctive mood (sometimes referred to as the conjunctive mood) is a Verb mood that exists in many languages Grammatical mood is one of a set of distinctive Verb forms that are used to signal modality. In Grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages In Linguistics, “gerund” is a term used to refer to various non-finite verb forms in various languages As applied to English, In Grammar a supine is a form of Verbal noun used in some languages In Linguistics, a participle (from Latin participium, a Calque of Greek μετοχη "partaking" is a derivative of a non-finite

Phonology

Main article: Romanian phonology

Romanian has seven vowels: /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/, /ə/, and /ɨ/. This article discusses the Phonology of the Romanian language. In Phonetics, a vowel is a Sound in spoken Language, such as English ah! or oh!, pronounced with an open Vocal tract Additionally, /ø/ and /y/ may appear in some words.

In final positions after consonants (rarely within words) a short non-syllabic /i/ can occur, which is IPA: [ʲ] and is produced as a palatalization of the preceding consonant. Palatalization or palatalisation (ˌpælətəlɨˈzeɪʃən generally refers to two phenomena As a process or the result of a process A similar sound, the voiceless ending u, existed in old Romanian but has disappeared from the standard language.

There are also four semivowels and twenty consonants.

Diphthongs

Descending diphthongs: ai, au, ei, eu, ii, iu, oi, ou, ui, ăi, ău, îi, îu.

Ascending diphthongs: ea, eo, ia, ie, io, iu, oa, ua, uă.

Triphthongs

Pattern S-V-S (main vowel between two semivowels): eai, eau, iai, iau, iei, ieu, ioi, iou, oai.

Pattern S-S-V (two-semivowel glide before the main vowel): eoa, ioa.

Phonetic changes

Main article: Latin to Romanian sound changes

Due to its isolation from the other Romance languages, the phonetic evolution of Romanian was quite different, but does share a few changes with Italian, such as [kl] > [kj] (Lat. This article presents the Sound changes that happened from Latin to Romanian. clarus > Rom. chiar, Ital. chiaro) and also a few with Dalmatian, such as /gn/ (probably phonetically [ŋn]) > [mn] (Lat. Dalmatian is an extinct Romance language formerly spoken in the Dalmatia region of Croatia, and as far south as Kotor in Montenegro cognatus > Rom. cumnat, Dalm. comnut).

Among the notable phonetic changes are:

• diphthongization of e and o

• Lat. cera > Rom. ceară (wax)
• Lat. sole > Rom. soare (sun)

• iotacism [e] → [ie] in the beginning of the word

• Lat. herba > Rom. iarbă (grass, herb)

• velar [k], [g] → labial [p], [b], [m] before alveolar consonants:

• Lat. octo > Rom. opt (eight)
• Lat. quattuor > Rom. patru (four)
• Lat. lingua > Rom. limbă (tongue, language)
• Lat. signum > Rom. semn (sign)
• Lat. coxa > Rom. coapsă (thigh)

• rhotacism [l] → [r] between vowels

• Lat. Rhotacism may refer to several phenomena related to the usage of the Consonant R (whether as an Alveolar tap, Alveolar trill, or caelum > Rom. cer (sky)

• Alveolars [d] and [t] palatalized to [dz]/[z] and [ts] when before short [e] or long [i]

• Lat. deus > Rom. zeu (god)
• Lat. tenem > Rom. ţine (hold)

On the other hand, it (along with French) has lost the /kw/ (qu) sound from original Latin, turning it either into p (patru, "four"; cf. It. quattro) or a hard or soft c (când, "when"; calitate, "quality").

Writing system

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!"). The letter of Neacşu of Câmpulung is the oldest surviving document available in Romanian. Saint Theophanes Confessor (c 758/760 &ndash March 12, 817/818 was a Byzantine aristocratic Ascetic monk and Chronicler He is venerated The Caucasian Avars are a modern people of Caucasus, mainly of Dagestan.

The oldest written text in Romanian is a letter from late June 1521, in which Neacşu of Câmpulung wrote to the mayor of Braşov about an imminent attack of the Turks. The Romanian Cyrillic alphabet was used to write Romanian language before 1860–1862 when it was officially replaced by a Latin-based alphabet, although Câmpulung (also spelled Cîmpulung, /kɨɱpu'luŋg/ or Câmpulung Muscel, is a city in the Argeş County, Romania. Braşov (braˈʃov Brassó Kronstadt Medieval Latin: Brassovia or Corona) is a city in Romania and the capital of Braşov County It was written using the Cyrillic alphabet, like most early Romanian writings. The Romanian Cyrillic alphabet was used to write Romanian language before 1860–1862 when it was officially replaced by a Latin-based alphabet, although The earliest writing in Latin script was a late 16th century Transylvanian text which was written with the Hungarian alphabet conventions. Transylvania (Ardeal or ro ''Transilvania'' Erdély, see also other denominations) is a Central European region located in the eastern half of the Carpathian The Hungarian alphabet is an extension of the Latin alphabet.

In the late 1700s, Transylvanian scholars noted the Latin origin of Romanian and adapted the Latin alphabet to the Romanian language, using some rules from Italian, recognized as Romanian's closest relative. Transylvania (Ardeal or ro ''Transilvania'' Erdély, see also other denominations) is a Central European region located in the eastern half of the Carpathian Italian ( or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 63 million people as a First language, primarily in Italy. The Cyrillic alphabet remained in (gradually decreasing) use until 1860, when Romanian writing was first officially regulated.

In the Soviet Republic of Moldova, a special version of the Cyrillic alphabet derived from the Russian version was used, until 1989, when it returned to the Romanian Latin alphabet. The Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic ( Moldovan: Република Советикэ Сочиалистэ Молдовеняскэ or Republica Sovietică Socialistă

Romanian alphabet

Main article: Romanian alphabet

The Romanian alphabet is as follows:

A, a (a); Ă, ă (ă); Â, â (â din a); B, b (be), C, c (ce); D, d (de), E, e (e); F, f (fe / ef); G, g (ghe / ge); H, h (ha / haş); I, i (i); Î, î (î din i); J, j (je), K, k (ka de la kilogram), L, l (le / el); M, m (me / em); N, n (ne / en); O, o (o); P, p (pe); Q (chiu); R, r, (re / er); S, s (se / es); Ș ș (șe); T, t (te); Ț ț (țe); U, u (u); V, v (ve); W (dublu ve); X, x (ics); Y (i grec); Z, z (ze / zet). The Romanian alphabet is a modification of the Latin alphabet and consists of 31 letters Letters and their pronunciation See also Romanian

K, Q, W and Y are not part of the native alphabet, were officially introduced in the Romanian alphabet in 1982 and are mostly used to write loanwoards like kilogram, quasar, watt, and yoga.

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 phonemic. A phonemic orthography is a Writing system where the written Graphemes correspond to Phonemes the spoken sounds of the language However, the letters "â" (used inside the words) and "î" (used at the beginning or the end; it can also be used in the middle of a composite word) both represent the same close central unrounded vowel /ɨ/. The close central unrounded vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents

Another exception from a completely phonetic writing system is the fact that vowels and their respective semivowels are not distinguished in writing. In Phonetics, a vowel is a Sound in spoken Language, such as English ah! or oh!, pronounced with an open Vocal tract Semivowels — also known as glides or non-syllabic vowels —are Vowels that form Diphthongs with full syllabic vowels In dictionaries the distinction is marked by separating the entry word into syllables for the words containing a hiatus that might be mispronounced as a diphthong or a triphthong. A syllable ( Greek:) is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds Hiatus (Latin "yawning" (haɪˈeɪtəs in Linguistics is the separate pronunciation of two adjacent Vowels sometimes with an intervening Glottal stop In Phonetics, a diphthong (also gliding vowel) (from Greek grc δίφθογγος "diphthongos" literally "with two sounds" or "with In Phonetics, a triphthong (from Greek τρίφθογγος, "triphthongos" literally "with three sounds" or "with three

Stressed vowels also are not marked in writing, except very rarely in cases where by misplacing the stress a word might change its meaning and if the meaning is not obvious from the context. For example trei copíi means "three children" while trei cópii means "three copies".

Pronunciation

• h is not silent like in other Romance languages such as Spanish and French, but represents the phoneme /h/, except in the groups ch and gh (see below)
• j represents /ʒ/, as in French or Portuguese. French ( français,) is a Romance language spoken around the world by 118 million people as a native language and by about 180 to 260 million people Portuguese ( or língua portuguesa) is a Romance language that originated in what is now Galicia (Spain and northern Portugal.
• There are two letters with a comma below, Ș and Ț, which represent the sounds /ʃ/ and /ʦ/. S-comma ( is a letter which is part of the Romanian alphabet, used to represent the Romanian language sound /ʃ/ the Voiceless postalveolar fricative T-comma ( is a letter which is part of the Romanian alphabet, used to represent the Romanian language sound /ʦ/ the Voiceless alveolar affricate However, the allographs with a cedilla instead of a comma, Ş and Ţ, became widespread when pre-Unicode and early Unicode character sets did not include the standard form. In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's A character encoding consists of a code that pairs a sequence of characters from a given character set (sometimes incorrectly referred to as Code page
• A final orthographical i after a consonant often represents the palatalization of the consonant (e. g. lup /lup/ "wolf" vs. lupi /lupʲ/ "wolves") -- it is not pronounced like Italian lupi (which also means "wolves"), and is indeed an example of the Slavic influence on Romanian. The Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages) a group of closely related Languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages
• ă represents the schwa, /ə/. In Linguistics, specifically Phonetics and Phonology, schwa can mean the following An unstressed and toneless neutral
• î and â represent /ɨ/.
• The letter e is generally pronounced as the diphthong ie /je/ when it is in the beginning of a form of the verb a fi "to be", e. In Phonetics, a diphthong (also gliding vowel) (from Greek grc δίφθογγος "diphthongos" literally "with two sounds" or "with g. este /jeste/ "is". This rule also applies to personal pronouns beginning with e, e. g. el /jel/ "he". This also shows the Slavic influence on the language.
• x represents either the phoneme /ks/ as in expresie = expression, or /gz/ as in exemplu = example, as in English. English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States
• As in Italian, the letters c and g represent the affricates /ʧ/ and /ʤ/ before i and e, and /k/ and /g/ elsewhere. Italian ( or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 63 million people as a First language, primarily in Italy. When /k/ and /g/ are followed by vowels /e/ and /i/ (or their corresponding semivowels or the final /ʲ/) the digraphs ch and gh are used instead of c and g, as shown in the table below. Semivowels — also known as glides or non-syllabic vowels —are Vowels that form Diphthongs with full syllabic vowels

Group	Phoneme	Pronunciation	Examples
ce, ci	/tʃ/	ch in chest, cheek	cerc (circle), cine (who)
che, chi	/k/	k in kettle, kiss	chem (I call), chimie (chemistry)
ge, gi	/dʒ/	j in jelly, jigsaw	ger (frost), gimnast (gymnast)
ghe, ghi	/g/	g in get, give	gheţar (glacier), ghid (guide)

Punctuation and capitalization

The main particularities Romanian has relative to other languages using the Latin alphabet are:

• The quotation marks use the Polish format in the format „quote «inside» quote”, that is, 99 down and 99 up for normal quotations, with the addition of non-French double angle quotes without space for inside quotation when necessary. Quotation marks, also called quotes, speech marks or inverted commas, are Punctuation marks used in pairs to set off speech a quotation
• Proper quotations which span multiple paragraphs don't start each paragraph with the quotation marks; one single pair of quotation marks is always used, regardless of how many paragraphs are quoted;
• Dialogues are identified with quotation dashes;
• The Oxford comma before "and" is considered incorrect ("red, yellow and blue" is the proper format);
• Punctuation signs which follow a text in parentheses always follow the final bracket;
• In titles, only the first letter of the first word is capitalized, the rest of the title using sentence capitalization (with all its rules: proper names are capitalized as usual, etc. Quotation marks, also called quotes, speech marks or inverted commas, are Punctuation marks used in pairs to set off speech a quotation The serial comma (also known as the Oxford comma or Harvard comma) is the comma used immediately before a Grammatical conjunction ).
• Names of months and days are not capitalized (ianuarie "January", joi "Thursday")
• Adjectives derived from proper names are not capitalized (Germania "Germany", but german "German")

Language sample

English text:

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

(Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

Contemporary Romanian - highlighted words are French or Italian loanwords:

Toate fiinţele umane se nasc libere şi egale în demnitate şi în drepturi. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights ( UDHR) is a declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly ( 10 December 1948 at Palais A loanword (or loan word) is a word directly taken into one Language from another with little or no translation Ele sunt înzestrate cu raţiune şi conştiinţă şi trebuie să se comporte unele faţă de altele în spiritul fraternităţii.

Romanian, excluding French and Italian loanwords - highlighted words are Slavic loanwords:

Toate fiinţele omeneşti se nasc slobode şi deopotrivă în destoinicie şi în drepturi. Ele sunt înzestrate cu înţelegere şi cuget şi trebuie să se poarte unele faţă de altele în duh de frăţietate.

Romanian, excluding loanwords:

Toate fiinţele omeneşti se nasc nesupuse şi asemenea în preţuire şi în drepturi. Ele sunt înzestrate cu înţelegere şi cuget şi se cuvine să se poarte unele faţă de altele după firea frăţiei.

See also: The Lord's Prayer in different languages

See also

• Romanian vocabulary
• Romanianization
• Neacşu, author of the oldest surviving document written in Romanian
• Latin Europe

Notes

References

• Rosetti, Alexandru, Istoria limbii române, 2 vols. , Bucharest, 1965-1969.
• Uwe, Hinrichs (ed. ), Handbuch der Südosteuropa-Linguistik, Wiesbaden, 1999.

External links

Learning Romanian

• Romanian Lessons
• Romanian Reference Grammar, by Dana Cojocaru, University of Bucharest (183 pages) - 4.6 MB - pdf

Phrasebooks

• Romanian phrasebook on Wikitravel
• Romanian Basic Words

Dictionaries

• Romanian bilingual dictionaries

Miscellaneous

• SAMPA for Romanian
• Ethnologue report for Romanian

Wikitravel is a Web -based project "to create a free, complete up-to-date and reliable worldwide travel guide.

---

© 2009 citizendia.org; parts available under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License, from http://en.wikipedia.org
Dapyx Software network: MP3 Explorer | Ebook Manager | Zenithic