On the origins of Romanian language

No,not touching.That was already discussed.Don't SHIFT the discussion ONCE AGAIN.My question was totaly different. Here it is,a short recap for you : "Thus, if we rejected the slavic expresions (or supposing they fell into oblivion) why would be keeping the Latin ones?" Please stick to discussion.From now one I will accept no other shifting if you really want to continue this (useless) discussion.

It is relevant, my friend.Not highly but it is relevant.How would you know (read feel) that a word has a certain origin?Or how would you understand (read feel) a certain expression?

You see?You suggested,now prove it because what the sources you have quoted didn't made such assumptions.They merely suggest a certain course of action.Wether this was put into action or not,I guess we already agreed now.If it failed,then why bring it (again) into discussion?Is pretty hard to enforce something when there are few Romanian schools across the country.And ,if you bothered to read some books, you'd find that the overhelming majority of the Romanians could not afford at that time to even follow the primary classes.Yep,logistics again.

Hi D13th Mytzu,

sorry to be slow to get back to you. I am having to juggle three or four conversations and sometimes I will necessarily be slow in replying.

I don't actually think that you and I have any significant points of disagreement.

1) I see absolutely no reason to disagree with your proposition that Romanians from rural areas will find it easier to understand Italian than French. I would guess that this may well always have been so for the last 1,900 years because Latin originally came to Romania from Italia, not Gallia.

2) I see no reason to doubt that 17th century historians recognised the Latin roots of Romanian. I don't know of anyone reputable who thinks otherwise than that the core Romanian language is Latin based, as I have already said several times.

3) I see no reason to doubt that today's Romanians can by and large understand the Romanian of the 17th Century. However, given the large number of mostly Romance words introduced into the Romanian language since the 17th Century and the adoption of the Bucharest region dialect/grai as its basis, I would suggest that a typical 17th Century Romanian would probably have far more difficulty understanding modern Romanian. The same is certainly true of English and I would imagine most, perhaps all, other languages.

Cheers,

Sid.

Thank you for the stright answers Sid, however I do have one question: what is the " Bucharest region dialect/grai" ? I (and probably others) are totally unfamiliar with this.

There was never a deliberate effort to introduce the Bucharest "grai"/dialect.
Because probably what you call Bucharest grai/dialect
was nothing but the literary language agreed upon by writers and linguists of the times.
Moreover, today there is no such thing as a Bucharest grai/dialect. Do you have a London dialect in Britain?

I really think you had a major sun stroke. They said on the news : it was very hot this summer.

So Mytzu,when we met in Bucharest in July which grai/dialect you spoked to me?Because you see? I am from Transylvania and you from Bucharest. Next time please tell me to come with the dictionary with me because I might find very difficult to understand you!

Of course they do!Is called Soho.At least that's what I learned from various web sites mantained by Comunitatea Romana din Marea Britanie

This post has been edited by Zayets on August 22, 2005 12:26 pm

Hi Imperialist,

So, I really am the only one of us really interested in pursuing the facts! No problem. As I have said already, I will do a word count by origin from the DEX+S when I am next in the British library.

Taking a random sample, such as every "umpteenth" word or the word at the bottom/top left/right will satisfy the requirement of a sound methodology. That is why I suggested it. In order to increase further the random nature of the test,
I will let you choose. Top or bottom, left or right?

What makes you think "80%" is "exact"? It would be statistically extremely remarkable if the Latin vocabulary of Romanian is exactly "80%", don't you think? In fact, the Romanian Community on Belgium and Luxemburg figures are both more detailed AND more exact than yours. Their figures use decimal points. Yours do not. Your figures leave 20% unexplained, theirs apparently leave 15.1%. By you logic you should prefer the figures offered by the Romanian Community in Belgium and Luxemburg.

Cheers,

Sid.

Sid,you start counting and then come back.OK?Be a good boy and start investigating.

Oh,one more thing, what facts you were interested? If anyone has any other doubts then these should be answered by now.Your source is a travel tourist info site (not even mantained anymore) and that's the bottom line.

Good luck in counting the words.And don't forget to submit your work to the Academy.They need briliant minds like air.

Hi D13th Mytzu,

The origin of the Romanian language today in the Bucharest region is mentioned in the article in the Encyclopedia Britannica I quoted somewhat earlier. I will dig out the exact quote for you.

It is possible that if the Bucharest region dialect/grai was the root of the modern national language, it would now be indistinguishable because it would be in daily use by all educated Romanians. As Bucharest became the national capital, it would not be impossible that it provided the roots of the literary language Imperialist just mentioned.

In Britain we have "RP" - Received Pronounciation (much the same as "BBC English" or "Queens English") - which is used by the upper-middle and upper classes across the whole country. It originated amongst educated people in the Home Counties around London and spread via the universities and Public Schools they sent their children to.

Cheers,

Sid.

Hi Imperialist,

Thank you for your endorsement.

Cheers,

Sid.

P.S. If you have any preference in the top/bottom, left/right debate, let me know. In the absence of an expressed preference I will choose bottom/right.

According to this site Romanian is DIRECTLY descendant from Latin.

http://turismro.tripod.com/ghid/istorie.html

Oh,did I forgot to mention that this site is a touristic one.Now you've been warned.

And for some fun a la Sid , here's another one.Actually I believe that Sid will start investigating this one thorougly :

http://www.geocities.com/dacgerula/files/limba_romana.htm

This post has been edited by Zayets on August 22, 2005 12:59 pm

My source gives 80% for latin origin, and 15-16% for slavic origin. That leaves 4-5% for "others". Compare that to your huge 15% "others" and your way off 63% latin origin. If my source has a possible error of +/- 5% (lets say) for that 80% latin origin, yours must have a 80%-63% error.

Also I find it distressing that you now contest the authority of my source (previously you thought I had no source at all, I guess that would have made your efforts far more easier), while continuing to uphold the authority of your travel site! Unbelievable!


take care

Ditto!

Sid, I am afraid there is no "Bucharest dialect/grai" as you udnerstand it, the Bucharest problem is a little more complex considering that during comunism many people from rural areas were brought to the capital. Even more about this matter: during University (which lasted 5 years) most of my colegues (70% or more) were not from Bucharest but from allover the country, all of us spoke the same "grai" it is true that some had different accents depending on the region they came from, but we all spoke SAME language, same words, same grammar.
What you could say is that in Bucharest we speak with a "muntean" accent but that's about it.



This post has been edited by D13-th_Mytzu on August 22, 2005 01:10 pm

Of course I did. It had the same impression on me as it had Braveheart.A Scott played by an Aussie in a Holywood picture as far as it goes for accuraccy.Neverthless,big bang for the buck.But that's Holywood.Funny speach a la con (pardon my French).But that's it.Or that one was a "grai" and I failed to understand the whole image.
But this is off topic.Mods feel free to mod my comment down if necessary.