Romanian...not The Closest To Latin

[docoflove1974]

Sorry I'm coming late to this party...but I can add to this greatly, at least from the Romance Linguistics point of view.

 

Graham Mallinson and Maria Manea Manoliu (or often Manoliu Manea) are the two foremost authors on Rumanian and its role in Romance Linguistics. Maria was a professor of mine at the University of California at Davis, and was one of the first to use Chomskian ideals (particularly UG) to describe the Romance morpho-syntax...a huge name, and I learned from her greatly (as well as an academic adversary of Robert Hall Jr!). Anyway, she has several works on various topics on Rumanian linguistics. But as for general overviews, which are both basic and chock full of information, Graham Mallinson is the grand master. He wrote the chapter on Rumanian in the Martin Harris and Nigel Vincent's standard The Romance Languages (1988, Oxford University Press), but wrote the actual thome (sp?) on the language: Rumanian 1986. Dover, NH: Croom Helm.

 

So, let's take up some topics--again, I know Rumanian as a Romance linguist and through these works, but do not speak it, so bear with me. Also take note of the quotation marks--the terms in them are meant to be taken with a grain of salt, as there is still much debate on Rumanian:

 

1) Syntactically, Rumanian is 'archaic' in that it retains case distinction (albeit in reduced form from Latin) as well as pseudo-three-way gender distinction (the 'third gender' is often termed ambigeneric since the singular forms are that of the masc.sing, but the plural forms are that of the fem.sing.; this third 'gender' does not have distinct inflection of its own, even on modifiers, and so there is great debate as to whether it is a gender or not...I can get into this discussion at a later point in time).

 

2) There are substantial 'Balkan' traits to the language--the use of postposed articles (so it looks like 'noun-article' all in one word) being one of many areas. Due to the substantial Slavic influence, it is often thought that aspects of them influenced Rumanian--it should be noted that Mallinson is opposed to this explanation (and I would tend to agree), as it is not normal to borrow aspects of morpho-syntax without substantial borrowings in other areas, which is not shown in great numbers outside of lexical items. Again, another topic for another time.

 

5) As for external influences, certainly the other Balkan languages (Bulgarian, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian, Greek, Albanian, et. al.) were an influence, as is Hungarian...and do not underestimate the French and Italian influence which came in the 17th and 18th century. All added greatly to the lexicon, and perhaps in other areas...but as noted above, this is under debate.

 

3) Phonologically and phonetically, Rumanian is quite 'Romance', with particular reference to palatalized consonants in certain situations and weakened vowels in word-final position (Mallinson 1986: 395-8). (I don't know squat about Slavic phonology, by and large, but I know that the consonant clusters which are typical in Slavic languages are not present for the most part in Rumanian.)

 

4) Lexically, yes there are 'archaic' words, but no more so than in Spanish/Portuguese and Sardinian...basically, 'more archaic' words tend to be used in the periphery of a language community.

 

Perhaps the saddest part of the language of Rumanian is that there does not exist any document older than the 16th century...so we have a very large gap (~1000 years) with zero documentation of the language, and therefore we don't know exactly how Rumanian was formed. We can surmise, but we don't have nearly the same documentation that we do with all of the other Romance languages.

 

As for Sardinian and Sicilian...Sardinian is a totally and completely different Romance language from 'Italian', and Sicilian/Southern Italian is often thought of as a different, although highly related, linguistic area than Northern/Gallo-Italian and Central Italian--this is constantly debated, too.

 

Iberia: Gallician-Portuguese and Portuguese are the same thing...albeit different dialects. El gallego, as it is called in Spanish, is the more modern dialect which is a mesh of Gallician-Portuguese (which died out a couple of centuries ago) and Spanish (more Leonese than Castilian). European Portugese is pretty much defined in the country of Portugal, and Catalan is spoken on the other side of the peninsula, in the provinces of Catalunya and, in a modified form, Valencia, as well as a small portion of SW France.

 

Oh, one more thing...as to which (modern) Romance language is 'closest' to Latin...the question must be reformed. In what way?...no one language is 'closest' to Latin in all areas (phonology/phonetics, morphology, syntax). Also...which Latin?: Classical, Vulgar, Late, etc. In my personal opinion--having to work on this constantly--I would put it as follows:

 

Phonolgy/Phonetics: the closest is probably Sardinian and South-Central Italian, since the vowels are pretty much the same (albeit in Sardinian in reduced form) as well as the syllable structure...standard (Florentine) Italian can be thrown in here, too.

 

Morphology: no one, really. If you want to say that Rumanian is, since it still have a case distinction, ok, fine. In reality, it's highly pared down...no where near the level that Classical Latin, and even Vulgar Latin, had.

 

Syntax: again, no one really here, either. Classical Latin was a Subject-Object-Verb order, when there was word order in a sentence, with high reliance on case inflection instead of word order and prepositions. Every one of the Romance languages, including Rumanian and the Rhaeto-Romance languages, has high reliance on prepositions and medium-to-high reliance on word order (it's still much more flexible than, say, English). Verbal aspect (perfective/progressive/imperfective) has been greatly reduce in the modern languages, as well.

 

Overall...I really would doubt that any of the Classical writers would be able to read much of any of the modern Romance languages. Even as early as the 10th and 11th century--so ~600-700 years after the fall of the Empire--the morphology and syntax of the Romance languages were vastly different from Classical and Vulgar Latin(s).

[Andrew Dalby]

3) Phonologically and phonetically, Rumanian is quite 'Romance', with particular reference to palatalized consonants in certain situations and weakened vowels in word-final position (Mallinson 1986: 395-8) ...

 

Agreed! But when it comes to vowels, Romanian has a middle vowel, quite unusual in European languages but familiar in Russian. It is spelt

[docoflove1974]

Agreed! But when it comes to vowels, Romanian has a middle vowel, quite unusual in European languages but familiar in Russian. It is spelt

[Viggen]

come on a country who`s presidents first name is Traian, that must be damm close to latin

[Andrew Dalby]

come on a country who`s presidents first name is Traian, that must be damm close to latin

 

In what countries/languages are the most Roman imperial names in use today?

 

Jules/Julius/Giulio etc. quite widespread

C

[Ludovicus]

Phonolgy/Phonetics: the closest is probably Sardinian and South-Central Italian, since the vowels are pretty much the same (albeit in Sardinian in reduced form) as well as the syllable structure...standard (Florentine) Italian can be thrown in here, too.

 

 

 

What do you think about the lexical quality of South-Central Italian as regards to its closeness to Latin? In the Italian immigrant community of my childhood the Abruzzese would use "is" instead of "lui", "a logh" instead of "la". There are more examples which I could recall.

[docoflove1974]

In what countries/languages are the most Roman imperial names in use today?

 

Jules/Julius/Giulio etc. quite widespread

C

[Ginevra]

Any other examples?

 

In Italian,

Adriano / Adriana,

Marco,

Gaia,

Valerio / Valeria

 

...and many others that I don't remember now ^ ^

[Traianus]

there are HUNDREDS of names in actual spanish, italian and portuguese(in french too but I think they are much more different in writing and pronunciation), in spanish somo of them:

 

Hadrian/Adriana

Hadriano

Alba

Albano

Amadeo

Amancio

Amanda

Amparo

Antonio/Antonia

Aquilino

Ariadna

Araceli

Augusto

Aurelio

Aurora

Beatriz

Benedicto

........

The main difference from latin names are for example: the names finished in -o(Hadriano, Amdeo) in Latin finished in - us(Hadrianus, amadeus), or names finished in -triz(beatriz) in Latin finish in - trix(beatrix)...

Edited October 14, 2006 by Traianus

[diegis]

I am not sure if my romanian language is the closest to the old latin (but i think the most unitar), and we have probably the greatest number of Roman names, not only imperial (beside few Dacian as Decebal / or Dochia (Dochita) for female). And i start with : Ene, from old Eneas >< Romulus >< Remus >< Adrian / Adriana >< Claudiu / Claudia >< Sabin(Savin) / Sabina >< Marius (even more spread than Traian, surprinzing) >< Valentin / Valentina <> Ovidiu <> Iulian (Iuliu) / Iuliana (Iulia, and as a city name as well - Alba-Iulia) <> Cornel / Cornelia <> Liviu / Livia <> Cezar <> Tiberiu <> Aurelian / Aurelia <> Octavian / Octavia >< Valeriu / Valeria >< Augustin ( Augustus) >< Sergiu <> Galeriu >< Nero (as a dog name) >< Anton >< Traian, ofcourse (a little of topic, when i was on school i haved two colegues, one named Decebal, and one named Traian, and we have a lot of games, after school, spreading in two groups, one "dacians" with Decebal, and ones "romans" with Traian, and fight with rudimentar wood swords, little bows, paper helmets and carton scutum, made by us). And many other names who dont come in my mind now. And i agree with Traianus about reading and understanding of Latin textes (we haved in the finish clases of gimnazial school the study of old ancient latin, and even for the begining most of words and lectures was understandable, even if some just partial, without any previous teaching ).

[Andrew Dalby]

I am not sure if my romanian language is the closest to the old latin (but i think the most unitar), and we have probably the greatest number of Roman names, not only imperial (beside few Dacian as Decebal / or Dochia (Dochita) for female). And i start with : Ene, from old Eneas >< Romulus >< Remus >< Adrian / Adriana >< Claudiu / Claudia >< Sabin(Savin) / Sabina >< Marius (even more spread than Traian, surprinzing) >< Valentin / Valentina <> Ovidiu <> Iulian (Iuliu) / Iuliana (Iulia, and as a city name as well - Alba-Iulia) <> Cornel / Cornelia <> Liviu / Livia <> Cezar <> Tiberiu <> Aurelian / Aurelia <> Octavian / Octavia >< Valeriu / Valeria >< Augustin ( Augustus) >< Sergiu <> Galeriu >< Nero (as a dog name) >< Anton >< Traian, ofcourse (a little of topic, when i was on school i haved two colegues, one named Decebal, and one named Traian, and we have a lot of games, after school, spreading in two groups, one "dacians" with Decebal, and ones "romans" with Traian, and fight with rudimentar wood swords, little bows, paper helmets and carton scutum, made by us). And many other names who dont come in my mind now. And i agree with Traianus about reading and understanding of Latin textes (we haved in the finish clases of gimnazial school the study of old ancient latin, and even for the begining most of words and lectures was understandable, even if some just partial, without any previous teaching ).

 

It's a good story about Decebal and Traian fighting after school. Maybe a good thing that Attila didn't turn up as well ...

[Gaius Octavius]

Where does Rhaetian fit into this?

[FLavius Valerius Constantinus]

In my opinion, if you really want to compare a language, choose ancient Greek. After I learned it, I thought the Romans basically stole the Greek language and modified it.

[Ursus]

I'm no linguist, but I don't think anyone stole anything. The languages are similar because they are both grandchildren of a primordial Indo-European tongue.

[Gaius Octavius]

I think the term is 'cognate languages'.