On the origins of Romanian language

It does prove something VERY important: romanian language is similar to italian and different from french. I hope at least you will agree to that.

I think you are mistaken, because the meaning of "Boier" is "Mosier" according to DEX, not "Nobil".
Moreover, according to the Dictionary of Synonyms, the word "Boier" is not synonymous with "Nobil".

Yes, unfortunately on a mistaken premise you looked for nobleman.

Rightly so. However, at this stage you should have wondered why did that happen, if according to your starting premise, the word boier is a slavic-derived word for... nobleman.

Instead of doing more research to eliminate your own doubts about the
starting premise ("if I am not mistaken"), you concluded by including this new entry in this discussion, wondering why did nobleman replace the functional boier...

Sid, you can hereby understand once more why people (mostly me)
ask you about "agenda" or "goal". Because you are engaged in faulty half-scientific (semi-doct would be maybe the harsh? romanian word) proceedings and are adamant in continuing to do that despite our warnings about your info, sources, or logic. Let go....

I think Boier is best translated as Landowner. It takes more to become a nobleman then owning land, that is probably why "boier" is not sinonim with "nobil". However I do not know the words origins.

This post has been edited by D13-th_Mytzu on August 21, 2005 09:39 pm

Wouldn't landowner be rather 'mosier'?
Historical English translation of 'boier' is 'boyar'.

Gen. Dénes

Wouldn't landowner be rather 'mosier'?
Historical English translation of 'boier' is 'boyar'.

Gen. Dénes

"Boyar" is used only to phonetically accomodate the Romanian word "Boier".

Denes as far as I know "mosier" is a new word compared to "boier" - I read Grigore Ureche's "Letopisetul .." and I only found the word "boier". Same thing for Miron Costin's "Letopisetul... ".

Edited: good thing I rememberd about "Letopisetul Tarii Moldovei", Sid this is for you - the latin origin of romanian language was being pointed out even in the 17th century by our historians, also: any romanian from these days can read the books written those days.

This post has been edited by D13-th_Mytzu on August 22, 2005 09:09 am

Hi Imperialist,

It doesn't matter whether the motivations of the "Romanian community of Belgium and Luxemburg" were to attract francophone tourists or not. What matters is whether their proposition that 38% of Romanian vocabulary is of French derivation is accurate or not.

I have suggested two possible ways to help confirm or deny this figure - a sample word count of the DEX+S dictionary or a direct question as to sources put to the forum of the Romanian community of Belgium and Luxemburg. You have declined to attempt either. Maybe the 38% is an exaggeration, (I have already said that I was suprised myself to read this), but without any alternative figures on offer, or a willingness to search out its sources, or take one's own survey your instinctive scepticism must remain just that.

Thanks for your "80%" source.

Thank you also for explaining why you think the missing 15% might account for most of the gap between "63%" and "80%". I see some merit in it, but I would suggest that numerous other languages that have made less than 1.7% contributions to the Romanian vocabulary, such as Dacian and English, must also necessarily be included in this unaccounted "15%".

There are certainly limitations to the Brigham Young University source. However, they are not the limitations that Agarici incorrectly stated. Firstly, the author is not an "anonym". Secondly they are teaching a university course in a linguistics department and so must necessarily be qualified to do so. Thirdly, he was incorrect to state "for your info, all those guys are historians". In fact, of the five sources given (not 2 or 3 as you state) the first, Dennis Deletant, (who I have personally met in the distant past) is a professor of linguistics at University College London. Another is a distinguished French linguist with many papers to his name. A third, while certainly a historian, was also a member of the "Academia Romana" and so cannot be dismissed too lightly in this matter either. I couldn't trace the other two.

As you will see, both you ("2 or 3") and Agarici ("anonym", "all.... historians") have been factually inaccurate in reporting the Brigham Young University link.

I am not trying to morph the "argument" into something else. This discussion has grown organically as we question each other's propositions. As new information becomes available we all, hopefully, modify our positions. It would be wrong not to do so.

I suggested the term "Romancisation" for reasons already stated - that Re-Latinisation didn't sufficiently accurately reflect what actually happened. According to the Romanian community of Belgium and Luxemburg link, the adoption of new words into the modern Romanian language directly from Classical Latin was relatively uncommon - a couple of percent - compared with new words adopted from other Romance languages (mostly French) at about 40%. In doing so I am recognising that direct "Re-Latinisation" was much rarer than the adoption of new words indirectly from Latin via other Romance languages - hence "Romancisation".

I think you will agree that the Slavic portion of the Romanian vocabulary has (1) shrunk in proportionate terms in the last 200 years and that (2) this is likely to continue because according to one source already quoted, up to half the Slavic words in the Romanian vocabulary are already "archaic". The only question is whether this was entirely coincidental or whether differential decisions were made to favour the introduction of Romance loan words, some of which appear to have duplicated existing Slavic words?

Cheers,

Sid.

P.S. As regards "boier".

The full entry read: "boier s.m. 1. ist. boyar; nobleman. 2. (dregator) court official. 3. (mosier) landowner. 4. fig. lord, master."

Some other words with the same root are:

"boieri l. vt. ennoble. II vr. to do the grand"

"boierie s.f. 1. dignity / title of a boyar; nobility. 2. fig. lordliness, grandness."

"boierime s.f. (landed) gentry, squirearchy."

the source is p.555 of the Teora Romanian-English, English-Romanian Dictionary (2004) by Andrei Bantas - described on p.501 as the "amplest" available so far.

(I believe the word "boyar" arrived in English because of the famous story about the Russian Czar Peter the Great cutting off the traditional beards of Russian boyars in order to symbolise the westernisation he demanded of the Russian aristocracy.)

Sid.

Sid,let's be straight here.You said :

I thought we all agreed that re-latinization failed.Moreover.This is a term which was also introduced by an obscure source.Well,I know the link,read what's in there.Nothing is historicaly backed up. Why do you insist in this "romancisation" ?

I will attempt to check this Romanian community in Belgium and Luxemburg to see what is all about.Counting DEX words will only lengthen the discussion although if I'd have some spare time I can attempt that.

Furthermore:

he expressed an oppinion,you did the same. Both you have to prove it.Odds goes for Imperialist since he speaks Romanian fluently.You apparently don't.Sorry to say that. I am not saying that knowing perfectly a language makes you expert.But definitely helps.

So,for the third time:

And how Romancization can be used here in place of Re-latinization? Why?We talk about language,not culture as a whole here.You are going past the subject of conversation.And even if we go in the direction you pointed you are again wrong.Simply because there was no flashback to the Roman culture except,yes,you guessed , Latin language.Please note the word "flashback" , I am not using something else to suggest such action (re-latinization).

As for the Slavic portion of the ROmanian language,I am totally surprised that you didn't mentioned the period after 1945 when "Slavicisation" happened to the Romanian language.One of its exponents is main author of the today's DEX (A. Graur). Thus, if we rejected the slavic expresions (or supposing they fell into oblivion) why would be keeping the Latin ones?Maybe because Romanian is Latin at origins?You see,is an endless circle you started and every time we go back from where we started.Is like ok,let's make another round,maybe some other things will show up.

Finally:

Don't you find it quite suspect that Latin origin words were favoured to some other ones?Seriously.We already agreed that:
1)Relatinization failed
2)Scholars could not spread such ideas in a rural Romaina without a huge logistic effort.This I rule out right now.

Thus...

I was talking exclusively about the Re-latinisation part of that course. Deletant is not a source in that part. Sources are Heliade Radulescu and another romanian writer, both quoted randomly and without sufficient clarification of the issue. I am not questioning the University or the teacher who wrote this introductory course, but the course itself being brought as a source in the discussion, when obviously its limited and most likely a simple introduction.

Whatever the case, that site is no longer a valid source in this discussion,and I dont see why you hang on it so hard.
There are 2 options:
-- the 15% are actually latin origin and by not adding them to the 63% but to "others" the site made an error or lacked further info to attribute them correctly
-- by limiting the latin origin (direct or indirect) words only to 63% the site is in complete contradiction with my source which mentions 80%

Either of the options puts a stain on the validity of the source in this discussion.
And because of that I am not going to do:

You may not realise, but for that sample to be representative a huge amount of work has to be done. Its not just about counting the bottom right words or what you said.
I am not going to be engaged in such an enterprise to disprove a percentage from a site already with errors or dubious statistics.

take care

To clear up the things.Here started everything :

Let's see : 20 + 38,4 + 2,4 + 1,7 = 62,5% this is the first flaw. For someone giving such precise percentages 62,5 could not be equal with 63.

Furthermore 14 + 3,7 + 2,4 + 2,3 = 22,4 . 62,5 + 22,4 = 84,9 % which leaves 15,1% . They are from?

Sid,this is your source.I write this post now just for everyone to judge what you cite as sources.

On the other issue,this community from Brussels is quite difficult to be found as nothing reliable can be used as address.Moreover , the forum is disabled for a while. If you have any information I can gladly use it. I live 2 hrs drive from Brussels and I work at least 3 months/year in Brussels. I'd be more than happy to discuss these with Romanian community there.

This post has been edited by Zayets on August 22, 2005 11:56 am

Hi Zayets,

Please read again my earlier posts for why I suggested "Romancisation" as a better alternative to "Re-Latinisation". If you disagree with the logic, please explain why.

Please do follow up the Romanian Community in Belgium and Luxemburg link. I have already suggested that Imperialist contact them, but if he won't I am perfectly happy for you, or anyone else, to do so.

Counting the origins of the bottom right hand words of the DEX+S (something over a thousand) would take up rather less time than some of us have already spent on this thread. What is more, I will do it as soon as I can get access to a DEX+S, but this may be several months away. (Am I the ONLY one prepared to make this effort? Come on guys. It is your language and some of you already have the DEX+S available).

One's native language is irrelevant to this discussion as both Imperialist and I are using secondary sources. Secondly, the figures from the "Romanian Community in Belgium and Luxemburg" link are more detailed than those of Imperialist's and, as he has himself pointed out, there need not necessarily be a significant difference between our figures. Mine might just be a breakdown of his, but stripped of the "Latin" umbrella.

Actually, I HAVE touched on the "Slavicisation" of the Romanian language attempted after 1945. Not only has the reintroduction of Cyrillc in the Moldovan SSR been mentioned, but I also raised the subject of the orthographic change that resulted in "Romania" being spelt "Rominia" in the late 1950s and and/or early 1960s and then reversed.

I would suggest that there was exactly the sort of massive logistical effort spreading ideas throughout Romania that you "rule out right now". It was called the introduction of mass literacy through the establishment of primary and secondary education in the Romanian language across the whole of Romania. The language of instruction was that approved by the Academia Romana. The campaign for full literacy lasted about 100 years and was backed by the authority of the state.

Cheers,

Sid.

FACTS:

1. Simple romanians from rural areas (those who did not learn english or italian in school) will udnerstand some italian but WILL NOT understandfrench => romanian language is similar to italian and different from french.

2. Romanian historians pointed out to our latin roots both as people and language at least from 17th century (if you read Grigore Ureche or Miron Costin you will actually find sources mentioned by them who said that even earlier).

3. Romanian language from 17th century is quite similar to todays language (with the "arhaismele de rigoare")


Will you at least agree to those facts or will you be as stuborned as ever Sid ?

P.S.

Imperialist has already raised the question of the missing 15% and both he and I have already suggested possible solutions. Please read our back posts.

Sid.

You need a scientific methodology for that to have scientific relevancy.
But if you want to do it and reach a result, please do and let us know what that result is.

If I have to choose between more detailed but inexact and less detailed but exact, I'd choose the latter.
The words of direct and indirect latin origin are 80% of lexicon. The site mentions only 63%.