Talk:Romanian language/Archive 5

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The currentversion _is_ a compromise

Not archived 4 Dec 2005 because I added a comment to it today. -- Jmabel | Talk 08:58, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

The version you are currently promoting, Jmabel, is POV.

It is tantamount to me changing it to "Romanian is the name used in Romania and Vojvodina for the Moldovan language."

Obviously, no unionist would ever accept that, and even most moderate Romanians would object.

To maintain NPOV we should not state which name is more "legitimate".

The reason for having in the opening sentence "... is identical to the Moldovan language" is that the inverse sentence exists on Moldovan language. I think that this specific statement is POV, but when I took it out it was constantly reinserted despite the more detailed description of the similarities and differences between "Romanian" and "Moldovan" which I inserted. As long as that sentence exists in the first sentence of the article "Moldovan language", it should exist here.

--Node

  • I don't know what version you think I am "promoting". My main concern is that the names "Moldovan language" and "limba moldovenească" should be in the lead exactly once, and that it should be clear that, for all intents and purposes they are the same language. My secondary concern is that it should be clear to English-speakers who may know little or nothing about the region that in English, the language is almost always called "Romanian", not "Moldovan". Indeed, if someone were to remark, speaking in English, "I can read Moldovan", the only likely sense this would have is the form written in Cyrillic characters. -- Jmabel | Talk July 3, 2005 03:50 (UTC)

Don't you think that writing Moldova in the "official language of" section, with a note that says In Moldova, the Romanian language is called Moldovan in the Consitution (most people think that due to political reasons), though in practice it is called Romanian. In schools, the language is called Romanian and it is taught with textbooks from Romania. The Moldovan Academy of Sciences calls the language Romanian?. Moldovan language is Romanian actually. Most people name it Romanian, but that doesn't mean that what they speak is not the national language of Moldova (Moldovan). Of course we should mention that in the Constitution the language is called Moldova, but isn't it non-NPOV if we say Moldovan is the official language of Moldova, in staid of stating both are the same language, and if Moldovan is the official language of that country, it is obvious Romanian is in fact the official one? Otherwise we promote only the views of a minority. --Danutz

  1. Clearly the language that English-speakers call "Romanian", and that virtually everyone else calls by some equivalent of that, is the official language of Moldova. They can call it "Moldovan" from now to kingdom come, it's still the same language. I think any issues of the politics of why someone would call it that belong in the article Moldovan language, not here; there should be a link to Moldovan language.
  2. At the same time, it is important to be clear that when anyone says "Moldovan language" (or "limba moldovaneascǎ"), they mean exactly this same language, so the phrase "Moldovan language" ("limba moldovaneascǎ") belongs in the article.
  3. Most people think… doesn't belong in an article unless there is a poll to be cited.
  4. This article should say that it is called "Moldovan language" in the constitution of the Republic of Moldova, and it probably should also clarify that "The Moldovan Academy of Sciences calls the language 'Romanian'; Moldovan schools teach the language with textbooks from Romania." -- Jmabel | Talk July 6, 2005 04:00 (UTC)
  1. But the languages are not identical. In the official versions, Moldovan uses "sînt" while Romanian uses "sunt"; Moldovan uses "î" where Romanian uses "â" (with the exception of "România" and words from that root, such as "Română"). In the spoken language, there is a much higher incidence of Slavicisms in Moldovan.
  2. Romanians continue to assert that it's somehow NPOV to state that there is only one language here. However, as is noted at the article language, there is no universal method for deciding what is or isn't a language, and hence nearly identical varieties can and have often been labelled as separate languages, while vastly different varieties may be labelled as a single language.
  3. It's fine to say that Romanian is spoken in Moldova, since 2/3rds of the population of Moldova claim it as their mother tongue on the census. However, Romanian is not the official language of Moldova. If that is added here, it should be added on Moldovan language that Moldovan is the official language of Romania and Vojvodina, except that the Romanian government calls it "Romanian" for political reasons.
  4. Jmabel states that in English, the usual term corresponding to "moldoveneasca" is "Romanian". This is quite untrue. The relative frequency of "limba romana" to "limba moldoveneasca" is very similar to that in English of "romanian language" to "moldovan language" (even moreso if you include the Soviet-era term "moldavian language"). That 1/3rd of Moldovans who claim Moldovan as their mother tongue will call it as Moldovan in a foreign language too.
    • I've only belatedly noticed this comment, as I was archiving. Of course I am not claiming that the usual term corresponding to "moldoveneasca" is "Romanian". What I was (and am) claiming is that among English-speakers it is not customary to consider these two different languages, and that the customary name for the (one) language is Romanian. -- Jmabel | Talk 08:55, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
  5. There is no statistic on what percentage of Moldovans believes that Moldovan and Romanian are separate languages. My personal view is that they are nearly identical varieties, but that each is a language in its own right -- Moldovan is no more "Romanian" than Romanian is "Moldovan".
  6. Romanians consistently push for such POV statements as "...is identical to the Romanian language, renamed for political criteria." (originally translated from the ro.wiki article) As one can tell by this section of the article Moldovan language, there are actual differences, although minor, in the official varieties of Romanian and Moldovan. If one takes a random sample of vocabulary, at least 1% of it will be different between the two ("â"/"î" merged into "î" accounts for most, but not quite all, differences). In many cases, most notably Catalan and Valencian, nationalists have pushed for separate naming and treatment as separate-but-nearly-identical languages for their national language. Thus the seemingly rediculous (but quite widespread in Valencia) notion that Catalan and Valencian are separate languages, though the official varieties are nearly identical. The Spanish constitution gives the right of each Spanish region to choose its own regional language. Catalonia and the Balearic Islands chose Catalan, and Valencia chose Valencian. However, the regional language translations of the EU charter by the Spanish government which were sent to the EU, contained separate Catalan and Valencian versions, though there was not a single difference between them. When asked why, the Spanish government said only that it was constitutionally obligated to provide translation in both Catalan "and" Valencian.

--Node 8 July 2005 03:07 (UTC)

Questions for Node

Hi Node,

We've had our clashes, and unfortunately we now seem to have a minor edit war going on. I won't go into that here, though, just wanted to acknowledge it so I'm not accused of hypocrisy. You're fighting a difficult fight, you're outnumbered, and I admire your tenacity (I'm saying this in a chivalrous, sportive sense.) You keep your cool, which can't be said about all of your "adversaries", and I admire you for that too. You land your low blows at times, but given your position I don't think many could avoid that. Bottom line, I don't take any of this personal.

I do have some questions for you though, because I'm quite puzzled about a few things. You're accusing us Romanians involved for ganging up against you, bringing on our buddies to defeat you, being expansionist, politically motivated, partial on the topic, and so on. We can't respond to any of those accusations without being accused circularly of the same wrongs ("you're saying that because you're expansionist/politically motivated/partial/etc"). The only (hopefully) objective argument we have is that it's not our fault there aren't many Moldovans who share your views available in Wikipedia (on a side note, I fully support Moldovan self-determinism -- if they want to speak another language, then so be it -- but I don't like one guy to decide that for them.) You curiously fail to acknowledge that people from the international community seem to agree with the Romanian "clique", and answer their concerns in an independent fashion, which some would find hypocritical on your side, but that's quite another topic.

The first question I have is: what motivates you in your pro-Moldovan language "crusade"? You find tens of reasons for our anti-Moldovan language position, but what are yours for it? Are you trying to represent the Moldovan interest and independence? Or do you simply feel that Moldovan is a distinct language from Romanian, which deserves independent attention? If that's the case, why does your Moldovan Wikipedia use Cyrillic, when we all know that the official Moldovan language uses Latin characters? The essence of this question is what do you stand for?

The second question is this: do you feel that Moldova is, or isn't a de facto part of Romania? Please note I'm not talking about the recent Moldovan people's feeling about (re-)uniting with Romania (which may or may not be a political thing), nor about the independence of the Moldovan Republic, neither of which I contest -- I'm talking about the historical facts, feelings and emotions (think WWII, before, and after, and post-Communism, and the peoples, and the russification, and so on, all of it). I'm fully aware this is a very touchy topic, and a very subjective one at that, but I think it would be a lot easier for everybody to negotiate this dispute if we knew where we're all coming from -- that's why I'm asking these questions, in order to be able to relate to the person, not to sterile exchanges about scientific discrepancies between languages.

Thank you! --Gutza 23:38, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Hi Gutza,
Thank you for being so congenial in your response.
I think that being "politically motivated" is not a problem. However, I think that everybody in this discussion is politically motivated somehow, so I think it's rediculous for Decius to accuse me of being politically motivated. My accusation is a response to other people's accusations of me, it is not meant to stand independently.
Regarding people ganging up, what frustrates me is that there are really 3 communities which should be participating in this discussion, and only one of them is really well-represented. The 3 communities are Romanians (of all heritages), Moldovans (of all heritages), and people with an interest in languages and linguistics in general.
It's quite frustrating for example to have people reverting my edits regarding Ausbau languages because they apparently don't understand my linguistic argument well enough to respond to it, and even more frustrating to see people accusing me of being politically motivated or POV when they are obviously the same things. In an equal situation, there would be more people to defend me, however in this argument non-Romanians are noticably absent. This is a sensitive topic, and I don't think it's right for it to be handled by mostly just Romanians. When a Greek edits articles on Greece, it is more difficult to be NPOV, when a Malaysian writes articles on Malaysia, it is more difficult to be NPOV, and ultimately the same is true for Romania and Moldova. There is a certain "healthy balance" of both groups which helps to keep things NPOV, however in my view that has not been achieved here since nobody on the English Wikipedia (or even on the Romanian Wikipedia to a great degree) is from Rep. Moldova.
My interest in this issue is many-faceted. First of all, I have Moldovan (Romanian) heritage, and because of that I know a little bit of the language. Also, I am deeply interested in languages and linguistics in general.
My opinion on the issue used to be mostly in the middle, however after the large conflict at the Moldovan Wikipedia, I was forced to choose a side.
I would like to clarify my opinion now, as I did at the Moldovan Wikipedia several times. 1) I do not believe that Moldovan and Romanian are "separate languages" in the usual interpretation of the word, as for example English and German are. I do however believe that what is a language and what is a dialect cannot be judged by any objective criteria, you can argue about any specific case for weeks or months or even years and there is no solid division. 2) I believe that Moldovan and Romanian align largely with Dari and Farsi. Dari and Farsi are considered by many people to be separate languages, even though they are identical in official written form, including spelling. The probable reason for this is that Dari is a cultural part of Afghanistan, while Farsi is a cultural part of Iran. I think similarly that in Rep. Moldova, as long as 1/3rd of the population claims their mother language is "Moldoveneasca", this shows some degree of seperation between what is culturally Romanian and what is culturally shared between a relatively new nation populated by Romanians and Russians and Ukrainians together (not to forget other minorities such as Gagauz and Roma, of course).
As I noted elsewhere, the mainpage of the Moldovan Wikipedia is in Latin and Cyrillic together, as is the entire user interface, with Latin version placed first. However, as Latin content is already available at ro.wikipedia, people wanting to read this content are redirected. People who want "Moldovan" content in Cyrillic, however, can't find it at another Wikipedia, so it is provided there. People previously thought it was only my view, however there are now a number of contributors to that Wikipedia, many of them in Moldova.
I do not think that Moldova is culturally "de-facto" part of Romania. As somebody who is largely removed from emotional issues of nationalism (I have never lived in Moldova or Romania), but is familiar with the region to a great degree nonetheless, I think that Romanians in Romania often tend to forget that there are many people who consider themselves "Moldovan", but who are culturally Russian or Ukrainian. These are often treated as immigrant populations, even though many of the youngest were born in Moldova. The people who were truly "immigrants", artefacts of the Soviet Union, left already upon independence. I think that Romanians in Moldova are identical of course to Romanians in Romania, however I think that since Slavic populations are so much huger in Moldova, it should be kept independent because it has a careful balance in this way. --Node

Node, you're carefully avoiding to answer my questions, which is quite disappointing. You're stating that your strong pro-Moldovan stance was caused by your tough interactions with Romanians on the Moldovan Wikipedia -- but I honestly can't see how someone would start a Cyrillic Moldovan Wikipedia without having a prior pro-Slavic stance on the issue in the first place...

No, I answered every single one of your questions. The reason I started it is because there are real people in the world who use Cyrillic to write this language. It is doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that these people deserve an encyclopaedia just as much as their neighbours.

You agree with me in deploring the lack of Moldovans online (or at least the lack of Moldovans involved in these disputes), but I still don't understand whose opinions you feel like you represent. I could understand that on a personal level you're reacting to Romanian impulses (as you yourself stated above), but that would make you an agent of your own emotions, which doesn't work in anyone's interest (not even the hard-core Moldovan nationalists -- you'd just be a loose cannon if that were the case; I hope it isn't.)

I feel like I represent my own opinions. To be involved in an issue, there is no need to live in the region, rather, in a Wiki environment, anybody is free to participate.

You do come close to answering my second question though, and you seem to be calling for a sense of closure on the issue. Do you realize how hard it is to accept your proposed closure for Romanians, given the history of the region? I mean, if I were to cut an arm off your body, prevent you from grafting it back, encourage alien organisms to populate it, and 50 years later tell you that it's not your arm anymore because it's now populated with alien bacteria, would you honestly be willing to accept that kind of closure on that issue? I'm aware the connotations of my euphemistical exposure might sound biased, but if you really consider the whole issue from a historical point of view, you'll find that I didn't blow it out of proportions.

Did you ever own what is now Rep. Moldova? No, you didn't. The only land you own, is that which you bought or you inherited or were given. If somebody annexes Texas from the United States, or Gagauzia from Moldova, this is not cutting off my arm because it didn't belong to me to begin with. Sure, it is inhabited by my co-nationals, but it doesn't mean it's mine. This is a prime example of an illogical nationalistic attitude. You have feelings for a piece of land where 1) you never lived, 2) you never owned, 3) many Romanians have never even been. Did your parents come from Rep. Moldova? Obviously, some Romanian citizens have ancestors from Rep Moldova, but it's rarely a first-degree relationship, and even in those cases they certainly don't live there or own land there if they're living in Romania.
Basically, it's like cutting off an arm of my cousin, or perhaps my second-cousin. It's not my arm, but I have some relation to it so I am concerned for it. Your concern for Moldova is like Mainland Chinese concern over Taiwan, Guatemalan concern over Belize, Argentine concern over the Falkland Islands, and things like this -- your country used to be united to their country as a single nation, but you don't live there or own land there, and you can't call it "your own".
Perhaps if you are born in Moldova, this makes sense, but it is obvious you are not. It is not your arm which was cut off. And maybe you didn't see, that the arm has been returned to Moldovan people in the last decades? That they now control their arm again? It makes sense for such an issue to be sensative to people from or in Rep Moldova, but it is absolutely ludicrous that Romanian-born people get so upset about it, and is a matter of wanting to claim land which is "rightfully" yours, even though you never lived there. --Node 04:54, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
Also, you obviously have a hard time believing that anybody without a "pro-Slavic" slant (pro-Slavic? What is the Slavic agenda? Do you mean Soviet? Slavic expansionist? Surely a "pro-Slavic" agenda does not mean imposing Slavic culture, language, and values on other people? There are many people who are pro-Slavic, and proud of Slavic heritage, without agreeing to Soviet expansion) could be OK with a Moldovan-Cyrillic Wikipedia. This is absolutely rediculous. I think most Wikipedians would agree to the existance of a Wikipedia in a language that is used by real people. Some people said on mo.wiki that it didn't deserve one because "people don't have the right to use Cyrillic", "Cyrillic is ugly", "Cyrillic is for Russian", "Cyrillic is a distortion of the beautiful mother tongue", and many other ludicrous reasons like that. Surely, you have a better reason? I remind you again that by now, the majority of Cyrillic articles on mo.wiki are not created by me, but by other contributors, the majority of them from Moldova.
You seem to think that nobody who previously held a pro-Slavic view could agree with some of the views that I hold. Mihai agreed with you, and accused me of having a sockpuppet (Chris Sundita), just because this person agreed with me. This person is in fact a legitimate user and has been around for a while, editing many articles related to languages and linguistics. --Node 05:06, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
Uh oh, looks like somebody just gave himself away. No further comment is needed. Shall we prosecute? Decius 05:00, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
This isn't the first time somebody said this to me. People said I gave myself away as a KGB agent, a communist, an agent from Tiraspol, and all sorts of other crazy accusations and histrionics. I was even accused of being a terrorist and a "fag". So what is it I gave myself away as this time? An enemy of the Romanian people?
I think that Moldovans have a right to their motherland. This belief is strongly rooted in me. I believe everybody has a right to their motherland. That is, the land they were born on, grew up on, and live on. But for you that is Romania. If I annex all of Romania except for your town, this is not "your" arm.
And for what would you "prosecute" me? Being "politically motivated"? Just because I don't believe you have a birthright to a land you weren't born in or ever lived in? Did you ever realise how many Moldovans agree with this? Surely, Moldovans have a birthright to the land they're born on, and you have a right to the land you're born on, but it doesn't interchange -- you have no right to the land they're born on, and they have no right to the land you're born on. --Node 05:06, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
"An enemy of the Romanian people?"---Hey, you said it, not me. ;) Decius 05:19, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
And how is the idea that you don't have any right to land where you weren't born, never owned, never lived on, and probably your parents never lived on either, an absurd idea? It makes perfect sense to me. I do not claim Russia, or Saudi Arabia, I don't claim Canada or any other nation, I don't claim any property except that which I own, yet for some reason you feel you have the birthright to the huge tract of land which makes up Rep. Moldova, despite the fact that you weren't born there, don't own land there and don't live there, and as far as I can tell, you never have. This is showing an extreme nationalist bias, that you believe this land somehow is your birthright. --Node 07:47, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
If I _am_ an enemy of the Romanian people, which I most certainly am not, it has no bearing in this discussion. You have yet to respond to my linguistic arguments or academic points, other than saying that you'll continue to ignore them. I await a response. Also, please see Talk:Ausbausprache. --Node 05:36, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
Also Mark, why do you keep mispelling the word 'ridiculous' as rediculous? Rather odd. Decius 05:31, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
I don't know, Alexandru. Why do you keep switching your display name between Decius and Alexandru? Rather odd. --Node 05:36, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
No. It will be odd once I start signing as Batman as well. Decius 05:42, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Hi Node, it's Gutza again. I'm replying to your direct answer. You say that I don't come from Rep. Moldova -- that's true, I don't. I lived in Bucharest all my life, and I was born here.

I won't use your own words, "To be involved in an issue, there is no need to live in the region, rather, in a Wiki environment, anybody is free to participate", which make you look quite hypocritical when criticising my interest in the topic and even qualifying it as ludicrous.

But by that logic, since I come from Bucharest, I should be quite all right and content if Romaina was split between, say, Ukraine and Hungary, with Bucharest being the only Romanian land left. Or why not, only the neighbourhood I was born and live in. Fighting for the current Romanian land would be nonsensical according to your logic, because I haven't been born everywhere in Romania. You surely can see that doesn't make sense, and that no person in their right minds could reason along those lines. I can only assume that you're making a point I'm missing, since we get to different conclusions, so let's go one step back and see where we disagree. Please let me know which of the following points you don't find correct, and why:

  1. The land where today's Moldovan Republic lies was historically populated by a people who spoke Romanian and shared the same values as the people who populated today's Romania (I won't go into who influenced who, I'm not saying it was a one-way relationship, on the contrary, so please let's not go there);
  2. The "brothership" of the two peoples was confirmed in 1920 when Bessarabia chose to unite with Romania;
  3. The self-determined people who inhabited the Moldovan land found their land annexed to the USSR, against their will;
  4. The USSR conducted a program of mass-deportation on one hand, and promoted Russian migration in the land on the other hand; the USSR also conducted a massive Russification program, with all the known Communist methods;
  5. Points (3) and (4) are an injustice to the original inhabitants of the Moldovan land;
  6. Given the above, the Romanians are entitled to feel that their brothers ((1), (2)) have been wronged by the Russians (5) (Soviets, all right, but the Soviets are not some alien species, they were Russians), and it's only natural that they would like to see Russians take back as much of their imposed cultural and linguistic influence on their Moldovan brothers, thus reparing as much as possible the historical wrongs they suffered (please note I'm not saying a word about unification with Romania -- I'm only talking about a desire to see a tendency towards offsetting the imposed Russification);
  7. Two thirds of today's Moldovan people declare they speak Romanian, yet the official language is that spoken by a self-declared minority;
  8. Given all the points above, we can conclude logically that Moldovan is a political invention (this is obviously something you'll contest, so I won't bother going into the lack of any differences between the two languages, you know that as well as everybody).

I'm quite sure we'll disagree on some points, but that's why I took the time to make the list -- I'd like to know exactly where we agree and where we don't, so we can move the discussion to a place where we can at least find the essential points we don't share. Please note I'm trying to steer away from current Moldovan politics, because you can imagine my opinion on how "the arm is being returned to the people" as long as a conveniently pro-Russian minority can dictate the official language.

Regarding the Moldovan Wikipedia, the problem is obviously that you're using a language code to write a Wikipedia using characters which are not used for that language. And that's it, period. The fact that some people use Cyrillic is their business, and I have nothing against them -- let them have mo-cyr.wikipedia.org, or whatever you feel is more appropriate, that's fine by me. But use the official language code for the official language form, what the heck is so hard to grasp? --Gutza 14:17, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Gutza, if your only purpose here was to try to "trick" me into crossing myself, I must say you've come very close but failed.
1) Yes, I agree with this, if you're only talking about the majority population. It's wrong to forget minorities such as Roma (gypsies), Gagauz, the small number of Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians who were already living in Bessarabia at that time, and other smaller minorities.
2) Things change in a short period of time. If Moldovans still want to unite with Romania, they may do so. But a past union doesn't prove brotherhood -- East Timor and Indonesia were once united, they had a war and now hate each other very much. The Southern Cameroons and Cameroon, the first a former British colony and the second a former French colony, formed a union in 1961 as the Federal Republic of Cameroon; in 1972 the people of both parts voted to discard the federalist government and have a completely united republic instead. However, since then things have changed, and people from SC mostly wish that they had voted differently, because they are now getting the short end of the deal. Obviously, nothing like this happened between Romania and Moldova (formerly Bessarabia), but it just goes to show you that choices made 30 years ago (in the Cameroons) aren't so meaningful today, and in the case of Romania and Bessarabia, the choice was actually made 80 years ago.
3) Yes, sure. I don't disagree that it was against their will, and I don't disagree that it caused some very horrible occurances.
4) Yes, quite obviously; however it should be noted that as in most Soviet areas (excepting Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian areas), the Latin alphabet was promoted by the government until the late 30s, specifically 1938 in the case of the Moldavian SSR, and between 1939 and 1942 in most of the rest of the Soviet Union, excluding the Baltic states, Armenia, Georgia, and Yiddish, which kept traditional scripts. Many have since switched back -- Moldovan in 1989, Turkmen in 1991, Tatar in 2001, Mongolian in 1994 (switched back to traditional Mongolian alphabet rather than Latin), and other have tried unsuccessfully (Uzbek and Tajik are the main ones).
5) No argument here
6) To feel that brothers have been wronged is one thing (perhaps anger that your brother's arm or your friend's "arm was cut off"); feeling that you personally have been wronged (your own arm) is quite another. You should also note that many Russian, Ukrainians, and Belarusian immigrants to Moldova from the USSR period as a part of a plan of "Russification" have since had children, who grew up in the streets of Chisinau (or other Moldovan places), and it would be just as much of an injustice to make them leave or change themselves as it was for their parents to be encouraged to migrate in the first place. For a complete reversal of "Russification", it would obviously be nessecary to remove all people who come from this cultural background, which in my view is unreasonable and no more suited to human beings than the original annexation of part of Bessarabia. Similarly, it is unreasonable to expect all Americans of non-indigenous descent to leave, or all French Muslims to leave, especially if they were born in that country, even though some people say they are "polluting the culture".
7) You yourself claim that Moldovan and Romanian are identical, so wouldn't declaring Moldovan official be declaring the language of the majority as official, since according to you there are 0 differences? According to the current Moldovan administration, the difference between "Romanian" and "Moldovan" is that "Romanian" is a language of ethnic Romanians, while "Moldovan" is the interethnic language of the Moldovan people, intended to unite people of Romanian, Gagauzian, Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Romani (Gypsy), and all other linguistic backgrounds. This is especially sensitive in the case of Gagauzians, because they are weary of any union with Romania and officially calling the national language "Romanian" would be a step in that direction, and any such movement may reignite Gagauzian seperatist sentiment.
8) I don't know about you, but with your friend Decius, citing sources is a huge thing, so:
"Linguists across the world are, though, in agreement: "Moldovan" is Romanian." -- thank you, good reference! --Gutza 11:06, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
"Stalin justified the creation of the Moldavian SSR by claiming that a distinct "Moldavian" language was an indicator that "Moldavians" were a separate nationality from the Romanians in Romania. In order to give greater credence to this claim, in 1940 Stalin imposed the Cyrillic alphabet on "Moldavian" to make it look more like Russian and less like Romanian; archaic Romanian words of Slavic origin were imposed on "Moldavian"; Russian loanwords and phrases were added to "Moldavian"; and a new theory was advanced that "Moldavian" was at least partially Slavic in origin. (Romanian is a Romance language descended from Latin.) In 1949 Moldavian citizens were publicly reprimanded in a journal for daring to express themselves in literary Romanian. The Soviet government continued this type of behavior for decades." -- nice, thank you again! --Gutza 11:06, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
Great reference, can I post my CV on Wikipedia too? This one has to go, it has no relevance on anything. --Gutza 11:06, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
Is this a "reference"? This looks like a homework, it has no academic credibility whatsoever. --Gutza 11:06, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
  • http://vitalie.tripod.com/culture.htm -- states that "the language in Moldova is very muddled now - it's a mixture of Russian and Romanian", and as I have said numerous times before, "although most people in villages still can't use the Latin alphabet and use the one they had learnt in school decades ago - the Russian"
"The language itself was renamed into "Moldavian", although it never really changed (it has become more of a dialect over the years)." -- this is a Moldovan native speaking, and he's saying that the language never really changes. Yes, he says it became "more of a dialect", but (1) he's not saying it's a dialect straight on, it's "more of a [...]"; and (2) he's probably not a linguist, so he used a word he felt was appropriate without understanding its true connotations --Gutza 11:06, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
Are you seriously citing the biography of a musical band from a commercial site as an academic reference for the status of a language -- in an encyclopedia? --Gutza 11:06, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
I didn't even bother reading this one through, it's an anonymous travelogue, how can that have any bearing on anything? Can I write anonymous blogs and cite them? --Gutza 11:06, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
Many people speak Magyar in Romania. Does that mean the average Romanian speaks Magromanian or something?! --Gutza 11:06, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
Another essay by a Moldovan on the same site, in the same context -- you might wish to read this: http://www.east-west-wg.org/cst/cst-mold/a_vera.html --Gutza 11:06, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
This concludes with "Moldavians are somewhere in between, in the grey zone with a possibility to go towards both directions. It is maybe more probable that they will unite as a nation with the Romanians, but nothing is sure in history." -- does this really prove anything? --Gutza 11:06, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
I was unable to find any relevant information in this article. --Gutza 11:06, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

"recalled"

In the lead paragraph: I suspect that "recalled" should be "re-designated": recalled means "remembered". Have I understood the intended meaning correctly? -- Jmabel | Talk 06:25, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

Referencing

I gather from those superscripts that some particular items are intended to link to the references. I'd like to use the {{ref}} / {{note}} mechanism, but I can't sort out what is the ref that goes with these notes. Can anyone clarify? -- Jmabel | Talk 02:38, September 8, 2005 (UTC)

Few right for Romanian communities in Serbia???

I am originally from Serbia and I distinctly remember seeing Serbian TV programs in Romanian and seeing Romanian papers on stands. I knew people who went to Romainian-only elementary school in southern Banat. Any info on the few rights for Romanian speakers in Serbia as mentioned in the article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dusanv (talk • contribs) 29 September 2005

One important is question is: are representatives from those communities permitted to use Romanian when they address the national government, or must they use Serbian? CRCulver 13:16, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
I am not sure. Also, note that they there are ~30000 speakers (as per article) in country of 8 million. I don't know whether that warrants services in their language even if they do exist. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dusanv (talk • contribs) 30 September 2005
Well... the Serbians in Romania (~22,000 out of 22 million) have the right to address local administration (not national) in Serbian, in localities where more than 20% of the population are Serbs. bogdan | Talk 17:09, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
As far as I know, the rights of Romanians in Vojvodina are very good, since Romanian is an official language there. There is also media coverage in Romania, etc. But how about in the Timok Valley? I heard that the situation there is far worse, with Romanians forced to assimilate because of very few linguistic and cultural rights. Dusanv - what region of Serbia are you talking about? To be honest, here in Romania there is quite a negative opinion about minority rights in Serbia and they are often portrayed as backward and un-European. This is not my personal belief - but it would be good to have some input from a Serbian to make this article fairer. Ronline 12:27, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
I'm from Belgrade. I have (more accurate: had, since I haven't talked to them in a while) a couple of Vlah friends from Timok. The communists were very minority-friendly. There are all levels of schooling available in minority languages (I know there is a university in Hungarian and Albanian, not sure about Romanian), government services, papers... Again, not sure about specifics in Timok. I don't think the current government is trampling on minority rights at all but I'm aware of the current perceptions because of the recent wars (I don't think I had heard of any ethnic trouble between Serbs and anyone else but Albanians, but that just an attempt to separate, not to obtain rights). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dusanv (talk • contribs) 11 Dec 05

Latin

Bogdan, Jmabel, or whoever else can help. I have a question regarding the NPOV in articles related to the Romanian language. I've been working on the article Romanian grammar for which I'm writing now Romanian nouns, and every now and then I need to refer to Latin when I talk about why things are the way they are. Now the problem is that while the mainstream linguists consider Romanian as deriving from Latin, there are some others who maintain that Dacians spoke a language pretty similar to Latin, so that many features of present-day Romanian could actually have come form Dacian instead of Latin. I'm not asking you to solve the riddle for me (I wish you could!), just I want to know how much neuter I should be in leaning toward neither of the two theories. I rephrased a few sentences that were saying that this or that feature comes from Latin, into just pointing out the similarity, but that's about as much as I can do to stay neuter. Anyone any thought?

And by all means please let me hear your opinions on Romanian nouns (still under construction though) and Romanian phonology (more or less done). Thanks. --AdiJapan 11:42, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

The "Dacian similarity to Latin" theory is overwhelmingly considered to be pseudo-science. I know no example of an important linguist in the last hundred of years that supported it. Napoleon Săvescu, the main supporter of this theory is well-known for his nonsensical nationalist writings. :-) See:
There was something about the conquest of America, too, but I can't find it right now :-) bogdan | Talk 15:36, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

It's here:

Ok, that's what I wanted to make sure. Thanks. --AdiJapan 16:16, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Adi, I'm not sure whether your question was addressed more to vocabulary or grammar/syntax etc. Regarding vocabulary, we do not have to be NPOV when dealing with the vocabulary items that linguists agree are from Latin---the dissenters here don't have to be represented, and this is within policy. Regarding language-structure (etc.) however, it would be good to note the possibility of substratum influence. For example, if the Romanian substratum is Illyrian, not Dacian, then many structural features believed to be from Latin may even be from Illyrian (Illyrian may have been close to the ancient Venetic language, which was structured in many ways similar to Latin). No original research, but leaving the door open for a discussion of substratum influence is a good idea. -Alexander 007 09:20, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
Dacian was almost certainly not as close to Latin as ancient Venetic, but we do not know how a Dacian sentence was structured, or how it compared to Latin in structure. -Alexander 007 09:25, 26 October 2005 (UTC)


Claims of pseudo-science with regard to the above may be over reaching. What does seem aparent is that there was a lot more cultural exchange in antiquity than has been fairly dealt with. A current academic tome which draws on several sources (philological, archeological, philosophical, etc.), The Shape of Ancient Thought, by Thomas McEvilley Phd., Rice University, ed. 2002, published Allworth Press, Beacon NY. McEvilley, clearly raises the question that what we have been feed from a euro-centric point of view, and sucessfully chalenges notions of static, isolated cultures.~~~~Wandasponda —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.148.28.184 (talk • contribs) 29 Jan 2006

Number of native speakers

With no citation, the claimed number of native speakers has been increased from 26 million to 30 million. There has been a steady escalation recently in this number and in the number of ethnic Romanians, here and in other articles, all without citation. I suspect that even 26 million native speakers counts most bilingual and multilingual native speakers. I have never seen an estimate anywhere else approaching 30 million. Ethnologue, usually considered a major source on languages, but tending to undercount dual native speakers, says 23,498,367. I would be inclined to cite their number and any other comparably reputable sources. To the anonymous person who wrote 30 million: do you have a citation for this? -- Jmabel | Talk 06:08, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Hi Joe Mabel, there are more than 30,000,000 people who speaks romanian. Just count with a computer:

Asia unnoficialy:

  • Israel 4% 290.000 6.800.000
  • Kazahstan 1 0,3% 30.090 14.953.126
  • Rusia 1 0,5% 378.000 145.537.200

Europa

  • România 89,5% 19.420.000 21.698.181
  • Moldova 2 78,2% 2.649.477 3.388.071
  • Transnistria 3 33,8% 196.050 580.000
  • Italia 1.000.000 60.000.000
  • Spania 1.000.000 40.000.000
  • Voivodina (Serbia) 1,5% 39.512 2.031.992

neoficial:

  • Timoc (Serbia) 4 9% 72.075 712.050
  • Ungaria 0,8% 80.000 10.198.315
  • Ucraina 5 1% 500.600 48.055.439
  • America neoficial:
  • Canada 0,4% 260.520 32.207.113
  • Statele Unite 0.31% 1,000,000 281,421,906

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.105.71.34 (talk • contribs) 20 Oct 2005

  • I seriously doubt the numbers above for US, Spain, and Italy. You give no citations for them, they are not in the article, and they exceed anything I've ever seen. Also, even allowing all of your numbers, they still would not add up to the 30 million you claim. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:07, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
  • I see that the number in the article has now been further inflated to 31 million. I think this is ridiculous, but I am trying to avoid singlehandedly reverting a person who is claiming that my edits are politically motivated. Is no one else skeptical about these numbers? -- Jmabel | Talk 06:43, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

cititi declaratia lui Basescu curve batrane ignorante ce sunteti.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.105.71.34 (talk • contribs) 26 Oct 2005

What don't you understand, Jmabel? There were 23.5 million Romanian speakers in Romania before 1990. There were about 4 million Romanian speakers in Moldova. Add those numbers with the minority living in Ukraine and Hungary, and you'll almost reach 28 million. If you then count the additional numbers living in Serbia, Russia, Kazakhstan, and Israel, it could be possible to reach such a high number. So, what are you saying about 26 million speakers? I don't understand - unless you count Moldovan as a seperate language - which it isn't. --Anittas 20:50, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure where the claim of 23.5 million Romanian speakers in Romania before 1990 comes from: are you saying that everyone in Romania at that time, including the Transylvanian Saxons and Magyars, should be counted as a Romanian speaker? I don't necessarily object, but we should say so explicitly if that's what we mean. In any event, a current Romanian census numbers only give a population of 21,698,181, so if you are counting Romania for 23.5 million Romanian speakers today, then you are double-counting almost 2 million people (more, if not everyone in Romania is a Romanian speaker). I honestly don't think this is a lack of my "understanding" some truth of which you are in possession. I strongly suspect that the true number lies between about 25 million and 28 million, depending who is counted (for example, among the Transylvanian Saxons now living in Germany or the Romanian Jews now living in Israel, do you count everyone who knows Romanian, or only those who still use it regularly).
I honestly don't have an agenda of wanting this number to be either high or low. I am simply very suspicious of the (lack of) methodology by which a number of 31 million has been reached. -- Jmabel | Talk 07:20, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

By the way, personal attacks are just as much against Wikipedia policy if they are written in language other than English. -- Jmabel | Talk 16:12, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Stop whinning about personal attacks. Yes, the Saxons and the Magyars should be counted as Romanian speakers. Shouldn't they? Shouldn't the Gypsies and the Jews who speak Romanian count as Ro speakers? --Anittas 16:32, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

My remark about personal attacks is about "cititi declaratia lui Basescu curve batrane ignorante ce sunteti" above, not about anything you said, Anittas. -- Jmabel | Talk 03:07, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
Jmabel, I share your skepticism re the unsupported inflation of these numbers. The anon user (User:86.105.71.34) who has mainly been involved in these amendments has earlier elsewhere (see discussion on Kwami's talk pg) tried to claim for a figure of 35m speakers, using a different but equally implausible set of numbers. For example, they claimed that there were 500,000 Romanians in Australia, when in fact the actual figure (see 2001 Census data (pdf) here) is more like 12,950- only 61% of whom spoke Romanian at home, let alone as a first language. Given the vast disparity between the claim and the fact in this case, one would be more than entitled to view any of the other figures suggested by this user with skepticism. Kwamikagami has provided the following supporting figures which total 23.8million:
  • Romania: 19,741,356 (2002 census)
  • Moldova: 2,664,000 (1979 census) - yes, these are old figures, but Moldova is not growing quickly
  • Ukraine: 250,000 (2004 Ethnologue) (approximate)
  • Israel: 250,000 (1993 Statistical Abstract of Israel) (an old estimate, probably less today, since Romanian children speak Hebrew)
  • Vojvodina & Timoc Valley: 200,000-300,000 (1995 Iosif Bena)
  • Hungary: 100,000 (1995 Iosif Bena)
  • Other countries: data from Ethnologue 15
    • France, Italy and Spain: no data
    • Canada: 16,356
    • USA: 56,590
    • Australia: present, but no figures
    • Germany: no data
  • Ethnologue 15 world total estimate: 23,498,367
  • Macedo Romanian (Aromanian):
    • Greece: 200,000 (Greek Monitor of Human and Minority Rights 1.3 Dec. 1995)
    • Albania: 50,000 (1995 T. J. Winnifrith)
    • Romania: 28,000 (official)
    • Serbia: 15,000 (Society of Aromanians)
    • Macedonia: 8,467 (1994 official figures)
    • Bulgaria: 4,770 (2000 WCD)
  • = approx. 300,000 total
  • Istrian Romanian:
    • Croatia: 555 to 1,500 (1994)
  • Megleno Romanian:
    • Greece: 3,000 (2002 Nicholas)
    • Macedonia: 2,000 (2002 Nicholas)
Total all varieties of Romanian: 23.8 million
Short of trawling through the census data (if available) for all of these countries, IMO the above tally represents the most thorough-going and believable estimate to date. I don't see how current estimates in excess of 30m can be reached, even allowing for more recent data perhaps not yet accounted for. And Anittas, "could be possible to reach such a high number" is not the same thing as using the actual references to hand, which are all that we (should be) relying upon, rather than speculation.--cjllw | TALK 01:58, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Excuse me, but before 1990, there were 23.5 million people in Romania, speaking Romanian. Sure, not all of them were Romanian, but shouldn't we also count our minority as Romanian-speaker? And what about Moldova and their 3-million Romanian speakers? Only from those two countries, I have the number 26.5, while you lower it to 25. In this article it says 26 and in the Romanian article, it says 25. To me, this is not a big deal, but you guys should add the numbers together in a mathematical fashion. --Anittas 20:35, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

I'd really rather be citing a solid linguistics scholar's interpretation of the numbers than trying to do the original research of adding incommensurates in a mathematical fashion, but since we've been hashing it out, I've certainly though more about this than I'd ever done before. I said above, "I suspect that even 26 million native speakers counts most bilingual and multilingual native speakers." Maybe 26.5 (same criteria), I'm not expert, I could be that far off, but I don't think I'm off by 5 million.
One can either count, or not, 2–3 million bilinguals. One can either count, or not, 300,000 Aromanian speakers. These are just questions of definitions, not facts, and it's just a matter of making clear in any stated number whether they are included.
I don't think that everybody in Moldova, either in 1990 or now, can be counted as a native Romanian speaker (lots of Russians and Ukrainians ther probably don't have native Romanian, even if they can get by).
Just as a Gedankenexperiment, consider this. 1990: probably no more than 26 million Romanian speakers in Romania and Moldova (counting Hungarians, Transylvanian Saxons, Rroma, and Russian dual natives, but allowing for at least some people who were not ethnic Romanians, especially in Moldova, not qualifying as native speakers). How many outside? Not counting Aromanians, maybe 1 million? (Correct me if you think that's wrong.) I think all of these are all relatively high-end numbers, and I don't see any reason to expect that this population is increasing: few European populations are. If (as is quite possible) there are a million Romanian-speakers now somewhere in the EU (legally or not), then they are not additional Romanian-speakers, just the same population, migrated.
As I said above, it's easy to imagine that Ethnologue's number is good, but conservative: definitely does not count 300,000 Aromanian-speakers, probably does not count dual natives if they don't identify Romanian as their "first language", etc. I can easily imagine 2.5–3 million in those categories (giving a number more like 26–26.5 million, depending who is counted as dual native, and a little more if you really stretch the notion of "native"), but past there I have to suspect double counting. -- Jmabel | Talk 03:38, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Quote: "I suspect that even 26 million native speakers counts most bilingual and multilingual native speakers"

Your suspecious is right. I'm Romanian and I'm bl-lingual, too. Most Romanians are. So what? --Anittas 06:03, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Most Romanians are probably bilingual (or more), but they are not bilingual native speakers. Elsewhere I referred to "dual native". I was referring, in both cases, to the same people: for example, Magyars in Transylvania, who speak both Hungarian and Romanian at a native level, or Romanian Jews (now mostly in Israel), many of whom speak both Yiddish and Romanian at a native level (and whose day-to-day language now may well be Hebrew, in which they are not native speakers). What I'm saying is that, as I understand it, Ethnologue may not count these as native Romanian-speakers, hence the 2.5–3 million above Ethnologue's 23,498,367. -- Jmabel | Talk 02:48, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Daco-Romanian

Please someone write the Daco-Romanian article. Now it is a redirect to Romanians, which is not correct logically. mikka (t) 00:56, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Romanian language is mainly about the Daco-Romanian. The other dialects (Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian, and Istro-Romanian) are covered in their respective articles. An article on Daco-Romanian would only repeat information given here, so that IMO a redirect is just enough. --AdiJapan 07:04, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
I agree with AdiJapan. But it seems to me that Mikka tries everything to do just to make some noise and to make bias edits. It is allready a history his edits on Moldovan language. Of course Daco-romanian is Romanian and is quite logical to redirect to Romanian. Bonaparte  talk & contribs

The authority of the user Node_ue in the matter of languages

Lengthy personal attack removed. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:35, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Romanization

The following is nonsense: Some linguists believe that in fact Albanians are Dacians were not Romanized, and migrated south.

There is a theory that Dacians migrated south when the Romans retreated from Dacia in 274 (R. Roesler), but this theory does not say that Dacians were not Romanized. Instead, it says they were either completely assimilated or retreated south in 274. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Raresel (talk • contribs) 20 Nov 2005

New map

I have noticed the new map that shows the "graiuri" of Romanian. It's a great map, however it gets a little weird in the Bugeac or southern Bessarabia. According to the last Ukrainian census, Romanians are only 13% or 78.300 of the Bugeac population. According to the same census only about 60.000 of them actually speak Romanian and they are concentrated mostly in the Reni raion(but not in the city itself) and western Izmail Raion. There is also an island of Romanian-speakers in Sarata raion, right next to the city of Sarata itself. See the article of Bugeac for a detailed map of the region and its raions.Constantzeanu 00:29, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I think this map is very wrong. For one, I wonder what my Romanian colleagues from Miercurea Ciuc would say when put in an area that seems to be in no-man's land (they still speak Romanian, even though they are a minority there). Or the Brasov readers that were assigned to "Graiul Muntenesc". Who on earth created this map? Where does it come from? Saying that in Iasi people are speaking with Moldovan accent is one thing, but drawing a fronteer between "Graiul Moldovenesc" and "Graiul Muntenesc" is plain dumb. Jacky 09:13, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
Also, for English readers it should be explained that "grai"=accent_(linguistics). Otherwise, they mai believe that "grai"=dialect, which is quite different.Jacky 09:19, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
Done. Jacky 10:05, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Here is the new map. Before accepting it in the main text, I would like to have more oppinions. Also, the contributor is kindly asked to tell us the (authoritative) source (needed to prove this is not original research).Jacky 10:01, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Romanian varieties (graiuri)Blue: Southern varietiesRed: Northern varieties
Romanian varieties (graiuri)
Blue: Southern varieties
Red: Northern varieties

I agree with you that in Brasov, the grai is certainly not the Muntenian one( stating otherwise would be really silly). Likewise there are places in Harghita and Covasna where people speak Romanian, and this map does not show that. In all fairness though, most of the territory of these counties is inhabited by Hungarian-speakers.

Otherwise, I think that in Northern Bukovina the territory should be split around the Ukrainain town of Glyboka/Hlyboka(Adancata) since there are Ukrainian speakers there. Also in the Bugeac, the red line should run around the western-most part where the Moldovan and Romanian borders meet as well as a little region to the left of sarata city. But this map makes it look that there are Romanians all over the Budjak, when in reality half of Bujak's raions have no villages or towns where Romanian is spoken. I think I mentioned it before that the Bugeac article has a very nice map of the region's raions and towns.

In Transnistria, the red should not be so present in Tiraspol, nor in Rabnitza raion or Kamenka raion.

In Serbia the blue should extend slightly more towards Voyvodina, however wherever there is blue in Timoc Valley, dots should be created in order to show that towns and cities there are inhabited by Serbs and villages by Romanians.

This is in essence what the map should look like(plz see the lines, not shaded areas).

Romanian varieties (graiuri)Blue: Southern varietiesRed: Northern varieties
Romanian varieties (graiuri)
Blue: Southern varieties
Red: Northern varieties

Constantzeanu 06:36, 29 November 2005 (UTC)


harti de la 1900 care in afara de Dobrogea(unde multi ragateni si aromani au fost colonizati si de unde multi bulgari au fost schimbati pentru romanii din cadrilater) arata destul de bine si situatia actuala a populatiei romanofone.

http://www.cjcr.cam.ac.uk/gateway/maps/Ethnic16.gif

http://www.macedonia-info.org/maps/South-East-Europe-Ethnic_map_1910.jpg

http://www.gutenberg-e.org/osc01/images/osc07a.html

Question

Not sure whether this is the right place. But where is the link between the Ur-Latin languages? Portuguese, Romanian, Rhaeto-Romantsch? As a Port (Bra) speaker living in Switzerland, I can understand Romantsch, and can read Romanian OK - pron is hard .... They basically all originated from left behind Roman outposts, innit? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.203.236.75 (talk • contribs)

Yupe, that's the main ideea. :D --Orioane 22:53, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

The southern Eastern Romance languages

Hi. Why are the Southern Eastern Romance language (Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian and Istro-Romanian classified as dialects in the infobox)? They have articles in their own right, with infoboxes in their own right. And they are not the same language as (Daco)-Romanian. The "Romanian language" article deals with the official language of Romania, Vojvodina (and Moldova), but not with Aromanian and the other southern dialects, which are only mentioned in "Related languages". Therefore, I propose leaving just "ron" as the ISO/DIS 639-3 code. Ronline ✉ 22:58, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Many people would say that Aromanian, Megleno-R. and Istro-R. are actually dialects, not languages. As my name itself hints I am from Constanta. There are a lot of Aromanians there. I don't know what to say on the subject. Clearly the language has a Romanian root but it is far from Romanian. If you would ask me to translate from Aromanian to Romanian I would really have a hard time.

But on a slightly different topic, what do you think of the map Ronline?Constantzeanu 23:51, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree that Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian and Istro-Romanian are actually dialects, not languages. -- Bonaparte talk 11:04, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I was about to say something about the definition of macrolanguages in the draft ISO 639-3 codes, as this kind of list of codes is given in the infobox in such situations (I've just updated Occitan language's codes: each dialect has its own article and code, but all the codes are listed in the overview). However, the documentation for 'ron' says that it is an individual language (the term used to describe the opposite to macrolanguage; cf. 'oci'). Now I remember when I updated the infobox for this article that this set of codes were already listed (in the old SIL format), so I kept them in. I think there is good reason to follow the language coding documentation and use just 'ron'. --Gareth Hughes 23:53, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Yes, that's exactly how it should be, Gareth. Some Romanian linguists consider Aromanian and co to be Romanian "dialects" but they are not mutually intelligible (unless with difficulty) and are hence different languages, part of the same language family (Eastern Romance). Romanian is not a macrolangage and shouldn't be. Romanian's code is "ron" (what a strange code!), and nothing else. The case is comparable to Estonian and Võro, which are two different yet related languages. The ISO-3 is very complicated though, with this whole notion of macrolanguage. But they're in the process of doing a great thing. Ronline ✉ 08:07, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
I would not say that they are less mutually intelligible then HochGerman and Swiss-German.


Still they are mutually inteligible, please check this example:

Comparison: Aromanian versus Romanian

The following text is given for comparison in Aromanian and in Romanian, with an English translation. The word choice in the Romanian version was such that it matches the Aromanian text, although in modern Romanian other words might have been more appropriate. The English translation is only provided as a guide to the meaning, with an attempt to keep the word order as close to the original as possible.

Aromanian Romanian English
Vocala easti un son dit zburărea-a omlui, faptu cu tritsearea sonoră, libiră sh-fără cheadică, a vimtului prit canalu sonor (adrat di coardili vocali shi ntreaga gură) ică un semnu grafic cari aspuni un ahtari son. Vocala este un sunet din vorbirea omului, făcut cu trecerea sonoră, liberă şi fără piedică, a vîntului prin canalul sonor (compus din coardele vocale şi întreaga gură) sau un semn grafic care reprezintă un atare sunet. The vowel is a sound in human speech, made by the sonorous, free and unhindered passing of the air through the sound channel (composed of the vocal chords and the whole mouth) or a graphic symbol corresponding to that sound.
Ashi bunăoară, avem shasili vocali tsi s-fac cu vimtul tsi treatsi prit gură, iu limba poati si s-află tu un loc ică altu shi budzăli pot si sta dishcljisi ună soe ică altă. Aşa bunăoară, avem şase vocale ce se fac cu vîntul ce trece prin gură, unde limba poate să se afle într-un loc sau altul şi buzele pot să stea deschise un soi sau altul. This way, we have six vowels that are produced by the air passing through the mouth, where the tongue can be in one place or another and the lips can be opened in one way or another.
Vocalili pot s-hibă pronuntsati singuri ică deadun cu semivocali i consoani. Vocalele pot să fie pronunţate singure sau împreună cu semivocale sau consoane. The vowels can be pronounced alone or together with semivowels or consonants.

Note: sh=ş

-- Bonaparte talk 11:01, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I think we should wary about the use of the word dialect: it is not a scientific word. It is usual for linguists to use the word language to refer to any instance of a language. The usual argument given for the label dialect is that it is not a "language in its own right". This sort of approach is entirely subjective: languages do not have natural rights. One can speak of a dialect continuum across a language or group of languages, but the labelling of one a dialect is a socio-political statement. That's why SIL uses the rather awkward term macrolanguage to refer to a language that could also be considered a group of individual languages. Therefore, the lack of this term here means the opposite to what has been supposed above: that the modern Eastern Romance languages are sufficiently distinct not to have a generic code. --Gareth Hughes 12:14, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Exactly my point. There is no dialect continuum between Romanian and Aromanian because they're not spoken in a contiguous geographical area. Secondly, Aromanian is also spoken in Romania by Aromanian migrants - over there, there does tend to be more of a continuum. However, the two languages are distinct, according to ISO, according to SIL, according to most linguists. The fact that they're mutually intelligible is true, but they're only mutually intelligible if words between them are equalized etimologically, and even then, this intelligibility isn't 100%. The case is very similar to Estonian and Võro, and to an extent to Lithuanian and Samogitian, the political situation also being the same (i.e. Võro and Samogitian and often considered by Estonian, respectively Lithuanian, to be the same). Ronline ✉ 01:44, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
On a slightly different subject, I am still awaiting for some response as to the modificatons to the grai map.
Romanian varieties (graiuri)Blue: Southern varietiesRed: Northern varieties
Romanian varieties (graiuri)
Blue: Southern varieties
Red: Northern varieties

Constantzeanu 15:40, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, will reply on that really soon. Sorry about this - I'm still involved in Talk:Moldovan language, which is really taxing on one's time. Ronline ✉ 01:44, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
Tell me about it.Constantzeanu 02:18, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Grai = accent??

This page now says that "grai" means "accent".

This seems to me to be incorrect -- in addition to differences in pronunciations between graiuri (such as piatra -> kiatry or vorbesc -> vorghesc), there are also some (relatively minor) differences in vocabulary, especially referring to animals and plants and names of family members. Between certain graiuri there are also minor grammatical differences.

So, while I agree that the difference between graiul muntenesc and graiul ardelean is certainly not as big as the difference between say Tokyo dialect and Kagoshima dialect of Japanese, it's certainly bigger than a difference in "accent".

English does not have words like Romanian does for such distinctions between speech varieties -- there is no good direct english translation for grai. But sources I've seen in English refer to them as dialects or regional varieties. --Node 01:43, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Assuming the differences go beyond accent, "variety" is a very neutral term. -- Jmabel | Talk 03:55, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Hello. I'm new here and I'm romanian. You are right 'grai' doesn't mean 'accent' but we, Romanians, use it with that meaning. For example: when you meet a person from Banat, SW Romania you say he has 'accent banatean' you don't say 'grai banatean' though you mean that. So this is not a matter of meaning but of use. ............ Add by me CLORO4RM

I believe there are two different phenomena: accent ("grai") and words with regional spreading ("regionalisme"). Sometimes they overlap over a linguistic space, sometimes they do not. Even if in the Moldavian accent you'd replace "păpuşoi" with "porumb", the accent will still remain: "ghini" instead of "bine" and all the others. Daizus 11:26, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Language tree

That picture ought to be removed for accuracy reasons. Occitan is Ibero-Romance, not Gallo-Romance and Dalmatian belongs to the "Italic" (or Italo-Dalmatian) division of Italo-Western. I wont dare delete the image and I dont have a remplacement, but someone should replace it. A replacement should also include non-accounted divisions like the Western part of Italo-WEstern first dividing into Gallo-Iberian and Mozarabic. YoungSpinoza 23:59, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Occitan IS Gallo-Romance, see the Occitan page. Old Occitan and Old French were extremely similar languages, their differences being almost entirely in pronounciation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.209.81.34 (talk) 13:38, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Numbers, yet again

In the following sentence in the lead, someone recently made the insertion "and illegally", as highlighted here: "More than 3,000,000 Romanian speakers live legally and illegally as immigrants in Europe and North America." I suspect that the 3 million number is about right for legal immigrants, but I don't see it borne out by the cited source, which instead refers to there being as many as ten million altogether, legal and illegal (I happen to think that is high, but that's another matter). Anyway, either way the sentence seems not to match the citation. Could someone please try to rewrite this carefully, with accurate citation? -- Jmabel | Talk 00:37, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

"Legally and illegally"

More than 3,000,000 Romanian speakers live legally and illegally as immigrants in Europe and North America.

Would "legally and illegally" be considered superfluous information? I was about to delete it but I'd like some comments first.

68.143.166.174 19:33, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

It's not superfluous - statistics are likely to catch only legal migrants, but there are plenty of illegal migrants. Also means that there are plenty of illegal ones (which is correct)

Reading rules

I think a rule should be added regarding the vowel "e" at the beginning of some words, such as "e", "este", "ești", which is pronounced with a short "i" before it. I'd add it myself, but it would be at least clumsy. I'm not even sure if it applies to all words starting with e. Aditsu 18:20, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree, that should be included. I do in fact know the rule on when you pronounce "e" with a short "i" before it, and I will add it in. Any word that's a form of "a fi" (to be), when beginning with an "e", is pronounced with that short "i", for example, "este", "ești", "eram", "erai", etc.
I'd also like to say that I think the sentence "The digraphs ch and gh before front vowels represent slightly palatalized /k/ and /g/." should have the remark about palatalization removed. The digraphs ch and gh are merely a way to represent /k/ and /g/ before i and e so that it's not pronounced as /ʧ/ or /ʤ/. Tlsmith124 05:21, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
I modified the section to take into account your observations and to include some other small details. Please check. The palatalization of /k/ and /g/ before /e/ and especially /i/ does actually occur, but it is not phonemic and its mention here is misleading so I rephrased that sentence. The palatalization is mentioned for example in the DEX (the Romanian Language Dictionary), see here. — AdiJapan ☎ 10:05, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
Regarding the the palatalization, it only occurs when ch or gh precedes /ʲ/, not /i/ nor /e/, much like any other consonant would. For example, in "chintă" the ch is not palatalized, whereas in "ochi", it is. I also forgot to mention that also any pronoun beginning with an "e" is pronounced with that short "i" sound, the five pronouns being: eu, el, ea, ei, and ele. I will add that in as well. Tlsmith124 15:12, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, you're wrong about the palatalization, apparently you didn't follow the link I provided, which shows that /k/ and /g/ are palatal plosives in groups che, chi, ghe, ghi and velar plosives in all other situations. You were also wrong in deleting the word "usually" in "The letter e is usually pronounced as [...]", because there are people who, at least in more formal situations, do not pronounce the /j/ in front of /e/.

On the other hand your addition with the personal pronouns is valuable, with the same note that in some situations that /j/ is not pronounced, such as "eu" in philosophical contexts, where it means self or ego. — AdiJapan ☎ 17:17, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

While I do not agree with the palatalization, I still believe that "ch" is equivalent to "c" (/k/), but I will look into it. I do however agree with your statement regarding the pronunciation of "eu" in philosophical contexts, but one would more likely find that in poems rather than natural speech, would one not? I once again do not agree that it is correct to not pronounce the /j/ when pronouncing a word with the infinitive "a fi", but I will also look into it, because I would think not pronouncing the /j/ is more uneducated than formal, or maybe it has become acceptable. I do thank you for the critique. Tlsmith124 18:43, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
As I said, that palatalization is not phonemic, it's only phonetical, and occurs in other languages too. The articulation place for /k/ and /g/ shifts from the velum towards the palate when the following vowel goes from /a/, /o/, /u/ and others to /e/ and /i/. I remember quite well a Romanian actor, Hamdi Cerchez, who used to pronounce /ke/, /ki/, /ge/, /gi/ in the velar area, unlike everyone else, which was giving his pronunciation a specific foreign accent (later on I found out he had a Turkish origin). So, yes, "che" and "ca" are perceived as starting with the same /k/, but that is only phonemically true. I don't know if you need it, but look under Phonology for the distinction between phone and phoneme.
About "eu" and "este" (&co) I agree that in most cases they are pronounced starting with a /j/. But just because there are exceptions I'd rather have a "usually" or "generally" in that sentence. Yes, not pronouncing the /j/ is mostly regarded as hypercorrection or plain error. I only hear it in rare situations such as strong emphasis, highly formal speeches, poetry, philosophy.
Also, you should probably know that there are different degrees of pronouncing the /j/, some people pronounce it just perceivably while others much stronger. But for this I don't have a source. Also, I am aware that I pronounce that /j/ softer in eram (I was) and stronger in este (is), although the DEX says they are both pronounced with /j/. — AdiJapan ☎ 01:52, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

How's pronounced "cia", /ʧa/ or /ʧia/? ―219.173.119.57 08:07, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

In the vast majority of words -cia- is pronounced /ʧi.a/. I could only find one exception: the word marciale, used in music, which is pronounced /marˈʧja.le/, but then again this is actually an Italian word. — AdiJapan ☎ 12:29, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Never pronounced /ʧa/ (or /ʧja/) in native Romanian words? ―219.173.119.57 14:03, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
No. Actually the sequence /ʧa/ does not appear in any native Romanian words. The closest approximation is /ʧe̯a/, written cea. For example, the Slavic words час (hour) and чай (tea), originally pronounced approximately with /ʧa/, became in Romanian ceas and ceai, pronounced with /ʧe̯a/.
The pronunciation /ʧja/ does appear sometimes in some native words, such as cianură (cyanide), but such a pronunciation is not considered correct. All dictionaries recommend pronouncing them with a hiatus: /ʧi.a/. — AdiJapan ☎ 03:54, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

The Tree that's too long for a Template

---or a variation thereof, Alexander 007 10:23, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

We could just start from Romance. I'm sure all readers can find their way to Indo-European if they really really need to. — AdiJapan ☎ 13:56, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
Wait, I just noticed that you've put Romance under Latin. That's not right. Romance should go straight after Italic. — AdiJapan ☎ 14:00, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
Well... Vulgar Latin is a form of Latin, isn't it? bogdan 14:02, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
Romance directly under Italic? it depends on who you ask. Some say Latin itself is a Romance language, others restrict the term to the descendants of Latin. Bogdan: yeah, Vulgar Latin is a form of Latin; but Vulgar Latin has its own article. I like the tree as it is in the Infobox in the article at the time of my time-stamp here--> Alexander 007 14:12, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

You mean this way?:

  • Indo-European
    • Italic
      • Romance
        • East Romance
          • Romanian

This is how I think it is correct.

Chronologically you are right, Romance shouldn't be directly unde Italic. But language family trees do not exactly show the language timeline, but the genetic affiliation. Romance languages are considered a branch of the Italic languages. For example, look at how Ethnologue.com displays them here. — AdiJapan ☎ 14:47, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I mean that way, skipping Latin. Only because I think readers will realize that it goes from Italic-->Latin-->Romance (unless you count Latin as a Romance language). Alexander 007 14:58, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

The phoneme /h/

Romanian is the only widely-spoken contemporary Romance language that retains the original phoneme /h/. (The Norman language also retains phoneme /h/. In many dialects of Spanish, particularly in the Americas, <j> is pronounced as [h], but this appears not to be a matter of "retention": the original Castilian phoneme is /x/. In some dialects of Portuguese, depending on the surrounding phonemes, <r> is pronounced as [h], but likewise, the original phoneme appears to have been <r>. In these dialects, <r> arguably corresponds to two phonemes, one for [r], and one for [h].)

There is a problem with this paragraph. Romanian, like all other Romance languages, has no trace of Latin /h/, e.g. Latin hora > Rom. oară, Latin haedus > Rom. ied, Latin herba > Rom. iarbă etc. So saying that it retains the original phoneme /h/ is wrong. Romanian does have a phoneme /h/, but it is borrowed from Slavic; /h/ also appears in Turkish, Hungarian and other loanwords. So I think this paragraph is simply about which Romance languages have a /h/ phoneme, and there is no reason to have it in the article on the Romanian language. Dumiac 10:21, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I'd be interested to hear what others think of this. Within my limited knowledge of Romanian, most of Romanian words starting with /h/ that have Latin roots seem to be modern borrowings from French. There are a lot of words where /h/ in Romanian comes from the Greek χ. Can someone give examples of "core vocabulary" words that clearly retain this phoneme from Latin? - Jmabel | Talk 05:36, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
I think I will have to agree with Dumiac. I looked for Romanian words that preserve an /h/ directly from Latin and I was not able to find even one, although I did use some automated search and I did not restrict the search to an initial h. (My search was not exhaustive though, because there are way too many Romanian words containing h, borrowed from Turkish, Hungarian, Ukrainian, Greek, etc.) All I could find was a lot of Latin words that came into Romanian rather late, through French, such as vehement, hidră, hun. I also took a long list of Latin words starting with h and looked for ancestors of Romanian words; I did find a lot of them, but in Romanian they all lost the h.
Anyway, all this qualifies as original research. I hope someone can come with a source to make things clear. Until then I think it was a good decision to remove that paragraph. — AdiJapan ☎ 09:19, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Britannica says:

Another nonvocalic sound, /h/, was pronounced only by educated speakers even in the Classical period, and references to its loss in vulgar speech are frequent.

bogdan 13:39, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Is it [h] in the first place? Isn't it [x]? The one Romanian speaker I've had an opportunity to listen to consistently said [x]. My mother tongue is German, which has both [h] and [x], so I believe I can reliably tell them apart. Does the pronunciation differ within Romanian (between dialects)? (The mentioned speaker came from Cluj.) David Marjanović 01:06, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Romanian has only one phoneme /h/, but this can be realized in three different ways (it has 3 allophones), depending on the phonetical context. Examples:
  • [h] (glottal) in haină (coat);
  • [x] (velar) in hrean (horseradish);
  • [ç] (palatal) in hidră (hydra).
Generally native speakers are not aware of this, because as I said the differences are not phonemic; all the 3 allophones are perceived (and written) the same way. So if you want to do experiments on native speakers you would have to ask them to pronounce a wide variety of words containing the phoneme /h/.
As far as I know there are no dialectal differences in pronouncing these sounds. — AdiJapan ☎ 03:22, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Funny I still don't see the difference between [h], [x], and [ç] I guess it's that kind of lack of sound discrimination that Japanese people exhibit when it comes to L and R (example inspired by Adi's nick). Talking about regional way to pronounce and sounds that are not official present in the language I could swear I heard "vite" and "bine" pronounced with [ɣ] (Greek Gamma not [g]) is it my only my ears? (no connection with article, just curious...) -- AdrianTM 06:29, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
As I said, native speakers don't normally perceive the difference. AdrianTM, you need to focus on exactly where you generate the sound. In the case of [h] (haină, heroină) you make the sound deep in your throat, where the vocal chords are; this is actually the sound of the airflow passing between the chords (it's not even considered a real consonant actually). Then [x] (hrean, vlah, hîrb) is pronounced on the velum, in the same spot as [k], just without cutting the airflow. And [ç] (hibrid, hiat) is produced on the palate. Yes, your example with [l] and [r] în Japanese is accurate. I'm having a lot of trouble explaining the difference to Japanese natives; the same goes for [b] and [v], some vowels, etc.
You're also right about vite being pronounced sometimes with a [ɣ]. But I've never heard bine pronounced with the same sound. Maybe you meant [ɟ], a palatal version of [g] (I'd write it as ghine) -- you can actually check this: Do those people pronounce bine and vine in the same way? — AdiJapan ☎ 11:17, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. Thats very useful, I got it now. You are right about "vine" vs. "bine" pronunciation. I think that [ɣ] is observable in words that start with "v": "vine", "vite", "vin", etc. I just find it interesting that a sound that usually some Romanians who learn Greek have problem with is actually present in some other regions of Romania. BTW, I think it would be interesting to have a phonology map as in other language articles. -- AdrianTM 05:10, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Just one more thing: The words vlah and vlahi (singular and plural forms of the same noun) have the phonetical transcription [vlax] and [vlaç], respectively. (The spelling of the two words is misleading.) So actually the difference between the two kinds of /h/ is phonemic. The problem is that the plural form, vlahi, is perceived as having a final short /i/, so the phonemic transcription is /vlahʲ/ (which means the same thing as [vlaç]). In reality there is no /i/ there, but a palatalized form of /h/, that is, [ç].
You're right about the need of various maps of the Romanian language to show variations of phonology, lexis, morphology, etc., but I couldn't find any, at least not on the internet. — AdiJapan ☎ 14:29, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Using Bulgarian for liturgy

I would like to pose a question. Why was Bulgarian used as the liturgical language and the official written language until the 18th century? That is, why not Greek or Latin?—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kaloyan* (talk • contribs) April 20, 2006.Kaloyan* 13:45, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

bulgarians.... Greier 17:47, 20 April 2006 (UTC)


The reasons why Bulgarian Language was used in churches are simple.

First of all, many Bulgarians used to live in the territory of Wallachia, Moldavia, even Transylvania, but mostly in the first two principalities. Bulgarians made a country on the Balkan in 681 A.D. with a territory enlarging all the time. Since that year, until the fall of the Second Bulgarian Kingdom in 1396 A.D. under the Ottoman, the territories of Wallachia and from time to time Moldavia, were populated by many Bulgarians families.If you have noticed Wallachia as a free and independent state was formed around 1300 A.D. Before that moment Wallachia was part of the First and Second Bulgarian Kingdoms. Usually, Wallachs and Bulgars were attacking together( the Byzantium and Ottoman Empire), even Romanian historians claim that they made one Romanian-Bulgarian country. Also, after the Ottoman empire conquered Bulgaria, many Bulgarians move with everything they could take to Wallachia. Another big wave of Bulgarians moved to Wallachia and Moldavia in 1699 A.D. and the last big wave of Bulgarian people moving to Romania was around 1876 A.D. (After the Ottoman MASSACER in 1876 killing more than 30 000 Bulgarian women, children and old people). Bulgarians in Wallachia and Moldavia around 1876 A.D. were at least 750 000 - 1 000 000 (nowadays they are around 200 000 both in Romania and Republic of Moldova and parts of Ukraine).

Second of all, Bulgarian Church was recognized by Byzantium and later on by Rome as an independent long time before the Romanian one, and that's the Bulgarian language was adopted by the Romanians in their churches. And let's not forget, Bulgarian letters were used until the mid of 19th century.

So, that's some of the reasons. If you are interessted i would share more facts with you.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Vonin (talk • contribs) 22 April 2006.


No thanks... Your answer is not to correct one, so I doubt the continuation would be better. However, you could try answering another question... For example, what does "Bulgarian", at that time, meant? Slavs, Turkics, Pamirians, or what? In the First Bulgarian Empire article, I also see the remark about the population of Thracians, Greeks and Dacians, most of whom spoke either Greek or a Latin-derived language known as Romance. In other words, non-political, the populations are vlachs, and that "romance languge" is actually Romanian, right? Now I ask, why do you take it as a fact, a natural thing, that Bulgarian meant slavs??? Why "Bulgarian" meant only slavs? Especially because when I read internet sites about the history of Bulgaria, I keep reading how these populations migled and mixed to form the Bulgarians. I too have read how many refugees camed from Bulgaria or the Wallachian Principalites when the ottomans invaded, but the historians say they were vlachs from southe of the Danube. So, by your previous answer, you were just agrreing with me that Bulgarian meant vlach too, not only slavic speaking people, right?

For example, here is what this site says:

The Slavs had lived with/been ruled by Nomads for millennia, so this was nothing new to them. The Bulgars were the militarily dominant group of people and thus they became the ruling class. The name of the new state, consisting of Bulgars, Slavs and Thracians {Vlachs} was Bulgaria.

now some BS:

it turns out that the brothers were from Thracian {Vlach} origin. This indistinguishable merging of Bulgarian cultures had become evident by their time. One could make the argument, that already, the different etnicities in Bulgaria had become one.

hahaha haha haa.. So I ask again, what does bulgarian meant? If we have this conversation about the "bulgarians" (hahah hahah ha) from south of the Danube, than what more can be sayd about the "bulgarians" from north of the Danube. In your answer, you tried, although in a very perverse way, to aproach this subject, with those mentions about what Romanian historians say, etc...

If you wonder why I sayd "perverse", it`s simple... Returning to that internet page, we see how continuating a policy old of decades, the author also take the opportunity for some political interpretations about thracians, dacians and the language they spoke. Of course, the inplied insults don`t matter...:

But the Dachians were much more thoroughly Latinized by Rome. It is possible the deals Rome made with some Thracian kings to conquer other Thracian tribes, the wide degree of independence Thrace preserved for a long time within the empire, and the constant Thracian rebellions against Rome, are all reasons why, unlike the Dachians, most of the Thracians were not Latinized. In fact the term "Vlach" still has somewhat of a negative meaning in Bulgaria today.

So, I repeat the third time. When you sayd First of all, many Bulgarians used to live in the territory of Wallachia, Moldavia, even Transylvania, but mostly in the first two principalities. Bulgarians made a country on the Balkan in 681 A.D. with a territory enlarging all the time, what did you meant by "bulgarians" from north of the Danube and "Bulgarian State"? Were those slavs, turkics or vlachs? Knowing what the asnwer is going to be, I pose the next question: why did you used that quote to answer why Slavonic (not Bulgarian !!!!!!!, in case you didn`t knew) was used (BESIDES LATIN) as an administration language? WHY!?!?!

Almost forgot, I liked your last comment: And let's not forget, Bulgarian letters were used until the mid of 19th century. hahah ha hahaha ha.... very funny... I really would like to see those letters with the Made in Bulgaria stamps... hahh hahahhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa 11:27, 23 April 2006 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Greier (talk • contribs) .

My dear friend, i will answer all your questions. You are absolutely right that Bulgarians by the year of 700 for example, didn't mean just (only) Slavians. When Proto-Bulgars (by the way Proto-Bulgars means 'A tribe from nowaydays North Iran or nowayadays North Afganistan', which doesn't mean Proto-Bulgars were Arabs, so don't waste another question of yours), came to the Balkans they made a country including at first today's North Bulgaria (without Sofia), East Wallachia, whole Moldavia, and a South-East part of Ukraine.

Check in here http://www.zum.de/whkmla/histatlas/balkans/bulg850.gif

By that time those territories and plenty more were inhabited mostly and mainly by Slavs. Although the Proto-Bulgars were at least 300 000 by the time of their arraival on the Balkans, the Slavs were 5 to 10 times more. You can imagine how many Vlachs have survived in that mixture. And, yes, i repeat, Bulgarian didn't mean only Proto-Bulgarians or only Slavs. BUT MAINLY SLAVS, DUE TO THE FACT I TOLD YOU ABOVE!

Also, in 855 A.D. two brothers named Cyril and Metodius (with a mother Slavian and a father Byzantian), very high-educated men, spent most of their lives completing missions for Byzantium, created, invented, made, whatever you want, the BULGARIAN ALPHABET, i repeat, this ALPHABET, was given DIRECTLY to the Bulgarian king BORIS THE FIRST, by their best scholar KLIMENT OHRIDSKI! The alphabet was made for the mixed country called BULGARIA, for the people lived in that country. The alphabet now is known as CYRILIC ALPHABET! From Bulgaria the alphabet were to RUSSIA AND SERBIA and to ROMANIA too. Check what letters ROMANIA was using before the middle of the 19 century.

About your question whether Thracians existed by the arraival of the Proto-Bulgars i strongly disagree that they were a factor on the Balkans by the year 700 A.D. First of all, they were really influenced by the Greeks and almost lost everything unique in their culture. They didn't have a country, a free, independent country after the Romans conquerted it, and as i told you before, SLAVS were much more than the Thracians. Slavs were the main people on the Balkans for some centuries. From 6th to 10th mainly. Also, there's such a thing called SLAVS FROM THE SERBO-CROATIAN group, SLAVS FROM THE BULGARIAN GROUP, SLAV FROM THE NORTH-EAST GROUP (RUSSIANS AND UKRAINIANS)! So, when i say SLAVS i mean SLAVS FROM THE BULGARIAN BRANCH, SLAVS INHABITED MOSTLY THE TERRITORIES WHERE THEY WERE IN A CONTACT WITH BULGARS!!!

ONE MORE THING THRACIAN DOESN'T MEAN WALLACHIAN!

YES, 'VLACH' HAS A NEGATIVE MEANING IN BULGARIA. FOR SURE!

I WOULD LIKE TO ADD THAT SUCH PRINCIPALITY AS WALLACHIA DIDN'T EXIST BEFORE 1300 A.D. THIS TERRITORY WAS RULED MOSTLY BY BULGARIA AND IN PARTS BY HUNGARY. THE INFLUENCE OF BULGARIANS WAS HUGE.

LET ME ASK YOU COUPLE OF QUESTIONS TOO.

1) WHERE DO YOU THINK ROMANIA BECAME A CHRISTIAN COUNTRY? 2) HOW COME 20 % OF THE REXICAL IN THE ROMANIAN LANGUAGE IS WITH BULGARIAN ORIGIN? 3) MOST OF THE ROMANIAN RULERS NAMES ARE WITH BULGARIAN ORIGIN, WHY? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Vonin (talk • contribs) 23 April 2006.


yeah, I knew I was right... you`re wasted... Greier 09:19, 24 April 2006 (UTC)


If you are such a wise-guy, why don't you answer me? You lost your mind? 24.04.06 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Vonin (talk • contribs) .


Greier, I see people from other discussions have been trying to beat some net-manners into you. it may have been in vain. Just for the spirit of the discussion, I'd suggest that you refrain from further usage of "ha-ha-ha" as it shows a cmplete lack of respect for the people participating.

If I were to ask you to reverse your principal question into "what did Wallachians at that time mean?" you'd be having a hard time replying. (As for Bulgarians, the name meant every subject of the Bulgarian state. When Christianity was adopted and the alphabet completed, the name became slowly to mean much more than that.) Let me remind you that when Wallachia is part of the Bulgarian state for at least half ot its history, when there are many Slavs, Bulgars, Greeks, Cumans, Pechenegs, Uzes, Tatars, Hungarians and others, invading, ruling and settling in those lands, Wallachians - IF the region had this name for all this time - meant nothing else than the people that happened to live in the REGION called Wallachia at some point in history.

I do not agree with the claim that Thracians completely disappeared. Today, we're still performing many of their rituals, we drink wine, we dance their dances and we play their music, mixed as it may be. The Thracians moved up to the mountains, away fom the main roads of invasion. They were eventually entirely assimilated. Their language and their separate ethnic group disappeared but their culture remained.

Vonin thank's for your post. I mainly agree with it. What would you say about the lands across the Danube, when exactly do you think they emerged as an autonomous political entity? One of the theories I have heard is that Constantine Tih gave these territories autonomy. But then some of the Bulgarian towns on the Danube had also another part in Wallachia. This is as late as the reign of Ivan Sratsimir. In that case, Bulgarian rulers still had a foothold in Wallachia. The question is whether they had any influence further up north.--Kaloyan* 13:45, 28 April 2006 (UTC)


haa hhahaha hahah ha ha.... Thracian dances, rituals and wine.... hahahha haha you mean the Vlach dances, rituals and wines, which in theyr turn are of thracian origin dork! Martenitsa, Kalushari, Kukeri, etc, those are Romanian traditions, just badly spelled... (by the way, I like that S.F. about Khan Kubrat and Martenitsa... hahahahah... Beats Alice in Wonderland... hahahhahaha; second by the way: I like these new fairytales about how Bulgarians held power over Wallachia for more than half of her history.... hahahhahahahha.... and almost forgot... thank you for giving us autonomy... hahahahhah)). So just remember by pamirian friend, it`s Thracian->Romanian->Bulgarian, not Thracian->Bulgarian... Get it, my slavo-bulgar ruler? Just like the tartars, bulgars, uzes & Co., you left nothing behind Greier 20:27, 27 April 2006 (UTC)


Greier, there were many different Thracian tribes. Across the Danube they were called Dacians. South of Danube there were Odrissi and Maedi and so on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thracians. So when I say Thracian I don't mean Vlachs - the Latinised part of the Thracians - I speak of all Thracians that lived on Bulgarian territory and left plenty of their culture around. When it comes down to common customs in today's Bulgaria and Romania, the Thracian legacy explain one bit. Then you have the common Bulgar and Slavic legacy you're not so happy about :) And from what I see, you didn't even attempt to answer the other question: what exactly did 'Wallachian' mean back in the Middle Ages? For it is all there is - there was nothing "Romanian" on the Wallachians before the 19th century. --Kaloyan* 13:43, 28 April 2006 (UTC)


I can see Greier is not willing to give me any answers to my questions too. But this is normal. Greier, have you heard about Oswald Spengler? Only one phrase from his works is enough: WHERE FACTS ARE MISSING, FEELINGS CONTROL! In this case I bet you are a Romanian, and you want really, really badly a connection between ancient Dacia,Middle Aged Wallachia and Modern Romania. But that, my dear friend is almost impossible. It is true that Dacia was a large and rich country, but the population wasn't that much to resist all those waves of migration. Think about it, Greeks, Romans, Slavians, Bulgars, Tatars, Cumans, TURKS, my pal. Tell me, where did Wallachia become a christian principality from? Wasn't from the powerful Middle Aged country of Bulgaria? And why does so many words in the Modern Romanian language have a Slavian origins? Questions you probably never asked yourself. Face it my friend, Wallachia started its independent existence since the Turks occupied, ruined, torn into pieces and terminate the Bulgarian administration. Before that, it was more like 'Nobody's land'. Not that Wallachians didn't exist or live there, but they couldn't connect into one centralized and strong country.

As to Kaloyans' questions I do believe the last Bulgarian king who controlled Wallachia in a very good political and economic way( for Bulgaria) was king Ivan Asen the Second (1218- 1241). After his death, Wallachia began slowly to separate from the Bulgarian Kingdom, besides that the Bulgarian Kingdom wasn't in condition to hold those territories and the Hungarians were attacking Wallachia almost each year. As to Your second question, it is very hard to say was the influence of the Bulgarian kingdom went on full-speed over Wallachia.After 1241 the end for the Second Bulgarian Empire was near. i think Bulgaria tried to hold it's territories mainly in Moesia, Thracia, parts of nowadays Serbia and parts of nowaday Macedonia. Wallachia wasn't that important. But the influence was crucial, especially when we are talking about the cultur-spiritual aspect. Another fact will prove my conclusion. The Aromanian language (it is believed to be a dialect or a separate language from the Romance language group) kept its diversity and unique side, but the modern Romanian ( Daco-Romanian) was influenced highly by the Slavian-Bulgarian language. When there's such an influence in language, adding the migration of hundred of thousands Bulgarian people to Wallachia and Moldavia after the arraval of the Turks, i could say that the Bulgarian language and ethnic element played a huge role in the Romanian history.

01.05.06, 02.10 h.

To give some quick answers here:
  • Christianity was brought on the lands of present day Romania and Bulgaria way before the slavs came, and thera are proofs for that: See the Donarium from Biertan and the fact that most romanian language names related to christianity are of latin origin.
  • The institution of the church was strenghtened only after the slavs (and bulgarians) migrations, and due to the fact that the majority of the nobles and clerigy were of Bulgarian and Slavonic origin, they used their language on the church related affairs. That's why most romanian words related with the church ritual and lithurgy are of slavonic influence.
So the land of the principality of Wallachia, of Moldavia and Transylvania were christian long before the bulgarians, but became principalities a little bit later.
  • The main occupation of the vlah population was for a very long time that of sheepherders, and that's why they were slow on forming strong statal entities, and also that's why they can be found on such a large area and they managed to maintain a strong unity of their language.
  • It's no shame that Romanian language was influenced by slavonic languages, but tha same thing happened in France, Spain, Portugal and Italy. Each of the latin based languages have their own particularities based on the influences they endured thoughout the centuries (germanic or arabic) and vocabulary borrowings from one language to another can be found in all languages spoken on this Earth. What really matters is the structure of the language which makes Romanian langage a latin language. Also, although there are many words of Slavonic, Hungarian, German, Greek or Tukish origin, the vast majority of romanian words are of latin origin (over 60-70%).

Mihai -talk 10:30, 29 May 2006 (UTC)


Dear, Mihai, i realise that the influence of English today, for example, is huge and of Greek some centuries ago too, but the point wasn't here. I think you are right that parts of the land were christianized some centuries before the Proto-Bulgars arrived. Let's not forget the mighty of the Roman Empire- its West and East part. But i was trying to show to all of you people, that thanks to the Bulgarian country and of course Byzantine, Christianity was spread through whole the Balkans. And also, on territories where Bulgarian population was met the new-old religion was better adopted. When facts are speaking, even the Gods are silent! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Vonin (talk • contribs) 17 June 2006.

Munca/Munka

User 83.253.19.47 has added "munca" to the examples of loan words from Hungarian. AFAIK, "munka"/"monka" is of Slavic origin (originally meaning "torture" :). - Mentatus 13:01, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

indeed, it's from Slavic. bogdan 14:01, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

T-V distinction

It might be helpful to have a link to the T-V distinction page and have someone expand on the brief comments about Romanian on that page. In particular, the existence of dumneata could be seen as creating a three-level (rather than a two-level) distinction. Maybe someone (hopefully a native speaker?) could add some examples illustrating the use of dumneata and how the commonly accepted usage of this and other forms of address has evolved over the years. Richwales 22:30, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Oversized Template

The second infobox is covering up the first half of the article. we should change its position.--Hezzy 00:14, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Spoken in...

As a native Romanian, although my grasp of the language isn't as good as it should be (I know colloquialisms without knowing the full set of rules in terms of speaking or writing... this comes from learning English at the same time), I've heard that there are a "fair few" Romanians here in Perth, Western Australia. I have no indication of what a "fair few" means, or whether this qualifies Perth to be put on the map of speakers. Maybe someone who knows how to get this kind of data could look into it? --Sumo Sniper 13:58, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Eminescu

I disagree with this edit. Perhaps Eminescu does not belong in the lead, but as almost certainly the language's most famous poet, I think he merits mention in the article. - Jmabel | Talk 03:36, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Alphabet pronunciation

I heard something unexpected while watching a news broadcast from NIT in Moldova (on SCOLA, http://www.scola.org). As best I could tell, the reporters were identifying their network by using the English pronunciation of the letters NIT (i.e., [ɛnaɪˈti:]). I heard this several times from different speakers, so I'm pretty sure this is really what they were saying. Comments? Richwales 18:45, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

I would still like to hear any comments on this. Anyone?? Richwales 01:14, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Because NIT doesn't sound good spelled in Romanian. That's normal. They also spell PC in English. Vlady24april 20:49, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

It's also because it's "cool" to read the spelling in English. -- AdrianTM 20:50, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Classification and related languages

The section "Classification and related languages" strikes me as odd. Cognates to Latin "semper" aren't marked in bold, while apparently not cognates in Romanian are. I thought abot being bold, but I didn't understand the point of the section. Perhaps the Romanian words had evolved from different Classical Latin words than the modern Romance? Does anyone have proper knowledge of Latin and Romanian/Romance etymology to fix the section? 惑乱 分からん 11:50, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

comparing Romanian with English

I need to compare the Romanian phonetic alphabet with that of English. I have no idea where to start. Has it already been done? Any resources? Any ideas?

thanks Lycoris 05:47, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by "phonetic alphabet". If you mean compare the Romanian phonology with that of English, you could try our articles on Romanian phonology and English phonology. There is also this rather large pdf on Romanian grammar with a section on phonology that might help you.
If you really mean comparing the phonetic alphabets then you'll have to chose among at least two phonetic transcription systems for English (also see the article on English orthography). For Romanian there is almost no need of a phonetic alphabet, due to the language having a quite regular Phonemic orthography (or maybe this is what you meant by phonetic alphabet?), but for the purpose of foreigners the IPA is sometimes used.
Good luck! — AdiJapan ☎ 09:35, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Alphabet

Is "k" a part of the "original" Romanian alphabet, or is it used onyl to write loanwords (and names)? The problem is that the sound already is represented through either "c" (care) or "ch" (chemare). When an elementary school student, I learned that "k" is only used in loanwords or names, such as "kilogram", or "Kogalniceanu". Is this still the position of the Academy? Dpotop 15:43, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Why is this relevant? Anyway, the answer is that k is a rare letter in Romanian, as you know, and only found in relatively new words. The same goes for w, y, and q. However, I'm not aware of any explicit position of the Romanian Academy on this. — AdiJapan ☎ 16:17, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
But on w, y, and q, the article clearly states that they are not part of the "original alphabet", whatever this may be. So, I suggest "k" is put in the same class. Dpotop 18:10, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
Ok, I added K to the list. In the meantime I found that 1998 DEX confirms that this letter is used in proper nouns and international neologisms [1]. — AdiJapan ☎ 18:39, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Latin Union

As per the Official language article, which states that such a status is conferred by "a state, or other legally-defined territory", I cut mention of the Latin Union from the green sidebar. I did this especially because no other Romance language has the Latin Union under its "official in" section, and because the Latin Union is already mentioned twice within the article. If we followed this precedent of listing international organisations under the "official in" heading, the list for (eg) English would be very long indeed. Biruitorul 03:10, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

minor edit

cut this "However, compared to Italian, Romanian sounds considerably softer and less emphatic (rather like Portuguese compared to Spanish)."

It's too subjective. I use the word soft when talking about Spanish, compared to portuguese which sounds "harsh" to me. Not really enciclopaedic. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.77.137.16 (talk • contribs) 12 October 2006.

Aromanian

A standard Aromanian dialect is, I believe, official in some Macedonian municipalities. As this is not the same Romanian variant as the one on the article (which concentrates mostly on Romania itself), would anyone object to its inclusion in the "official language of..." caption? Evlekis 14:42, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Question, if a Romanian would go there in those municipalities and speak or write Romanian, would those people accept that because "it's the official language", my guess would be that they would not understand or even if they would understand some words they would complain that's Romanian, not Aromanian (Vlach). Therefore I don't think is correct to include that in "official language of... " -- AdrianTM 15:31, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Good point. My ability in Romanian isn't great and I wouldn't trust myself to read the news, that is for sure. Obviously, Aromanian is not the standard language of Romania, though it is a form of Romanian as the article's editors do acknowledge. If Aromanian is close enough to Bucharest Romanian, I don't see a problem, but if it isn't or, the page aims to be specific about Romanian of Romania, which is the case with Vojvodina, Serbia, then it is better not to mention Romanian as a language of Macedonia. I trust it is all right to keep the expansion of the "spoken in" section even though it does relate to the distant dialects of Romanian. Evlekis 15:45, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
I think Aromanian is especially different from the official form of Romanian, a Romanian from countryside would probably communicate better with an Aromanian, my understanding is that they are close enough so people would learn the differences within weeks or at most couple of months and it wouldn't be like learning a foreign language, it would be more like adapting than learning a different language. Since I see that you speak Serbo-Croat and Bulgarian I think you understand the concept, I don't know how close are Serbian and Bulgarian (I don't speak either) but I would assume that's not necessarily to study one for years in order to learn it if you know the other. -- AdrianTM 16:10, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
I see what you mean now, quite. We'll leave such a feature purely for Aromanian then and not Romania's official langauge, whether or not they are two variants of the same one. Serbian and Bulgarian, so that you know, are reasonably similar, seperated by a line of intermediate dialects, so yes, much the same thing. Communication is ones own language only between the two can at times be smooth and at others, taxing. This is how it seems to be with Aromanian too. Evlekis 16:39, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
We cannot here argue about the status of Aromanian, as that violates WP:NOR. We must look to formal scholarship. International study of the Romance languages, centered on Cambridge, overwhelmingly considers Aromanian distinct in itself. CRCulver 16:50, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree. -- AdrianTM-
I definitely agree to that discussing this ourselves here violates the WP:NOR, but I do want to point out that there is a study somewhere (don't know how to post external links here) that showed that the huge majority of the Aromanians believe they speak a "variety" ("zburare" I think is the word in Aromanian) of Romanian. Mirc mirc 15:56, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Particularities

The section about "particularities" states that: "The main particularities Romanian has relative to other languages using the Latin alphabet are" and then lists several things that supposedly fit this category. Of the list, the following items are all also true of Spanish:

  1. Dialogues are identified with quotation dashes;
  2. Punctuation signs which follow a text in parentheses always follow the final bracket;
  3. 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.).
  4. Names of months and days are not capitalized (ianuarie "January", joi "Thursday")
  5. Adjectives derived from proper names are not capitalized (Germania "Germany", but german "German")

I believe, but can't confirm, that at least 4 and 5 are also true of Portuguese. I suspect 2 and 3 are, too. Don't know about 1.

Cheers! Steve Fishboy 04:05, 1 February 2007 (UTC) (Who always wanted to learn Romanian, but who had to settle for English, German and Spanish)

No.1 I think is not officially correct in Romanian either... although it's widely used. -- AdrianTM 04:32, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

As the paragraph states, those particularities are relative to other Latin-script languages, and it doesn't mean to all the other. All the statements are correct (including the one about the dialogue dash). — AdiJapan ☎ 07:48, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

What about names?

Targu Mures sau Tirgu Mures?

Somebody arguments? .. not just possibilities ... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 195.250.59.34 (talk) 09:09, 1 February 2007 (UTC).

Quotation Marks

The article says that Polish-style quotation marks are used in Romania. I had thought that this is just a recent trend (owing perhaps to MS Office?), since almost all books published before the advent of computers had German-style double quotation marks. Is there an Academy regulation about this or anything else that might prove the 'correctness' of Polish quotation marks? Waardijner 21:34, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, we have the Îndreptarul ortografic, ortoepic şi de punctuaţie, 5th edition (1995), published by the Romanian Academy, where they say the correct style is „quote «inside» quote”. It's not a new trend, although some publications have indeed been using other styles too. — AdiJapan ☎ 10:07, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Romanian alphabet

The article "Romanian language" contains the following sentence: "Initially, there were as many as 12 additional letters, but some of them disappeared in subsequent reforms." My question: Which 12 additional letters were used in the Romanian language? --88.76.238.110 12:42, 9 July 2007 (UTC)


Can we please remove nonsense like "national colors"?

As the title says, can we please remove things that don't add any real info. Thanks. -- AdrianTM 16:17, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Red, Yellow and Blue are considered the national colors of Romania. People think about them as being national. They are, in this combination, a part of Romanian culture. Therefore there should not be changed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.254.125.35 (talk) 03:53, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Flag colours

I inserted the image Image:Roumanophone_national_flags_colours2.png to depict national symbols of the countries where the language is spoken, somehow the diversion within this states. It only has informative role, as Romanians in Romania often consider that Romanians are symbolised only by the tricolour. This image is somehow an umbrella of the five flags that are used in regions where Romanian is an official language, somehow like Image:D-A-CH Flag.svg used in the German language article, Image:Hispanofonia.gif used in the Spanish language article, or like Image:Cplp.gif used in the article about the Comunidade dos Países de Língua Portuguesa. Such own created designs are not restricted by any guideline of Wikipedia, because they don't promote a POV, they are just informative and should not harm the content of the article, in stead it should only enrich it. Also I don't see why AdrianTM sees this as a bad thing, and he launches himself in strange afirmations like "if other articles are bad why should this also be". Who said that the other articles are bad? --Danutz

This is just senseless. Wikipedia is not a promotional tool for original designs or artwork, no matter how many others have done it. "Not restricted by any guideline of Wikipedia"? What about WP:OR and WP:NOT (and point 3.1 of Wikipedia:10 things you did not know about images on Wikipedia)? If properly informed about the nature and status of the flag, the readers will have to be presented with "this flag was created by Danutz, because he's an imaginative guy" - which would fail other sections of WP:NOT, as well as criteria related to notability! Add to this that the very concept of "Roumanophone" countries/regions is again being stretched to fantasy levels, as I think we have already discussed. Dahn 16:48, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
It is not a flag. It is just a list of colors that are used on the national/regional flags and symbols of countries where Romanian is official. You might not accept the term Roumanophone that is your problem, but this is image doesn't deal with this term. Maybe only in the title, but I'm sure the image can be renamed. This is surently not an original reseach and it also not deal with "10 things you..." as it is not another version of a image yet existing, and it does carry information, the national symbols of the countries where Romanian is spoken. And many times this symbols refer to the language of that country. For instance the colours in the Romanian flag suggest the unity of the Romanian-speaking and Romanian-inhabited provinces that compose at the moment Romania (Moldova, Transylvania and Valachia). The flags of Vojvodina and Transnistria suggest the unity of the nations living in Vojvodina (and we come again to the Romanian language). That's why I think the colors are suggesting for the Romanian language, as all have a reference to the Romanian language. --Danutz
Those colors are highly irrelevant, if there were more countries with Romanians those colors would be the colors of the rainbow. And the "colours in the Romanian flag suggest the unity of the Romanian-speaking and Romanian-inhabited provinces that compose at the moment Romania" is plain nonsense especially if you apply it to Transnistria. -- AdrianTM 17:32, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I replaced the image with an animation that depicts the flags used in this territories. Apropo, Adrian, i said "colours in the Romanian flag suggest the unity of the Romanian-speaking and Romanian-inhabited provinces that compose at the moment Romania"... You should know at this time that Transnistria is not a part of Romania. --Danutz

Oh right, how about this nonsense:"The flags of Vojvodina and Transnistria suggest the unity of the nations living in Vojvodina (and we come again to the Romanian language)" -- AdrianTM 17:50, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
And I don't really like flash animation in Wikipedia pages, especially when it doesn't add anything new, the flags are already listed in infobox. -- AdrianTM 17:53, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

That is your problem if you don't like them. But this is surtenly not original research, and they are good placed, as that section refers to the geographic distribution of the language. The flags in the infobox are to small to be seen, aditionaly in the infobox Gagauzia and Transnistria are not listed as they are territories of Moldova and Moldova is allready listed, but they do have their own flags and in their respective territories Romanian is not the single official language, actually it is not even the first language. Then about the nonsense you listed, I inserted the word Transnistria latter, and I forgot to also add it at the end of the sentence: "The flags of Vojvodina and Transnistria suggest the unity of the nations living in Vojvodina in Transnistria, respectively (and we come again to the Romanian language). I said that we come again to the Romanian language because the Romanian nation in Vojvodina and the Romanian/Moldovan nation in Transnistria use Romanian language and one cannot artificially separate a nation from a language. Most times languages define nations. --Danutz

I'm sorry, Danutz, but really that animation doesn't add anything useful to the article, and the same goes for your 5-color flag. Anyone who may want to get a good look at those flags can do so elsewhere. Besides, as AdrianTM said, a flashing gif on a page is irritating and hinders comfortable reading --- you should know this from other websites where they have animated advertizing banners. The countries where Romanian is spoken are mentioned quite a few times in the article, so every reader will surely get at least that point, and one more such listing, in any shape or form, could be seen as an undue weight placed on the fact. Please be reasonable. — AdiJapan ☎ 14:31, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Allow me to weigh in on this issue. Regardless of whether there's one Romanian language (as I believe), or multiple ones under names like Moldovan or Timok Vlach (as, at least in the case of the latter, is official, and thus raises OR issues if we toy with that concept), that animation is just silly and unnecessary. We have the little flags in the table. We have the detailed text. We don't need flashy graphics that add nothing (assuming our target audience is over age 7). Please let's stick to, for instance, trying to raise this to GA level -- it's getting there -- and not adding trifling baubles like that. As for the "Romanian-speaking countries and territories", again, the set is so small and the topic so laden with POV possibilities that it just isn't worth it. Biruitorul 17:16, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Common words and phrases: bună vs. salut?

I was surprised to see "salut" listed as a common word or phrase equivalent to "hello" in English. Not because I think it's wrong but just that it seemed from recent experience that "bună" was far more common. Perhaps this is a difference in formality, where "salut" is more formal (?), but I recently spent two weeks in Romania and everywhere I went -- Cluj, Sighişoara, Bucharest, Sinaia, Brasov -- it was always "bună", "bună ziua", "bună seara" and so forth. Humbly submitted.

Well, why do people say that in English they say "hello" I mostly heard "hi"... I guess it depends on region, persons, situation, both are informal, neither are appropriate for using with older persons or in official situation. I guess if two directors meet (if they are friends) they might say "salut" to each other, while if two young people meet they might say "bună". It's not written in stone either... -- AdrianTM 23:07, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Your comment is not really accurate. There's a difference in speech regarding Bună and salut. Guys generally Salut amongst each other while girls use Bună. However, both of them are commonly used. "Bună", as part of the polite way of saying good (bună) morning, day, evening, night, might seem more casual. But it's not. Both are used. Really frequently. Cheers, Codrin

Comparison with non-Romance languages

I hope you find interesting the paragraph that I last add it. It's about the comparison with non-Romance languages.WallakTalk 18:41, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Moeso-Romanian

Hi,

Please take a look at Talk:Moeso-Romanian. Thanks in advance. --Amir E. Aharoni 14:26, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I deleted it again. It's a made-up term. bogdan 14:38, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

GA Nominated

This article has been nominated for GA candidacy. Tarrettalk 00:03, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

GA review

The article has great potential and much information, but has several basic problems, most of which need to be addressed before we can call this a good article. I'm dividing them into several categories based on the nature of the deficiencies.

Structure

  • The layout is very awkward in some places. There are just too many maps and tables crammed into some sections.
    • I cut out some redundant maps and maps that didn't add much info. -- AdrianTM 14:04, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
      • The maps have been re-added by another editor, the discussion continues here. -- AdrianTM 00:59, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
  • The section "Contacts with other languages" is pretty interesting, but it would probably work better if it was included under a more general heading. A suggestion is to move it to "Classification".
    • I could move that to "Classification" section but that would push on top of the page details that might not be as important as other issues. Besides, influences and borrowings don't actually change the classification of a language. -- AdrianTM 14:23, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
  • There is a general over-usage of lists and examples in many sections. The long list of basically nothing but Old Church Slavonic words is, for example, uncalled for and could just as well be summarized in just two or three examples. Same thing goes for the table of Latin-Romanian cognates.
    • I trimmed the lists a little bit. -- AdrianTM 14:04, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Focus and scope

  • The article is too detailed about topics, while being very brief on others. For example, the info on legal status in individual territories goes as far as citing individual articles of constitutions. This is clearly something that needs to be summarized more tightly.
  • Romanian alphabet has its own article which is basically smaller than the section devoted to the same topic in this article. It should be the other way around.
  • Trimmed that a little bit, there's still to much content about letters î and â... I'll let other people to summarize that. -- AdrianTM 14:40, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Actually I went ahead and removed the history of letters î and â, this is a matter of history and is treated in Romanian alphabet article. -- AdrianTM 14:49, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Small comment on this issue, I was ready to delete the list since this is an easy task (and I love easy tasks) but I went first to the link above and I saw that the main complaint was verifiability, which is not a problem in this case, any dictionary can confirm the list, also many opinions were to "keep" the list if it's cleaned up -- this is a pretty clean list, and the decision to "delete" was far from being unanimously, I'd wait for more opinions of this article editors before I delete the list. -- AdrianTM 12:33, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
  • This issue has been discussed for over two years already. Many, many people have had their say on this issue, and so far no reasonable arguments as to why Wikipedia should be either dictionary or a phrase book have presented themeselves. This acute lack of supporting arguments has been recognized in an AfD and an endorsal of that AfD. The language project does not endorse language samples in the form of tourist phrases. No featured or good articles on languages have "where's the toilet"-translations as language samples. And while I'm sure there are still people who want to ignore that our many sister projects (Wiktionary, WikiBooks, etc) can handle these phrase lists so much better than we can, I will not pass an article with obviously unencyclopedic content. Peter Isotalo 13:50, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
  • OK, done. -- AdrianTM 14:04, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

References

  • Using tertiary sources like Encarta for referencing should be avoided unless a better source can be found. In this case, you might as well cite SIL directly, since this is the source cited by Encarta.
  • While there are many references, it is difficult to get a good overview since most of them are in the form of footnotes. What the article needs are separate sections for notes and the sources. Also, the links need to be properly formatted with a retrieval date. And what's up with the references to Georgiev and Duridanov in notes 24 and 25? Are they authors? Linguists? If so, which books are being cited?
  • Some sections are bristling with footnotes while others lack them completely. There should be at least a general citation of, for example, the sections on sounds and grammar.
  • Surely there must be at least a few general print reference in English that can be used to support the content of the article.

Verifiability

  • I'm not terribly read up on the finer details of Romanian, but the amateur scholar in me can't help squirming with doubt when I see "Romanian was probably the first language that split from Latin" and "one of the most uniform languages in Europe". Both these statements sound a bit like over-simpliciations to me.

Prose

  • Sentences like "Here it is called "Moldovan language" and it is written in Cyrillic." need to be polished.
  • Sentences with semicolons like "Letters K, Q, W, and Y are not part of the native Romanian alphabet; they are used mainly to write loanwords, such as kilogram, quasar, watt, and yoga." would be better off as simply "K, Q, W and Y are not part of the native alphabet, but are mostly used to write loanwoards like..." and so forth. Dependent clauses are your friends.
  • I think I fixed that, also K, Q, W, and Y are actually part of the official Romanian alphabet, but they are used only for loanwords. -- AdrianTM 14:42, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
  • "Roumanophones" is not a particularly common word and could just as well be replaced with "Romanian speaking" (with or without a hyphen).
  • Done. -- AdrianTM 14:10, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
  • There are plenty of stubby paragraphs. Try to merge them with the main bodies of text to the best of your ability.

Just cross out the various pointers when you feel you have addressed them.

Peter Isotalo 08:47, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

  • Thanks Peter, these are very good comments, I tried to do whatever I could (hope you don't mind I commented in your post), I hope other people will join in and do the rest of the work. -- AdrianTM 14:51, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
I am taking a wikibreak to get myself geared up for a minor exam that I have at the end of the week. I'm going to re-assess the article when I get back on Monday.
Peter Isotalo 14:04, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Can anybody else help with the article till Peter comes back to re-assess it? -- AdrianTM 15:56, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Failed GA nomination

Even though the article has made some good information and does contain a lot of information with references, there are a few points which need to be addressed before I can really call it a good article. I'm going to give examples of problems by going through the good article criteria one by one:

  1. well written
    There are some seriously listy and very technical sections in the article. "Grammar" is an example of a fairly concise summary that uses terminology that might not be known to everybody but isn't excessive. "Phonology" is a whole different matter. It is msotly a long list of (certain) sounds with an excess of IPA notation and the likes. The only comparison is historical and related to Latin and the info on phonotactics is also very selective.
  2. factually accurate and verifiable
    I'm not an expert on Romanian, but I do have some concerns about what to me look like excessesive generalizations or outright speculation. Here are some examples:
    • "...Romanian was probably the first language that split from Latin..." - How is this "split" actually defined here? Is this supported by linguists?
    • "'Romanian' in a general sense envelops four hardly mutually intelligible speech varieties..." - Is this really the most common definition of Romanian? Isn't the problem that "Daco-Romanian" is actually just a more specific term for what most people call "Romanian"? Please note that the perspective needs to be a bit greater than just the debate among the Romanian academia.
    • "...the high homogenity and uniformity of the language." Not an outright challenge to the accuracy of the statement on my part, but it would be nice to know what the statement i based on.
    Through I am no fan of footnote counting, there are some statements (and even entire sections) that are screaming for even a minimum of reference and I will fact tag these accordingly.
  3. broad in coverage
    Largely, yes. There are at least minimal mentions of all the linguistic aspects one would expect from an article like this, but some aspects are heavily over-represented while others are largely ignored. "Dialects" is mostly concerned with defining the general dichotomy of language vs. dialect and has minimal information about the actual dialects and nothing on the standard language. "Classification", "Writing system" and "Geographic distribution" take up more than half the article, and in the last section, most of it is a very tedious read on the finer points of the legal status of Romanian. Especially the latter is a very obvious example of undue weight which is obviously a result of strong nationalist sentiment.
  4. neutral
    As far as I can tell, yes, except for the undue (or just overly zealous) coverage of the legal status of the langauge.
  5. stable
    The article is edit-protected and I've seen some overly aggressive edit summaries without any serious attempts at discussion from certain parties.
  6. properly illustrated
    It has plenty of pics, but unfortunately these are still very much focused on nationalist-political information, which really isn't merited. At least not in this article. A bonus, though by no means a requirement, would be some samples. Preferably from a text of some sort, like a poem or an excerpt of some well-known novel.

I'm going to help out with tweakage over the next few days, but I can't really bring the article up to GA quality with some copyediting. If anyone wishes to renominate the article again, they are welcome to contact me again for a reassessment of the article.

Peter Isotalo 14:55, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd just like to point out that literally all of these complaints don't need to be fixed for the article to be receive a GA status, just the really major issues. If all of the above are addressed, I'd say the article will probably be up for a featured article nomination.
Peter Isotalo 08:17, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
I agree with all the points you made. Hope somebody with better editing skills than me will jump in. -- AdrianTM 12:24, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

General characteristics

Should we add a paragraph that makes a summary of general characteristics of Romanian? E.g., belongs to Italic branch of the Indo-European language family, is an inflected language, has 3 cases, 3 genders, SVO language, presents T-V distinction, is a syllable-timed language ... and anything else worth mentioning -- otherwise the article reads a little bit more like a history of Romanian and treats insufficiently the actual _linguistic_ aspects of Romanian. -- AdrianTM 01:07, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

small errors found

There are no common words that have a "Y" in Romanian.

under Romanian alphabet the following is listed

K, k (ka de la kilogram), - the article should online be in English. Plus, for an English speaker this can be confusing since it's not the same. It should be K and in cotton since "co" in this context is the closest to the Romanian pronunciation of "k"

Contemporary Romanian - highlighted words are French or Italian loanwords:

Toate fiinţele umane se nasc libere şi egale în demnitate şi în drepturi. Ele sunt înzestrate cu raţiune şi conştiinţă şi trebuie să se comporte unele faţă de altele în spiritul fraternităţii.

There are two words that have correspondent words in French or Spanish that were not highlighted such as

drepturi (romanian) - derecheas (Spanish), droites (French) toate (romanian) - todas ( Spanish) toutes (French) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.254.125.35 (talk) 04:14, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Those are not errors.
  1. The status of Y is clear from the paragraph "Letters K, Q, W, and Y are not part of the native Romanian alphabet; they are used mainly to write loanwords, such as kilogram, quasar, watt, and yoga."
  2. "Ka de la kilogram" is the name of the letter in Romanian. Also, there is no phonetic difference between the English phoneme /k/ and the Romanian /k/. They are both palatal before front vowels and velar elsewhere.
  3. The highlighted words are loanwords (borrowings), not native words. Drepturi and toate are both inherited from Latin. — AdiJapan ☎ 08:54, 5 September 2007 (UTC)