Misplaced Pages

Romanian
Daco-Romanian
limba română, românește, română
Pronunciation	[roˈmɨnə]
Native to	Romania, Moldova
Region	Central Europe, Southeastern Europe, and Eastern Europe
Ethnicity	Romanians (including Moldovans)
Native speakers	25 million (2020)
Language family	Indo-European Italic Latino-Faliscan Latin Romance Eastern Northern Romanian? Eastern Romanian? Romanian
Early forms	Proto-Indo-European Proto-Italic Old Latin Vulgar Latin Proto-Romance Common Romanian
Dialects	Transylvanian Crișana Moldavian Banat Wallachian Maramureș Bukovinian Oltenian
Writing system	Latin (Romanian alphabet) Cyrillic Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet (Transnistria only) Romanian Cyrillic alphabet (historical) Romanian Braille
Official status
Official language in	Romania  Moldova  Transnistria (as "Moldovan")  Vojvodina (Serbia)  European Union
Recognised minority language in	Hungary  Serbia (both as Romanian and "Vlach")  Ukraine
Regulated by	Romanian Academy
Language codes
ISO 639-1	ro
ISO 639-2	rum (B) ron (T)
ISO 639-3	ron
Glottolog	roma1327
Linguasphere	(varieties: 51-AAD-ca to -ck) 51-AAD-c (varieties: 51-AAD-ca to -ck)
Blue: region where Romanian is the dominant language. Cyan: areas with a notable minority of Romanian speakers.
Distribution of the Romanian language in Romania, Moldova and surroundings
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Romanian (obsolete spelling: Roumanian; endonym: limba română [ˈlimba roˈmɨnə] , or românește [romɨˈneʃte], lit. 'in Romanian') is the official and main language of Romania and Moldova. Romanian is part of the Eastern Romance sub-branch of Romance languages, a linguistic group that evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin which separated from the Western Romance languages in the course of the period from the 5th to the 8th centuries. To distinguish it within the Eastern Romance languages, in comparative linguistics it is called Daco-Romanian as opposed to its closest relatives, Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian, and Istro-Romanian. It is also spoken as a minority language by stable communities in the countries surrounding Romania (Bulgaria, Hungary, Serbia and Ukraine), and by the large Romanian diaspora. In total, it is spoken by 25 million people as a first language.

Romanian was also known as Moldovan in Moldova, although the Constitutional Court of Moldova ruled in 2013 that "the official language of Moldova is Romanian". On 16 March 2023, the Moldovan Parliament approved a law on referring to the national language as Romanian in all legislative texts and the constitution. On 22 March, the president of Moldova, Maia Sandu, promulgated the law.

Overview

The history of the Romanian language started in the Roman provinces north of the Jireček Line in Classical antiquity but there are 3 main hypotheses about its exact territory: the autochthony thesis (it developed in left-Danube Dacia only), the discontinuation thesis (it developed in right-Danube provinces only), and the "as-well-as" thesis that supports the language development on both sides of the Danube. Between the 6th and 8th century, following the accumulated tendencies inherited from the vernacular spoken in this large area and, to a much smaller degree, the influences from native dialects, and in the context of a lessened power of the Roman central authority the language evolved into Common Romanian. This proto-language then came into close contact with the Slavic languages and subsequently divided into Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian, Istro-Romanian, and Daco-Romanian. Due to limited attestation between the 6th and 16th century, entire stages from its history are re-constructed by researchers, often with proposed relative chronologies and loose limits.

From the 12th or 13th century, official documents and religious texts were written in Old Church Slavonic, a language that had a similar role to Medieval Latin in Western Europe. The oldest dated text in Romanian is a letter written in 1521 with Cyrillic letters, and until late 18th century, including during the development of printing, the same alphabet was used. The period after 1780, starting with the writing of its first grammar books, represents the modern age of the language, during which time the Latin alphabet became official, the literary language was standardized, and a large number of words from Modern Latin and other Romance languages entered the lexis.

In the process of language evolution from fewer than 2500 attested words from Late Antiquity to a lexicon of over 150,000 words in its contemporary form, Romanian showed a high degree of lexical permeability, reflecting contact with Thraco-Dacian, Slavic languages (including Old Slavic, Serbian, Bulgarian, Ukrainian, and Russian), Greek, Hungarian, German, Turkish, and to languages that served as cultural models during and after the Age of Enlightenment, in particular French. This lexical permeability is continuing today with the introduction of English words.

Yet while the overall lexis was enriched with foreign words and internal constructs, in accordance with the history and development of the society and the diversification in semantic fields, the fundamental lexicon—the core vocabulary used in everyday conversation—remains governed by inherited elements from the Latin spoken in the Roman provinces bordering Danube, without which no coherent sentence can be made.

History

Common Romanian

Romanian descended from the Vulgar Latin spoken in the Roman provinces of Southeastern Europe north of the Jireček Line (a hypothetical boundary between the dominance of Latin and Greek influences).

Most scholars agree that two major dialects developed from Common Romanian by the 10th century. Daco-Romanian (the official language of Romania and Moldova) and Istro-Romanian (a language spoken by no more than 2,000 people in Istria) descended from the northern dialect. Two other languages, Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian, developed from the southern version of Common Romanian. These two languages are now spoken in lands to the south of the Jireček Line.

Of the features that individualize Common Romanian, inherited from Latin or subsequently developed, of particular importance are:

• appearance of the ă vowel;
• growth of the plural inflectional ending -uri for the neuter gender;
• analytic present conditional (ex: Daco-Romanian aș cânta);
• analytic future with an auxiliary derived from Latin volo (ex: Aromanian va s-cântu);
• enclisis of the definite article (ex. Istro-Romanian câre – cârele);
• nominal declension with two case forms in the singular feminine.

Old Romanian

The use of the denomination Romanian (română) for the language and use of the demonym Romanians (Români) for speakers of this language predates the foundation of the modern Romanian state. Romanians always used the general term rumân/român or regional terms like ardeleni (or ungureni), moldoveni or munteni to designate themselves. Both the name of rumână or rumâniască for the Romanian language and the self-designation rumân/român are attested as early as the 16th century, by various foreign travelers into the Carpathian Romance-speaking space, as well as in other historical documents written in Romanian at that time such as Cronicile Țării Moldovei [ro] (The Chronicles of the land of Moldova) by Grigore Ureche.

The few allusions to the use of Romanian in writing as well as common words, anthroponyms, and toponyms preserved in the Old Church Slavonic religious writings and chancellery documents, attested prior to the 16th century, along with the analysis of graphemes show that the writing of Romanian with the Cyrillic alphabet started in the second half of the 15th century.

The oldest extant document in Romanian precisely dated is Neacșu's letter (1521) and was written using the Romanian Cyrillic alphabet, which was used until the late 19th century. The letter is the oldest testimony of Romanian epistolary style and uses a prevalent lexis of Latin origin. However, dating by watermarks has shown the Hurmuzaki Psalter is a copy from around the turn of the 16th century. The slow process of Romanian establishing itself as an official language, used in the public sphere, in literature and ecclesiastically, began in the late 15th century and ended in the early decades of the 18th century, by which time Romanian had begun to be regularly used by the Church. The oldest Romanian texts of a literary nature are religious manuscripts (Codicele Voronețean, Psaltirea Scheiană), translations of essential Christian texts. These are considered either propagandistic results of confessional rivalries, for instance between Lutheranism and Calvinism, or as initiatives by Romanian monks stationed at Peri Monastery in Maramureș to distance themselves from the influence of the Mukacheve eparchy in Ukraine.

The language spoken during this period had a phonological system of seven vowels and twenty-nine consonants. Particular to Old Romanian are the distribution of /z/, as the allophone of /dz/ from Common Romanian, in the Wallachian and south-east Transylvanian varieties, the presence of palatal sonorants /ʎ/ and /ɲ/, nowadays preserved only regionally in Banat and Oltenia, and the beginning of devoicing of asyllabic after consonants. Text analysis revealed words that are now lost from modern vocabulary or used only in local varieties. These words were of various provenience for example: Latin (cure - to run, mâneca- to leave), Old Church Slavonic (drăghicame - gem, precious stone, prilăsti - to trick, to cheat), Hungarian (bizăntui - to bear witness).

Modern Romanian

The modern age of Romanian starts in 1780 with the printing in Vienna of a very important grammar book titled Elementa linguae daco-romanae sive valachicae. The author of the book, Samuil Micu-Klein, and the revisor, Gheorghe Șincai, both members of the Transylvanian School, chose to use Latin as the language of the text and presented the phonetical and grammatical features of Romanian in comparison to its ancestor. The Modern age of Romanian language can be further divided into three phases: pre-modern or modernizing between 1780 and 1830, modern phase between 1831 and 1880, and contemporary from 1880 onwards.

Pre-modern period

Beginning with the printing in 1780 of Elementa linguae daco-romanae sive valachicae, the pre-modern phase was characterized by the publishing of school textbooks, appearance of first normative works in Romanian, numerous translations, and the beginning of a conscious stage of re-latinization of the language. Notable contributions, besides that of the Transylvanian School, are the activities of Gheorghe Lazăr, founder of the first Romanian school, and Ion Heliade Rădulescu. The end of this period is marked by the first printing of magazines and newspapers in Romanian, in particular Curierul Românesc and Albina Românească.

Modern period

Starting from 1831 and lasting until 1880 the modern phase is characterized by the development of literary styles: scientific, administrative, and belletristic. It quickly reached a high point with the printing of Dacia Literară, a journal founded by Mihail Kogălniceanu and representing a literary society, which together with other publications like Propășirea and Gazeta de Transilvania spread the ideas of Romantic nationalism and later contributed to the formation of other societies that took part in the Revolutions of 1848. Their members and those that shared their views are collectively known in Romania as "of '48"(pașoptiști), a name that was extended to the literature and writers around this time such as Vasile Alecsandri, Grigore Alexandrescu, Nicolae Bălcescu, Timotei Cipariu.

Between 1830 and 1860 "transitional alphabets" were used, adding Latin letters to the Romanian Cyrillic alphabet. The Latin alphabet became official at different dates in Wallachia and Transylvania - 1860, and Moldova -1862.

Following the unification of Moldavia and Wallachia further studies on the language were made, culminating with the founding of Societatea Literară Română on 1 April 1866 on the initiative of C. A. Rosetti, an academic society that had the purpose of standardizing the orthography, formalizing the grammar and (via a dictionary) vocabulary of the language, and promoting literary and scientific publications. This institution later became the Romanian Academy.

Contemporary period

The third phase of the modern age of Romanian language, starting from 1880 and continuing to this day, is characterized by the prevalence of the supradialectal form of the language, standardized with the express contribution of the school system and Romanian Academy, bringing a close to the process of literary language modernization and development of literary styles. It is distinguished by the activity of Romanian literature classics in its early decades: Mihai Eminescu, Ion Luca Caragiale, Ion Creangă, Ioan Slavici.

The current orthography, with minor reforms to this day and using Latin letters, was fully implemented in 1881, regulated by the Romanian Academy on a fundamentally phonological principle, with few morpho-syntactic exceptions.

Modern history of Romanian in Bessarabia

The first Romanian grammar was published in Vienna in 1780. Following the annexation of Bessarabia by Russia in 1812, Moldavian was established as an official language in the governmental institutions of Bessarabia, used along with Russian, The publishing works established by Archbishop Gavril Bănulescu-Bodoni were able to produce books and liturgical works in Moldavian between 1815 and 1820.

Bessarabia during the 1812–1918 era witnessed the gradual development of bilingualism. Russian continued to develop as the official language of privilege, whereas Romanian remained the principal vernacular.

The period from 1905 to 1917 was one of increasing linguistic conflict spurred by an increase in Romanian nationalism. In 1905 and 1906, the Bessarabian zemstva 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, Romanian-language newspapers and journals began to appear, such as Basarabia (1906), Viața Basarabiei (1907), Moldovanul (1907), Luminătorul (1908), Cuvînt moldovenesc (1913), Glasul Basarabiei (1913). From 1913, the synod permitted that "the churches in Bessarabia use the Romanian language". Romanian finally became the official language with the Constitution of 1923.

Historical grammar

Romanian has preserved a part of the Latin declension, but whereas Latin had six cases, from a morphological viewpoint, Romanian has only three: the nominative/accusative, genitive/dative, and marginally the vocative. Romanian nouns also preserve the neuter gender, although instead of functioning as a separate gender with its own forms in adjectives, the Romanian neuter became a mixture of masculine and feminine. The verb morphology of Romanian has shown the same move towards a compound perfect and future tense as the other Romance languages. Compared with the other Romance languages, during its evolution, Romanian simplified the original Latin tense system.

Geographic distribution

Romanian is spoken mostly in Central, South-Eastern, and Eastern 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 to Romania back to their original countries. Romanian speakers account for 0.5% of the world's population, and 4% of the Romance-speaking population of the world.

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. Romanian is also an official language of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina in Serbia along with five other languages. Romanian minorities are encountered in Serbia (Timok Valley), Ukraine (Chernivtsi and Odesa oblasts), and Hungary (Gyula). Large immigrant communities are found in Italy, Spain, France, and Portugal.

In 1995, the largest Romanian-speaking community in the Middle East was found in Israel, where Romanian was spoken by 5% of the population. Romanian is also spoken as a second language by people from Arabic-speaking countries who have studied in Romania. It is estimated that almost half a million Middle Eastern Arabs studied in Romania during the 1980s. Small Romanian-speaking communities are to be found in Kazakhstan and Russia. Romanian is also spoken within communities of Romanian and Moldovan immigrants in the United States, Canada and Australia, although they do not make up a large homogeneous community statewide.

Legal status

In Romania

According to the Constitution of Romania of 1991, as revised in 2003, Romanian is the official language of the Republic.

Romania mandates the use of Romanian in official government publications, public education and legal contracts. Advertisements as well as other public messages must bear a translation of foreign words, while trade signs and logos shall be written predominantly in Romanian.

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.

Since 2013, the Romanian Language Day is celebrated on every 31 August.

In Moldova

Romanian is the official language of the Republic of Moldova. The 1991 Declaration of Independence named the official language Romanian, and the Constitution of Moldova as originally adopted in 1994 named the state language of the country Moldovan. In December 2013, a decision of the Constitutional Court of Moldova ruled that the Declaration of Independence took precedence over the Constitution and the state language should be called Romanian. In 2023, the Moldovan parliament passed a law officially adopting the designation "Romanian" in all legal instruments, implementing the 2013 court decision.

Scholars agree that Moldovan and Romanian are the same language, with the glottonym "Moldovan" used in certain political contexts. It has been the sole official language since the adoption of the Law on State Language of the Moldavian SSR in 1989. This law mandates the use of Moldovan in all the political, economic, cultural and social spheres, as well as asserting the existence of a "linguistic Moldo-Romanian identity". It is also used in schools, mass media, education and in the colloquial speech and writing. Outside the political arena the language is most often called "Romanian". In the breakaway territory of Transnistria, it is co-official with Ukrainian and Russian.

In the 2014 census, out of the 2,804,801 people living in Moldova, 24% (652,394) stated Romanian as their most common language, whereas 56% stated Moldovan. While in the urban centers speakers are split evenly between the two names (with the capital Chișinău showing a strong preference for the name "Romanian", i.e. 3:2), in the countryside hardly a quarter of Romanian/Moldovan speakers indicated Romanian as their native language. Unofficial results of this census first showed a stronger preference for the name Romanian, however the initial reports were later dismissed by the Institute for Statistics, which led to speculations in the media regarding the forgery of the census results.

In Serbia

Vojvodina

The Constitution of the Republic of Serbia 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 Statute of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina determines that, together with the Serbian language and the Cyrillic script, and the Latin script as stipulated by the law, the Croat, 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 bodies of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina are: the Assembly, the Executive Council and the provincial administrative bodies.

The Romanian language and script are officially used in eight municipalities: Alibunar, Bela Crkva (Biserica Albă), Žitište (Sângeorgiu de Bega), Zrenjanin (Becicherecu Mare), Kovačica (Covăcița), Kovin (Cuvin), Plandište (Plandiște) and Sečanj (Seceani). In the municipality of Vršac (Vârșeț), Romanian is official only in the villages of Vojvodinci (Voivodinț), Markovac (Marcovăț), Straža (Straja), Mali Žam (Jamu Mic), Malo Središte (Srediștea Mică), Mesić (Mesici), Jablanka (Iablanca), Sočica (Sălcița), Ritiševo (Râtișor), Orešac (Oreșaț) and Kuštilj (Coștei).

In the 2002 Census, the last carried out in Serbia, 1.5% of Vojvodinians stated Romanian as their native language.

Timok Valley

The Vlachs of Serbia are considered to speak Romanian as well.

Regional language status in Ukraine

In parts of Ukraine where Romanians constitute a significant share of the local population (districts in Chernivtsi, Odesa and Zakarpattia oblasts) Romanian is taught in schools as a primary language and there are Romanian-language newspapers, TV, and radio broadcasting. The University of Chernivtsi in western Ukraine trains teachers for Romanian schools in the fields of Romanian philology, mathematics and physics.

In Hertsa Raion of Ukraine as well as in other villages of Chernivtsi Oblast and Zakarpattia Oblast, Romanian has been declared a "regional language" alongside Ukrainian as per the 2012 legislation on languages in Ukraine.

In other countries and organizations

Romanian is an official or administrative language in various communities and organisations, such as the Latin Union and the European Union. 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 monastic communities of Prodromos and Lakkoskiti. In the unrecognised state of Transnistria, Moldovan is one of the official languages. However, unlike all other dialects of Romanian, this variety of Moldovan is written in Cyrillic script.

As a second and foreign language

Romanian is taught in some areas that have Romanian minority communities, such as Vojvodina in Serbia, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Hungary. The Romanian Cultural Institute (ICR) has since 1992 organised summer courses in Romanian for language teachers. There are also non-Romanians who study Romanian as a foreign language, for example the Nicolae Bălcescu High-school in Gyula, Hungary.

Romanian is taught as a foreign language in tertiary institutions, mostly in European countries such as Germany, France and Italy, and the Netherlands, as well as in the United States. Overall, it is taught as a foreign language in 43 countries around the world.

Popular culture

Romanian has become popular in other countries through movies and songs performed in the Romanian language. Examples of Romanian acts that had a great success in non-Romanophone countries are the bands O-Zone (with their No. 1 single Dragostea Din Tei, also known as Numa Numa, across the world in 2003–2004), Akcent (popular in the Netherlands, Poland and other European countries), Activ (successful in some Eastern European countries), DJ Project (popular as clubbing music) SunStroke Project (known by viral video "Epic Sax Guy") and Alexandra Stan (worldwide no.1 hit with "Mr. Saxobeat") and Inna 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 Cannes Film Festival).

Also some artists wrote songs dedicated to the Romanian language. The multi-platinum pop trio O-Zone (originally from Moldova) released a song called "Nu mă las de limba noastră" ("I won't forsake our language"). The final verse of this song, "Eu nu mă las de limba noastră, de limba noastră cea română", is translated in English as "I won't forsake our language, our Romanian language". Also, the Moldovan musicians Doina and Ion Aldea Teodorovici performed a song called "The Romanian language".

Dialects

Romanian is also called Daco-Romanian in comparative linguistics to distinguish from the other dialects of Common Romanian: Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian, and Istro-Romanian. The origin of the term "Daco-Romanian" can be traced back to the first printed book of Romanian grammar in 1780, by Samuil Micu and Gheorghe Șincai. There, the Romanian dialect spoken north of the Danube is called lingua Daco-Romana to emphasize its origin and its area of use, which includes the former Roman province of Dacia, although it is spoken also south of the Danube, in Dobruja, the Timok Valley and northern Bulgaria.

This article deals with the Romanian (i.e. Daco-Romanian) language, and thus only its dialectal variations are discussed here. The differences between the regional varieties are small, limited to regular phonetic changes, few grammar aspects, and lexical particularities. There is a single written and spoken standard (literary) Romanian language used by all speakers, regardless of region. Like most natural languages, Romanian dialects are part of a dialect continuum. The dialects of Romanian are also referred to as 'sub-dialects' and are distinguished primarily by phonetic differences. Romanians themselves speak of the differences as 'accents' or 'speeches' (in Romanian: accent or grai).

Depending on the criteria used for classifying these dialects, fewer or more are found, ranging from 2 to 20, although the most widespread approaches give a number of five dialects. These are grouped into two main types, southern and northern, further divided as follows:

• The southern type has only one member:
  • the Wallachian dialect, spoken in the southern part of Romania, in the historical regions of Muntenia, Oltenia and the southern part of Northern Dobruja, but also extending in the southern parts of Transylvania.
• The northern type consists of several dialects:
  • the Moldavian dialect, spoken in the historical region of Moldavia, now split among Romania, the Republic of Moldova, and Ukraine (Bukovina and Bessarabia), as well as northern part of Northern Dobruja;
  • the Banat dialect, spoken in the historical region of Banat, including parts of Serbia;
  • a group of finely divided and transition-like Transylvanian varieties, among which two are most often distinguished, those of Crișana and Maramureș.

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

Some argots and speech forms have also arisen from the Romanian language. Examples are the Gumuțeasca, spoken in Mărgău, and the Totoiana, an inverted "version" of Romanian spoken in Totoi.

Classification

Romance language

Romanian is a Romance language, belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European language family, having much in common with languages such as Italian, Spanish, French and Portuguese.

Compared with the other Romance languages, the closest relative of Romanian is Italian. Romanian has had a greater share of foreign influence than some other Romance languages such as Italian in terms of vocabulary and other aspects. A study conducted by Mario Pei in 1949 which analyzed the degree of differentiation of languages from their parental language (in the case of Romance languages to Latin comparing phonology, inflection, discourse, syntax, vocabulary, and intonation) produced the following percentages (the higher the percentage, the greater the distance from Latin):

• Sardinian: 8%
• Italian: 12%
• Spanish: 20%
• Romanian: 23.5%
• Occitan: 25%
• Portuguese: 31%
• French: 44%

The lexical similarity of Romanian with Italian has been estimated at 77%, followed by French at 75%, Sardinian 74%, Catalan 73%, Portuguese and Rhaeto-Romance 72%, Spanish 71%.

The Romanian vocabulary became predominantly influenced by French and, to a lesser extent, Italian in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Balkan language area

While most of Romanian grammar and morphology are based on Latin, there are some features that are shared only with other languages of the Balkans and not found in other Romance languages. The shared features of Romanian and the other languages of the Balkan language area (Bulgarian, Macedonian, Albanian, Greek, and Serbo-Croatian) include a suffixed definite article, the syncretism of genitive and dative case and the formation of the future and the alternation of infinitive with subjunctive constructions. According to a well-established scholarly theory, most Balkanisms could be traced back to the development of the Balkan Romance languages; these features were adopted by other languages due to language shift.

Slavic influence

Slavic influence on Romanian is especially noticeable in its vocabulary, with words of Slavic origin constituting about 10–15% of modern Romanian lexicon, and with further influences in its phonetics, morphology and syntax. The greater part of its Slavic vocabulary comes from Old Church Slavonic, which was the official written language of Wallachia and Moldavia from the 14th to the 18th century (although not understood by most people), as well as the liturgical language of the Romanian Orthodox Church. As a result, much Romanian vocabulary dealing with religion, ritual, and hierarchy is Slavic. The number of high-frequency Slavic-derived words is also believed to indicate contact or cohabitation with South Slavic tribes from around the 6th century, though it is disputed where this took place (see Origin of the Romanians). Words borrowed in this way tend to be more vernacular (compare sfârși, "to end", with săvârși, "to commit"). It has also been argued that Slavic borrowing was a key factor in the development of [ɨ] (î and â) as a separate phoneme.

Other influences

Even before the 19th century, Romanian came in contact with several other languages. Notable examples of lexical borrowings include:

• German: cartof < Kartoffel "potato", bere < Bier "beer", șurub < Schraube "screw", turn < Turm "tower", ramă < Rahmen "frame", muștiuc < Mundstück "mouth piece", bormașină < Bohrmaschine "drilling machine", cremșnit < Kremschnitte "cream slice", șvaițer < Schweizer "Swiss cheese", șlep < Schleppkahn "barge", șpriț < Spritzer "wine with soda water", abțibild < Abziehbild "decal picture", șnițel < (Wiener) Schnitzel "a battered cutlet", șmecher < Schmecker "taster (not interested in buying)", șuncă < dialectal Schunke (Schinken) "ham", punct < Punkt "point", maistru < Meister "master", rundă < Runde "round".

Furthermore, during the Habsburg and, later on, Austrian rule of Banat, Transylvania, and Bukovina, a large number of words were borrowed from Austrian High German, in particular in fields such as the military, administration, social welfare, economy, etc. Subsequently, German terms have been taken out of science and technics, like: șină < Schiene "rail", știft < Stift "peg", liță < Litze "braid", șindrilă < Schindel "shingle", ștanță < Stanze "punch", șaibă < Scheibe "washer", ștangă < Stange "crossbar", țiglă < Ziegel "tile", șmirghel < Schmirgelpapier "emery paper";

• Greek: folos < ófelos "use", buzunar < buzunára "pocket", proaspăt < prósfatos "fresh", cutie < cution "box", portocale < portokalia "oranges". While Latin borrowed words of Greek origin, Romanian obtained Greek loanwords on its own. Greek entered Romanian through the apoikiai (colonies) and emporia (trade stations) founded in and around Dobruja, through the presence of Byzantine Empire in north of the Danube, through Bulgarian during Bulgarian Empires that converted Romanians to Orthodox Christianity, and after the Greek Civil War, when thousands of Greeks fled Greece.
• Hungarian: a cheltui < költeni "to spend", a făgădui < fogadni "to promise", a mântui < menteni "to save", oraș < város "city";
• Turkish: papuc < pabuç "slipper", ciorbă < çorba "wholemeal soup, sour soup", bacșiș < bahşiş "tip" (ultimately from Persian baksheesh);
• Additionally, the Romani language has provided a series of slang words to Romanian such as: mișto "good, beautiful, cool" < mišto, gagică "girlie, girlfriend" < gadji, a hali "to devour" < halo, mandea "yours truly" < mande, a mangli "to pilfer" < manglo.

French, Italian, and English loanwords

Since the 19th century, many literary or learned words were borrowed from the other Romance languages, especially from French and Italian (for example: birou "desk, office", avion "airplane", exploata "exploit"). It was estimated that about 38% of words in Romanian are of French and/or Italian origin (in many cases both languages); and adding this to Romanian's native stock, about 75%–85% of Romanian words can be traced to Latin. The use of these Romanianized French and Italian learned loans has tended to increase at the expense of previous 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, the re-latinization of the vocabulary has tended to reinforce the Latin character of the language.

In the process of lexical modernization, much of the native Latin stock have acquired doublets from other Romance languages, thus forming a further and more modern and literary lexical layer. Typically, the native word is a noun and the learned loan is an adjective. Some examples of doublets:

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; sandviș < sandwich; bișniță < business; chec < cake; veceu < WC; tramvai < tramway). These words are assigned grammatical gender in Romanian and handled according to Romanian rules; thus "the manager" is managerul. Some borrowings, for example in the computer field, appear to have awkward (perhaps contrived and ludicrous) 'Romanisation,' such as cookie-uri which is the plural of the Internet term cookie.

Lexis

A 1988 statistic by Marius Sala is based on 2,581 words chosen on the criteria of frequency, semantic richness and productivity, which also contain words formed on the territory of the Romanian language. This statistic gives the percentages below:

• 30.33% – words inherited from Latin;
• 15.26% – academic loanwords from Latin;
• 22.12% – French loans;
• 9.18% – loans from Old Church Slavonic;
• 3.95% – loans from Italian;
• 3.91% – words formed in Romanian;
• 2.71% – words of uncertain origin;
• 2.6% – loans from Bulgarian;
• 2.47% – loans from German (including Austrian High German);
• 1.7% – loans from Greek;
• 1.43% – loans from Hungarian;
• 1.12% – loans from Russian;
• 0.96% – words inherited from the Thraco-Dacian substratum;
• 0.85% – loans from Serbian;
• 0.73% – loans from Turkish

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

Although they are rarely used nowadays, the Romanian calendar used to have the traditional Romanian month names, unique to the language.

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

Grammar

Romanian nouns are characterized by gender (feminine, masculine, and neuter), and declined by number (singular and plural) and case (nominative/accusative, dative/genitive and vocative). The articles, as well as most adjectives and pronouns, agree in gender, number and case with the noun they modify.

Romanian is the only major Romance language where definite articles are enclitic: that is, attached to the end of the noun (as in The Scandinavian Languages, Bulgarian and Albanian), instead of in front (proclitic). 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, and voice. The usual word order in sentences is subject–verb–object (SVO). Romanian has four verbal conjugations which further split into ten conjugation patterns. Romanian verbs are conjugated for five moods (indicative, conditional/optative, imperative, subjunctive, and presumptive) and four non-finite forms (infinitive, gerund, supine, and participle).

Phonology

Romanian has seven vowels: /i/, /ɨ/, /u/, /e/, /ə/, /o/ and /a/. Additionally, /ø/ and /y/ may appear in some borrowed words. Arguably, the diphthongs /e̯a/ and /o̯a/ are also part of the phoneme set. There are twenty-two consonants. The two approximants /j/ and /w/ can appear before or after any vowel, creating a large number of glide-vowel sequences which are, strictly speaking, not diphthongs.

In final positions after consonants, a short /i/ can be deleted, surfacing only as the palatalization of the preceding consonant (e.g., ). Similarly, a deleted /u/ may prompt labialization of a preceding consonant, though this has ceased to carry any morphological meaning.

Phonetic changes

Owing to its isolation from the other Romance languages, the phonetic evolution of Romanian was quite different, but the language does share a few changes with Italian, such as → (Lat. clarus → Rom. chiàr, Ital. chiaro, Lat. clamare → Rom. chemare, Ital. chiamare) and → (Lat. *glacia (glacies) → Rom. ghéață, Ital. ghiaccia, ghiaccio, Lat. *ungla (ungula) → Rom. unghie, Ital. unghia), although this did not go as far as it did in Italian with other similar clusters (Rom. plàce, Ital. piace).

Another similarity with Italian is the change from or to or (Lat. pax, pacem → Rom. and Ital. pace, Lat. dulcem → Rom. dulce, Ital. dolce, Lat. circus → Rom. cerc, Ital. circo) and or to or (Lat. gelu → Rom. gèr, Ital. gelo, Lat. marginem → Rom. and Ital. margine, Lat. gemere → Rom. gèm (gemere), Ital. gemere).

There are also a few changes shared with Dalmatian, such as /ɡn/ (probably phonetically ) → (Lat. cognatus → Rom. cumnat, Dalm. comnut) and /ks/ → in some situations (Lat. coxa → Rom. cópsă, Dalm. copsa).

Among the notable phonetic changes are:

• diphthongization of e and o → ea and oa, before ă (or e as well, in the case of o) in the next syllable:

• Lat. cera → Rom. céră (wax)
• Lat. sole → Rom. sóre (sun)

• iotation → in the beginning of the word

• Lat. herba → Rom. ĭarbă (grass, herb)

• velar → labial before alveolar consonants and (e.g. ngu → mb):

• Lat. octo → Rom. opt (eight)
• Lat. lingua → Rom. lìmbă (tongue, language)
• Lat. signum → Rom. sèmn (sign)
• Lat. coxa → Rom. cópsă (thigh)

• rhotacism → between vowels

• Lat. caelum → Rom. cèr (sky)

• Alveolars assibilated to when before short or long

• Lat. deus → Rom. ḑèŭ → zèŭ (god)
• Lat. tenem → Rom. ține (hold)

Romanian has entirely lost Latin /kw/ (qu), turning it either into /p/ (Lat. quattuor → Rom. pàtru, "four"; cf. It. quattro) or /k/ (Lat. quando → Rom. când, "when"; Lat. quale → Rom. càre, "which").

Writing system

The first written record about a Romance language spoken in the Middle Ages in the Balkans is from 587. 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!"). Theophanes Confessor recorded it as part of a 6th-century military expedition by Comentiolus and Priscus against the Avars and Slovenes.

The oldest surviving written text in Romanian is a letter from late June 1521, in which Neacșu of Câmpulung wrote to the mayor of Brașov about an imminent attack of the Turks. It was written using the Cyrillic alphabet, like most early Romanian writings. The earliest surviving writing in Latin script was a late 16th-century Transylvanian text which was written with the Hungarian alphabet conventions.

In the 18th century, Transylvanian scholars noted the Latin origin of Romanian and adapted the Latin alphabet to the Romanian language, using some orthographic rules from Italian, recognized as Romanian's closest relative. The Cyrillic alphabet remained in (gradually decreasing) use until 1860, when Romanian writing was first officially regulated.

In the Soviet Republic of Moldova, the Russian-derived Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet was used until 1989, when the Romanian Latin alphabet was introduced; in the breakaway territory of Transnistria the Cyrillic alphabet remains in use.

Romanian alphabet

The Romanian alphabet is as follows:

Capital letters
A	Ă	Â	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I	Î	J	K	L	M	N	O	P	Q	R	S	Ș	T	Ț	U	V	W	X	Y	Z
Lower case letters
a	ă	â	b	c	d	e	f	g	h	i	î	j	k	l	m	n	o	p	q	r	s	ș	t	ț	u	v	w	x	y	z
Phonemes
/a/	/ə/	/ɨ/	/b/	/k/, /t͡ʃ/	/d/	/e/, /e̯/, /je/	/f/	/ɡ/, /d͡ʒ/	/h/, mute	/i/, /j/, /ʲ/	/ɨ/	/ʒ/	/k/	/l/	/m/	/n/	/o/, /o̯/	/p/	/k/	/r/	/s/	/ʃ/	/t/	/t͡s/	/u/, /w/	/v/	/v/, /w/, /u/	/ks/, /ɡz/	/j/, /i/	/z/

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

The Romanian alphabet is based on the Latin script with five additional letters Ă, Â, Î, Ș, Ț. Formerly, there were as many as 12 additional letters, but some of them were abolished in subsequent reforms. Also, until the early 20th century, a breve marker was used, which survives only in ă.

Today the Romanian alphabet is largely phonemic. However, the letters â and î both represent the same close central unrounded vowel /ɨ/. Â is used only inside words; î is used at the beginning or the end of non-compound words and in the middle of compound words. Another exception from a completely phonetic writing system is the fact that vowels and their respective semivowels are not distinguished in writing. In dictionaries the distinction is marked by separating the entry word into syllables for words containing a hiatus.

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, Italian, Portuguese, Catalan and French, but represents the phoneme /h/, except in the digraphs ch /k/ and gh /g/ (see below)
• j represents /ʒ/, as in French, Catalan or Portuguese (the sound spelled with s in the English words "vision, pleasure, treasure").
• There are two letters with a comma below, Ș and Ț, which represent the sounds /ʃ/ and /t͡s/. 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.
• ă represents the schwa, /ə/.
• î and â both represent the sound /ɨ/. In rapid speech (for example in the name of the country) the â sound may sound similar to a casual listener to the short schwa sound ă (in fact, Aromanian does merge the two, writing them ã) but careful speakers will distinguish the sound. The nearest equivalent is the vowel in the last syllable of the word roses for some English dialects which distinguish it from Rosa's or the second syllable of the word "rhythm". It is also roughly equivalent to European Portuguese /ɨ/, the Polish y or the Russian ы.
• The letter e generally represents the mid front unrounded vowel , somewhat like in the English word set. However, the letter e is pronounced as ( sounds like 'y' in 'you') when it is the first letter of any form of the verb a fi "to be", or of a personal pronoun, for instance este /jeste/ "is" and el /jel/ "he". This addition of the semivowel /j/ does not occur in more recent loans and their derivatives, such as eră "era", electric "electric" etc. Some words (such as iepure "hare", formerly spelled epure) are now written with the initial i to indicate the semivowel.
• x represents either the phoneme sequence /ks/ as in expresie = expression, or /ɡz/ as in exemplu = example, as in English.
• As in Italian, the letters c and g represent the affricates /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ before i and e, and /k/ and /ɡ/ elsewhere. When /k/ and /ɡ/ 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. Unlike Italian, however, Romanian uses ce- and ge- to write /t͡ʃ/ and /d͡ʒ/ before a central vowel instead of ci- and gi-.

Punctuation and capitalization

Uses of punctuation peculiar to Romanian are:

• Quotation marks use one of the Polish quotation formats, specifically „quote «inside» quote”, that is, „…” for a normal quotation, and «…» for a quotation inside a quotation.
• Proper quotations which span multiple paragraphs do not start each paragraph with quotation marks; quotation marks are placed only at the beginning and the end of the entire quotation, regardless of how many paragraphs it contains.
• Dialogues use 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.).
• 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").

Academy spelling recommendations

In 1993, new spelling rules were proposed by the Romanian Academy. In 2000, the Moldovan Academy recommended adopting the same spelling rules, and in 2010 the Academy launched a schedule for the transition to the new rules that was intended to be completed by publications in 2011.

On 17 October 2016, the Moldovan minister of education signed Order No. 872, adopting the revised spelling rules as recommended by the Moldovan Academy of Sciences, and giving the following two school years as a transition period. Thus the spelling used by institutions under Moldova's ministry of education has been brought in line with the Romanian Academy's 1993 recommendation. This order, however, did not apply to other government institutions, and Law 3462 of 1989 (which provided for the means of transliterating Cyrillic to Latin) has not been amended to reflect the ministry of education's changes either; thus, most Moldovan government institutions, along with most Moldovans, prefer to use the spelling adopted in 1989 (when the use of Latin script became official).

Examples of Romanian 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)

The sentence in contemporary Romanian. Words inherited directly from Latin are highlighted:

Toate ființele umane se nasc libere și egale în demnitate și în drepturi. Ele sunt înzestrate cu rațiune și conștiință și trebuie să se comporte unele față de altele în spiritul fraternității.

The same sentence, with French and Italian loanwords highlighted instead:

Toate ființele umane se nasc libere și egale în demnitate și în drepturi. Ele sunt înzestrate cu rațiune și conștiință și trebuie să se comporte unele față de altele în spiritul fraternității.

The sentence rewritten to exclude French and Italian loanwords. Slavic loanwords are highlighted:

Toate ființele omenești se nasc slobode și deopotrivă în destoinicie și în drepturi. Ele sunt înzestrate cu înțelegere și cuget și trebuie să se poarte unele față de altele în duh de frățietate.

The sentence rewritten to exclude all loanwords. The meaning is unchanged:

Toate ființele omenești se nasc nesupuse și asemenea în prețuire și în drepturi. Ele sunt înzestrate cu înțelegere și cuget și se cuvine să se poarte unele față de altele frățește.

See also

• Legacy of the Roman Empire
• Neacșu's letter
• Eastern Romance languages
• Romanian lexis
• Romanian phonology
• Romanian grammar
• Romanian literature
• Romanian Cyrillic alphabet
• Romanian transitional alphabet
• Tărtăria tablets
• Moldova–Romania relations
• Romanian dialects
• Controversy over ethnic and linguistic identity in Moldova

Notes

1. лимба ромынэ in Moldovan Cyrillic, uniquely used in Transnistria.
2. ^ The internal classification of the Eastern Romance languages presented in Petrucci (1999) proposes a bipartite split into Northern and Southern branches, with the Northern branch splitting into Istro-Romanian and Daco-Romanian. By contrast, the classification presented within Glottolog v4.8 proposes a bipartite split between Aromanian and Northern Romanian, the latter of which is further split into Istro-Romanian and Eastern Romanian, from which Daco-Romanian and Megleno-Romanian are hypothesized to have split from.
3. The constitution of the Republic of Moldova referred to the country's language as Moldovan, whilst the 1991 Declaration of Independence named the official language Romanian. In December 2013, an official decision of the Constitutional Court of Moldova ruled that the Declaration of Independence takes precedence over the Constitution and that the state language is therefore Romanian, not 'Moldovan'. "Moldovan court rules official language is 'Romanian,' replacing Soviet-flavored 'Moldovan'".
4. German-based influence and English loanwords

References

1. ^ Romanian at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024)
2. ^ Petrucci 1999, p. 4.
3. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian (10 July 2023). "Glottolog 4.8 - Eastern Romance". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. doi:10.5281/zenodo.7398962. Archived from the original on 21 November 2023. Retrieved 20 November 2023.
4. "ARTICOLUL 13 – Constitutia României". Cdep.ro. Archived from the original on 7 September 2011. Retrieved 28 January 2016.
5. "Modificat și în Constituție: "Limba de stat a Republicii Moldova este limba română" – FOTO" (in Romanian). ProTV Chișinău. 30 March 2023. Archived from the original on 31 March 2023. Retrieved 2 April 2023.
6. Untila, Stela (14 July 2021). ""Cât există Transnistria, va exista "limba moldovenească". Krasnoselski, despre posibile divergențe cu Chișinăul". NewsMaker (in Romanian). Archived from the original on 2 April 2023. Retrieved 2 April 2023.
7. "Official use of languages and scripts in the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina". Provincial Secretariat for Regulations, Administration and National Minorities. Archived from the original on 25 October 2020. Retrieved 18 October 2010.
8. "The Commission's use of languages". Archived from the original on 3 April 2023. Retrieved 2 April 2023.
9. "Hungary needs to strengthen use of and access to minority languages". Council of Europe. Archived from the original on 27 August 2019. Retrieved 16 January 2019.
10. "Latest Council of Europe report on regional or minority Languages in Serbia published". The Network to Promote Linguistic Diversity. Archived from the original on 26 June 2015. Retrieved 25 June 2015.
11. "Istoria limbii române" ("History of the Romanian Language"), II, Academia Română, Bucharest, 1969
12. "Președinta Maia Sandu a promulgat Legea care confirmă că limba de stat a Republicii Moldova este cea română" (in Romanian). Presidency of the Republic of Moldova. Astăzi am promulgat Legea care confirmă un adevăr istoric și incontestabil: limba de stat a Republicii Moldova este cea română. [Today I have promulgated the law that confirms a historical and indisputable truth: the state language of the Republic of Moldova is Romanian.]
13. Breu, Walter (23 March 2022). "Romance in Contact with Slavic in Southern and South-Eastern Europe". Oxford Research Encyclopedias. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.013.449. ISBN 978-0-19-938465-5. Archived from the original on 26 September 2022. Retrieved 8 August 2023.
14. Sala, Marius (2012). De la Latină la Română] [From Latin to Romanian]. Editura Pro Universitaria. p. 13. ISBN 978-606-647-435-1.
15. Brâncuș, Grigore (2005). Introducere în istoria limbii române] [Introduction to the History of Romanian Language]. Editura Fundației România de Mâine. p. 16. ISBN 973-725-219-5.
16. Pană Dindelegan, Gabriela, The Grammar of Romanian, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013, ISBN 978-0-19-964492-6, pages 3 and 4
17. Sala, Marius (2012). De la Latină la Română] [From Latin to Romanian]. Editura Pro Universitaria. p. 44. ISBN 978-606-647-435-1.
18. Schulte, Kim (2009). "Loanwords in Romanian". In Haspelmath, Martin; Tadmor, Uri (eds.). Loanwords in the World's Languages: A Comparative Handbook. De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 231–250. ISBN 978-3-11-021843-5.
19. ^ Pană Dindelegan, Gabriela, The Grammar of Romanian, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013, ISBN 978-0-19-964492-6, page 5
20. Sala, Marius (2012). De la Latină la Română] [From Latin to Romanian]. Editura Pro Universitaria. pp. 63–64. ISBN 978-606-647-435-1.
21. Andreose & Renzi 2013, p. 287.
22. ^ Pană Dindelegan, Gabriela, The Grammar of Romanian, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013, ISBN 978-0-19-964492-6, page 4
23. Ștefan Pascu, Documente străine despre români, ed. Arhivelor statului, București 1992, ISBN 973-95711-2-3
24. ^ Timotin, Emanuela; Stan, Camelia; Maiden, Martin (3 March 2016). Pană Dindelegan, Gabriela (ed.). "The Syntax of Old Romanian - Introduction". Oxford Academic. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198712350.003.0001. Retrieved 3 September 2023.
25. Romanian letter-writing: a cultural-rhetorical perspective
26. Munteanu, Eugen. "Dinamica istorică a cultivării instituționalizate a limbii române". Revista română. Archived from the original on 27 February 2022. Retrieved 11 May 2016., în Iași, vol. IV, no. 4 (34), December 2003, p. 6 (I), no. 1 (35), March 2004, p. 7 (II); no. 2, June 2004, p. 6 (III); no. 3, October 2004, p. 6 (IV); no. 4 (38), December 2004, p. 6 (V). Retrieved 11 May 2016.
27. Vîrban, Floarea (2015). "Aspecte privind structura vocabularului în cel mai vechi octoih în limba română". dspace.bcu-iasi.ro (in Romanian). Archived from the original on 5 September 2023. Retrieved 5 September 2023.
28. "N. Felecan – Considerations on the First Books of Romanian Grammar". Archived from the original on 24 October 2022. Retrieved 24 October 2022.
29. Michael J. F. Suarez; H. R. Woudhuysen (24 October 2013). The Book: A Global History. OUP Oxford. pp. 753–. ISBN 978-0-19-166875-3. Retrieved 30 June 2016.
30. Sala, Marius (2012). De la Latină la Română] [From Latin to Romanian]. Editura Pro Universitaria. p. 159. ISBN 978-606-647-435-1.
31. Ledgeway, Adam; Maiden, Martin, eds. (30 June 2016). The Oxford Guide to the Romance Languages. Oxford University PressOxford. p. 95. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199677108.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-967710-8. Retrieved 29 August 2023.
32. History of Romanian Academy
33. Sala, Marius (2012). De la Latină la Română] [From Latin to Romanian]. Editura Pro Universitaria. p. 160. ISBN 978-606-647-435-1.
34. Pană Dindelegan, Gabriela, The Grammar of Romanian, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013, ISBN 978-0-19-964492-6, page 5
35. ^ Micu, Samuil; Șincai, Gheorghe (1780). Elementa linguae daco-romanae sive valachicae (in Latin). Vienna.
36. (in Russian)Charter for the organization of the Bessarabian Oblast, 29 April 1818, in "Печатается по изданию: Полное собрание законов Российской империи. Собрание первое.", Vol 35. 1818, Sankt Petersburg, 1830, pg. 222–227. Available online at hrono.info Archived 24 September 2012 at the Wayback Machine
37. King, Charles (2000). The Moldovans: Romania, Russia, and the Politics of Culture. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press. pp. 21–22. ISBN 08-1799-792-X.
38. D’hulst, Yves; Coene, Martine; Avram, Larisa (2004). "Syncretic and Analytic Tenses in Romanian: The Balkan Setting of Romance". In Mišeska Tomić, Olga (ed.). Balkan Syntax and Semantics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing. p. 355. doi:10.1075/la.67.18dhu. ISBN 978-90-272-2790-4. general absence of consecutio temporum.
39. "Latin Union – Languages and cultures online 2005". Dtil.unilat.org. Archived from the original on 28 January 2011. Retrieved 23 May 2010.
40. "Languages Spoken by More Than 10 Million People". MSN Encarta. Archived from the original on 29 October 2009.
41. According to the 1993 Statistical Abstract of Israel there were 250,000 Romanian speakers in Israel, of a population of 5,548,523 in 1995 (census).
42. "Reports of about 300,000 Jews that left the country after WW2". Eurojewcong.org. Archived from the original on 31 August 2006. Retrieved 23 May 2010.
43. Laslau, Andi (27 April 2005). "Arabii din Romania, radiografie completa". Evz.ro (in Romanian). Archived from the original on 24 December 2007. Retrieved 23 May 2010.
44. "Tab5. Populatia stabila dupa principalele limbi materne la recensamantul din anul 2011 - rezultate preliminar" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 25 February 2021. Retrieved 26 August 2012.
45. ^ "Dissemination database search". data.stat.gov.rs. Retrieved 22 August 2023.
46. "Hungarian Census 2011" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 17 July 2019. Retrieved 2 April 2013.
47. "Матерњи језик, вероисповест и национална припадност | О ПОПИСУ СТАНОВНИШТВА". popis2022.stat.gov.rs. Archived from the original on 22 August 2023. Retrieved 22 August 2023.
48. Ethnologue.com
49. 2010 Russia Census Archived 22 April 2021 at the Wayback Machine Perepis 2010
50. "Jews, by Country of Origin(1) and Age". CBS, Statistical Abstract of Israel 2013. Israel Central Bureau of Statistics. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 March 2016.
51. "Detailed Languages Spoken at Home and Ability to Speak English for the Population 5 Years and Over: 2009–2013". Census.gov. Archived from the original on 17 April 2020. Retrieved 12 May 2022.
52. Government of Canada, Statistics Canada (2 August 2017). "Mother Tongue (263), Single and Multiple Mother Tongue Responses (3), Age (7) and Sex (3) for the Population Excluding Institutional Residents of Canada, Provinces and Territories, Census Divisions and Census Subdivisions, 2016 Census – 100% Data". www12.statcan.gc.ca. Archived from the original on 12 May 2022. Retrieved 12 May 2022.
53. "Redirect to Census data page". www.abs.gov.au. Archived from the original on 26 July 2020. Retrieved 15 November 2019. c=AU; o=Commonwealth of Australia; ou=Australian Bureau of Statistics.
54. RDSCJ.ro Archived 22 March 2008 at the Wayback Machine
55. "Constitution of Romania". Cdep.ro. Archived from the original on 7 September 2011. Retrieved 23 May 2010.
56. Legea "Pruteanu": 500/2004 – Law on the Protection of the Romanian Language Archived 12 November 2011 at the Wayback Machine
57. Art. 27 (3), Legea nr. 26/1990 privind Registrul Comerțului
58. "Ministry of Education of Romania". Archived from the original on 29 June 2006. Retrieved 19 April 2006.
59. "31 august – Ziua Limbii Române". Agerpres (in Romanian). 31 August 2020. Archived from the original on 25 October 2020. Retrieved 26 November 2020.
60. "De ce este sărbătorită Ziua Limbii Române la 31 august". Historia (in Romanian). 31 August 2020. Archived from the original on 19 March 2022. Retrieved 26 November 2020.
61. "Declarația de independența a Republicii Moldova, Moldova Suverană" (in Romanian). Moldova-suverana.md. Archived from the original on 5 February 2008. Retrieved 9 October 2013.
62. "A Field Guide to the Main Languages of Europe – Spot that language and how to tell them apart" (PDF). European Commission. Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 February 2007. Retrieved 9 October 2013.
63. "Moldovan Court Rules Official Language is 'Romanian', Replacing Soviet-Flavored 'Moldovan'". Fox News. Associated Press. 25 March 2015. Archived from the original on 9 December 2013. Retrieved 7 December 2013.
64. "Moldovan president promulgates law replacing name of state language in country's constitution with 'Romanian'". Interfax. Archived from the original on 6 April 2023. Retrieved 6 April 2023.
65. "Marian Lupu: Româna și moldoveneasca sunt aceeași limbă". Realitatea .NET. Archived from the original on 11 May 2011. Retrieved 7 October 2009.
66. Dalby, Andrew (1998). Dictionary of Languages. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 518. ISBN 07-4753-117-X.
67. Legea cu privire la functionarea limbilor vorbite pe teritoriul RSS Moldovenesti Nr.3465-XI din 01.09.89 Vestile nr.9/217, 1989 Archived 19 February 2006 at the Wayback Machine (Law regarding the usage of languages spoken on the territory of the Republic of Moldova): "Moldavian RSS supports the desire of the Moldavian that live across the borders of the Republic, and – considering the existing Moldo-Romanian linguistic identity – of the Romanians that live on the territory of the USSR, of doing their studies and satisfying their cultural needs in their maternal language."
68. National Bureau of Statistics of the Republic of Moldova: Census 2014 Archived 30 October 2017 at the Wayback Machine
69. "Biroul Național de Statistică, acuzat că a falsificat rezultatele recensământului". Independent (in Romanian). 29 March 2017. Archived from the original on 27 February 2022. Retrieved 27 February 2022.
70. Official Gazette of Republic of Serbia, No.1/90
71. Article 24, "The Statute of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina" Archived 19 October 2017 at the Wayback Machine, published in the Official Gazette of AP Vojvodina No.20/2014
72. "Official Use of Languages and Scripts in the AP Vojvodina". Provincial Secretariat for Education, Regulations, Administration and National Minorities – National Communities. Archived from the original on 27 February 2022. Retrieved 27 February 2022.
73. Provincial Secretariat for Regulations, Administration and National Minorities: "Official use of the Romanian language in the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina (APV)" Archived 11 November 2011 at the Wayback Machine
74. Sorescu-Marinković, Annemarie; Huțanu, Monica (2018). "Non-Dominant Varieties of Romanian in Serbia: Between Pluricentricity and Division". In Muhr, Rudolf; Meisnitzer, Benjamin (eds.). Pluricentric Languages and Non-Dominant Varieties Worldwide: New Pluricentric Languages – Old Problems. Frankfurt: Peter Lang Verlag. pp. 233–246. hdl:21.15107/rcub_dais_5795 – via DAIS – Digital Archive of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts.
75. • "Регіональний портрет України. 2003 р. Чернівецька область". Ukrainian Center for Independent Political Research. Archived from the original on 30 September 2011. Retrieved 23 January 2006.
    • "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 27 April 2012. Retrieved 23 January 2006.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
76. "Internetový časopis človek a spoločnosť". www.clovekaspolocnost.sk. Archived from the original on 14 May 2009.
77. Kramar Andriy. "University of Chernivtsi". Chnu.cv.ua. Archived from the original on 23 July 2011. Retrieved 23 May 2010.
78. "Cursuri de perfecționare" Archived 25 February 2007 at the Wayback Machine, Ziua, 19 August 2005
79. "Data concerning the teaching of the Romanian language abroad" Archived 7 December 2010 at the Wayback Machine, Romanian Language Institute.
80. Delyusto, Maryna (2016). "Mul'tilingval'nyy atlas mezhdurech'ya Dnestra i Dunaya: Istochniki i priyemy sozdaniya" Мультилингвальный атлас междуречья Днестра и Дуная:источники и приемы создания [Multi-Lingual Atlas of Dialects Spread Between the Danube and the Dniester Rivers: Sources and Tools of Creation]. Journal of Danubian Studies and Research (in Russian). 6 (1): 362–369. Archived from the original on 1 December 2017. Retrieved 28 December 2017.
81. Arjocu, Florin (29 June 2020). "Satul din România unde se vorbește o limbă secretă. Tălăuzești gumuțeasca?". Știri România (in Romanian). Archived from the original on 11 April 2021. Retrieved 11 April 2021.
82. Florea, Sorin (1 June 2020). "Care este satul din România unde se vorbește o limbă secretă?". Shtiu (in Romanian). Archived from the original on 11 April 2021. Retrieved 11 April 2021.
83. "În localitatea Totoi, județul Alba, se vorbește o limbă specifică locului". Realitatea TV (in Romanian). 19 January 2009. Archived from the original on 12 April 2021. Retrieved 12 April 2021.
84. Arsenie, Dan (9 December 2011). "Totoiana – messengerul de pe uliță. Povestea unei limbi inventate de români". GreatNews.ro (in Romanian). Archived from the original on 12 April 2021. Retrieved 12 April 2021.
85. "'Limba intoarsă' vorbită în Totoi". Ziare.com (in Romanian). 2 November 2009. Archived from the original on 12 April 2021. Retrieved 12 April 2021.
86. ^ Stoica, Vasile (1919). The Roumanian Question: The Roumanians and their Lands. Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh Printing Company. p. 50. Archived from the original on 29 December 2017. Retrieved 8 October 2013.
87. Pei, Mario (1949). Story of Language. Lippincott. ISBN 03-9700-400-1.
88. Ethnologue, Romanian Archived 25 May 2020 at the Wayback Machine
89. Sandiuc, Corina (1 November 2014). "Languages and cultures in contact: The French language and the maritime terminology". Diversitate Si Identitate Culturala in Europa. 11 (2). ISSN 2067-0931. Archived from the original on 1 December 2017. Retrieved 21 November 2017.
90. Mišeska Tomić, Olga (2006). Balkan Sprachbund Morpho-Syntactic Features. Springer. p. 27. ISBN 978-1-4020-4487-8.
91. Schulte, Kim (2009). "Loanwords in Romanian". In Haspelmath, Martin; Tadmor, Uri (eds.). Loanwords in the World's Languages: A Comparative Handbook. De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 230–259. ISBN 978-3-11-021843-5.
92. Lindstedt, J. (2000). "Linguistic Balkanization: Contact-induced change by mutual reinforcement". In D. G. Gilbers; et al. (eds.). Languages in Contact. Studies in Slavic and General Linguistics, 28. Amsterdam & Atlanta, GA: Rodopi. p. 235. ISBN 90-4201-322-2.
93. ^ Marius Sala (coord), Mihaela Bîrlădeanu, Maria Iliescu, Liliana Macarie, Ioana Nichita, Mariana Ploae-Hanganu, Maria Theban, Ioana Vintilă-Rădulescu, Vocabularul reprezentativ al limbilor romanice (VRLR) (Bucharest: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, 1988).
94. Schulte, Kim. Loanwords in Romanian., published in Martin Haspelmath; Uri Tadmor (22 December 2009). Loanwords in the World's Languages: A Comparative Handbook. Walter de Gruyter. p. 243. ISBN 978-3-11-021844-2.
95. Macrea, Dimitrie (1961). "Originea și structura limbii române (7–45)". Probleme de lingvistică română (in Romanian). Bucharest: Editura Științifică. p. 32.
96. Pană Dindelegan, Gabriela, ed. (2013). The Grammar of Romanian (1st ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 3. ISBN 9780199644926.
97. ^ Keith Hitchins (20 February 2014). A Concise History of Romania. Cambridge University Press. p. 19. ISBN 978-0-521-87238-6.
98. Virginia Hill; Gabriela Alboiu (2016). Verb Movement and Clause Structure in Old Romanian. Oxford University Press. p. xv. ISBN 978-0-19-873650-9.
99. ^ Bernard Comrie (13 January 2009). The World's Major Languages. Routledge. p. 266. ISBN 978-1-134-26156-7.
100. Margaret E. L. Renwick (2014). The Phonetics and Phonology of Contrast: The Case of the Romanian Vowel System. De Gruyter. pp. 44–5. ISBN 978-3-11-036277-0.
101. Dama, Hans (2006). "Lexikale Einflüsse im Rumänischen aus dem österreichischen Deutsch" [Lexical influences of 'Austrian'-German on the Romanian language] (PDF). Philologica Jassyensia (in German). 2 (1): 105–110. Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 March 2022. Retrieved 27 February 2022.
102. Zafiu, Rodica (2009). "Mișto și legenda bastonului". România literară (in Romanian). No. 6. Archived from the original on 21 September 2018. Retrieved 21 September 2018. There is no doubt among linguists about the Romany etymology of the Romanian word mișto, but a fairly widespread folk etymology and urban legend maintains that the German phrase mit Stock 'with stick' would be its true origin.
103. Vocabularul reprezentativ diferă de vocabularul fundamental (VF) și de fondul principal lexical (FP). Cf. SCL (Studii și cercetări lingvistice), an XXVII (1976), nr. 1, p. 61-66 și SCL (1974) nr. 3, p. 247. Cf. Theodor Hristea, "Structura generală a lexicului românesc", Sinteze de limba română, eds., Theodor Hristea (coord.), Mioara Avram, Grigore Brâncuș, Gheorghe Bulgăr, Georgeta Ciompec, Ion Diaconescu, Rodica Bogza-Irimie & Flora Șuteu (Bucharest: 1984), 13.
104. *Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române, Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică "Iorgu Iordan", Editura Univers Enciclopedic, 1998
105. Bălhuc, Paul (15 January 2017). "Câte litere are cel mai lung cuvânt din limba română și care este singurul termen ce conține toate vocalele". Adevărul (in Romanian). Archived from the original on 17 April 2021. Retrieved 10 February 2021.
106. "Electroglotospectrografie". Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române (in Romanian). Archived from the original on 17 April 2021. Retrieved 10 February 2021.
107. "Curiozități lingvistice: cele mai lungi cuvinte din limba română". Dicție.ro (in Romanian). 2 December 2020. Archived from the original on 10 February 2021. Retrieved 10 February 2021.
108. Săvescu, Oana (2012). "When Syncretism Meets Word Order. On Clitic Order in Romanian". Probus. 24 (2): 233–256. doi:10.1515/probus-2012-0010. S2CID 194568315.
109. Baynes, Thomas Spencer, ed. (1898). "Vlachs". Encyclopædia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and General Literature. Vol. 24 (9th ed.). Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black. p. 269.
110. Sarlin, Mika (2014). Romanian Grammar (2nd ed.). Helsinki: Books on Demand. p. 15. ISBN 9789522868985.
111. Dyer, Donald L. (1999). "Some Influences of Russian on the Romanian of Moldova during the Soviet Period". The Slavic and East European Journal. 43 (1): 85–98. doi:10.2307/309907. JSTOR 309907.
112. (in Romanian) Several Romanian dictionaries specify the pronunciation for word-initial letter e in some personal pronouns: el, ei, etc. Archived 26 December 2007 at the Wayback Machine and in some forms of the verb a fi (to be): este, eram, etc. Archived 27 July 2009 at the Wayback Machine
113. (in Romanian) Mioara Avram, Ortografie pentru toți, Editura Litera, Chișinău, 1997, p. 29
114. The new edition of "Dicționarul ortografic al limbii române (ortoepic, morfologic, cu norme de punctuație)" – introduced by the Academy of Sciences of Moldova and recommended for publishing following a conference on 15 November 2000 – applies the decision of the General Meeting of the Romanian Academy from 17 February 1993, regarding the reintroduction to "â" and "sunt" in the orthography of the Romanian language. (Introduction, Institute of Linguistics of the Academy of Sciences of Moldova)
115. "Gheorghe Duca: Trebuie schimbată atitudinea de sorginte proletară față de savanți și în genere față de intelectuali" (in Romanian). Allmoldova. 4 June 2010. Archived from the original on 22 July 2011. Retrieved 3 January 2011.

Bibliography

• Andreose, Alvise; Renzi, Lorenzo (2013). "Geography and Distribution of the Romance Languages in Europe". In Maiden, Martin; Smith, John Charles; Ledgeway, Adam (eds.). The Cambridge History of the Romance Languages. Vol. 2: Contexts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 283–334. ISBN 978-0-521-80073-0.
• Giurescu, Constantin C. (1972). The Making of the Romanian People and Language. Bucharest: Meridiane.
• Kahl, Thede, ed. (2009). Das Rumänische und seine Nachbarn (in German). Berlin: Frank & Timme.
• Paliga, Sorin (2010). "When Could Be Dated the 'Earliest Slavic Borrowings in Romanian'?" (PDF). Romanoslavica. 46 (4): 101–119. Archived (PDF) from the original on 27 June 2019. Retrieved 27 June 2019.
• Petrucci, Peter R. (1999). Slavic Features in the History of Rumanian. München: LINCOM Europa. ISBN 38-9586-599-0.
• Rosetti, Alexandru (1965–1969). Istoria limbii române (in Romanian). Vol. 1–2. București: Editura științifică.
• Hinrichs, Uwe, ed. (1999). Handbuch der Südosteuropa-Linguistik (in German). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.

External links

• SAMPA for Romanian
• Romanian Reference Grammar, by Dana Cojocaru, University of Bucharest (183 pages) – 4.6 MB – pdf
• USA Foreign Service Institute (FSI) Romanian basic course
• Romanian basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database

• Definitions from Wiktionary
• Media from Commons
• Textbooks from Wikibooks
• Resources from Wikiversity
• Phrasebook from Wikivoyage
• Romanian edition of Misplaced Pages
• Data from Wikidata

Links to related articles

v t e Dialects of the Eastern Romance languages Classical Latin → Vulgar Latin → Common Romanian → Eastern Romance languages Romanian dialects Northern variants Moldavian Moldavian Bukovinian Transylvanian Transylvanian Crișana, divided into several subdialects Maramureș Banat Banat Boyash Southern variants Muntenian Muntenian Oltenian Oltenian †Dician †Dician (original Dobrujan dialect) Romanian-based argots/speech forms* Gumuțeasca Totoiana Aromanian dialects Northern Farsherot Grabovean/Moscopolean Muzachiar Gopeš–Malovište Gorna Belica–Dolna Belica Southern Pindean Olympian Gramostean Megleno-Romanian dialects Northern Northern Southern Southern Istro-Romanian dialects In Istria Northern Northern Southern Southern (variants between villages) †In Krk †Krko-Romanian †Krko-Romanian * = Not strictly dialects; † = extinct v t e Românofonia Click on the coloured regions on the map to get to the related article: *Romanian is also an official language of the Latin Union.  Official and national language    Official but not primary language    National minority language    EU    Romanian diaspora  v t e Romance languages (classification) Major branches Eastern Italo-Western Italo-Dalmatian Western Southern Eastern Aromanian Istro-Romanian Megleno-Romanian Daco-Romanian dialects Banat Bukovinian Crișana Maramureș Moldavian Oltenian Transylvanian Wallachian Common Romanian Italo- Dalmatian Central Central Italian Central Marchigiano Ancona Fabriano Macerata Central−Northern Latian Romanesco Sabino Corsican Gallurese Italian Italo-Australian Maltese Italian Regional Italian Swiss Italian Sassarese Tuscan Florentine Southern Extreme Southern Italian Central−Southern Calabrian Salentino Manduriano Sicilian Pantesco Neapolitan–Calabrese Neapolitan Barese Benevento Castelmezzano Cilentan Irpinian Arianese Molisan Southern Latian Tarantino Vastese Northern Calabrian Others Dalmatian Romance Dalmatian Istriot Judeo-Italian Western Gallo-Italic Emilian–Romagnol Emilian Bolognese Parmigiano Romagnol Forlivese Old Romagnol Sammarinese Gallo-Italic of Basilicata Gallo-Italic of Sicily Gallo-Picene Ligurian Brigasc Genoese Intemelio Monégasque Royasc Tabarchino Judeo-Italian Lombard Eastern Bergamasque Cremish Western Brianzöö Canzés Bustocco–Legnanese Comasco–Lecchese Comasco Laghée Lecchese Vallassinese Milanese Ossolano Southwestern Cremunés Novarese Pavese Ticinese Varesino Old Lombard Old Romagnol Piedmontese Judeo-Piedmontese Gallo- Romance Langues d'oïl Angevin Berrichon Bourbonnais Burgundian Champenois Ardennais Rémois Frainc-Comtou Gallo French Jersey Legal Meridional North American dialects Canadian Acadian Chiac St. Marys Bay French Brayon Newfoundland Quebec Joual Magoua Franco-Ontarian Métis Muskrat New England Frenchville Louisiana Houma Missouri Creoles Lorrain Gaumais Vosgien Welche Mayennais Moselle Romance Norman Anglo-Norman Auregnais Guernésiais Jèrriais Sercquiais Law French Augeron Cauchois Cotentinais Orléanais Paydret Picard Poitevin–Saintongeais Poitevin Saintongeais Walloon West Walloon Wisconsin Walloon Franco-Provençal/Arpitan Faetar Savoyard Valdôtain Old Gallo-Romance Ibero- Romance (West Iberian) Asturleonese Asturian Eastern Western Cantabrian Leonese Bercian Paḷḷuezu Palra Riberan Riunorese Mirandese Old Leonese Galician–Portuguese Fala Galician Galician–Asturian/Eonavian Portuguese dialects African Asian Brazilian Mineiro European Alentejan Oliventine Estremenho Minderico Northern Uruguayan Creoles Portugis Judeo-Portuguese Castilian Extremaduran Judeo-Spanish Haketia Tetuani Spanish dialects Equatoguinean Latin American Chilean Chilote Peruvian Peruvian Ribereño Rioplatense Peninsular Andalusian Llanito Castilian Castrapo Castúo Murcian Philippine Saharan Creoles Old Spanish Pyrenean–Mozarabic Andalusi Romance Navarro-Aragonese Aragonese Central Eastern Ribagorçan Benasquese Judeo-Aragonese Southern Somontanés Navalese Western Aisinian Ansó Aragüés Hecho Navarrese Old Navarrese Others Barranquenho (mixed Portuguese–Spanish) Caló (mixed Romani–Ibero- and Occitano-Romance) Occitano- Romance Catalan dialects Eastern Algherese Balearic Mallorcan Menorcan Central Northern Judeo-Catalan Patuet Western Ribagorçan Valencian Occitan Auvergnat Gascon Aranese Béarnese Landese Judeo-Gascon Judeo-Provençal Languedocien Limousin Provençal Niçard Vivaro-Alpine Gardiol Mentonasc Old Occitan Old Catalan Rhaeto- Romance Friulian Fornes Ladin Cadorino Nones Romansh Jauer Putèr Surmiran Sursilvan Vallader Others Franco-Italian Mediterranean Lingua Franca (Western Romance-based pidgin) Venetian (unknown further classification) Chipilo Fiuman Talian Triestine Others African Romance British Latin Pannonian Latin Sardinian Campidanese Logudorese Reconstructed Proto-Romance Italics indicate extinct languages Bold indicates languages with more than 5 million speakers Languages between parentheses are varieties of the language on their left. v t e Languages of Romania Official language Romanian Regional or minority languages Albanian Armenian Bulgarian Croatian Czech German Greek Hungarian Italian Macedonian Polish Romani Russian Rusyn Serbian Slovak Tatar Turkish Ukrainian Yiddish Sign languages Romanian Sign Language v t e Languages of Hungary Official language(s) Hungarian Minority languages Croatian German Greek Hungarian Sign Language Romani Romanian Serbian Slovak Slovene Extinct languages Cuman Jassic Kipchak Pecheneg See Also: Minority languages of Hungary v t e Languages of Moldova Official language Romanian Minority languages Bulgarian Gagauz Romani Russian Ukrainian Sign languages Russian Sign Language v t e Languages of Serbia Official language Serbian Minority languages Albanian Bosnian Bulgarian Croatian Hungarian Macedonian Slovak Romani Romanian Rusyn Sign languages Yugoslav Sign Language v t e Languages of Ukraine Official languages Ukrainian dialects Indigenous languages Crimean Tatar dialects Karaim Krymchak Minority languages Recognized Belarusian Bulgarian Gagauz German (Zipser) Greek (Ruméika) Hungarian Polish (Lviv Southern Kresy) Romanian Moldovan Russian Slovak Yiddish Unrecognized Albanian Armenian Azerbaijani Romani (Carpathian Vlax) Swedish Turkish Urum Sign languages Ukrainian Sign Language Related Language policy in Ukraine Balachka Surzhyk Category

• Romanian language
• Languages of Austria
• Languages of Hungary
• Languages of Kazakhstan
• Languages of Moldova
• Languages of Romania
• Languages of Russia
• Languages of Serbia
• Languages of Transnistria
• Languages of Ukraine
• Languages of Vojvodina