Romania

[barca]

It is my understanding that modern-day Romania is of that name because of it's language, which the linguists determined to be of latin origin.

 

I find it interesting that Dacia was one of the last territories to be annexed by the Romans and one of the first to be abandoned. They held on to it for less than 200 years. The Goths and various other tribes occupied it in subsequently. Yet the latin-based language survived. Sure it has changrd a lot from the original latin, but so has Italian.

 

Compare this to England, which the Romans held for about 400 years, The latin

language was wiped out and replaced by a Germanic language (Anglo-Saxon or Old English)

 

Can anyone explain why Dacia held on to Latin and England did not?

[Tobias]

I daresay it would be mostly because Britain was always a far frontier territory; conquered as an example that Rome could cross oceans for greatness. It was not as valuable a province as most of the other provinces. It's distance and occassional inaccessiblity i.e. fog, rough seas, caused England to not become as Romanised as other provinces. The ordinary people would probably never have bothered to become fully fluent in latin, but they would have held on to their language and beliefs, not to mention the invasion of the Normans and before this the continuing invasions of the Picts and Scots.

Dacia was subdued after a long and difficult war by Trajan. It was added to the Roman Empire at Rome's peak of territory and power. Perhaps the dacians, having witnessed this might, wished to be like the Romans. It would not be the first time a tribe or race wanted this. Thus, they adopted the language and never let it go, wanting to retain that thought that they were still part of the mighty Roman Empire that had gained their respect and subservience. Despite the many occupations of subsequent tribes, including Huns, Bulgars, Magyars, Avars etc. the idea of remaining "Roman" was a talisman that they probably clung to. It was the same with other nations. they just couldn't accept that Rome, so immortal and great, could fall, as they were so awestruck and, well, Romanised themselves. It's like i've said before, a nation that is mentally as well as physically subdued will remain thus far longer than a mere physical conquest. Trajan's victory, once complete, was complete. Thus they maintained it's institutions and language, as you said, can be seen today. The territory was mainly abandoned because of the other tribes migrating into the area and its obvious potential in future to be a kind of meeting ground for migrating tribes. The abandonment of the territory was perhaps a rather foolish decision.

[Primus Pilus]

And keep in mind that Latin was not the primary language of the area on a continual basis since the fall of Rome. However, thats not to say its root has not been Latin since the Roman conquest. Slavic migrations altered the language for several centuries, but the persistent Romanians have continually gone back to their Latin roots and even purged Slavic nuances from their vocabulary. The last major re-introduction of Latin occured as recently as the early 20th century.

 

Why did Dacia become such a strong point of Latin? Largely because of two major factors. Unlike some places like Britain, Dacia was a major recruiting area for new legionaries quickly after its conquest. As recruits became Romanized including the learning of Latin, they eventually returned home seemingly having fully embraced it, and spread it amongst its families and tribes. Additionally, since Roman Catholicism took a firm hold in Romania it helped the people readily hold on to the tongue used by the church.

[barca]

And keep in mind that Latin was not the primary language of the area on a continual basis since the fall of Rome.

[Tobias]

They purged slavic nuances did they? That's something i didn't know. How interesting!

[Primus Pilus]

They purged slavic nuances did they? That's something i didn't know. How interesting!

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Quite frankly, that is my understanding from only simple encyclopedic style sources. I am not a linguist and have not studied this in depth, so I freely admit that I don't know the depth of these conditions and how everything was played out. I eagerly anticipate clarification or correction from others who do have more insight.

[Guest heliana]

 

Quite frankly, that is my understanding from only simple encyclopedic style sources. I am not a linguist and have not studied this in depth, so I freely admit that I don't know the depth of these conditions and how everything was played out. I eagerly anticipate clarification or correction from others who do have more insight.

 

Well, I am Romanian (I've been living in Seattle for the last 15 years), I speak, read, and write fluent Romanian, and I can tell you that the language hasn't been purged of any Slavic influences. There was a government effort in the 1960s and 1970s to reaffirm the Romanian Roman roots (effort stemming from the crazed nationalism of the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu), but the language-tinkering didn't really amount to much. Do you remember the "freedom-fries"? The "purging" of Romanian language happened along similar lines.

Romanian Syntax and Morphology greatly resembles Italian, proof (for some linguists) that Slav culture and language penetrated the area after Proto-Romanian has crystallized as a language. However, Romanian has many Slav words - with their latin synonims right along. A couple of examples:

 

"love" - You got "amor" - a latin word, but you also have "iubire" - a word with a slavic root.

"black" - "Negru" from latin and "Cernit" from slavonic (old russian, and generally used in connection with funerals.)

"stupid" - "Stupid' from latin and "Narod" from slavonic (the original meaning of the word being "simple", or "the simple people" and used as such is old Romanian texts. )

"country" - "Patria" from Latin, and "tzara" from slavonic.

 

Heliana

[FLavius Valerius Constantinus]

Did everyone in Romania support and agree with the re-Romanization or did they just not care. Do Romanians take much pride in their past?

I'm just really curious because you don't see many nations in history that tries to revert back to the old.

[Guest heliana]

Did everyone in Romania support and agree with the re-Romanization or did they just not care. Do Romanians take much pride in their past?

I'm just really curious because you don't see many nations in history that tries to revert back to the old.

 

Re-romanization? There has never been any re-Romanization. Language and customs evolve naturally, I don't see why would anyone think Romanians are artificially creating their culture.