Talk:Slavic influence on Romanian

Editing needed

This is an interesting article but it needs editing in various ways to make it more suitable for Wikipedia. I've tagged it as such. I don't intend any criticism of the content of the article, which I'm not qualified to judge. Neurotip (talk) 10:27, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Title of article

To be proper English, the title should be changed to Slavic superstratum in Romanian. The word "language" is not necessary here; "Romanian" already means the language by default. If people insist on having the word "language" in the title, then it needs to be Slavic superstratum in the Romanian language — but, again, including the word "language" at all is redundant and overly wordy, since there is no possibility of confusion if it's omitted. Richwales (talk) 07:20, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Done. — AdiJapan 05:09, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Roellerism

This article is full of dubious ideas, likely taken from the Romanian history textbooks of the 50`s, where some "historians" and "linguists" tried hardly to prove that Romanian is in fact not a Romance, but a Slavic language (to please the Soviet Union). It should be urgently revised and rewritten using serious and recent bibliography on Romanian language and on the Slavic influence, not out-dated and politically inspired ideas. by Alexandru

"Mamo"

The article contains a lot of dubious information, but letting aside all the rest, I never heard "mamo" (or "tato") used in Romanian, the used forms are "mama" and "tata", the one who wrote that part seems to lack this elementary knowledge about the language. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.25.60.34 (talk) 19:40, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Anybody can edit. Just use citations (as the original authors and editors have not done). Yours, GeorgeLouis (talk) 05:15, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

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Rhotacism of intervocalic -L-

I don't agree with the following statement from the article:

"By the sixth century the shift of the intervocal l>r (solis>soare; an, am, in, im > ân, în; si>și) stopped; new borrowings from Old Slavonic do not undergo the process: сила > silă instead of the hypothetical şiră'. "

The above statement is based only on the byzantine sources which mention the massive invasion of Slavs in the Balkans from 6th century.

The text De Aedificiis by Procopius of Cesarea, supposedly written in 560 AD, mentions some Balkanic toponyms which gives us an idea about the Late Latin spoken in the Balkans in 6th century.

There is no rhotacism of intervocalic /L/ in this text. I will give here 1 example:

The text mentions the fortress of Dorostolus (http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Procopius/Buildings/4C*.html), toponym which in the following centuries has become: Durostor, Drstor, Dristor and so, thus with the L > R shift.

The shift of intervocalic L to R is chronologically the first phonetic rule that separates the late Vulgar Latin from proto-Romanian. It is a phonetic rule specific to the Romanian and its dialects only, not encountered in other Romance languages. Because of this phonetic rule (and other arguments) Istro-Romanian is considered a dialect of Romanian and NOT an Italian dialect (although Istria is much closer to Italy). Siru (talk) 12:33, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Junk Article

"could have", "possibly" have no place on an Wikipedia article, very few references, the article is junk and should be junked. Weird that an article about the Romanian language has no version in Romanian. 104.148.242.39 (talk) 23:39, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Help with sources and citations

This is a very poor article that needs more sources and proper citations. It could possibly be integrated into another article on the Romanian Language where there's a subsection on Slavic influence. If anyone knows how to do that please leave a note here.Thedodgers (talk) 09:28, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

The Slavic influences removed from Rumanian

Although the purpose of this article is to show the Slavonic influence on the Romanian language which occurred at all levels (phonetics, syntax, morphology, lexis and the Cyrillic alphabet), towards the end it states that 90 percent of the vocabulary in literary Romanian is Latin—assuring the reader that regardless of what you have just read, Romanian is still Latin. What it doesn't talk about is the 19th century language reform when Romanian nationalist scholars created dictionaries borrowing words wholesale from the Latin, French and Italian dictionaries. According to Romanian sources, modern French loanwords alone account for around 40 percent of the words in a modern Romanian dictionary (there are zero Romanian loanwords in French).

The latinization of the Romanian language came at the expense of the Slavic influences. It would be useful if this article could discuss the Slavic linguistic features that were removed from Romanian, the Slavic features that existed in the past but not now. Has this ever been studied?--User99998 (talk) 10:48, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

According to Dindelegan's books (one is cited here) and Al. Rosetti's and others, the most commonly and frequently used vocabulary (around 3000 words) is and has always been overwhelmingly (around 90%) Latin. The Slavic influence in the lexicon was significant but of a rather marginal, regional and ecclesiastical nature. Same with the structure of the Romanian language, which according to most linguists has maintained its Latin heritage throughout the migratory invasions (Slavs, Magyars, Cumans...) The French borrowings did happen in the 19th cen but even those are not part of the "basic" lexicon. There are also many borrowings from Romanian into Slavic. Perhaps those should be mentioned too.Thedodgers (talk) 09:18, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Vocative of "George"

The vocative of "George" is still "George" in Romanian. "Gheorgele" does not exist, and "Georgele" is the vocative of "Georgel" (a diminutive form of "George"). Another example should be provided (e. g. Marin-Marine, Radu-Radule) 86.120.148.67 (talk) 07:08, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for the above message. I fixed the problem. Borsoka (talk) 15:24, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Source doesn't support allegations in the text - Loanwords

Millar, Robert McColl, Trask's Historical Linguistics. Routledge. Routledge, London&New York, 2015, ISBN 978-0-415-70657-5 p. 292 http://lolita.unice.fr/~scheer/scan/Trask%2015%20(3rd%20ed%20by%20McColl%20Millar)%20-%20Historical%20linguistics.pdf

WP wording

Original source

Romanian has borrowed a significant amount of Slavic words into its vocabulary, so that for a while[when?] scholars[who?] viewed it as being a Slavic language.

page 292 Such borrowing is always with us and, given sufficient time, its scale can be enormous. Since the Norman Conquest, English has lost at least 60 per cent of the Old English vocabulary in favour of loans from French and Latin, and most of that loss took place in the several centuries after the Conquest. In less than 2,000 years Basque has borrowed so many words from the neighbouring Latin and Romance that these loan words now outnumber the indigenous words in the language, and hundreds or thousands of indigenous words have undoubtedly been lost in the process. The Romance language Romanian has borrowed so many Slavonic words that scholars for a while believed it was a Slavonic language. Albanian seems to have lost more than 90 per cent of its original vocabulary in favour of loans from Latin, Greek, Hungarian, Slavonic, Italian and Turkish. The Arabic spoken in Malta has borrowed so many words from Italian, French, English and other languages that Maltese is no longer considered by anyone to be a variety of Arabic. Such examples could be multiplied at length.

What the source writes is: The Romance language Romanian has borrowed so many Slavonic words that scholars for a while believed it was a Slavonic language.

Analysing this quote within its context, it becomes clear that the sentence regarding the Romanian language was just one among an enumeration of examples aimed at illustrating that lexical borrowings, regardless of how considerable they are, don't change the nature of the language. The sense of the phrase, as intended by the authors, is that even a Romance language like Romanian has been for a while mistakenly considered to be Slavic, due to the massive borrowings from Slavic. The WP text turns one single element within an enumeration of examples aimed to illustrate a point into something not intended by the authors, namely into a conclusion of the linguistic research. If we want to back the claim that Romanian has been considered for a while as Slavic, we should find a source which really states what we try to demonstrate.

If you compare the two texts, you can again realize that the article summerizes properly the statement on Romanian in the cited work. Borsoka (talk) 12:33, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

But who are these linguists? I've deleted that reference because the work itself (Trask's Historical Linguistics) doesn't cite any sources or people that have actually said that. Also the work itself is not a good reference for the Romanian language, it has at least 2 mistakes: it uses the future form o să avem to wrongly exemplify the future formation using the verb a vrea to reflect traits of the Balkan linguistic areal, and it mentions that Romanian has evidentiality, which is completely false. Taking this into account, this resource doesn't seem credible for this topic.

Please provide when and who precisely wrote what you keep adding back into the article and don't just summarise a phrase from a historical linguistics book that isn't credible in regard to Romanian. Linastic (talk) 16:06, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

Examples

I find a lack of examples in the article. Perhaps in a drive to reference everything, they have been removed, but examples can make it very relatable. It should at least mention da. Probably the sources have more examples. --Error (talk) 15:21, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Christian vocabulary

Is there a pattern as to when a Christian term has its roots in Latin, Greek or Slavic? --Error (talk) 15:23, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Questionable ethymology

I'm sorry, but linguists sometimes really try to make the Slavic influence look bigger than it actually is. For example, the idea that the word "vită" was influenced by the Slavic word for "life" and "animal" is ridiculous because we have the word "vițel" (from Latin vitellus), meaning "calf". It's more likely that the word "vită" was interpreted as a (regressive) derivative of "vițel", given the suffyx "-el" marks the diminutive, and there are many baby animals whose names are diminutives of the standard word for the animal. Also, if it was influenced by Slavic, why does "vită" only mean "cow" and not animal in general? Also, "mezin" is more likely from Proto-Slavic and not from Latin "medianus". As mentioned by somebody on Wiktionary, the regular sound changes would result in "mizân". A better example of Latin word borrowed from Romanian to the Slavic languages would be "gușă" from geusiae. See Wiktionary. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.138.34.52 (talk) 19:48, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Also, how is the shortening of the infinitive a Slavic influence? A few other regional languages (Friulian, Istriot) did this. The biggest counterargument is the fact that all verbs derived directly from PS are in the fourth conjugation (those ending in -i), which seems to be because the final -i in these words was interpreted as the thematic vowel rather than a part of the infinitive mark (-ti). The appearance of the two forms of the infinitive can't be a Slavic influence, either, because the long infinitive mark in Romanian matches that of Latin, whose contact with ended by this time. 2A02:2F0E:A200:F000:E494:33DF:DC11:52FA (talk) 16:16, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

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Ciumă

Hi @Dintre!

There are more authors that we can quote and more words than ciumă. For example frică has entered Ukrainian language, brânză in Czech, Polish, and Slovak, or căruță in Bulgarian. What is the obstacle for that phrase to be kept in the article: the example with the word ciumă, or is it a lack of studies/references, or something else? Aristeus01 (talk) 16:35, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

• "There are more authors that we can quote" --- go ahead.
• "frică" --- unfortunately, I could not find this word in the Ukrainian dictionary. Can you please write it in the correct spelling in Ukrainian.
• brânză --- this word has entered all languages of the world: from Azerbaijani to Indonesian.
• Каруца(caruța) from căruță is indeed borrowed from the Romanian language, and it can be indicated as an example of a borrowing, but nothing more. Making such a big statement as "the intercultural process enriched the Slavic languages, which borrowed words and terms from Romanian" you need some serious RS, not just a word that that entered one language. Dintre (talk) 19:26, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

  • Very well:

  Walter Breu - Romance in Contact with Slavic in Southern and South-Eastern Europe

  "fičor ‘young shepherd’ ← ficior, zira ‘whey’ ← zer. But they are abundant also in many other domains of material and spiritual life—for example, buza ‘cheek’ ← buză ‘lip’, Kračun ‘Christmas’ ← Crăciun"

  Anastasia Makarova - On the Macedonian Perfect(s) in the Balkan Context

  "Macedonian language could have calqued the possessive perfect of Aromanian, and Aromanian, in turn, could have calqued the l-perfect from Macedonian."

  Mladenova, Olga M - Bulgarian maj: From Approximation to Modality?

  "It is unanimously accepted in the linguistic literature that the Bulgarian discourse marker maj is a Romanian loan."

  • For you second and third point again Breu:

  "2.4.1 Romanian Influence on the Neighboring Languages

  Miklosich (1879) claimed direct contacts of Romanian shepherds with Slavic people to be the reason for Romance lexical influence especially in the realms of shepherd and farming terminology in Polish, Slovak, and even Moravian Czech. But internally Slavic mediation of borrowings such as Slovak/Polish bryndza / Czech/Ukrainian brynza ‘sheep cheese’ ← Rom. brânză or Czech/Polish/Slovak koliba / Ukrainian (dial.) kolyba ‘hut, shelter’ ← Rom. colibă is not excluded. For a rich collection of examples of Romanian borrowings in East and West Slavic, see Rosetti (1984, pp. 388–391).

  The only Slavic language outside Romania with a considerable Romanian (or Moldovan) influence, though for the most locally restricted (Bukovina, Moldova, etc.), is Ukrainian, with examples such as fryka ‘fear’ ← frică, pizma ‘envy’ ← pizmă, korkobec’ ‘pumpkin’ ← curcubetă, part’ ‘part’ ← parte, harmasar ‘stallion’ ← armăsar, plačynda ‘pancake’ ← plăcintă, and tajstra ‘shoulder bag’ ← traistă (Fellerer, 1998, pp. 186–187)'."

  And finally

  • I have shown there is more than just a few words that have entered Slavic languages from Romanian.

  I do, however, agree that "enriched the Slavic languages" is a pompous phrasing and if that is the main objection I gladly accept a different description. Aristeus01 (talk) 20:31, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

  • Walter Breu - Romance in Contact with Slavic in Southern and South-Eastern Europe

  Good quality source, but you have to be careful with the sources. The article talks about Romance Influence on Balkan Slavic, not Romanian Influence on Balkan Slavic. And therefore, you need to carefully track which particular Romance-Balkan language influenced the Balkan Slavic language. Is it Romanian, Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian, or Istro-Romanian. If the author talks about Romance substrate in Moesia we can't talk about Romanian language.

  • Anastasia Makarova - On the Macedonian Perfect(s) in the Balkan Context

  "Macedonian language could have calqued the possessive perfect of Aromanian, and Aromanian, in turn, could have calqued the l-perfect from Macedonian." See above.

  • Mladenova, Olga M - Bulgarian maj: From Approximation to Modality?

  "It is unanimously accepted in the linguistic literature that the Bulgarian discourse marker maj is a Romanian loan." That's OK.

  • Rosetti (1984)

  Can you please write the name of the source, because I could not find it. And as for the Ukrainian language, as far as I understand, it was influenced only on dialects in the regions bordering Bukovina and Bessarabia, but nothing more. Maybe for this reason, I could not find "fryka" in the dictionary, despite the fact that I tried different spellings.

  • Summary

  I do not deny the fact that Romanian influenced the Slavic languages, but one must be precise with the wording. Firstly, the influence was exerted only on neighboring regions, and many words remained nothing more than regionalisms (any borrowing in Ukranian/Polish). Secondly, the largest number of borrowings is taken from shepherding. So a wording like: "the Romanian language influenced the bordering Slavic languages mainly (but not limited) by donating shepherding lexicon" is fine. I also think it is worth mentioning that the Romanian language has a significant influence on the Russian and Ukrainian languages in the Republic of Moldova. Dintre (talk) 07:27, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

  Al. Rosetti - Istoria limbii române, vol I

  In general I agree with your conclusion. The avenues so far for the influence of Romanian are:

  • shepherd and farming vocabulary in neighbouring languages (mostly at regional or dialectal level)
  • influence on minority languages: Russian and Ukrainian languages in the Republic of Moldova, as you said, and Banat Bulgarian in Romania.
  • loanwords from Pre-Modern and Modern Romanian - a very limited class - basically just a few entries in Bulgarian that I know so far.

  I started the separate article to deal with this topic a bit abrupt, without a complete bibliography, and I don't have a particular format or phrasing in mind so your input is much appreciated. Aristeus01 (talk) 03:21, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Neuter in Romanian

Hi @Borsoka

Could you please share your arguments for:

• the formation of the neuter in Romanian from Slavic influence?
• the existence of the neuter only in Romanian of all Romance languages?

In my bibliography I have: Walter Breu - Romance in Contact with Slavic in Southern and South-Eastern Europe and of course M. Sala for Romanian neuter being distinct from Slavic neuter.

As for the second there was already a flag showing the phrase is inaccurate as Italian for example has a similar neuter construction, so hopefully on that one we can agree it should not be in the article. Aristeus01 (talk) 17:11, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Italian has only 2 genders. [1] Dintre (talk) 19:37, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Michele Loporcaro, Vincenzo Faraoni, and Francesco Gardani - The third gender of Old Italian Aristeus01 (talk) 20:38, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

I do not have to and I am forbidden to share my arguments for anything as per WP:NOR. A number of scholars are listed to verify the statement you want to delete. Borsoka (talk) 01:40, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

and in which living Romance languages (except Romanian) is there a neutral gender? Dintre (talk) 07:30, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

What does it matter if they are living or not? What we should take out of it is that Romanian is not unique in preserving the neuter from Latin, hence it is not due to contact with Slavic languages. Aristeus01 (talk) 14:09, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

"hence it is not due to contact with Slavic languages" -- added RS that prove otherwise. Dintre (talk) 16:31, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Please read WP:NOR and WP:NPOV. We are not here to take out anything from facts and assumptions but we are here to present all relevant scholarly PoVs. Borsoka (talk) 16:28, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Words to live by.

I don't mind making the article longer, if this is how we can agree on editing. Aristeus01 (talk) 17:08, 31 July 2023 (UTC)