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126-597: Similar tunes are found throughout Eastern Europe and the Balkans. In some parts of the Balkans this kind of music is referred to as scaros or scaru . Béla Bartók discovered the doina in Northern Transylvania in 1912 and he believed it to be uniquely Romanian . After he found similar genres in Ukraine, Albania, Algeria, Middle East and Northern India, he came to the belief that these are part of

252-653: A Romance language spoken in the Middle Ages in the Balkans, near the Haemus Mons is from 587 AD. A Vlach muleteer accompanying the Byzantine army noticed that the load was falling from one of the animals and shouted to a companion Torna, torna, fratre! (meaning "Return, return, brother!"). Theophanes the Confessor recorded it as part of a 6th-century military expedition by Comentiolus and Priscus against

378-580: A War of Independence against the Ottomans, with Romania's independence being formally recognised in 1878 at the Treaty of Berlin . Although the relatively newly founded Kingdom of Romania initially allied with Austria-Hungary , Romania refused to enter World War I on the side of the Central Powers , because it was obliged to wage war only if Austria-Hungary was attacked. In 1916, Romania joined

504-843: A common culture and ancestry , they speak the Romanian language and live primarily in Romania and Moldova . The 2021 Romanian census found that 89.3% of Romania's citizens identified themselves as ethnic Romanians. In one interpretation of the 1989 census results in Moldova, the majority of Moldovans were counted as ethnic Romanians as well. Romanians also form an ethnic minority in several nearby countries situated in Central, Southeastern, and Eastern Europe, most notably in Hungary , Serbia (including Timok ), and Ukraine . Estimates of

630-493: A minority language by stable communities in the countries surrounding Romania ( Bulgaria , Hungary , Serbia and Ukraine ), and by the large Romanian diaspora . In total, it is spoken by 25 million people as a first language . Romanian was also known as Moldovan in Moldova, although the Constitutional Court of Moldova ruled in 2013 that "the official language of Moldova is Romanian". On 16 March 2023,

756-572: A "regional language" alongside Ukrainian as per the 2012 legislation on languages in Ukraine . Romanian is an official or administrative language in various communities and organisations, such as the Latin Union and the European Union . Romanian is also one of the five languages in which religious services are performed in the autonomous monastic state of Mount Athos , spoken in the monastic communities of Prodromos and Lakkoskiti . In

882-795: A Vlach homeland situated "near the Danube and [...] the Sava, where the Serbians lived more recently". He associated the Vlachs with the Dacians and the Bessi . Accordingly, historians have located this homeland in several places, including Pannonia Inferior ( Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu ) and Dacia Aureliana (Mátyás Gyóni). The princess and chronicler Anna Komnene reports that in April 1091, on

1008-626: A family of related genres of Arabo-Persian origin. He particularly linked the Romanian doina to the Turkish/Arabic Makam system. Bartók's conclusions were rejected by some Romanian ethnomusicologists, who accused Bartók of anti-Romanian bias. Nevertheless, the similarities between the Romanian doina and various musical forms from the Middle East have been subsequently documented by both non-Romanian and Romanian scholars. Until

1134-741: A foreign language, for example the Nicolae Bălcescu High-school in Gyula , Hungary. Romanian is taught as a foreign language in tertiary institutions, mostly in European countries such as Germany, France and Italy, and the Netherlands, as well as in the United States. Overall, it is taught as a foreign language in 43 countries around the world. Romanian has become popular in other countries through movies and songs performed in

1260-486: A high degree of lexical permeability, reflecting contact with Thraco-Dacian , Slavic languages (including Old Slavic , Serbian , Bulgarian , Ukrainian , and Russian ), Greek , Hungarian , German , Turkish , and to languages that served as cultural models during and after the Age of Enlightenment , in particular French . This lexical permeability is continuing today with the introduction of English words. Yet while

1386-487: A leaf. The peasant doina is a non-ceremonial type of song and is generally sung in solitude, having an important psychological action: to "ease one's soul" ( de stâmpărare in Romanian ). Grigore Leşe believes that, while scholars describe in great detail the technical aspects of the doina , they fail to understand its psychological aspects. Doinas are lyrical in aspect and their common themes are melancholy, longing ( dor ), erotic feelings, love for nature, complaints about

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1512-544: A linguistic group that evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin which separated from the Western Romance languages in the course of the period from the 5th to the 8th centuries. To distinguish it within the Eastern Romance languages, in comparative linguistics it is called Daco-Romanian as opposed to its closest relatives, Aromanian , Megleno-Romanian , and Istro-Romanian . It is also spoken as

1638-530: A name that was extended to the literature and writers around this time such as Vasile Alecsandri , Grigore Alexandrescu , Nicolae Bălcescu , Timotei Cipariu . Between 1830 and 1860 "transitional alphabets" were used, adding Latin letters to the Romanian Cyrillic alphabet . The Latin alphabet became official at different dates in Wallachia and Transylvania - 1860, and Moldova -1862. Following

1764-578: A significant share of the local population (districts in Chernivtsi , Odesa and Zakarpattia oblasts ) Romanian is taught in schools as a primary language and there are Romanian-language newspapers, TV, and radio broadcasting. The University of Chernivtsi in western Ukraine trains teachers for Romanian schools in the fields of Romanian philology, mathematics and physics. In Hertsa Raion of Ukraine as well as in other villages of Chernivtsi Oblast and Zakarpattia Oblast , Romanian has been declared

1890-581: A third region inhabited by an important majority of Romanian speakers, was a vassal state of the Ottomans until 1687, when the principality became part of the Habsburg possessions. The three principalities were united for several months in 1600 under the authority of Wallachian Prince Michael the Brave . Up until 1541, Transylvania was part of the Kingdom of Hungary , later (due to the conquest of Hungary by

2016-541: A type of doina called cântec de ascultare (meaning "song for listening", sometimes shortened to de ascultare or simply ascultare ). The cântec de ascultare spread to other regions of Romania, with local particularities. Klezmer Doinas are influenced by Hassidic niguns. While at the beginning of the 20th century, the doina was the most common type of peasant song (in some areas the only type), today it has almost completely disappeared from peasant life, as most peasant music has. This process has been accentuated during

2142-424: Is also spoken within communities of Romanian and Moldovan immigrants in the United States, Canada and Australia, although they do not make up a large homogeneous community statewide. Many are Moldavians who were deported Data only for the districts on the right bank of Dniester (without Transnistria and the city of Tighina). In Moldova, it is sometimes referred to as the " Moldovan language " In Transnistria, it

2268-658: Is an exonym that was used by Slavs to refer to all Romanized natives of the Balkans. It holds its origin from ancient Germanic—being a cognate to "Welsh" and "Walloon"—and perhaps even further back in time, from the Roman name Volcae, which was originally a Celtic tribe. From the Slavs, it was passed on to other peoples, such as the Hungarians ( Oláh ) and Greeks ( Vlachoi ) (see the Etymology section of Vlachs). Wallachia ,

2394-408: Is derived from Latin romanus , meaning " Roman ". Under regular phonetical changes that are typical to the Romanian language, the name romanus over the centuries transformed into rumân [ruˈmɨn] . An older form of român was still in use in some regions. Socio-linguistic evolutions in the late 18th century led to a gradual preponderance of the român spelling form, which

2520-485: Is distinguished by the activity of Romanian literature classics in its early decades: Mihai Eminescu , Ion Luca Caragiale , Ion Creangă , Ioan Slavici . The current orthography, with minor reforms to this day and using Latin letters, was fully implemented in 1881, regulated by the Romanian Academy on a fundamentally phonological principle, with few morpho-syntactic exceptions. The first Romanian grammar

2646-597: Is official only in the villages of Vojvodinci ( Voivodinț ), Markovac ( Marcovăț ), Straža ( Straja ), Mali Žam ( Jamu Mic ), Malo Središte ( Srediștea Mică ), Mesić ( Mesici ), Jablanka ( Iablanca ), Sočica ( Sălcița ), Ritiševo ( Râtișor ), Orešac ( Oreșaț ) and Kuštilj ( Coștei ). In the 2002 Census, the last carried out in Serbia, 1.5% of Vojvodinians stated Romanian as their native language. The Vlachs of Serbia are considered to speak Romanian as well. In parts of Ukraine where Romanians constitute

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2772-666: Is officially called " Moldovan language " and is written in Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet . Officially divided into Vlachs and Romanians Most in Northern Bukovina and Southern Bessarabia; according to a Moldova Noastră study (based on the latest Ukrainian census). According to the Constitution of Romania of 1991, as revised in 2003, Romanian is the official language of the Republic. Romania mandates

2898-580: Is officially celebrated on the same day since 2023. As of 2017, an Ethnologue estimation puts the (worldwide) number of Romanian speakers at approximately 24.15 million. The 24.15 million, however, represent only speakers of Romanian , not all of whom are necessarily ethnic Romanians. Also, this number does not include ethnic-Romanians who no longer speak the Romanian language. In English, Romanians are usually called Romanians and very rarely Rumanians or Roumanians, except in some historical texts, where they are called Roumans or Vlachs . The name Romanian

3024-628: Is practically identical to Romanian, although there are some differences in colloquial speech. In the de facto independent (but internationally unrecognised) region of Transnistria , the official script used to write Moldovan is Cyrillic, although Moldovan has a very limited usage in Transnistria despite its official status. Since 2013, the Romanian Language Day is officially celebrated on 31 August in Romania. In Moldova, it

3150-732: The Laterculus Veronensis of c.  314 and the Notitia Dignitatum of c.  400 , Scythia belonged to the Diocese of Thrace . The indigenous population of Scythia Minor was Dacian and their material culture is apparent archaeologically into the sixth century. Roman fortifications mostly date to the Tetrarchy or the Constantinian dynasty . The province ceased to exist around 679–681, when

3276-853: The 1848 Romanticist and liberal revolutions across Europe, the events that took place in the Grand Principality of Transylvania were the first of their kind to unfold in the Romanian-speaking territories. On the one hand, the Transylvanian Saxons and the Transylvanian Romanians (with consistent support on behalf of the Austrian Empire ) successfully managed to oppose the goals of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 , with

3402-694: The Age of Migration , many Vlachs could be found all over the Balkans , in Transylvania , across Carpathian Mountains as far north as Poland and as far west as the regions of Moravia (part of the modern Czech Republic), some went as far east as Volhynia of western Ukraine, and the present-day Croatia where the Morlachs gradually disappeared, while the Catholic and Orthodox Vlachs took Croat and Serb national identity. The first written record about

3528-521: The Balkan Peninsula , which may be considered either Romanian subgroups or separated but related ethnicities. The territories of modern-day Romania and Moldova were inhabited by the ancient Getae and Dacian tribes. King Burebista who reigned from 82/61 BC to 45/44 BC, was the first king who successfully unified the tribes of the Dacian kingdom , which comprised the area located between

3654-558: The Cannes Film Festival ). Also some artists wrote songs dedicated to the Romanian language. The multi-platinum pop trio O-Zone (originally from Moldova) released a song called "Nu mă las de limba noastră" ("I won't forsake our language"). The final verse of this song, "Eu nu mă las de limba noastră, de limba noastră cea română" , is translated in English as "I won't forsake our language, our Romanian language". Also,

3780-630: The Cumans ' campaign south of the Danube, Emperor Alexios I Komnenos was informed about the movements of the "Turanians", who had crossed the Danube by " a certain Pudilos, a Vlach noble ". The Byzantine chronicler Niketas Choniates writes that in 1164, Andronikos I Komnenos , the emperor Manuel I Komnenos 's cousin, tried without success, to usurp the throne. Failing in his attempt, the Byzantine prince sought refuge in Halych but Andronikos I Komnenos

3906-641: The Moldovan Parliament approved a law on referring to the national language as Romanian in all legislative texts and the constitution. On 22 March, the president of Moldova, Maia Sandu , promulgated the law. The history of the Romanian language started in the Roman provinces north of the Jireček Line in Classical antiquity but there are 3 main hypotheses about its exact territory: the autochthony thesis (it developed in left-Danube Dacia only),

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4032-583: The PDL this time) was narrowly re-elected for a second term in the 2009 presidential elections . In 2014, the PNL - PDL candidate (as part of the larger Christian Liberal Alliance or ACL for short; also endorsed by the Democratic Forum of Germans in Romania , FDGR/DFDR for short respectively) Klaus Iohannis won a surprise victory over former Prime Minister and PSD -supported contender Victor Ponta in

4158-467: The Romanian Academy . The third phase of the modern age of Romanian language, starting from 1880 and continuing to this day, is characterized by the prevalence of the supradialectal form of the language, standardized with the express contribution of the school system and Romanian Academy, bringing a close to the process of literary language modernization and development of literary styles. It

4284-526: The Romanian language , a Romance language , can be traced back to the Roman colonisation of the region. The basic vocabulary is of Latin origin, although there are some substratum words that are assumed to be of Dacian origin. It is the most spoken Eastern Romance language and is closely related to Aromanian , Megeleno-Romanian , and Istro-Romanian , all three part of the same sub-branch of Romance languages. The Moldovan language , in its official form,

4410-817: The Slavicisation of the Bulgar elite had already begun in the 9th century. Following the conquest of Southern and Central Transylvania around 830, people from the Bulgar Empire mined salt from mines in Turda , Ocna Mureș , Sărățeni and Ocnița. They traded and transported salt throughout the Bulgar Empire. A series of Arab historians from the 10th century are some of the first to mention Vlachs in Eastern/South Eastern Europe : Mutahhar al-Maqdisi (c.945-991) writes: "They say that in

4536-552: The Vulgar Latin spoken in the Roman provinces of Southeastern Europe north of the Jireček Line (a hypothetical boundary between the dominance of Latin and Greek influences). Most scholars agree that two major dialects developed from Common Romanian by the 10th century. Daco-Romanian (the official language of Romania and Moldova) and Istro-Romanian (a language spoken by no more than 2,000 people in Istria ) descended from

4662-473: The communist era , with the rise of the new, so-called " popular music ", bringing a new style of performance that diluted the peasant styles. The doina is still, however, common in the repertoire of the lăutari from Ardeal and Banat regions. In 1976 the BBC religious television programme The Light of Experience took Gheorge Zamfir ’s recording of "Doina De Jale" as its theme tune. Epic Records released

4788-399: The endonym (the name they used for themselves) Romanians ( Rumâni / Români ). The first mentions by Romanians of the endonym are contemporary with the earliest writings in Romanian from the sixteenth century. According to Tomasz Kamusella , at the time of the rise of Romanian nationalism during the early 19th century, the political leaders of Wallachia and Moldavia were aware that

4914-705: The head of the government of the Socialist Republic of Romania (RSR). Nicolae Ceaușescu became the head of the Romanian Communist Party (PCR) in 1965 and his severe rule of the 1980s was ended by the Romanian Revolution of 1989 . The chaos of the 1989 revolution brought to power the dissident communist Ion Iliescu as president (largely supported by the FSN ). Iliescu remained in power as head of state until 1996, when he

5040-435: The unification of Moldavia and Wallachia further studies on the language were made, culminating with the founding of Societatea Literară Română on 1 April 1866 on the initiative of C. A. Rosetti , an academic society that had the purpose of standardizing the orthography, formalizing the grammar and (via a dictionary) vocabulary of the language, and promoting literary and scientific publications. This institution later became

5166-492: The "liberty to teach in the mother language (Romanian language)". At the same time, Romanian-language newspapers and journals began to appear, such as Basarabia (1906), Viața Basarabiei (1907), Moldovanul (1907), Luminătorul (1908), Cuvînt moldovenesc (1913), Glasul Basarabiei (1913). From 1913, the synod permitted that "the churches in Bessarabia use the Romanian language". Romanian finally became

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5292-540: The 12th or 13th century, official documents and religious texts were written in Old Church Slavonic , a language that had a similar role to Medieval Latin in Western Europe. The oldest dated text in Romanian is a letter written in 1521 with Cyrillic letters , and until late 18th century, including during the development of printing, the same alphabet was used. The period after 1780, starting with

5418-402: The 13th century autonomous or semi-independent. In the 12th century, the Jewish traveller Benjamin of Tudela , who toured the area in 1166 called the region of Thessaly "Vlachia". The contemporary Byzantine historian Niketas Choniates however distinguishes "Great Vlachia" as a district near Meteora . "Vlachia", "Great Vlachia", and the other variants began to fall out of use for Thessaly at

5544-417: The 14th century the Danubian Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia emerged to fight the Ottoman Empire . During the late Middle Ages , prominent medieval Romanian monarchs such as Bogdan of Moldavia , Stephen the Great , Mircea the Elder , Michael the Brave , or Vlad the Impaler took part actively in the history of Central Europe by waging tumultuous wars and leading noteworthy crusades against

5670-409: The 16th century, by various foreign travelers into the Carpathian Romance-speaking space, as well as in other historical documents written in Romanian at that time such as Cronicile Țării Moldovei  [ ro ] ( The Chronicles of the land of Moldova ) by Grigore Ureche . The few allusions to the use of Romanian in writing as well as common words, anthroponyms, and toponyms preserved in

5796-744: The Arabo-Persian music. The doina is a free-rhythm, highly ornamented (usually melismatic ), improvisational tune. The improvisation is done on a more or less fixed pattern (usually a descending one), by stretching the notes in a rubato -like manner, according to the performer's mood and imagination. Usually the prolonged notes are the fourth or fifth above the floor note. The peasant doinas are mostly vocal and monophonic and are sung with some vocal peculiarities that vary from place to place: interjections ( măi , hei , dui-dui , iuhu ), glottal clucking sounds, choked sobbing effects, etc. Instrumental doinas are played on simple instruments, usually various types of flutes, or even on rudimentary ones, such as

5922-417: The Assembly, the Executive Council and the provincial administrative bodies. The Romanian language and script are officially used in eight municipalities: Alibunar , Bela Crkva ( Biserica Albă ), Žitište ( Sângeorgiu de Bega ), Zrenjanin ( Becicherecu Mare ), Kovačica ( Covăcița ), Kovin ( Cuvin ), Plandište ( Plandiște ) and Sečanj ( Seceani ). In the municipality of Vršac ( Vârșeț ), Romanian

6048-473: The Avars. Historian Gheorghe I. Brătianu considers that these words "represent an expression from the Romanian language, as it was formed at that time in the Balkan and Danube regions"; "they probably belong to one and the most significant of the substrates on which our ( Romanian ) language was built". The first definite document mentioning Romanians (Vlachs) is from the 8th century from the Konstamonitou Monastery in Mount Athos , in Greece and talks about

6174-413: The Cyrillic script, and the Latin script as stipulated by the law, the Croat , Hungarian , Slovak , Romanian and Rusyn languages and their scripts, as well as languages and scripts of other nationalities, shall simultaneously be officially used in the work of the bodies of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, in the manner established by the law. The bodies of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina are:

6300-499: The Danube to gradually migrate north of the Dniestr in the 10th and 11th centuries. The Second Bulgarian Empire founded by the Asen dynasty consisting of Bulgarians and Vlachs was founded in 1185 and lasted until 1396. Early rulers from the Asen dynasty (particularly Kaloyan ) referred to themselves as "Emperors of Bulgarians and Vlachs". Later rulers, especially Ivan Asen II , styled themselves "Tsars (Emperors) of Bulgarians and Romans". An alternative name used in connection with

6426-442: The Danube, Tisza, and Dniester rivers. King Decebalus who reigned from 87 to 106 AD was the last king of the Dacian kingdom before it was conquered by the Roman Empire in 106, after two wars between Decebalus' army and Trajan 's army. Prior to the two wars, Decebalus defeated a Roman invasion during the reign of Domitian between 86 and 88 AD. The Roman administration retreated from Dacia between 271 and 275 AD, during

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6552-472: The FDGR/DFDR in both rounds). In the meantime, Romania's major foreign policy achievements were the alignment with Western Europe and the United States by joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) back in 2004 and the European Union three years later, in 2007. Current national objectives of Romania include adhering to the Schengen Area , the Eurozone as well as the OECD (i.e. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). During

6678-413: The Kingdom of Romania lost territory both to the east and west, as Northern Transylvania became part of the Kingdom of Hungary through the Second Vienna Award , while Bessarabia and northern Bukovina were taken by the Soviets and included in the Moldavian SSR , respectively Ukrainian SSR . The eastern territory losses were facilitated by the Molotov–Ribbentrop Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact . After

6804-417: The Latin Romanus , acquired at a certain point the same meaning of the Greek Romaios ; that of Orthodox Christian. Wolfgang Dahmen claims that the meaning of romanus (Roman) as "Christian", as opposed to "pagan", which used to mean "non-Roman", may have contributed to the preservation of this word as an ethonym of the Romanian people, under the meaning of "Christian". To distinguish Romanians from

6930-421: The Middle Ages, Romanian was isolated from the other Romance languages, and borrowed words from the nearby Slavic languages (see Slavic influence on Romanian ). Later on, it borrowed a number of words from German , Hungarian , and Turkish . During the modern era, most neologisms were borrowed from French and Italian , though the language has increasingly begun to adopt English borrowings. The origins of

7056-401: The Moldovan autonomies of Gagauzia and Transnistria . Romanian is also an official language of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina in Serbia along with five other languages. Romanian minorities are encountered in Serbia ( Timok Valley ), Ukraine ( Chernivtsi and Odesa oblasts ), and Hungary ( Gyula ). Large immigrant communities are found in Italy, Spain, France, and Portugal. In 1995,

7182-449: The Moldovan musicians Doina and Ion Aldea Teodorovici performed a song called "The Romanian language". Romanian is also called Daco-Romanian in comparative linguistics to distinguish from the other dialects of Common Romanian : Aromanian , Megleno-Romanian , and Istro-Romanian . The origin of the term "Daco-Romanian" can be traced back to the first printed book of Romanian grammar in 1780, by Samuil Micu and Gheorghe Șincai . There,

7308-401: The Old Church Slavonic religious writings and chancellery documents, attested prior to the 16th century, along with the analysis of graphemes show that the writing of Romanian with the Cyrillic alphabet started in the second half of the 15th century. The oldest extant document in Romanian precisely dated is Neacșu's letter (1521) and was written using the Romanian Cyrillic alphabet , which

7434-402: The Ottoman Empire) was a self-governed Principality governed by the Hungarian nobility. In 1699 it became a part of the Habsburg lands . By the end of the 18th century, the Austrian Empire was awarded by the Ottomans with the region of Bukovina and, in 1812, the Russians occupied the eastern half of Moldavia, known as Bessarabia through the Treaty of Bucharest of 1812. In the context of

7560-448: The Roman central authority the language evolved into Common Romanian . This proto-language then came into close contact with the Slavic languages and subsequently divided into Aromanian , Megleno-Romanian , Istro-Romanian , and Daco-Romanian. Due to limited attestation between the 6th and 16th century, entire stages from its history are re-constructed by researchers, often with proposed relative chronologies and loose limits. From

7686-440: The Romanian dialect spoken north of the Danube is called lingua Daco-Romana to emphasize its origin and its area of use, which includes the former Roman province of Dacia , although it is spoken also south of the Danube, in Dobruja , the Timok Valley and northern Bulgaria. This article deals with the Romanian (i.e. Daco-Romanian) language, and thus only its dialectal variations are discussed here. The differences between

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7812-724: The Romanian language. Examples of Romanian acts that had a great success in non-Romanophone countries are the bands O-Zone (with their No. 1 single Dragostea Din Tei , also known as Numa Numa , across the world in 2003–2004), Akcent (popular in the Netherlands, Poland and other European countries), Activ (successful in some Eastern European countries), DJ Project (popular as clubbing music) SunStroke Project (known by viral video " Epic Sax Guy ") and Alexandra Stan (worldwide no.1 hit with " Mr. Saxobeat ") and Inna as well as high-rated movies like 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days , The Death of Mr. Lazarescu , 12:08 East of Bucharest or California Dreamin' (all of them with awards at

7938-426: The Romanian neuter became a mixture of masculine and feminine. The verb morphology of Romanian has shown the same move towards a compound perfect and future tense as the other Romance languages. Compared with the other Romance languages , during its evolution, Romanian simplified the original Latin tense system. Romanian is spoken mostly in Central , South-Eastern , and Eastern Europe , although speakers of

8064-419: The Romanians during the Middle Ages. It has been argued by some Romanian researchers that "Ramunc" was not the name of the duke, but a name that highlighted his ethnicity. Other old documents, especially Byzantine or Hungarian ones, make a correlation between the old Romanians as Romans or their descendants. Several other documents, notably from Italian travelers into Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania, speak of

8190-445: The Romanians in Muntenia in the 1230s. Béla IV of Hungary 's land grant to the Knights Hospitallers in Oltenia and Muntenia shows that the local Vlach rulers were subject to the king's authority in 1247. The late 13th-century Hungarian chronicler Simon of Kéza states that the Vlachs were "shepherds and husbandmen" who "remained in Pannonia". An unknown author's Description of Eastern Europe from 1308 likewise states that

8316-404: The Romans inhabiting the Carpathian Basin : "sclauij, Bulgarij et Blachij, ac pastores romanorum". Most researchers identify the Blachij with the Vlachs. However the document was written between 1200 and 1230, around 300 years after the described events and some modern historians have reservations about it and find it unreliable. Another important document mentioning Romanians (Vlachs) from

8442-419: The South of the Balkan Peninsula dates back to 980. That year, the governor of Servia , Nikulitsa received the position of leader (archon) of the Vlachs from Hellas from Emperor Basil II . The function received by Nikulitsa might have been as a commander of a Vlach army. Byzantine historians usually described foreign rulers as archontes . The document signed by Basil II to give the position of archon of

8568-432: The Southern region of Romania, takes its name from the same source. Romanian language Romanian (obsolete spelling: Roumanian ; endonym : limba română [ˈlimba roˈmɨnə] , or românește [romɨˈneʃte] , lit.   ' in Romanian ' ) is the official and main language of Romania and Moldova . Romanian is part of the Eastern Romance sub-branch of Romance languages ,

8694-523: The Turkic neighbourhood there are the Khazars, Russians, Slavs, Waladj (Vlachs), Alans, Greeks and many other peoples". Ibn al-Nadīm (early 932–998) published in 998 the work Kitāb al-Fihrist mentioning "Turks, Bulgars and Vlahs" (using Blagha for Vlachs). A series of Byzantine historians, such as George Kedrenos (circa 1000), Kekaumenos (circa 1000), John Skylitzes (early 1040s – after 1101), Anna Komnene (1083-1153), John Kinnamos (1143-1185) and Niketas Choniates (1155-1217) were some of

8820-414: The Vlachs "were once the shepherds of the Romans " who "had over them ten powerful kings in the entire Messia and Pannonia". Additionally, in medieval times there were other lands known by the name 'Vlach' such as Great Vlachia , situated between Thessaly and the western Pindus mountains, of the Despotate of Epirus between the 12th-15th century. Originally within the Byzantine Empire , but after

8946-399: The Vlachs of the Rynchos river (present-day North Macedonia ). According to the early 13th century medieval Hungarian book Gesta Hungarorum the invading Magyars of King Árpád (c. 845 – c. 907) waged wars against three dukes— Glad , Menumorut and the Vlach Gelou —for Banat, Crișana and Transylvania. Gesta Hungarorum also mentions the Slavs , Bulgarians , Vlachs and the shepherds of

9072-596: The Vlachs to Nekulitsa is mentioned in Strategikon of Kekaumenos (written between 1075 and 1078 AD). After the Avar Khaganate collapsed in the 790s, the First Bulgarian Empire became the dominant power of the region, occupying lands as far as the river Tisa . The First Bulgarian Empire had a mixed population consisting of the Bulgar conquerors, Slavs and Vlachs (Romanians) but

9198-447: The beginning of devoicing of asyllabic [u] after consonants. Text analysis revealed words that are now lost from modern vocabulary or used only in local varieties. These words were of various provenience for example: Latin ( cure - to run, mâneca - to leave), Old Church Slavonic ( drăghicame - gem, precious stone, prilăsti - to trick, to cheat), Hungarian ( bizăntui - to bear witness). The modern age of Romanian starts in 1780 with

9324-448: The bitterness of life or invocations to God to help ease pain, etc. Unlike peasant doinas , lăutar and klezmer doinas are usually accompanied and played on more complex instruments (violin, pan-pipe, cymbalom, accordion, clarinet, tarogato, etc.). Also, unlike peasant doinas , lăutar and klezmer doinas are mostly played as an introduction to another tune, usually a dance. In the regions of Southern Romania, Romani lăutari developed

9450-422: The colloquial speech and writing. Outside the political arena the language is most often called "Romanian". In the breakaway territory of Transnistria, it is co-official with Ukrainian and Russian. In the 2014 census , out of the 2,804,801 people living in Moldova, 24% (652,394) stated Romanian as their most common language, whereas 56% stated Moldovan. While in the urban centers speakers are split evenly between

9576-608: The country Moldovan . In December 2013, a decision of the Constitutional Court of Moldova ruled that the Declaration of Independence took precedence over the Constitution and the state language should be called Romanian. In 2023, the Moldovan parliament passed a law officially adopting the designation "Romanian" in all legal instruments, implementing the 2013 court decision. Scholars agree that Moldovan and Romanian are

9702-408: The discontinuation thesis (it developed in right-Danube provinces only), and the "as-well-as" thesis that supports the language development on both sides of the Danube. Between the 6th and 8th century, following the accumulated tendencies inherited from the vernacular spoken in this large area and, to a much smaller degree, the influences from native dialects , and in the context of a lessened power of

9828-640: The eastern and southern Romanian lands, in spite of the fact that all three eventually failed. Nonetheless, in 1859, Moldavia and Wallachia elected the same ruler, namely Alexander John Cuza (who reigned as Domnitor ) and were thus unified de facto , resulting in the United Romanian Principalities for the period between 1859 and 1881. During the 1870s, the United Romanian Principalities (then led by Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen Domnitor Carol I ) fought

9954-683: The end of the war, the Romanian Kingdom managed to regain territories lost westward but was nonetheless not given Bessarabia and northern Bukovina back, the aforementioned regions being forcefully incorporated into the Soviet Union (USSR). Subsequently, the Soviet Union imposed a communist government and King Michael was forced to abdicate and leave for exile, subsequently settling in Switzerland , while Petru Groza remained

10080-407: The eve of the decisive Byzantine - Pecheneg Battle of Levounion , Emperor Alexios I Komnenos (1057-1118) was assisted by "a number of 5,000 brave mountaineers and ready to attack, passed by his side, to fight alongside him". Most of the specialists who have addressed these aspects have identified those " bold mountaineers ", with the 'Vlachs. Anna Komnene reports that in 1094, on the occasion of

10206-413: The first Romanian school, and Ion Heliade Rădulescu . The end of this period is marked by the first printing of magazines and newspapers in Romanian, in particular Curierul Românesc and Albina Românească . Starting from 1831 and lasting until 1880 the modern phase is characterized by the development of literary styles: scientific, administrative, and belletristic . It quickly reached a high point with

10332-451: The first half of the 20th century, both lăutari and klezmer musicians were recorded using a taksim as an introduction to a tune. The taksim would be later replaced by the doina , which has been described as being similar, though not totally identical to the taksim . Romanian ethnomusicologist and musician Grigore Leşe, after performing with a group of Iranian musicians, noticed that the doinas of Maramureş have "great affinities" with

10458-557: The first to write about the Vlachs. John Skylitzes mentions the Vlachs around 976 AD, as guides and guards of Byzantine caravans in the Balkans. Between Prespa and Kastoria , they met and fought with a Bulgarian rebel named David. The Vlachs killed David in their first documented battle. Kekaumenos 's father-in-law was Nikulitzas Delphinas , a lord of Larissa who took part in the revolt of Bulgarians and Vlachs in Thessaly in 1066 AD. The 11th-century scholar Kekaumenos wrote of

10584-479: The gradual development of bilingualism . Russian continued to develop as the official language of privilege, whereas Romanian remained the principal vernacular. The period from 1905 to 1917 was one of increasing linguistic conflict spurred by an increase in Romanian nationalism. In 1905 and 1906, the Bessarabian zemstva asked for the re-introduction of Romanian in schools as a "compulsory language", and

10710-607: The influence of the Mukacheve eparchy in Ukraine. The language spoken during this period had a phonological system of seven vowels and twenty-nine consonants. Particular to Old Romanian are the distribution of /z/, as the allophone of /dz/ from Common Romanian , in the Wallachian and south-east Transylvanian varieties, the presence of palatal sonorants /ʎ/ and /ɲ/, nowadays preserved only regionally in Banat and Oltenia , and

10836-715: The lands near the Pontus called the Euxine", respectively the southeastern regions of Transylvania , "destroyed everything without sparing and trampled everything it encountered in its passage". By the 9th and 10th centuries, the nomadic Pechenegs conquered much of the steppes of Southeast Europe and the Crimean Peninsula .The Pecheneg wars against the Kievan Rus' caused some of the Slavs and Vlachs from North of

10962-460: The language and use of the demonym Romanians ( Români ) for speakers of this language predates the foundation of the modern Romanian state. Romanians always used the general term rumân / român or regional terms like ardeleni (or ungureni ), moldoveni or munteni to designate themselves. Both the name of rumână or rumâniască for the Romanian language and the self-designation rumân/român are attested as early as

11088-514: The language can be found all over the world, mostly due to emigration of Romanian nationals and the return of immigrants to Romania back to their original countries. Romanian speakers account for 0.5% of the world's population, and 4% of the Romance-speaking population of the world. Romanian is the single official and national language in Romania and Moldova, although it shares the official status at regional level with other languages in

11214-473: The language, working together with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Department for Romanians Abroad. Since 2013, the Romanian Language Day is celebrated on every 31 August . Romanian is the official language of the Republic of Moldova. The 1991 Declaration of Independence named the official language Romanian, and the Constitution of Moldova as originally adopted in 1994 named the state language of

11340-548: The largest Romanian-speaking community in the Middle East was found in Israel, where Romanian was spoken by 5% of the population. Romanian is also spoken as a second language by people from Arabic-speaking countries who have studied in Romania. It is estimated that almost half a million Middle Eastern Arabs studied in Romania during the 1980s. Small Romanian-speaking communities are to be found in Kazakhstan and Russia. Romanian

11466-658: The late 15th century and ended in the early decades of the 18th century, by which time Romanian had begun to be regularly used by the Church. The oldest Romanian texts of a literary nature are religious manuscripts ( Codicele Voronețean , Psaltirea Scheiană ), translations of essential Christian texts. These are considered either propagandistic results of confessional rivalries, for instance between Lutheranism and Calvinism , or as initiatives by Romanian monks stationed at Peri Monastery in Maramureș to distance themselves from

11592-533: The media regarding the forgery of the census results. The Constitution of the Republic of Serbia determines that in the regions of the Republic of Serbia inhabited by national minorities, their own languages and scripts shall be officially used as well, in the manner established by law. The Statute of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina determines that, together with the Serbian language and

11718-459: The name România was identical to Romania , a name that had been used for the former Byzantine Empire by its inhabitants. Kamusella continues by stating that they preferred this ethnonym in order to stress their presumed link with Ancient Rome and that it became more popular as a nationalistic form of referring to all Romanian-language speakers as a distinct and separate nation during the 1820s. Raymond Detrez asserts that român , derived from

11844-473: The name "Roman" and cites the sentence " Sti Rominest? " ( știi românește ? , "do you speak Romanian?"). Authors that travelled to modern Romania who wrote about it in 1574, 1575 and 1666 also noted the use of the term "Romanian". From the Middle Ages, Romanians bore two names, the exonym (one given to them by foreigners) Wallachians or Vlachs , under its various forms ( vlah , valah , valach , voloh , blac , olăh , vlas , ilac , ulah , etc.), and

11970-409: The northern dialect. Two other languages, Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian , developed from the southern version of Common Romanian. These two languages are now spoken in lands to the south of the Jireček Line . Of the features that individualize Common Romanian, inherited from Latin or subsequently developed, of particular importance are: The use of the denomination Romanian ( română ) for

12096-667: The number of Romanian people worldwide vary from minimum 24 to maximum 30 million, in part depending on whether the definition of the term "Romanian" includes natives of both Romania and Moldova, their respective diasporas, and native speakers of both Romanian and other Eastern Romance languages . Other speakers of the latter languages are the Aromanians , the Megleno-Romanians , and the Istro-Romanians (native to Istria ), all of them unevenly distributed throughout

12222-479: The official language with the Constitution of 1923 . Romanian has preserved a part of the Latin declension , but whereas Latin had six cases , from a morphological viewpoint, Romanian has only three: the nominative / accusative , genitive / dative , and marginally the vocative . Romanian nouns also preserve the neuter gender , although instead of functioning as a separate gender with its own forms in adjectives,

12348-518: The other Romanic peoples of the Balkans (Aromanians, Megleno-Romanians, and Istro-Romanians), the term Daco-Romanian is sometimes used to refer to those who speak the standard Romanian language and live in the former territory of ancient Dacia (today comprising mostly Romania and Moldova) and its surroundings (such as Dobruja or the Timok Valley , the latter region part of the former Roman province of Dacia Ripensis ). The name of " Vlachs "

12474-490: The overall lexis was enriched with foreign words and internal constructs, in accordance with the history and development of the society and the diversification in semantic fields, the fundamental lexicon—the core vocabulary used in everyday conversation—remains governed by inherited elements from the Latin spoken in the Roman provinces bordering Danube , without which no coherent sentence can be made. Romanian descended from

12600-506: The populations of Sweden , Denmark , and the Netherlands combined. During the interwar period , two additional monarchs came to the Romanian throne, namely Carol II and Michael I . This short-lived period was marked, at times, by political instabilities and efforts of maintaining a constitutional monarchy in favour of other, totalitarian regimes such as an absolute monarchy or a military dictatorship . During World War II ,

12726-475: The pre-mid Second Bulgarian Empire 13th century period is the Empire of Vlachs and Bulgarians ; variant names include the "Vlach–Bulgarian Empire", the "Bulgarian–Wallachian Empire". Royal charters wrote of the "Vlachs' land" in southern Transylvania in the early 13th century, indicating the existence of autonomous Romanian communities . Papal correspondence mentions the activities of Orthodox prelates among

12852-489: The printing in 1780 of Elementa linguae daco-romanae sive valachicae , the pre-modern phase was characterized by the publishing of school textbooks, appearance of first normative works in Romanian, numerous translations, and the beginning of a conscious stage of re-latinization of the language. Notable contributions, besides that of the Transylvanian School , are the activities of Gheorghe Lazăr , founder of

12978-659: The printing in Vienna of a very important grammar book titled Elementa linguae daco-romanae sive valachicae . The author of the book, Samuil Micu-Klein , and the revisor, Gheorghe Șincai , both members of the Transylvanian School , chose to use Latin as the language of the text and presented the phonetical and grammatical features of Romanian in comparison to its ancestor. The Modern age of Romanian language can be further divided into three phases: pre-modern or modernizing between 1780 and 1830, modern phase between 1831 and 1880, and contemporary from 1880 onwards. Beginning with

13104-524: The printing of Dacia Literară , a journal founded by Mihail Kogălniceanu and representing a literary society, which together with other publications like Propășirea and Gazeta de Transilvania spread the ideas of Romantic nationalism and later contributed to the formation of other societies that took part in the Revolutions of 1848 . Their members and those that shared their views are collectively known in Romania as "of '48"( pașoptiști ),

13230-642: The region was overrun by the Bulgars , which the Emperor Constantine IV was forced to recognize in 681. During the Middle Ages Romanians were mostly known as Vlachs , a blanket term ultimately of Germanic origin, from the word Walha , used by ancient Germanic peoples to refer to Romance -speaking and Celtic neighbours. Besides the separation of some groups ( Aromanians , Megleno-Romanians , and Istro-Romanians ) during

13356-472: The regional varieties are small, limited to regular phonetic changes, few grammar aspects, and lexical particularities. There is a single written and spoken standard (literary) Romanian language used by all speakers, regardless of region. Like most natural languages, Romanian dialects are part of a dialect continuum . The dialects of Romanian are also referred to as 'sub-dialects' and are distinguished primarily by phonetic differences. Romanians themselves speak of

13482-537: The reign of emperor Aurelian under the pressure of the Goths and the Dacian Carpi tribe. The later Roman province Dacia Aureliana , was organized inside former Moesia Superior . It was reorganized as Dacia Ripensis (as a military province, devastated by an Avars invasion in 586) and Dacia Mediterranea (as a civil province, devastated by an Avar invasion in 602). The Diocese of Dacia (circa 337–602)

13608-553: The same language, with the glottonym "Moldovan" used in certain political contexts. It has been the sole official language since the adoption of the Law on State Language of the Moldavian SSR in 1989. This law mandates the use of Moldovan in all the political, economic, cultural and social spheres, as well as asserting the existence of a "linguistic Moldo-Romanian identity". It is also used in schools, mass media, education and in

13734-612: The second round of the 2014 presidential elections . Thus, Iohannis became the first Romanian president stemming from an ethnic minority of the country (as he belongs to the Romanian-German community , being a Transylvanian Saxon ). In 2019, the PNL-supported Iohannis was re-elected for a second term as president after a second round landslide victory in the 2019 Romanian presidential election (being also supported in that round by PMP and USR as well as by

13860-459: The self-identification, language and culture of the Romanians, showing that they designated themselves as "Romans" or related to them in up to 30 works. One example is Tranquillo Andronico's 1534 writing that states that the Vlachs "now call themselves Romans". Another one is Francesco della Valle's 1532 manuscripts that state that the Romanians from Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania preserved

13986-555: The song as a single and made it to number four in the UK charts. In 2009 the doina has been included in the UNESCO list of Intangible Cultural Heritage . Romanians North America South America Oceania Romanians ( Romanian : români , pronounced [roˈmɨnʲ] ; dated exonym Vlachs ) are a Romance-speaking ethnic group and nation native to Central , Eastern , and Southeastern Europe . Sharing

14112-581: The then continuously expanding Ottoman Empire, at times allied with either the Kingdom of Poland or the Kingdom of Hungary in these causes. Eventually the entire Balkan peninsula was annexed by the Ottoman Empire. However, Moldavia and Wallachia (extending to Dobruja and Bulgaria) were not entirely subdued by the Ottomans as both principalities became autonomous (which was not the case of other Ottoman territorial possessions in Europe). Transylvania,

14238-607: The turn of the 14th century, and with the emergence of the Principality of Wallachia north of the Danube in the 14th century, from the 15th century the name was reserved for it. White Wallachia , a Byzantine denomination for the region between the Danube River and the Balkans; Moravian Wallachia , a region in south-eastern Czech Republic). The names derive from the Vlachs, who had lived across much of these regions. In

14364-478: The two names (with the capital Chișinău showing a strong preference for the name "Romanian", i.e. 3:2), in the countryside hardly a quarter of Romanian/Moldovan speakers indicated Romanian as their native language. Unofficial results of this census first showed a stronger preference for the name Romanian, however the initial reports were later dismissed by the Institute for Statistics, which led to speculations in

14490-479: The two noteworthy historical figures leading the common Romanian-Saxon side at the time being Avram Iancu and Stephan Ludwig Roth . On the other hand, the Wallachian revolutions of 1821 and 1848 as well as the Moldavian Revolution of 1848 , which aimed for independence from Ottoman and Russian foreign rulership, represented important impacts in the process of spreading the liberal ideology in

14616-551: The unrecognised state of Transnistria , Moldovan is one of the official languages. However, unlike all other dialects of Romanian, this variety of Moldovan is written in Cyrillic script . Romanian is taught in some areas that have Romanian minority communities, such as Vojvodina in Serbia, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Hungary. The Romanian Cultural Institute (ICR) has since 1992 organised summer courses in Romanian for language teachers. There are also non-Romanians who study Romanian as

14742-428: The use of Romanian in official government publications, public education and legal contracts. Advertisements as well as other public messages must bear a translation of foreign words, while trade signs and logos shall be written predominantly in Romanian. The Romanian Language Institute (Institutul Limbii Române), established by the Ministry of Education of Romania, promotes Romanian and supports people willing to study

14868-478: The war on the side of the Triple Entente . As a result, at the end of the war, Transylvania, Bessarabia, and Bukovina were awarded to Romania, through a series of international peace treaties, resulting in an enlarged and far more powerful kingdom under King Ferdinand I . As of 1920, the Romanian people was believed to number over 15 million solely in the region of the Romanian kingdom, a figure larger than

14994-452: The writing of its first grammar books, represents the modern age of the language, during which time the Latin alphabet became official, the literary language was standardized, and a large number of words from Modern Latin and other Romance languages entered the lexis. In the process of language evolution from fewer than 2500 attested words from Late Antiquity to a lexicon of over 150,000 words in its contemporary form, Romanian showed

15120-589: Was "captured by the Vlachs , to whom the rumor of his escape had reached, he was taken back to the emperor". The Byzantine chronicler John Kinnamos , presenting the campaign of Manuel I Komnenos against Hungary in 1166, reports that General Leon Vatatzes had under his command "a great multitude of Vlachs, who are said to be ancient colonies of those in Italy", an army that attacked the Hungarian possessions "about

15246-462: Was a diocese of the later Roman Empire , in the area of modern-day Balkans . The Diocese of Dacia was composed of five provinces, the northernmost provinces were Dacia Ripensis (the Danubian portion of Dacia Aureliana, one of the cities of Dacia Ripensis in today Romania is Sucidava ) and Moesia Prima (today in Serbia, near the border between Romania and Serbia). The territory of the diocese

15372-522: Was defeated by CDR -supported Emil Constantinescu in the 1996 general elections , the first in post-communist Romania that saw a peaceful transition of power . Following Constantinescu's single term as president from 1996 to 2000, Iliescu was re-elected in late 2000 for another term of four years. In 2004, Traian Băsescu , the PNL - PD candidate of the Justice and Truth Alliance (DA), was elected president. Five years later, Băsescu (solely supported by

15498-559: Was devastated by the Huns in the middle of 5th century and finally overrun by the Avars and Slavs in late 6th and early 7th century. Scythia Minor (c. 290 – c. 680) was a Roman province corresponding to the lands between the Danube and the Black Sea , today's Dobruja divided between Romania and Bulgaria . The capital of the province was Tomis (today Constanța ). According to

15624-482: Was published in Vienna in 1780. Following the annexation of Bessarabia by Russia in 1812, Moldavian was established as an official language in the governmental institutions of Bessarabia , used along with Russian, The publishing works established by Archbishop Gavril Bănulescu-Bodoni were able to produce books and liturgical works in Moldavian between 1815 and 1820. Bessarabia during the 1812–1918 era witnessed

15750-549: Was then generalised during the National awakening of Romania of early 19th century. Several historical sources show the use of the term "Romanian" among the medieval or early modern Romanian population. One of the earliest examples comes from the Nibelungenlied , a German epic poem from before 1200 in which a "Duke Ramunc from the land of Vlachs (Wallachia)" is mentioned. "Vlach" was an exonym used almost exclusively for

15876-478: Was used until the late 19th century. The letter is the oldest testimony of Romanian epistolary style and uses a prevalent lexis of Latin origin. However, dating by watermarks has shown the Hurmuzaki Psalter is a copy from around the turn of the 16th century. The slow process of Romanian establishing itself as an official language, used in the public sphere, in literature and ecclesiastically, began in

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