Romanian
Romanian, sometimes spelled Rumanian, is the official language of Romania and
claims a total of 25 million speakers. It is a Romance language (derives from
Latin) belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European family. Although
closely related to Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, it is the only Romance
language to have developed in eastern Europe. For this reason, it is sometimes
classified as Balkan Romance, although it does share approximately 70 percent
of its vocabulary with the other Romance languages. Unlike other Romance languages,
however, Romanian has retained a complex case system (nouns are marked as subjects,
objects, etc).
Latin was introduced to the regions of the Carpathian Mountains and the lower
Danube by the Roman armies of the emperor Trajan (AD 106-271) and was adopted
by the indigenous people of the region. Romanian is thought to have developed
from Latin during the fifth and sixth centuries. During the seventh and eighth
centuries, the Romanian speaking population came into contact with and were
influenced by their Slavic neighbors. However, the essential Latin character
of Romanian endured despite a long period of isolation from Western Latin languages.
Romanian's modern standard language developed in the late eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries during a movement to "relatinize" the language.
In this period, intellectuals and writers embraced Western Latin cultures and
languages, attempting to purge the language of Slavic elements. Also at this
time, the Roman alphabet in use today, began to replace the Cyrillic alphabet
which was introduced into Romanian via Old Church Slavic.
Sources:
UCLA Language Materials Project
Information on writing system:
Independent Study Courses Available at UCSD:
Other Local Resources: