History of the Romanian language - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Dacia and Romanization

The Romanian territory was inhabited in ancient times by the Dacia

Dacia

In ancient geography, especially in Roman sources, Dacia was the land inhabited by the Dacians or Getae as they were known by the Greeks—the branch of the Thracians north of the Haemus range...

ns, an Indo-European people. They were defeated by the Roman Empire

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

in 106

106

Year 106 was a common year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Commodus and Civica...

and part of Dacia (Oltenia

Oltenia

Oltenia is a historical province and geographical region of Romania, in western Wallachia. It is situated between the Danube, the Southern Carpathians and the Olt river ....

, Banat

Banat

The Banat is a geographical and historical region in Central Europe currently divided between three countries: the eastern part lies in western Romania , the western part in northeastern Serbia , and a small...

and Transylvania

Transylvania

Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...

) became a Roman province. Because the province was rich in ores, and especially silver and gold , the Romans heavily colonized the province, brought with them the Vulgar Latin

Vulgar Latin

Vulgar Latin is any of the nonstandard forms of Latin from which the Romance languages developed. Because of its nonstandard nature, it had no official orthography. All written works used Classical Latin, with very few exceptions...

as the language of administration and commerce and started a period of intense Romanization

Romanization

In linguistics, romanization or latinization is the representation of a written word or spoken speech with the Roman script, or a system for doing so, where the original word or language uses a different writing system . Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written...

, giving birth to the "proto-Romanian" language. But in the 3rd century AD, with pressure from Free Dacians

Free Dacians

The "Free Dacians" is the name given by some modern historians to Dacians who putatively remained outside the Roman empire after the emperor Trajan's Dacian wars...

and invasions of migratory populations such as Goths

Goths

The Goths were an East Germanic tribe of Scandinavian origin whose two branches, the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, played an important role in the fall of the Roman Empire and the emergence of Medieval Europe....

, the Romans

Roman Empire

were forced to pull out of Dacia

Dacia

In ancient geography, especially in Roman sources, Dacia was the land inhabited by the Dacians or Getae as they were known by the Greeks—the branch of the Thracians north of the Haemus range...

in 271 AD, making it the first province to be abandoned. Whether the Romanians are the descendants of these people that abandoned the area and settled south of the Danube or of the people that remained in Dacia is a matter of debate. (See also Origin of the Romanians.) Ovid Densuşianu

Ovid Densusianu

Ovid Densusianu was a Romanian poet, philologist, linguist and folklorist. He is known for introducing new trends of European modernism into Romanian literature.He was a professor at the University of Bucharest, and a member of the Romanian Academy....

, have placed the origin of the Romanian language in Illyria

Illyria

In classical antiquity, Illyria was a region in the western part of the Balkan Peninsula inhabited by the Illyrians....

. Other scholars also suggest a relatively uniform Romanization of the entire northern Balkans - Dacia, Illyria and Moesia

Moesia

Moesia was an ancient region and later Roman province situated in the Balkans, along the south bank of the Danube River. It included territories of modern-day Southern Serbia , Northern Republic of Macedonia, Northern Bulgaria, Romanian Dobrudja, Southern Moldova, and Budjak .-History:In ancient...

. (See also Jireček Line
Jirecek Line
The Jireček Line is an imaginary line through the ancient Balkans that divided the influences of the Latin and Greek languages until the 4th century...

, Thraco-Roman
Thraco-Roman
The terms Thraco-Roman and Daco-Roman refer to the culture and language of the Thracian and Dacian peoples who were incorporated into the Roman Empire and ultimately fell under the Roman and Latin sphere of influence.-Meaning and usage:...

s, and Classification of Thracian
Classification of Thracian
The linguistic classification of the ancient Thracian language has long been a matter of contention and uncertainty, and there are widely varying hypotheses regarding its position among other Paleo-Balkan languages...

.)

Proto-Romanian

Due to its geographical isolation, Romanian was probably among the first of the Romance languages that split from Latin. It received little influence from other Romance languages until the modern period (until the middle of the 18th century), which can explain why it is one of the most uniform languages in Europe. It is the most important of the remaining Eastern Romance languages

Eastern Romance languages

The Eastern Romance languages in their narrow conception, sometimes known as the Vlach languages, are a group of Romance languages that developed in Southeastern Europe from the local eastern variant of Vulgar Latin. Some classifications include the Italo-Dalmatian languages; when Italian is...

and more conservative

Conservative (language)

In linguistics, a conservative form, variety, or modality is one that has changed relatively little over its history, or which is relatively resistant to change...

than other Romance languages in nominal

Romanian nouns

This article on Romanian nouns is related to the Romanian grammar and belongs to a series of articles on the Romanian language. It describes the morphology of the noun in this language, and includes details about its declension according to number, case, and application of the definite article, all...

morphology

Morphology (linguistics)

In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...

. Romanian has preserved declension

Declension

In linguistics, declension is the inflection of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and articles to indicate number , case , and gender...

, but whereas Latin had seven cases, Romanian has five, the nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, and the vocative, and still holds the neuter gender

Grammatical gender

Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...

as well. However, the verb

Verb

A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...

morphology of Romanian has shown the same move towards a compound perfect and future tense

Future tense

In grammar, a 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 , or to happen subsequent to some other event, whether that is past, present, or future .-Expressions of future tense:The concept of the future,...

as the other Romance languages.

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

Byzantine Empire

The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

. It was then when Romanian became influenced by the Slavic languages

Slavic languages

The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...

and to some degree Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

. For example, Aromanian

Aromanian language

Aromanian , also known as Macedo-Romanian, Arumanian or Vlach is an Eastern Romance language spoken in Southeastern Europe...

, one of the closest relatives of Romanian, has very few Slavic words. Also, the variations in the Daco-Romanian

Daco-Romanian

Daco-Romanian is the term used to identify the Romanian language in contexts where distinction needs to be made between the various Eastern Romance languages...

dialect (spoken throughout Romania and Moldova) are very small. 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

Banat

. Romanian was influenced by Slavic (due to migration/assimilation, and feudal/ecclesiastical relations), Greek (Byzantine, then Phanariote

Phanariotes

Phanariots, Phanariotes, or Phanariote Greeks were members of those prominent Greek families residing in Phanar , the chief Greek quarter of Constantinople, where the Ecumenical Patriarchate is situated.For all their cosmopolitanism and often Western education, the Phanariots were...

), Turkish, and Hungarian, while the other Romance languages adopted words and features of Germanic

Germanic languages

The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...

Old records

The Polish chronicler Jan Długosz remarked in 1476 that Moldavia

Moldavia

Moldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...

ns and Wallachia

Wallachia

Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...

ns "share a language and customs".

The oldest surviving writing in Romanian that can be reliably dated is a letter sent by Neacşu Lupu from Dlăgopole (Câmpulung

Câmpulung

Câmpulung , or Câmpulung Muscel, is a city in the Argeş County, Wallachia, Romania. It is situated among the outlying hills of the Transylvanian Alps, at the head of a long well-wooded glen traversed by the Râul Târgului, a tributary of the Argeş.Its pure air and fine scenery render Câmpulung a...

), Wallachia, to Johannes Benkner of Braşov

Brasov

Brașov is a city in Romania and the capital of Brașov County.According to the last Romanian census, from 2002, there were 284,596 people living within the city of Brașov, making it the 8th most populated city in Romania....

, Transylvania

Transylvania

. From the events and people mentioned in the letter it can be inferred that it was written around the 29th or 30 June, 1521. Other documents do exist from the same period, but could not be dated accurately.

Grigore Ureche

Grigore Ureche

Grigore Ureche was a Moldavian chronicler who wrote on Moldavian history in his Letopiseţul Ţării Moldovei , covering the period from 1359 to 1594....

, in his The Chronicles of the land of Moldavia (1640s), talks about the language spoken by the Moldavians and considers it to be an amalgam of numerous languages (Latin, French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

, Greek

Greek language

, Polish

Polish language

Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...

, Turkish

Turkish language

Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...

, Serbian

Serbian language

Serbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....

, etc.) and is mixed with the neighbouring languages. The author however assumes the preponderance of Latin influence, and claims that, at a closer look, all Latin words could be understood by Moldavians.

Miron Costin

Miron Costin

Miron Costin was a Moldavian political figure and chronicler. His main work, Letopiseţul Ţărâi Moldovei [de la Aron Vodă încoace] was meant to extend Grigore Ureche's narrative, covering events from 1594 to 1660...

, in his De neamul moldovenilor (1687) wile noting that Moldavians, Wallachians, and the Romanians living in the Hungarian Country

Kingdom of Hungary

The Kingdom of Hungary comprised present-day Hungary, Slovakia and Croatia , Transylvania , Carpatho Ruthenia , Vojvodina , Burgenland , and other smaller territories surrounding present-day Hungary's borders...

have the same origin, says that although people of Moldavia call themselves "Moldavians", they name their language "Romanian" (româneşte) instead of Moldavian (moldoveneşte). Also, in his Polish language

Polish language

Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...

Chronicle of Wallachia and Moldavia, Miron Costin assumes that both Wallachians and Moldavians once called themselves "Romans".

Dimitrie Cantemir

Dimitrie Cantemir

Dimitrie Cantemir was twice Prince of Moldavia . He was also a prolific man of letters – philosopher, historian, composer, musicologist, linguist, ethnographer, and geographer....

, in his Descriptio Moldaviae (Berlin, 1714), points out that the inhabitants of Moldavia, Wallachia and Transylvania spoke the same language. He notes, however, that there are some differences in accent and vocabulary. He says:

"Wallachians and Transylvanians have the same speech as the Moldavians, but their pronunciation is slightly harsher, such as giur, which a Wallachian will pronounce jur, using a Polish z or a French j. [...] They also have words that the Moldavians don't understand, but they don't use them in writing."

Cantemir's work is one of the earliest histories of the language, in which he notes, like Ureche before him, the evolution from Latin and notices the Greek

Greek language

, Turkish

Turkish language

and Polish

Polish language

Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...

borrowings. Additionally, he introduces the idea that some words must have had Dacian

Dacian language

The extinct Dacian language may have developed from proto-Indo-European in the Carpathian region around 2,500 BC and probably died out by AD 600. In the 1st century AD, it was the predominant language of the ancient regions of Dacia and Moesia and, possibly, of some surrounding regions.It belonged...

roots. Cantemir also notes that while the idea of a Latin origin of the language was prevalent in his time, other scholars considered it to have derived from Italian

Italian language

Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

.

In old sources, such as the works of chroniclers Grigore Ureche

Grigore Ureche

Grigore Ureche was a Moldavian chronicler who wrote on Moldavian history in his Letopiseţul Ţării Moldovei , covering the period from 1359 to 1594....

(1590–1647), Miron Costin

Miron Costin

(1633–1691), or those of the Prince and scholar Dimitrie Cantemir

Dimitrie Cantemir

Dimitrie Cantemir was twice Prince of Moldavia . He was also a prolific man of letters – philosopher, historian, composer, musicologist, linguist, ethnographer, and geographer....

(1673–1723), the term Moldavian (moldovenească) can be found. According to Cantemir's Descriptio Moldaviae, the inhabitants of Wallachia

Wallachia

Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...

and Transylvania

Transylvania

spoke the same language as Moldavians, but they had a different pronunciation and used some words not understood by Moldovans. Costin and, in an unfinished book, Cantemir attest the usage of the term Romanian among the inhabitants of the Principality of Moldavia to refer to their own language.

Romanian in Imperial Russia

Following annexation of Bessarabia by Russia (after 1812), the language of Moldavians was established as an official language in the governmental institutions of Bessarabia

Bessarabia

Bessarabia is a historical term for the geographic region in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west....

, used along with Russian

Russian language

Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...

, as 95% of the population was Romanian

Romanians

The Romanians are an ethnic group native to Romania, who speak Romanian; they are the majority inhabitants of Romania....

. The publishing works established by Archbishop Gavril Bănulescu-Bodoni

Gavril Banulescu-Bodoni

Gavril Bănulescu-Bodoni was a Romanian clergyman who served as Metropolitan of Moldavia , Metropolitan of Kherson and Crimea , Metropolitan of Kiev and Halych , Exarch of Moldo-Wallachia , and Metropolitan of Chişinău , being the first head of the church in Bessarabia after the Russian...

were able to produce books and lithurgical works in Moldavian between 1815-1820.

Gradually, the Russian language gained importance. The new code adopted in 1829 abolished the autonomous statute of Bessarabia, and halted the obligatory use of Moldavian in public pronouncements. In 1854, Russian was declared the only official language of the region, Moldavian being eliminated from schools in the second part of the century

According to the dates provided by the administration of Bessarabia, since 1828, official documents were published in Russian only, and around 1835 a 7-year term was established during which state institutions would accept acts in the Romanian language.

Romanian was accepted as the language of instruction until 1842, afterwards being taught as a separate subject. Thus, at the seminary

Seminary

A seminary, theological college, or divinity school is an institution of secondary or post-secondary education for educating students in theology, generally to prepare them for ordination as clergy or for other ministry...

of Chişinău

Chisinau

Chișinău is the capital and largest municipality of Moldova. It is also its main industrial and commercial centre and is located in the middle of the country, on the river Bîc...

, the Romanian language was a compulsory subject, with 10 hours weekly, until 1863, when the Department of Romanian was closed. At the High School No.1 in Chişinău

Chisinau

Chișinău is the capital and largest municipality of Moldova. It is also its main industrial and commercial centre and is located in the middle of the country, on the river Bîc...

, students had the right to choose among Romanian, German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

, and Greek

Greek language

until 9 February 1866, when the State Counselor of the Russian Empire forbade teaching of the Romanian language, with the following justification: "the pupils know this language in the practical mode, and its teaching follows other goals".

Around 1871, the tsar published an ukase
Ukase
A ukase , in Imperial Russia, was a proclamation of the tsar, government, or a religious leader that had the force of law...

"On the suspension of teaching the Romanian language in the schools of Bessarabia," because "local speech is not taught in the Russian Empire".

The linguistic situation in Bessarabia from 1812 to 1918 was the gradual development of bilingualism. Russian

Russian language

continued to develop as the official language of privilege, whereas Romanian

Romanian language

Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...

remained the principal vernacular. The evolution of this linguistic situation can be divided into five phases.

The period from 1812 to 1828 was one of neutral or functional bilingualism. Whereas Russian had official dominance, Romanian was not without influence, especially in the spheres of public administration, education (particularly religious education) and culture. In the years immediately following the annexation, loyalty to Romanian language and customs became important. The Theological Seminary (Seminarul Teologic) and Lancaster Schools were opened in 1813 and 1824 respectively, Romanian grammar books were published, and the printing press at Chişinău began producing religious books.

The period from 1828 to 1843 was one of partial diglossic
Diglossia
In linguistics, diglossia refers to a situation in which two dialects or languages are used by a single language community. In addition to the community's everyday or vernacular language variety , a second, highly codified variety is used in certain situations such as literature, formal...

bilingualism. During this time, use of Romanian was forbidden in the sphere of administration. This was carried out through negative means: Romanian was excluded from the civil code

Civil code

A civil code is a systematic collection of laws designed to comprehensively deal with the core areas of private law. A jurisdiction that has a civil code generally also has a code of civil procedure...

. Romanian continued to be used in education, but only as a separate subject. Bilingual manuals, such as the Russian-Romanian Bucoavne grammar of Iacob Ghinculov, were published to meet the new need for bilingualism. Religious books and Sunday sermon

Sermon

A sermon is an oration by a prophet or member of the clergy. Sermons address a Biblical, theological, religious, or moral topic, usually expounding on a type of belief, law or behavior within both past and present contexts...

s remained the only monolingual public outlet for Romanian. By 1843, the removal of Romanian from public administration was complete.

According to the Organic Statute of 1828, the Moldovan language was also the official language of Ottoman-dominated Moldavia.

The period from 1843 to 1871 was one of assimilation. Romanian continued to be a school subject at the Liceul Regional (high school

High school

High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....

) until 1866, at the Theological Seminary until 1867, and at regional schools until 1871, when all teaching of the language was forbidden by law.

The period from 1871 to 1905 was one of official monolingualism

Monoglottism

Monoglottism or, more commonly, monolingualism or unilingualism is the condition of being able to speak only a single language...

in Russian. All public use of Romanian was phased out, and substituted with Russian. Romanian continued to be used as the colloquial language of home and family. This was the era of the highest level of assimilation in the Russian Empire

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

. In 1872, the priest Pavel Lebedev ordered that all church documents be written in Russian, and, in 1882, the press at Chişinău was closed by order of the Holy Synod

Holy Synod

In several of the autocephalous Eastern Orthodox churches and Eastern Catholic Churches, the patriarch or head bishop is elected by a group of bishops called the Holy Synod...

.

The period from 1905 to 1917 was one of increasing linguistic conflict, with the re-awakening of Romanian national consciousness. In 1905 and 1906, the Bessarabian zemstva
Zemstvo
Zemstvo was a form of local government that was instituted during the great liberal reforms performed in Imperial Russia by Alexander II of Russia. The idea of the zemstvo was elaborated by Nikolay Milyutin, and the first zemstvo laws were put into effect in 1864...

asked for the re-introduction of Romanian in schools as a "compulsory language", and the "liberty to teach in the mother language (Romanian language)". At the same time, the first Romanian language newspapers and journals began to appear: Basarabia (1906), Viaţa Basarabiei (1907), Moldovanul (1907), Luminătorul (1908), Cuvînt moldovenesc (1913), Glasul Basarabiei (1913). From 1913, the synod permitted that "the churches in Besserabia use the Romanian language".

The term "Moldovan language" (limbă moldovenească) was newly employed to create a state-sponsored Ausbausprache to distinguish it from 'Romanian' Romanian. Thus, Şt. Margeală, in 1827, stated that the aim of his book was to "offer the 800,000 Romanians who live in Bessarabia,... as well as to the millions of Romanians from the other part of Prut, the possibility of knowing the Russian language, and also for the Russians who want to study the Romanian language". In 1865 Ioan Doncev, editing his Romanian primer and grammar, affirmed that Moldovan is valaho-româno, or Romanian. However, after this date, the label "Romanian language" appears only sporadically in the correspondence of the educational authorities. Gradually, Moldovan became the sole label for the language: a situation that proved useful to those who wished for a cultural separation of Bessarabia from Romania. Although referring to another historical period, Kl. Heitmann stated that the "theory of two languages — Romanian and Moldovan — was served both in Moscow as well as in Chişinău to combat the nationalistic veleities of the Republic of Moldova, being, in fact, an action against Romanian nationalism". (Heitmann, 1965). The objective of the Russian language policies in Bessarabia was the dialectization of the Romanian language. A. Arţimovici, official of the Education Department based in Odessa

Odessa

Odessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the northwest shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .The predecessor of Odessa, a small Tatar settlement,...

, wrote a letter, dated 11 February 1863, to the Minister of Public Instructions stating: "I have the opinion that it will be hard to stop the Romanian population of Bessarabia using the language of the neighbouring principalities, where the concentrated Romanian population may develop the language based on its Latin elements, not good for Slavic language. The government's directions pertaining to this case aim to make a new dialect in Bessarabia, more closely based on Slavic language, will be, as it will be seen, of no use: we cannot direct the teachers to teach a language that will soon be dead in Moldova and Wallachia... parents will not want their children to learn a different language to the one they currently speak". Although some clerks, like Arţimovici, realised that the creation of a dialect apart from the Romanian spoken in the United Principalities could never be truly effective, most of them "with the aim of fulfilling governmental policy, tendentiously called the majority language Moldovan, even in the context where Romanian had always been used previously".

Internal history

This section presents the sound change

Sound change

Sound change includes any processes of language change that affect pronunciation or sound system structures...

s that happened from Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

to Romanian
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...

. The order in which the sound changes are listed here is not necessarily the order in which they actually happened in reality.

Palatalization

In Vulgar Latin

Vulgar Latin

, short /e/ and /i/ followed by another vowel were changed to a semivowel /j/. Later, /j/ palatalized

Palatalization

In linguistics, palatalization , also palatization, may refer to two different processes by which a sound, usually a consonant, comes to be produced with the tongue in a position in the mouth near the palate....

preceding and consonants, changing its quality. The results in modern Romanian are:

Lat. puteum > *putju > Rom. puţ, but:
Lat. rōgātiōnem > *rogatjone > *rogačone > Rom. rugăciune ('prayer')
Lat. hordeum > *ordju > *ordzu > Rom. orz ('barley'), but:
Lat. deorsum > *djosu > *džosu > Rom. jos ('down')
Lat. socium > *sokju > Rom. soţ ('companion', 'husband')
Lat. cāseum > *kasju > Rom. caş ('type of cheese')
Lat. vīnea > *vinja > *viɲe > Rom. vie /vije/
Lat. mulierem > *muljere > *muʎere > Rom. muiere /mujere/ ('woman')

Notice that the dental plosives t and d were changed to postalveolar

Postalveolar consonant

Postalveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the alveolar ridge, further back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but not as far back as the hard palate...

affricates before o and to alveolar

Alveolar consonant

Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth...

affricates before other vowels. This alternation

Alternation (linguistics)

In linguistics, an alternation is the phenomenon of a phoneme or morpheme exhibiting variation in its phonological realization. Each of the various realizations is called an alternant...

is still productive in modern Romanian, cf. credinţă ('faith') - credincios ('faithful'), oglindă ('mirror') - oglinjoară ('little mirror').

The above palatalizations occurred in all of the Romance languages

Romance languages

The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...

, although with slightly differing outcomes in different languages. Labial consonant

Labial consonant

Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. This precludes linguolabials, in which the tip of the tongue reaches for the posterior side of the upper lip and which are considered coronals...

s, however, were unaffected by the above palatalizations. Instead, at a later time, the /j/ underwent metathesis

Metathesis (linguistics)

Metathesis is the re-arranging of sounds or syllables in a word, or of words in a sentence. Most commonly it refers to the switching of two or more contiguous sounds, known as adjacent metathesis or local metathesis:...

and the labial consonant stayed unchanged:

Lat. rubeum > *robju > Rom. roib

Vowels

Classical Latin had ten pure vowels (monophthong

Monophthong

A monophthong is a pure vowel sound, one whose articulation at both beginning and end is relatively fixed, and which does not glide up or down towards a new position of articulation....

s), along with three diphthongs. By the 1st century AD, if not earlier, Latin diphthong became [ɛː], with the quality of short but longer; and soon afterwards became [eː], merging with long . This left . An early trend in the urban Latin of Rome, already during Cicero

Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...

's time (c. 50 BC), merged it with , and a few common words reflect this in Romanian, e.g. coadă "tail" < < Classical ; similarly ureche "ear" < < Classical . But in general, the territories outside of Rome were unaffected by this change; /au/ remained everywhere for centuries afterward, and continues to this day in Romanian.

Long and short differed in both quality and quantity, with the shorter versions lower and laxer (e.g. [ɛ] vs. [eː]). Long and short differed only in quantity. At a certain point, quantity ceased being phonemic, with all vowels long in stressed open syllables and short elsewhere. This automatically caused long and short to merge, but the remaining vowels took two different paths:

In the Sardinian
Sardinian language
Sardinian is a Romance language spoken and written on most of the island of Sardinia . It is considered the most conservative of the Romance languages in terms of phonology and is noted for its Paleosardinian substratum....

scheme, long and short pairs of vowels simply merge, with the quality difference erased.
In the Western Romance scheme, the quality difference remains, but original short [ɪ(ː),ʊ(ː)] are lowered and merge with original long [e(ː),o(ː)]. Subsequent to this, unstressed low-mid vowels are raised to become high-mid.

Romanian and other Eastern Romance languages follow a mixed scheme, with the back vowels following the Sardinian scheme but the front vowels following the Western Romance scheme. This produces a 6-vowel system (contrast the Sardinian 5-vowel system and Western Romance 7-vowel system).

Back vowels:

Lat. mare > Rom. mare ('sea')
Lat. pālum > *paru > Rom. par ('pole')
Lat. focum > *focu > Rom. foc ('fire')
Lat. pōmum > *pomu > Rom. pom ('fruit-bearing tree')
Lat. multum > *multu > Rom. mult ('much')
Lat. tū > Rom. tu ('thou')

Latin short u seems to have been lowered to o when stressed and before m or b in some words:

Lat. *autumna (from autumnus) > *tomna > Rom. toamnă ('autumn')
Lat. *rubeum > *robju > Rom. roib

Also, Latin long ō was changed to u in a few words:

Lat. cohortem > *cōrtem > Rom. curte

Remember that front vowels underwent the following pan-Romance changes:

In stressed syllables: became /ɛ/; and became /e/; became /i/
In unstressed syllables: , , all became /e/; became /i/
Subsequent to this, stressed /ɛ/ (including from original ) diphthongized to */je/.

Lat. pellem > *pɛlle > Rom. piele /pjele/ ('skin')
Lat. signum > *semnu > Rom. semn ('sign')
Lat. vīnum > *vinu > Rom. vin ('wine')

Consonants

Individual consonants did not undergo major changes. The labialized velar plosives were changed to labials before a and to plain velar

Velar consonant

Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....

s before other vowels; in question words beginning with qu-, this was never changed to p- (presumably through analogy):

Lat. quattuor > *quattro > Rom. patru ('four')
Lat. equa > *ɛpa > *jepa > Rom. iapă ('mare')
Lat. lingua > *lemba > Rom. limbă ('tongue')

Lat. quid > *ke > Rom. ce ('what')
Lat. quandō > *kando > *kându > Rom. când ('when')
Lat. sanguis > *sange > Rom. sânge ('blood')

Another important change is the labialization of velars before dentals, which includes the changes ct > pt, gn > mn and x > ps. Later, ps was simplified to s in most words.

Lat. factum > *faptu > Rom. fapt ('fact', 'deed')
Lat. signum > *semnu > Rom. semn ('sign')
Lat. coxa > *copsa > Rom. coapsă ('thigh'), but:
Lat. laxō > *lapso > *lasu > Rom. las (I let)

Final consonants

As in Italian, all final consonants were lost. As a consequence, there was a period in the history of Romanian in which all words ended with vowels.

Rhotacism
Rhotacism
Rhotacism refers to several phenomena related to the usage of the consonant r :*the excessive or idiosyncratic use of the r;...

of 'l'

At some point, intervocalic l was changed to r. From the evolution of certain words, it is clear that this happened after the above-mentioned palatalization

Palatalization

, but before the simplification of double consonants

Gemination

In phonetics, gemination happens when a spoken consonant is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a short consonant. Gemination is distinct from stress and may appear independently of it....

(as ll did not change to r) and also before the palatalization due to following i. Some examples:

Lat. gelu > Rom. ger ('frost')
Lat. salīre > Rom. a sări (sărire) ('to jump')

Second palatalization

The dental consonants t, d, s, l were palatalized again by a following i or j (from the combination je/ja < ɛ < stressed e):

Lat. testa > *tɛsta > *tjesta > *ţesta > Rom. ţeastă ('skull')
Lat. decem > *dɛke > *djeke > *dzeče > Rom. zece ('ten')
Lat. servum > *sɛrbu > *sjerbu > Rom. şerb ('serf')
Lat. sex > *sɛkse > *sjasse > Rom. şase ('six')
Lat. leporem > *lɛpore > *ljɛpure > *ʎɛpure > Rom. yepure ('hare')

Lat. dīcō > *dziku > Rom. zic ('I say')
Lat. līnum > *ʎinu > *ʎin > Rom. in ('flax')
Lat. gallīna > *galina > *găʎină > Rom. găină ('hen')

Weakening of unstressed vowels

Unstressed a became ă (except when at the beginning of the word) and unstressed o became u. Then ă became e after palatal

Palatal consonant

Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate...

sounds. Unstressed o was kept in some words due to analogy.

Lat. capra > Rom. capră ('goat')
Lat. vīnea > *vinja > * > * > Rom. vie /vije/ ('vineyard')
Lat. formōsus > Rom. frumos ('beautiful')

Backing of e

The vowel e was changed to ă when preceded by a labial consonant and followed by a back vowel

Back vowel

A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark...

in the next syllable (i.e. it stayed e when the following vowel was i or e):

Lat. mēnsam > *mesa > *măsă > Rom. masă ('table'), but
Lat. mēnsae > *mese > Rom. mese ('tables')

Lat. vēndō > *vendu > *văndu > *vându > Rom. vând ('I sell'), but
Lat. vēndis > *vendi > *vendzi > *vindzi > Rom. vinzi ('you sell')

Modern changes

These are changes that did not happen in all dialects of Romanian

Eastern Romance languages

. Some belong to the standard language, while some do not.

Changing of voiced affricates into the corresponding fricatives

In southern dialects, and in the standard language, dz is lost as a phoneme, becoming z in all environments:

dzic > zic ('I say')
lucredzi > lucrezi ('you work')

The affricate dž became j only when hard (i.e. followed by a back vowel):

gioc /dʒok/ > joc ('game'), but:
deget /dedʒet/ ('finger') did not change.

Weakening of resonants

Former palatal resonants /ʎ,ɲ/ were both weakened to /j/, which was subsequently lost next to /i/:

Lat. leporem > *lɛpore > *ljɛpure > *ʎɛpure > Rom. yepure ('hare')
Lat. līnum > *ʎinu > *ʎin > Rom. in ('flax')
Lat. gallīna > *gallina > *galina > *găʎină > Rom. găină ('hen')
Lat. pellem, pellī > *pɛlle, pɛlli > *pjɛle, pjɛli > *pjɛle, pjɛʎi > Rom. piele, piei ('skin, skins')
Lat. vīnea > *vinja > * > * > Rom. vie /vije/ ('vineyard')

Former intervocalic /l/ from Latin was lost entirely before /a/:

Lat stēlla > *stela > Rom. stea ('star')
Lat sella > *sjala > *şala > Rom. şa ('seat')

But Latin that became word-final due to later vowel loss was preserved:

Lat caballum > *cavalo > *caval > Rom. cal ('horse')

Former intervocalic /v/ (from Latin ) was lost, perhaps first weakened to /w/:

Lat caballum > *cavalo > *caval > Rom. cal ('horse')
Lat vīvere > *vivere > *vivare > *viva > Rom. via ('to live')

Nasal infix or epenthesis of n

the accented u preceded by a n lengthens and develops a nasal infix, n.

genuculus > genunchi('knee')
manipulus > mănunchi ('bouquet')
renuculus > rărunchi('kidneys')
minutus> mărunt ('minute, small')

Insertion of a glide /j/ between 'â' and soft 'n'

This affects only a few words:

pâne > pâine ('bread')
câne > câine ('dog')

It also explains the plural mână - mâini ('hand(s)'). This is also specific to southern dialects and the standard language; in other regions one may hear câne etc.
It is a compensatory lenghtening followed by dissimilation : pâne > pââne > pâine. Appears only in the Oltenia dialect, and has spread from it to literary Romanian. Has alternatively been explained as palatalization followed by metathesis : câne > cân'e > câine. (Oltenian has câine, all other dialects have cân'e.

Hardening of 'ş', 'ţ' and 'dz'

This is specific of northern dialects. It means that these consonants can only be followed by back vowels, so any front vowel is changed to a back one:

şi > şî ('and')
ţine > ('holds')
dzic > ('I say')

External links

The History of the Romanian Language

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Dacia and Romanization

Proto-Romanian

Old records

Romanian in Imperial Russia

Internal history

Palatalization

Vowels

Consonants

Final consonants

RhotacismRhotacismRhotacism refers to several phenomena related to the usage of the consonant r :*the excessive or idiosyncratic use of the r;... of 'l'

Second palatalization

Weakening of unstressed vowels

Backing of e

Modern changes

Changing of voiced affricates into the corresponding fricatives

Weakening of resonants

Nasal infix or epenthesis of n

Insertion of a glide /j/ between 'â' and soft 'n'

Hardening of 'ş', 'ţ' and 'dz'

See also

External links

Rhotacism
Rhotacism
Rhotacism refers to several phenomena related to the usage of the consonant r :*the excessive or idiosyncratic use of the r;...

of 'l'