Romanian language
a language with lots of curiosities
Romanian language is an isle of Latinity in the Slavic ocean. This is an obvious fact. But how comes?
How could Romanian people keep their language along the centuries even they were under Turkish, Hungarian, Austrian, Polish and Russian rules for long time?
Scholars say that our language is a Romance language. The only Romance language developed in the Eastern part of Latin Europe.
But first were Dacian people and their language. We keep words from them in domains like agriculture, viticulture, cattle and bee keeping or crafts.
All these works were Dacian occupations. We consider them traditional occupation because they were sent to us from father to son. Many of them are practiced even today very close to the way Dacians did it 2000 years ago. Also, a lot of words from family area as well as for human body parts have Dacian origins.
Still, the largest part of Romanian words has Latin origin. And Romanian Grammar is the closest grammar to the Latin, besides all Romance languages. Scholars say that in 165 years of Roman colonization (2th-3th centuries) the autochthon people (Dacians) assimilated Romance language.
There are also a lot of words of Slavic origin, keeping the evidence of Slavic people passing over / settling on these lands on 7th-9th centuries. They influenced our language, but didn't replace it as it happened in the other Slavic countries. Still, the Slavic influence was so powerful that, during the 19th century, Romanian linguists started to re-Latinize Romanian language.
During the 19th and 20th centuries Romanians borrowed many words from other languages, especially French. Due to the many people who study in France, Romania became a Francophile country.
Romanian language continues to change even now. Since the Revolution in 1989, Romania has been opened up to the whole world. Nevertheless, business relationships and especially the Internet bring us a strong influence of American English. Back to Facts about Romania
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