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Which Romance language sounds more Slavic?
ok dude, you made a point, its good and correct to use diacritics,
But at the same time Romanian without any diacritics is perfectly intelligible, and perfectly acceptable online.
regarding Continental Portuguese and their crazy pronunciation...
it doesn't even sound like an Indo-European language. There are no vowels left in Portuguese pronunciation, only interminable consonant clusters, that sound like some sort of Arabic-Russian mixture. Hell knows what happened to Continental Portuguese, but I remember many Brazilians saying it sounds horrible.
I don't understand the people who strongly claim that romanian without diacritics is wrong. Romanian without diacritics is with some small issues otherwise intelligible. Romanian with diacritics is entirely intelligible as in the sense of "readable".
However, neither method is phonetically CORRECT. If Romanian is supposed to be written using a phonetic alphabet (as the diacritics supporters claim) then the Cyrillic alphabet is the only real option. When the transition to the latin alphabet was done the following letters have got a latin equivalent: Ц, Ш, Э, Ы. But the letters Ь,Ъ,Ю,Й,Я,Щ did not. This proves that the transition to the latin alphabet was an entirely POLITICAL gesture to make romanian <look and sound> more like the other latin languages, without a basis in the language tradition and culture of Romania. The change has been a regress in this respect.
romanian doesnt sounds like an slavic language.
romanian is very close to italian when we speak about phonology. i mean,if i hear one romenian speaking is very likely that i think im listing to an italian. Romanian is far from sounding slav. romenian should fight to dont be the least romantic language that sounds slavic. this is the point.
@spanish accetn
What do you mean by "romenian should fight to dont be the least romantic language that sounds slavic. this is the point. "? That the romanians should give up their traditional culture because their culture is "not good enough" compared to the "true" latin cultures?
he said that romanian should compete for win in "Which Romance language sounds LESS slavic?"
and not in "Which Romance language sounds MORE Slavic?" did u perceive the difference LESS MORE? this is not about culture,is purely phonology
was not a political move, for Romanians. You should understand that since Romanians have chosen the orthodox church for their religious orientation, they also adopted the Cyrillic alphabet and used it for the first time in the text writings. In order to write in Romanian, the only literate people (priests/pops), used Cyrillic letters because that was what they had access to. ( The affiliation of Romanians to the orthodox church has to do with their alienation and the search of identity since they were in a permanent conflict with the catholic Austro-Hungarians. They found their roots at least formally into the remaining of the Eastern Roman empire (Byzantine) and so have chosen the orthodox church transforming them in the only Latin nation non catholic.
As was characteristic of the Middle Ages, the Church had a great influence on people's lives. Thus even basic words such as a iubi "to love", glas "voice", nevoie "need", and prieten "friend" are of Church Slavonic origin and that happens although Romanian in popular talking used its own words (Latin based), like 'voce = glas"; "necesitate = nevoie"; " amic = prieten" , " amor - iubire" .The last two (amic and amor) are used today in a kind of vulgar/superficial way of expression. By that time the church was represented by an educated elite and the way this elite spoke was taken as a model for illiterate people who attended the church; (the mass of normal uneducated people tried to learn and use the more elevated words heard in the church). That was the way amd the momentum how and when the most Slavonic words entered into the Romanian language. Names were also influenced by the use of Slavonic in Church and in administration. However now, many Slavic words are archaisms, and it is estimated that in modern Romanian 80% of the vocabulary is of Latin origin, the remainder representing Slavic, Greek, Hungarian, and Turkic borrowings as well as the Dacian substratum. Slavonic influences are also encountered in some phonetic particularities as well as in many suffixes. Once the level of education of Romanians increased , a lot of writers and poets appeared and begun to put on paper their thoughts and verses. Within these occasion they face some limitations in expression while using the Slavonic alphabet. Unfortunately, this alphabet didn't reproduce perfectly the sounds of Romanian words therefore for the best representation of those sounds, the switch to Latin became a must. I don't agree with OriginalGuest's opinion. It was exactly the opposite; the Cyrillic alphabet didn't reflect properly the sounds of the language, nor the culture of Romanians and that led to its replacement. Take the sound of each letter in Cyrillic and rapport it to a similar one in Latin and compare; then try to build and read Romanian words written in both, Cyrillic and Latin maintaining the specific sounds (inflections) for each letter and see what you get. Listen to Romanian spoken in Moldavian Republic (whose sounds are in concordance with Cyrillic letters used by its people until 1989) and compare them with Romanian spoken in Romania. In other words, to switch from one alphabet to another it has been a must because that finally helped the written language to sound naturally. Since the 19th century, many modern words were borrowed from the other Romance languages, especially from French and Italian (for example: birou "desk, office", avion "airplane" etc). Many of you here are saying that the language reform done by " Scoala Ardeleana", has increased the Latinity of Romanian; wrong! in the 16 century, almost 90% of the words used in spoken language were of Latin origin. After the 'reform", that amount decreased by at least 10% and did increase the words of French and Italian origin which not necessary are of Latin origin. In fact, the penetration of neologisms it is common for any language but in the case of Romanian, some of them replaced Romanian words of Latin origin just from snobbish matter. That was a mistake which led to disappearance of a bunch of old Romanian/Latin words or to lose the level of their utilization. For example: "Io" (I), became "Eu"; " Asin" became 'Magar' (asin is still used but very rarely); "cale" became 'sosea" and so on...
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Quote from: Unknown user ok dude, you made a point, its good and correct to use diacritics, But at the same time Romanian without any diacritics is perfectly intelligible, and perfectly acceptable online. ====================================== Almost all the european languages are intelligible when written without diacritics. For example french without accents can be easily understood because the accents are actually instructions for a slightly different pronounciation, the letters è or é designating the same sound, "e". However, almost all the french computer users write with accents, because this is the correct thing to do and a person that writes correctly shows that he has an education and is fully literate. In romanian, the diacritics do not designate different pronounciations of the same sound, they designate completely different sounds, like S and Ş or A and Ă. The diacritics are indispensable in order to differentiate many of the romanian words. For example, the words "sa", "să" and "şa" have completely different meanings ("his/her", "to" and "saddle"). Writing all of them like "sa" is wrong and impractical. Why the reader should guess from the context which is the correct word, "sa", "să" or "şa"? Just because the writer is lazy? And why only the romanians are lazy when writing on a computer, whereas the other european people are not? So, the style of writing without diacritics is not acceptable at all, and no romanian grammar book will tell otherwise. This style is tolerated on the internet, because so many romanians practice it, by pure indolence (laziness). But it is not and will never be acceptable, proof being the fact that more and more romanians begin to write correctly, with diacritics. And it's not hard to write that way, one must press a key for Ă Î Ş Ţ, just like he presses a key for A I S T. Why is it so complicated for many romanians to do just that? There are languages with far more diacritics than romanian, and those that write them using a computer keyboard do not whine like some romanians. There is a very recent newspaper article on the subject of diacritics, a sign that the phenomenon of diacriticless writing is gaining attention as an alarming negative trend. Why we need diacritics (article in romanian) http://www.adevarul.ro/societate/viata/De_ce_avem_nevoie_de_semnele_diacritice_0_192581247.html ====================================== Quote from: Unknown user However, neither method is phonetically CORRECT. If Romanian is supposed to be written using a phonetic alphabet (as the diacritics supporters claim) then the Cyrillic alphabet is the only real option. When the transition to the latin alphabet was done the following letters have got a latin equivalent: Ц, Ш, Э, Ы. But the letters Ь,Ъ,Ю,Й,Я,Щ did not. This proves that the transition to the latin alphabet was an entirely POLITICAL gesture to make romanian <look and sound> more like the other latin languages, without a basis in the language tradition and culture of Romania. The change has been a regress in this respect. ====================================== I have already explained that the transition to the latin alphabet in the 19th century had principally a political motivation, anyone knowledgeable in the field of romanian language history is aware of that. The latin alphabet may not be as suitable for romanian as the cyrillic alphabet (which has more letters), but it is good enough with some little adjustments (diacritics), just like it is good for some slavic languages (polish, czech, slovak, slovene or serbo-croatian). The switch from cyrillic to latin alphabet and all the linguistic discussions that it caused was a painful one for romanian, and it took some 100 years to arrive to an acceptable writing in latin alphabet. Not because it is difficult to write romanian with latin letters, but because in the process of switching from an alphabet to another, some romanians wanted also to modify the words so they look more like the latin ones from which they originated. This did not happen, aside for two things. On eis the use of  in the middle of the words, which designates the same sound as Î, but appears more "latin". The other is the use of the latin word "sunt" ("[I] am") instead of the romanian word "sînt" (derived also from latin, but not as latin in looks as "sunt"). It is linguistic exhibitionism at its best, that actually complicates the writing. Aside from these two situations ( and "sunt") there are no other stupid decisions related to the latinization of the written language. ====================================== Quote from: Unknown use By that time the church was represented by an educated elite and the way this elite spoke was taken as a model for illiterate people who attended the church; (the mass of normal uneducated people tried to learn and use the more elevated words heard in the church). That was the way amd the momentum how and when the most Slavonic words entered into the Romanian language. Names were also influenced by the use of Slavonic in Church and in administration. However now, many Slavic words are archaisms, and it is estimated that in modern Romanian 80% of the vocabulary is of Latin origin, the remainder representing Slavic, Greek, Hungarian, and Turkic borrowings as well as the Dacian substratum. Slavonic influences are also encountered in some phonetic particularities as well as in many suffixes. .................................. Once the level of education of Romanians increased , a lot of writers and poets appeared and begun to put on paper their thoughts and verses. Within these occasion they face some limitations in expression while using the Slavonic alphabet. Unfortunately, this alphabet didn't reproduce perfectly the sounds of Romanian words therefore for the best representation of those sounds, the switch to Latin became a must. I don't agree with OriginalGuest's opinion. It was exactly the opposite; the Cyrillic alphabet didn't reflect properly the sounds of the language, nor the culture of Romanians and that led to its replacement. ====================================== Your message is full of propaganda from the beginning to the end. By saying things that are not true you are just enforcing the opinion that romanians are liars when it comes to their origin and language. This is not good at all. The non-romanians are not believing propaganda, because they can check independent sources of information that are available online (Wikipedia) or offline (books). And speaking of books, some of them are also available online, for example on Google Books, site which provides excerpts of books for free. A very interesting book for the discussion that takes place here is the one written by an american. The book speaks about the romanians in the chapter named "Romania and the Romanians". The preview from Google Books allows reading for free 50 pages from the total of 60 that compose the chapter. Anyone interested in an objective view on the romanian quest to establish a national identity should read the pages available online or buy the book. The myths and propaganda used by some users on this forum are completely debunked in that book. I provide below the shortened URL to the Google Books preview page. George W. White Nationalism and territory: constructing group identity in Southeastern Europe (Rowman & Littlefield, 2000) http://tinyurl.com/romanians-romania P.S. Another recent discussion on the subject of latin and slavic influence is available on a romanian forum: Ce/cît e latin şi ce/cît e slav în română http://forum.softpedia.com/index.php?showtopic=627437
don't understand what I was saying nor what propaganda is. On the other hand, from what I noticed in your posts here, ( in just a few of them what I partially read), is that you are extremely obsessed with the Romanian language and its problematic. I don't intend, nor want to insult anybody but you enter in the same category with some other fellows who "know better than the "aboriginals" the past and history of those.
By having said that, it is difficult to understand "your courage" in taking such positions and making such baseless statements if I have to exclude the potential lack of knowledge and instruction, as the reason for that. I am not Romanian, believe it or not (and I really don't care what you believe), but I studied history of ancient "romance" world. That made me learn almost all romance languages including Romanian and about the way they evolved during the time. There are a lot of nonsense posted here not only by you; most of them are effectively childish as it is this idea to compare Portuguese with Russian, two languages totally different in their essence. Two beautiful languages who gave to the world so much are treated with such a disrespect by you guys...it is very disappointing! Yes, I consider very disrespectful to speak ironically about different nations languages instead to try to understand what made the nations in general, to chose so many different sounds and ways of expressing needs, feelings, wishes etc. How can be related these "communication systems" called languages, to the peoples thoughts, culture, traditions etc. What made each nation adopt so many different "sounds" and structures in pronouncing them? Why Germans for example are putting the 'action" on the last position in a sentence and so on. All these discussions about how beautiful a language is, are pure and simple naive when we think that each language has a deep root in peoples culture, traditions, habits. How did the Latin world felt the the sound "L" is best associated with the symbol "L" and why the Slavic nations felt different in choosing the symbol for a similar sound. Are those two sounds really identical? The languages are representing the people nature and to insist on the idea that Romanian for example should use Slavonic alphabet is not just ridicule , it is just stupid. It is as stupid as you say that Portuguese and Russian sound similar... Get deeper in studies and try to understand what makes the people articulate words in different ways. If Germanic, Slavic and Hungarian nations hadn't have "penetrating" the "Roman" world, a Portuguese person could understand a Romanian from the other end of Roman empire, without any effort or any need of translation. What made Portuguese, French and Romanian preserved the same sound for the symbol "j" and Spanish for instance, didn't, should be another question you should ask yourself; what relation could be build between the way a language is structured and organised and the tradition, culture and habits of the people who are using it; why English is more or less easy/difficult for different nations and why is getting so much terrain on our planet etc. Why is 'Walsh" not spread internationally as Irish, Scottish (dialect) in the new British world, are? Are the "Walsh" people so different than the rest of the brits? why did they not emigrated as much as the others? I just came from New Zealand recently and learned about the extremely high poverty who determined the first British people to leave Britain and to settle in a completely unknown and so far away land; they were Irish, Scots, English but no Walsh although, their living conditions back home were as bad as well. Studying Walsh language, you might find an answer for these questions...if you are interested in understanding language formation and peoples culture, tradition and ways of living. Have a nice day, all of you and try to be less subijective and more interested in finding the truth!
Ravinescu, you may be the most intelligent poster on this thread. You say the facts and back them up with sources. Keep it up!
We say we are "Latin" because our language is romance. We've always felt genetically related to peoples in South-East Europe (like, Serbia) but culturally connected to Latin Europe at least as of the 19th century. Our great-grandparents did well to work on our Latin side - which people in their right mind would choose to be buddies with Moscow, if given a reasonable choice? We'll still be "Latin" regardless what our genes turn out to be.
what "niveau" could some people have: pathetic! No other comments can be made!
After reading through these posts, I must say I've learned some interesting theories about Romania's background, and there does seem to be considerable Slavic influence in the language and history, but I still somehow doubt that Romania is entirely of Slavic background. Even the people tend to look kind of different from the surrounding countries, since Slavs like Russians, Ukrainians, and Poles usually have lighter features and many Romanians have somewhat more of a Mediterranean or brunet look.
That, and the sound of the language, despite the many changes in vocabulary, still sounds similar to Italian, arguably even moreso than Portuguese. You'd think if it was just a bunch of Slavs who adopted the Latin language they would have butchered the sound of it more over the centuries. But either way, it is interesting to read about alternative theories to the widely accepted, government-endorsed version.
"That, and the sound of the language, despite the many changes in vocabulary, still sounds similar to Italian, arguably even moreso than Portuguese."
What you mean by that? Note that i speak portuguese and i feel uncomfortable with such a freak comparison, this is not a praise to me. I think that Portuguese is not like Italian.
salut!
I speak to you as a romanian who knows his history well and i want to debate some key problems raised by Ravinescu. Firs i must say that i speak 4 of the six main romance languages - romanian, french ,italian and spanish. THE PROBLEM OF THE ALPHABET: Cyrilic alphabet in Romania was used (from the 16th century until 1860s) as someone said earlier for various religios and political reasons (before that the greek alphabet was used in church and official documents because of the great the influence of the Byzantine Empire and the greeks in the area). The statement that the cyrilic alphabet might be used better to express romanian sounds it's false. I know the cyrilic alphabet and the corect prononciantion of the letters and i must say that it can't express all romanian sounds and some cyrilic letters and sounds don't even make sense in romanian. Diacritics state the influence that slavs, greeks,turks and hungarians had on the language (which is normal considering that Romania is surrounded by slav countries and a mutual exchange of culture happened) and their existance is neccessary to the language as a part of its IDENTITY (although the language its fully intelligible without them ... if we wish we can drop the use of diacritics by using costructions like Sh (Ș); Ts(Ț); Ha(Ă) which is allways preceded by a consonant ; and Î needs no change as it can be used an accent rule for it). GENETIC HERITAGE: If you have seen romanians they look a little different from their neighbours. romanians like many other european ethnic groups are a "cocktail" of ancient native populations (dacians/getae/thracians in the romanian case; the gauls in France; the ancient germanic tribes in north europe etc.) plus the roman colonists (which came after 106 AD in vast numbers in Dacia) plus the migratory people who spread through Europe (goths, visigoths, cumans, huns) plus the slavs who settled in east Europe and Balkans begining with the 5th (6th) century AD This "cocktail" theory is viable for many of Europe 's nations (like french , italians, iberians, even the slav nations etc) but the quantity of the "ingredients" vary. There is no "pure" ethnic group that dates to "Adam and Eve" that's supremacist b**shit. ROMANIAN LATIN HERITAGE. This can't be denied or debated if you have the curiosity to study just a little latin and romanian. The resemblance is striking even from the begining in every possible way. I studied latin for 1 year and it's extremely easy to learn it if you know romanian and "vice versa". Another example is the romanians who go to Italy that become fluent in italian in less than a month an italians who come to Romania become fluent in romanian in a month or two. WHICH ROMANCE LANGUAGE SOUNDS MORE SLAVIC? Answer: NONE. They are an unique group of languages. The slav impact on Romanian, The germanic impact on French, The muslim influence on Spanish and Portuguese was to small to make any difference and to dissolve their latinity. |