Talk:Romanian language/Archive 1

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Old Talk

No matter what the discussion is about the truth must prevail.How can Kricxjo pretend that the discussion is minor.If you can't explain a fact that means you have to work more to find the truth.No way to give definition before you know the facts.Fact is that nowhere in this world was there seen such a phenomenon.To conquer a small piece of land and the rest of the country to voluntarily change its language and customs.What I want to say is that everybody is saying:"Dacia was conquered" and nothing more.What if there is more.Let's open the door that nobody wants to open.The facts are known to everyone. This is not something I made up in my romanian head.Dacia,England,Italy,Germany have a common history but the truth must be equal for all.How can some one decide that "Dacia was conquered"and don't even know what it is about.The information on Wikipedia must be trustworthy.OK. So if you say the truth about Dacia nobody will trust you?What is going on guys?It is about truth, not Romanians nor English.What we are doing over here is verifying the facts which will bring us closer to the truth. Jacob Stirbu-Ann Arbor Michigan

You deleted the discussion so that no one would see the arguments against your posting of theories, which is a very dishonest tactic. I stand by what I wrote. Wikipedia is too present tried-and-true information. If you have your own theory, you should convince the scholarly community instead of talking about it here on Wikipedia, where you merely make articles less trustworthy and more reminiscent of cranks. Kricxjo 22:22 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Hi Jacob, I'm a Romanian myself, and I'm trying to be as neutral as I can be. I have to say Kricxjo is right, what you're saying is polemics, not verified facts, and this is an encyclopedic project, not a project debating the truth in whatever area. Please note neither Kricxjo nor myself are denying your theories a priori -- just back them up with some substance and everybody will be happy to see them included in the main article. Also, please don't take this personal, I can see you're very patriotic and I appreciate that, but please try to look at this from a NPOV and you'll see pure theories are not really what's expected in an encyclopedia. And finally, I'm sure you deleted the previous discussion only because you thought it wasn't needed anymore -- but Kricxjo is right again, as long as the topic is still debated, please don't delete anything else, it does indeed look like you wanted to remove the other party's replies. Gutza 02:07 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)

"To put an end to this disgraceful arrangement, Trajan resolved to crush the Dacians once and for all. The result of his first campaign (101-102) was the siege of the Dacian capital Sarmizegetusa, and the occupation of a part of the country; of the second (105-106), the suicide of Decebalus, the conquest of the whole kingdom and its conversion into a Roman province. The history of the war is given in Dio Cassius, but the best commentary upon it is the famous Column of Trajan in Rome. The province was limited to Transylvania and Oltenia. It was under a governor of praetorian rank, and Legio XIII Gemina with numerous auxiliaries had their fixed quarters in the province. To make up for the ravages caused by the recent wars colonists were imported to cultivate the land and work the mines, and the old inhabitants gradually returned. Forts were built as a protection against the incursions of the surrounding barbarians, and three great military roads were constructed to unite the chief towns, while a fourth, named after Trajan, traversed the Carpathians and entered Transylvania by the Roteturm pass. The chief towns of the province were Colonia Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa (today Sarmizegetusa, Hunedoara county, Romania), Apulum (today Alba-Iulia, Alba county), Napoca (today Cluj-Napoca, Cluj county) and Potaissa (today Turda, Cluj county). With the religion the Dacians also adopted the language of the conquerors, modern Romanian language being a Romance language.

"In 129, under Hadrian, Dacia was divided into Dacia Superior and Dacia Inferior, the former comprising Transylvania, the latter Little Walachia or Oltenia. Marcus Aurelius redivided it into three (tres Daciae): Porolissensis, from the chief town Porolissum (near Moigrad, Salaj county), Apulensis from Apulum and Malvensis from Malva (site unknown). The tres Daciae formed a commune in so far that they had a common capital, Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa, and a common diet, which discussed provincial affairs, formulated complaints and adjusted the incidence of taxation; but in other respects they were practically independent provinces, each under an ordinary procurator, subordinate to a governor of consular rank."

I deleted the discussion by mistake and I am sorry.It looks like both of you are missing the point.One of you seems to be against only because of"romanian"the other one in favor because of "romanian".I copied a text from Wikipedia only to show you my point.As you can see in the beginning in the same phrase the author says that only a part of the country was occupied and the whole kingdom was conquered and transformed into a Roman province.Do any of you describe what happened?And as you may see everybody is doing almost the same mistake.Take a map and try to see what happened.It is not about some foolish theories,it is just a very simple question.How?I didn't make any affirmation.All I have written was an interrogation.You took it personal.Why?There is someone annoyed by Romanians or by the weaknesses shown by some linguistic theories.Let's try to rewrite the article in a logical way and you will see that the house doesn't have a foundation.

The truth is that only a part of the country was conquered and everything that we know about the Roman conquest in Dacia should refer strictly to that region.Nobody knows exactly what happened in the surrounding Dacian area.And if you say what you don't know you are not telling the truth.As you can see even later Hadrian divided that small part conquered into Dacia Inferior and Superior and the text mentioned those two provinces corectly which still represent about 14% of Dacia.

I'm not sure if we're missing the point, but I'm pretty sure you misunderstood my position: I'm not in favor of these theories. I've read about them in the original book (Nu suntem urmasii Romei - We're not Rome's descendants) and I didn't agree then either.
Now, sticking to the topic at hand, the fact that you deleted the original text confused me (and I guess Kricxjo as well). Looking at the article history I can see you didn't post any theories indeed, but Bogdangiusca. Sorry for the confusion.
So then, what is your opinion on this issue? --Gutza 10:37 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Gutza, I've never heard of the book Nu suntem urmasii Romei and it sounds interesting. Could you do a short article on the book and its thesis? Kricxjo 14:25 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)

You can check the author's site here: http://www.dr-savescu.com

The whole book is available as PDF in Romanian, but there is quite some English content there as well, I think you can get an idea -- take a look at his own NOT "ROME'S DESCENDANTS", BUT RATHER... VICEVERSA! chapter. --Gutza 16:19 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Still me. I went through the section linked above, and I have to say the English version (although written a lot clumsier than the Romanian one) is a lot better, and does indeed raise some questions. The book itself (in Romanian) is too aggressive to be taken seriously, it has the tone of a scandal tabliod. But the English version is much more tempered (albeit still aggressive on occasion) and much more concise, and I found quite a few intriguing bits of information -- it's worth a read, just keep cool and look for the facts instead of getting annoyed with his arrogance. --Gutza 16:56 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)

just a technical question: Why this link doesn't work ? ro:Limba română ((ro:Limba rom& acirc;n& #259;))

Fixed. See Wikipedia:How to edit a page (also available in Romanian), at "External Links" (or Link extern) under section "Links, URLs, images" (Link-uri, URL-uri, imagini). --Gutza 15:58 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)
I deleted the page because I couldn't write on it ,or I believed so.The so called studies about Romanian language are substituting the terms"part of Dacia" with "Dacia".It is similar with substituting Sicilia with Italiy this is my point.Everithig writen about this subject is confusing because it does not refear to the region known as Dacia Romana.I read a lot of theories also but as I see it is only about who cries louder.What I propose is something that nobody can deny.As you can see the example above the author has no problem,in order to show up his theories,in swiching from "part of a counry" to "whole kingdom" and next he said"the province was limited to Transilvania and Oltenia".What I am trying to say is my own idea it is not taken from any book.I just noticed that facts doesn't match.The roof is nice but this building doesn't have foundation.We use to say "...because of...".In this particular case"because of"does not exist.Behind a lot of words there is in fact nothing.I didn't hear any comentary about this,and this was my point from the biginning.Do I see wrong?About the deleated text:I was expected the window to be clear,the cursor was on the bottom so I believed is my window and I have to clear it before I write.Anyway I still do not understand how this is working.Jac.
Lucky me.I remembered the thought:"the devil is in details".What I want to say is that all the scolar's theories about Romanian language are based on this confusion -part-whole.If thei would have spoken about-part-they have no theory ,so they decided to trick us and swich part with whole.In everything you read swich back "wole" to "part" and put doun the result.I am preaty sure that our discution is more than what they have. Jac
As I see nobody is more interested to do any comments.So I came back to my first affirmation:there is no proof that Dacia was conquered.
 C c       /c/     Like in 'cat'

Something here is wrong - cat has /k/, not /c/, but I don't know enough about romanian to tell whether it really uses /c/ or /k/. Anyone know?

Feel free to change the phonetic representation of the first letter in "cat", the person who wrote that probably didn't know a lot more about phonetics than I do, but I can tell you Romanian uses whatever that first letter in "cat" is phonetically. :) BTW, just to verify this, can you please exemplify the use of /c/ in English, so I can confirm that's not how we use letter "c"? -- Gutza 12:56, 12 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Well, there is no /c/ in English. It's a palatal stop, sort of a cross between <ch> (/tS/) and <k>. Morwen
Ok, checked your changes in the main page, and it looks just fine. Thank you! -- Gutza 21:02, 12 Aug 2003 (UTC)
As I see dear "guta"you have too much of C c or K K in your head to understand how to behave in a disscution.Here is not about yor KK.But as a lot of people you think that by puting his smell on a thing nobody will see the reality.The materils which you reffer to is just childish talk.As you see Dio Casius explain very well how the things happene.The romans conquered a part of Dacia,the population run away and colonists were brought in.So how come that 86% of a teritory together with its population,which fought for centuries against the roman empire,came to change its language into a "vulgar latin"one.I don't have to prove that Romanian is not a latin language.I wait for some one to prove me that it is."Nea Guta"can you prove it ?If not please keep fresh your deep thoughts about C C or KK. JAC.
Just to ackowledge reading this, and to let you know I'm not interested in this kind of discussion. (For the English speakers, "KK" is pronounced much like "sh*t" in Romanian.) --Gutza 00:03, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)


Happy New Year, Many New Articles in Romanian !

Gentlemen,

Please hit the space bar once or twice after each full dot and comma ! Thank you. As for discussions, please, please, just refer to facts, and discuss them as serenely and as competently as possible. Ad hominem in lieu of ad rem only takes reading time, wiki bandwidth (already congested) - to say nothing about your wasted energy. Energy is good in productive, constructive, standard building processes. Happy new year, peace and prosperity, as well as lots of wiki articles in Romanian ! irismeister 17:54, 2003 Dec 31 (UTC)

"{Dacian words} have a cognate in Albanian language"

195.92.67.78 removed it and claimed it was a false statement. Why false ? The words exist! Bogdan | Talk 12:38, 17 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Currently in article: "In other countries (excepting Hungary) the Romanian minority has very few rights regarding the use of their language in schools and institutions." I would argue strongly that this is not the case for the (admittedly small) Romanian minority in the US. While I am, admittedly, unaware of any public schools offering classes specifically for Romanian speakers, that is entirely to be expected for what is not even among the dozen leading languages of the country. However, I am quite certain that there are no restrictions at all against Romanians in the US privately setting up schools or other institutions that function, to whatever degree they desire, in Romanian. A Romanian-speaker charged with a crime in the US would typically be entitled to the services of an appropriate court interpreter, similarly (at least in most parts of the country) serious efforts would be made to provide appropriate medical interpreters; admittedly, in some regions of the US it would be hard to find a qualified interepreter, but that doesn't seem like a deprivation of rights, just the simple fact that if you venture into (say) Montana, you are going to have a darned hard time finding anyone who speaks anything other than English, probably some Spanish, and maybe something he or she picked up in school, which would probably be French or German. Or did whoever wrote this have something else in mind? Anyway, I suspect the situation in Canada (another mentioned country) would be pretty similar.

If I'm just misunderstanding the sentence (which is entirely possible) it could probably use clarification in the article. -- Jmabel 06:37, 18 Jan 2004 (UTC)

That was about the situation in Eastern European countries (like Serbia, Russia or Greece). I was probably not very clear. (That paragraph should be expanded to be the situation in each country, anyway) Bogdan | Talk 09:15, 18 Jan 2004 (UTC)

The Romanian territory was inhabited in ancient times by the Dacians, who spoke an Indo-European language, the Dacian language about which there is very little knowledge, but some linguists think that it was fairly close to Latin.

Which linguists thing Dacian was fairly close to Latin? Of course they were cousins, for they were presumably both IE languages, but the only people who would assert a closer relationship are the cranks who believe the Romans came to Italy from Romania and so Romania is the original Latin-language homeland.

Romania is one of the possible "homelands" of the Indo-Europeans. See the maps: [1], [2].
We also know that Romans settled in Italy only on about 1000 BC, see roman-empire.net.
Not only this, but the poetic view of Virgilius goes to the founding of Rome by Aeneas, who was of Thracian descent.

I will remove this final clause "but some linguists..." unless someone can give a reason that it should stay there.

AFAIK Bogdan Petriceicu-Hasdeu and Ovid Densusianu were the first to sustain this theory.Bogdan | Talk 20:40, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I say we stick those names in the article rather than "some linguists". Anyone have a problem with that? -- Jmabel 23:26, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)

SAMPA [3] says that Romanian has eight vowels, comparing with our article's seven.

Should i_0 -- voiceless i that can be found at the end of some words, mostly plurals, like in "flori" (flowers) -- be considered a different vowel than the regular i, like in "doi" (two) ? Bogdan | Talk 18:56, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

From the point of view of writing out pronunciations, it might be a good idea. As a foreigner who had to learn the language as an adult, I at first found this very confusing, especially because it isn't always totally voiceless, and it does slightly affect the sound of the preceding consonant. -- Jmabel 01:01, 5 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Recent edits

The 3 June 2004 edits by User:198.53.117.140 strike me as basically wrongheaded and possibly driven by nationalistic beliefs rather than a knowledge of linguistic history. However, there are other people involved in this article with more knowledge of the topic than I have, and I hesitate to simply revert. I am calling everyone's attention to these edits: my suspicion is that all or some of the earlier text was more on the mark, and someone with more knowledge of the history of the language than I should examine them point by point. -- Jmabel 21:27, Jun 4, 2004 (UTC)


Hi, I reverted the edits as this guy introduced some nationalistic stuff that can not be supported by any facts. He also removed facts, which he does not like. The thesis that almost all words for tools are of Dacian origin has no point as we know very litle about Dacian language.Yeti 14:29, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)

A recent anon. edit added (without further comment) Ukraine as a place where the Romanian minority has rights regarding the use of their language in schools and institutions. I have no idea of the factuality of this, & no references were provided. Does anyone know more? -- Jmabel 18:41, Jun 23, 2004 (UTC)

Why are my edits vandalized? I wrote that Romanian is well protected in Hungary and Ukraine, and then I see written, that in Serbia and in Ukraine, romanian language has only few rights, and that is not well protected. Please read this article. Indeed it says that romanians and moldovans are artificialy separated, but that because romanians in Odessa and some romanians from Cernauti tend to declare themselves moldovans in census. That is not Ukraine's fault. Then it says:

In Ucraina functioneaza 107 scoli cu predarea tuturor materiilor de invatamant in limba romana, in care fac studiile mai mult de 25.000 de elevi. Pregatirea cadrelor pentru scoli generale si licee cu predarea in limba romana se efectueaza in Universitatea Nationala din Cernauti, Universitatea de Stat din Ujgorod, Institutul Pedagogic din Izmail si in alte institutii specializate de invatamant.
In limba romana apar 12 ziare, printre care si "Concordia", editia Radei Supreme a Ucrainei. Emisiunile in limba romana la TV cuprind 158 de ore pe an, la radioul public - 356 de ore pe an. In regiunea Cernauti, unde locuieste cea mai numeroasa comunitate romana (15% din totalul populatiei regiunii), emisiunile in limba romana la TV reprezinta 31,5%, la radioul public - 25%.
In Ucraina functioneaza aproape 150 de parohii ortodoxe, in lacasurile carora slujbele religioase se tin in limba romana. In regiunea Cernauti functioneaza 74 case de cultura, 3 scoli de arta plastica, 80 de biblioteci. In anul 2000, cu sustinerea financiara a autoritatilor din Cernauti, a fost instalat monumentul marelui poet roman Mihai Eminescu.

So it makes a summary of how the romanian language is protected. And it is well protected. Of course, it could be better, like you can see in the conclusions:

Ucraina nu respecta articolul 13 din tratatul politic de baza cu privire la minoritatea romana:

  • nu exista nici un liceu de limba romana in acceptiunea romaneasca a termenului;
  • nu exista invatamant de specialitate in limba romana la universitatile din Cernauti si Ujgorod: matematica, fizica, chimie, biologie etc.;
  • exista doar o grupa de limba romana la Facultatea de Filologie din Universitatea de la Cernauti, dar nici acolo nu se predau disciplinele cele mai importante in limba romana;
  • foarte multi romani au fost ocoliti la recensamant;
  • "se recomanda" introducerea limbii ucrainene in toate scolile si bisericile romanesti;

bibliotecile si casele de cultura stau inchise;

  • absolventii care au primit burse in Romania nu sunt angajati cand se intorc acasa.

But that doesn't mean that the language is not protected.

Then again, I'd like to talk to you about Serbia. Of course, the rights granted here to the romanian minority are limited, because the it numbers only some 30.000 people. That all in Vojvodina, where it is an official language. People can study in their native language, romanian language is studied at the Novi Sad University, romanians can interact with the autorities in their native language.

Problems are only in Timok Valley (Serbia), that concerning the Vlachs. They donnot have schools, religios service in their language and cannot contact officials in their native language. And they are not yet reconised officialy as romanians, they are considered to be Vlachs. Then again it is estimated that in Serbia live some 200.000-300.000 Vlachs and not 40.000. So there you have problems with the protection of the minority, and not in Ukraine and Vojvodina (Serbia). --Danutz

In "Ukraine-Romania Treaty" of 1997 you can read on the article 13, about languages:
[...]
"5. Partile contractante vor crea, pentru persoanele apartinând minoritatii române din Ucraina si pentru cele apartinând minoritatii ucrainene din România, aceleasi conditii pentru studierea limbii lor materne. Partile contractante - reafirma ca persoanele sus-mentionate au dreptul sa fie instruite în limba lor materna, într-un numar necesar de scoli si institutii de stat pentru învatamânt si specializare, situate tinând seama de raspândirea geografica a minoritatilor respective."
The fact that you found just one Bucharest newspaper article as source of information is very sugestive about state of isolation of those Romanians and I don't know how is possible to consider that Romanian language is protected, even counting those 107 schools in Ukraine.
--Vasile 15:44, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Danutz, your edit wasn't "vandalized." You made it anonymously, without citing any sources at the time. I left a note (above; if you hadn't been anonymous, I'd have also pinged your talk page) "...I have no idea of the factuality of this, & no references were provided..." No one responded. Someone (not me) reverted your edit. Now you've provided some sources, and we can presumably debate the case on its merits, and some decision will be reached. -- Jmabel 17:28, Jun 29, 2004 (UTC)

I return with some new sources. On the official Ukraine guvernamental site, one can find info about the romanian minority in Cernăuţi Oblast. It says:
Representatives of nationalities are active participants of the state management processes in the region. Among 4153 deputies of regional, city, district, village and settlement councils ? 477 are Romanians and 147 and Moldavians (22,8% of all deputy corps). In Chernivets?ky regional council the number of Romanians and Moldavians constitutes 18%, in Hertsajivs?ky district council ? 95%, Hlybots?ky ? 50%, Novoselyts?ky ? 63,3%, Storozhynets?ky _ 30%. 37 Romanians and 22 Moldavians are heads of 283 regional, city, village and settlement councils, totally? 22,8% on 19,7% of general quantity of Roman speaking population of the region.
Regional power supports national communities in organization of massive national and cultural measures. Traditional are Romanian national holidays in Chernivtsi ? ?Mertsishor?, ?Florile Dalbe? and ?Limba noastre? in which other national and cultural communities take part.
Regional state administration, bodies of local government keep in touch nationalities with ethnical homelands as well as with Ukrainians who live abroad. [4].
So also administratively, romanian comunity is very well represented. But I found some information also about the other regions, where romanians are living. On the official site of the Transcarpatia region, romanian version, I found some info about the romanian minority:
Conform recensământului 1989 în Transcarpatia au fost 29.5 mii români. În regiune sunt 11 şcoli cu predarea în limba română, în două grupe preşcolare se învaţă în limba maternă, la universitetea naţională din Ujgorod funcţionează secţia de fililogie română, în biblioteci sunt 14.000 mii cărţi în limba română. În afară de astă există 7 cluburi naţionale, se petrec festivaluri tradiţionale anuale, apar emisiuni televizate şi radiofonice în limba română, organizaţiile obşteşti funcţionează cu succes, apar altele noi; au apărut primele ziare româneşti din dreapta Tisei: «APŞA» şi «Maramureşenii» [5]
This all are facts, not lies of the Ukrainian gov. I found this information only on official sites, and on romanian sites that are ok with NPOV. Please donnot quote me romanian sources without NPOV, where suposition are made and so on. --Danutz

These are very interesting informations.

  • 1. About Transcarpatia, that site cant't be considered a trusted source of information. Versions about history of this territory differ for one language to other. The statistics represent information of "last" census of 1989 (or 1986).
  • 2. In my opinion, situation of northern Bukovina as it is shown on Ukraine Gov portal, doesn't represent a proof that Romanian language is protected. You can't say that a language is protected by organizing three anual days of (massive) hollyday in city of Cernauti. Also, I wonder how technically is possible that "the bodies of local government keep in touch nationalities with ethnical homelands" and what is the exact sense of that phrase. From the official site of the region Cernauti it is more difficult to understand the way the Romanian language is protected. --Vasile 15:19, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)
So let's get the (somewhat contradictory) evidence -- accurately cited, translated, and quoted -- into the article itself. -- Jmabel 18:21, Jul 5, 2004 (UTC)

We may have an official point of view of Ukraine Gov. I don't see the point of view on this matter of those govs that have Romanian as official language: Romania, Moldova and Autonomuos Province of Vojvodina (Republic of Serbia). I don't see any indices that could prove the existence of Romanian free press in Bukovina. What about Romanian cultural organisations if exist any? --Vasile 23:22, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Free press: In limba romana apar 12 ziare, printre care si "Concordia", editia Radei Supreme a Ucrainei. Emisiunile in limba romana la TV cuprind 158 de ore pe an, la radioul public - 356 de ore pe an. In regiunea Cernauti, unde locuieste cea mai numeroasa comunitate romana (15% din totalul populatiei regiunii), emisiunile in limba romana la TV reprezinta 31,5%, la radioul public - 25%. [6]. Only two-three newspapers are edited by the authorities (e.g. Concordia). The rest is free press.
Cultural institutions: In regiunea Cernauti functioneaza 74 case de cultura, 3 scoli de arta plastica, 80 de biblioteci. - same source
Don't tell me that is not accurate info, becuase that was published in Romania, by an independent newspaper, Gardianul.
What do you mean by point of view? Please, give me an example. A, and what isn't right with the transcarpatian source? What history differs? I didn't cite you history first of all, I cited you an article that can't differ from language to language, because is available only in romanian. And reading some sentences in romanian and english in the history page of that site, I see that those are translations of one other. --Danutz
The transcarpatian source represents nobody. This nobody can not be trusted. Anyway the site is changing. About the other sources, remember the name of the article "Romanian language"; those sources show there are very few rights for use and preserve the Romanian language in Ukraine. In Serbia's case, situation is worst. --Vasile 19:59, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)