Origin and History
Rumanian is picturesquely described either as a barbarized Latin or as a Latinized barbarian tongue. Undoubtedly, such extremely diverging definitions reflect the complicated problem to find out a consistent explanation of its emergence and evolution. The official thesis supported in contemporary Rumania states that Rumanian developed from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman colonists who settled Dacia (modern Transylvania) after its conquest by emperor Trajan in 106 AD. Though the Roman legions abandoned the area in 271 under the pressure of the barbarians, a portion of the Romanized population could survive, as shepherds and primitive farmers, in the Carpathian mountains. In the 9th century, when conditions settled, these Romance-speaking people gradually reoccupied Transylvania. In the late 13th century they moved eastward and established the principalities of Wallachia (1290) and Moldova (1349).
It is known that after 106 Dacia was colonized by a few settlers from the Roman provinces in the Near East (mainly Syria) who could use a corrupted version of Latin as a kind of lingua franca to communicate with the administration and the population in the adjacent areas. Evidently in 271 these settlers were moved southward of the Danube, as the Romans established two provinces of the name of Dacia in the territories of the present North-Eastern Serbia and Western Bulgaria. It is noteworthy that Rumanian does not contain words of Dacian origin, while it shares some old-Balkan and non-Latin terms with Albanian. Thus these two languages reflect special historical contacts of early date.
It is not impossible that the ancestors of modern Rumanians were in the late Antiquity slaves and servants engaged in agriculture and cattle breeding for their masters, the rich Roman colonists of the fortified Balkan cities. Supposedly, the two groups communicated in a kind of creolized Latin. In the course of the successive barbarian invasions in the 5th--8th c. the established political and socio-economic order on the Balkans was reversed. The city-dwellers could survive under the protection of the city-walls, but as the Eastern Roman (or Byzantine) empire was predominantly a Greek speaking state, they became subsequently Hellenized, while their former slaves and servants fled to the mountains, which were suitable for livestock raising, and preserved the Romance tongue (technically known as Eastern Romance), as evidenced by the fact that the Slavs called them Vlachs. The self-designation as Rumanians, under the etymological form of Romîni, is attested in the 16th century (the texts of Coresi),
See the graph Derivation of Romance Languages from Latin.
See Wallachians, Walloons, Welschen etc.
See for more details Vlachs.
The Vlachs concentrated in the south-western parts of the Balkans, mainly in the regions around modern Albania. There they could escape not only the invadors, but also the effective control of the Byzantine authorities. In the course of the centuries the Vlachs absorbed a lot of outlaws, mainly of Slavic origin. After the invasions ceased, the Vlachs began migrating northward. In the 9th-10th centuries they were present in the mountains of the First Bulgarian empire (681-1018), which dominated the inner continental area of the Balkan peninsula. Evidently in this period they adopted for their liturgy the Old Church Slavonic, the official language of medieval Bulgaria. The close and continuous contacts with the Slavic milieu left a profound impact on the vocabulary and phonology of their language.
It is possible that the Vlachs were forced by the Bulgarian emperors to move northward of the Danube and thus to reach Transylvania, which, since the end of the 9th century, was in Hungarian hands. Settling there, the Vlachs gradually outnumbered the other nationalities, making the area a homeland of their own. From Transylvania they penetrated eastward of the Carpathians and established the principalities of Wallachia and Moldova. In these countries Old Church Slavonic was used as official language till the 18th century.
The migrations had as a result that the unity of the Eastern Romance language was broken and between 500 and 1000 AD there developped several distinct tongues:
Arumanian (technically known also as Macedo-Rumanian), spoken in scattered communities in Albania, Epirus, Thessaly and Macedonia;
Megleno-Rumanian around the city of Meglena in Southern Macedonia (now in Greece);
Dalmatian along the northeastern shore of the Adriatic sea, mainly in Ragusa (Dubrovnik);
Istro-Rumanian on the Istrian peninsula in the far north-western corner of the Balkan region;
Daco-Rumanian (or Rumanian proper) in the area to the north of the Danube (Transylvania, Wallachia and Moldova).
The first known Daco-Rumanian text is a letter written in 1521 to a judge of Braşov, though some manuscript translations of religious texts show Transylvanian dialect features and may be earlier. The language was written in Cyrillic alphabet and the Vlachs of this period, being Eastern Orthodox, identified themselves to a great extent with Slavdom. Italian travellers in eastern Europe noticed that the language of the Vlachs contained many Latin words also existing in Italian. Knowing that the Roman Empire once dominated Dacia Traiana, it was supposed that the Vlachs were the descendants of the Romans, who once subdued the Dacians. Only in the early 19th century, however, the idea of Romance identity became popular amongst the Vlachs. In 1859 the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia formed a unified state, that assumed the name of Rumania. The Roman (Latin) alphabet was introduced and there were applied remarkable efforts to Latinize the language, while purging it of Slavisms. The emerging nation turned toward other Romance countries, especially France, for cultural inspiration.
Rumanian is picturesquely described either as a barbarized Latin or as a Latinized barbarian tongue. Undoubtedly, such extremely diverging definitions reflect the complicated problem to find out a consistent explanation of its emergence and evolution. The official thesis supported in contemporary Rumania states that Rumanian developed from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman colonists who settled Dacia (modern Transylvania) after its conquest by emperor Trajan in 106 AD. Though the Roman legions abandoned the area in 271 under the pressure of the barbarians, a portion of the Romanized population could survive, as shepherds and primitive farmers, in the Carpathian mountains. In the 9th century, when conditions settled, these Romance-speaking people gradually reoccupied Transylvania. In the late 13th century they moved eastward and established the principalities of Wallachia (1290) and Moldova (1349).
It is known that after 106 Dacia was colonized by a few settlers from the Roman provinces in the Near East (mainly Syria) who could use a corrupted version of Latin as a kind of lingua franca to communicate with the administration and the population in the adjacent areas. Evidently in 271 these settlers were moved southward of the Danube, as the Romans established two provinces of the name of Dacia in the territories of the present North-Eastern Serbia and Western Bulgaria. It is noteworthy that Rumanian does not contain words of Dacian origin, while it shares some old-Balkan and non-Latin terms with Albanian. Thus these two languages reflect special historical contacts of early date.
It is not impossible that the ancestors of modern Rumanians were in the late Antiquity slaves and servants engaged in agriculture and cattle breeding for their masters, the rich Roman colonists of the fortified Balkan cities. Supposedly, the two groups communicated in a kind of creolized Latin. In the course of the successive barbarian invasions in the 5th--8th c. the established political and socio-economic order on the Balkans was reversed. The city-dwellers could survive under the protection of the city-walls, but as the Eastern Roman (or Byzantine) empire was predominantly a Greek speaking state, they became subsequently Hellenized, while their former slaves and servants fled to the mountains, which were suitable for livestock raising, and preserved the Romance tongue (technically known as Eastern Romance), as evidenced by the fact that the Slavs called them Vlachs. The self-designation as Rumanians, under the etymological form of Romîni, is attested in the 16th century (the texts of Coresi),
See the graph Derivation of Romance Languages from Latin.
See Wallachians, Walloons, Welschen etc.
See for more details Vlachs.
The Vlachs concentrated in the south-western parts of the Balkans, mainly in the regions around modern Albania. There they could escape not only the invadors, but also the effective control of the Byzantine authorities. In the course of the centuries the Vlachs absorbed a lot of outlaws, mainly of Slavic origin. After the invasions ceased, the Vlachs began migrating northward. In the 9th-10th centuries they were present in the mountains of the First Bulgarian empire (681-1018), which dominated the inner continental area of the Balkan peninsula. Evidently in this period they adopted for their liturgy the Old Church Slavonic, the official language of medieval Bulgaria. The close and continuous contacts with the Slavic milieu left a profound impact on the vocabulary and phonology of their language.
It is possible that the Vlachs were forced by the Bulgarian emperors to move northward of the Danube and thus to reach Transylvania, which, since the end of the 9th century, was in Hungarian hands. Settling there, the Vlachs gradually outnumbered the other nationalities, making the area a homeland of their own. From Transylvania they penetrated eastward of the Carpathians and established the principalities of Wallachia and Moldova. In these countries Old Church Slavonic was used as official language till the 18th century.
The migrations had as a result that the unity of the Eastern Romance language was broken and between 500 and 1000 AD there developped several distinct tongues:
Arumanian (technically known also as Macedo-Rumanian), spoken in scattered communities in Albania, Epirus, Thessaly and Macedonia;
Megleno-Rumanian around the city of Meglena in Southern Macedonia (now in Greece);
Dalmatian along the northeastern shore of the Adriatic sea, mainly in Ragusa (Dubrovnik);
Istro-Rumanian on the Istrian peninsula in the far north-western corner of the Balkan region;
Daco-Rumanian (or Rumanian proper) in the area to the north of the Danube (Transylvania, Wallachia and Moldova).
The first known Daco-Rumanian text is a letter written in 1521 to a judge of Braşov, though some manuscript translations of religious texts show Transylvanian dialect features and may be earlier. The language was written in Cyrillic alphabet and the Vlachs of this period, being Eastern Orthodox, identified themselves to a great extent with Slavdom. Italian travellers in eastern Europe noticed that the language of the Vlachs contained many Latin words also existing in Italian. Knowing that the Roman Empire once dominated Dacia Traiana, it was supposed that the Vlachs were the descendants of the Romans, who once subdued the Dacians. Only in the early 19th century, however, the idea of Romance identity became popular amongst the Vlachs. In 1859 the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia formed a unified state, that assumed the name of Rumania. The Roman (Latin) alphabet was introduced and there were applied remarkable efforts to Latinize the language, while purging it of Slavisms. The emerging nation turned toward other Romance countries, especially France, for cultural inspiration.