Learning Romanian

This semester we got individually tasked to report on a language that was not offered in the university. I especially chose Romanian because of the one night Dracula came to my window and I had trouble comprehending his language. Joke =D. Where Koreans and Kenyans outnumber all other aliens, I was not really sure if I could find a Romanian student in any of its campuses. I was thankful to get the basic information including a downloadable audio device that rates on how well one can imitate it. I only researched and do not speak it. For a foreigner to learn how to speak and use it, one needs six months to a year of studying Romanian.

GENEALOGY

Romanian is the easternmost member of the Romance branch of the Indo-European language family. It developed from Vulgar Latin during the 5th-6th centuries when the territory which is now Romania was part Castle of the Roman Empire. During the 7th and 8th centuries, Romanians came into contact with their Slavic-speaking neighbors who exerted a great deal of influence on their language, religion, and culture. Other influences included Hungarian, Turkish, and Greek (Languages of the World: Romanian limba Romanian).   Romania, a country located in Eastern Europe, shares a border with Hungary and Serbia to the west, Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova to the northeast, and Bulgaria to the south Geography of Romania HSW 2). The word Romania entered in the dictionary in 1868 to mean a native or inhabitant of Romania or the Romance language of the Romanians. Rumanian is a spelling variant of Romanian (Merriam-Webster Online). Like other languages, it has evolved.

From Portal Romania: The territory’s recorded history encompasses such eras as the Dacians, Roman Empire (leading to the development of Romanian language), Kingdom of Hungary, and Ottoman Empire…At the end of World War II, parts of its territories (roughly the present day Moldova) were occupied by USSR and Romania became a member of the Warsaw Pact. It joined the European Union in January 1, 2007.

NUMBER OF SPEAKERS

Romania has the 9th largest territory and the 7th largest population among the European Union member states. (Wikijunior: Europe/Romania) Romanian is spoken by around 24 to 28 million people primarily in Romania (where it has its official status and spoken by about 20 million speakers. The language is used in school from elementary through university and read in magazines and newspapers ) and Moldova (where it is spoken by about 3 million); in Moldova—a former Soviet republic, where it is called Moldovan for political reasons; and the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina in Serbia. Up to an additional 1 million speakers of Romanian live in Ukraine, Hungary, Serbia and Montenegro, Moldova Bulgaria, Macedonia and Greece. In addition, there are Romanian speakers in Canada, the United States, Germany, Israel, Australia and New Zealand, mainly due to post-World War II emigration. Furthermore, they are scattered across many other countries, notably Italy, Spain, Portugal, United Kingdom and France. (Languages of the World: Romanian limba Romanian). As a foreign language, Romanian is taught as a foreign language in 38 countries around the world—mostly in neighboring European countries such as Germany, France and Italy, as well as the Netherlands, and elsewhere, like the USA. It is one of the syllable-timed languages, along with other Romance languages—French, Spanish, etc. (Information about Romanian Language).

PHONOLOGY

In general, Romanian is a fairly phonetic language, with a written word corresponding to the spoken form, and vice versa. Like any language, there are some peculiarities between the written and spoken forms (Wikipedia).
The Romanian alphabet is a modification of the Latin alphabet. Currently, it has 31 letters (Romanian Alphabet):

А а, Ă ă, Â â, B b, C c, D d, E e, F f, G g, H h, I i, Î î, J j, K k, L l, M m, N n, O o, P p, Q q,R r, S s, Ş ş, T t, Ţ ţ, U u, V v, W w,X x, Y y,Z z

The letters Q (read kü or chiu), W (dublu ve), and Y (igrec or i grec) were officially introduced in 1982 although they had been used earlier. They occur only in foreign words, such as quasar, watt, and yacht. The letter K is relatively older, but it is still perceived as foreign due to the fact that it appears only in borrowings, many of them still neologisms (Wikipedia).
It is made up of 28 basic phonemes, 21 consonants and 7 vowels:

CONSONANTS		Stop	Affricate	Fricative	Glide	Semi vowels
Labial	-voice	p	-	f	-	(w)
	+voice	b	-	v	-
	nasal	m	-	-
Dental	-voice	t	ts	s	-
	+voice	d	-	z	l, r
	nasal	n	-	-
Palatal	-voice	-	tS	S	-
	+voice	-	d3	3	-	(j)
	nasal	(ñ)	-	-
Dorsal	-voice	k	-	h	-
	+voice	g	-	-	-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

VOWELS		Front	Central	Back
High	-round	I	ï	-
	+round	-	-	u
Mid	-round	e	ə	-
	+round	-	-	o
Low	-round	-	a	-

Note that the three sounds in parentheses are reflexes of other sounds, but are listed because they are morphophonemic. There are also several diphthongs (vowel units in groups of two) ai, au, əu, ei, eu, ïi, ïu, oi, ou, ua, ui > and other orthographic diphthong and even triphthongs. (Romanian Orthography and Phonology). No need for memorization, just put the two vowel sounds together to make the diphthong sound (Lesson 1: Pronunciation).

Letter	Phoneme	Approximative pronunciation
A a	/a/	a in “father”
Ă ă (a with breve)	/ə/	a in “above”
 â (a with circumflex)	/ɨ/	like the unwritten vowel between n and t in “rant”, but slightly longer
B b	/b/	b in “ball”
C c	/k/	c in “cat”
	/ʧ/	ch in “chair”
D d	/d/	d in “door”
E e Letter	/e/	e in “merry”
	Phoneme	Approximative pronunciation
	/e̯/	(semivocalic /e/)
	/je/	ye in “yes”
F f	/f/	f in “flag”
G g	/ɡ/	g in “goat”
	/ʤ/	g in “general”
H h	/h/	h in “house”
I i	/i/	i in “machine”
	/j/	y in “yes”
	/ʲ/	(palatalization)
Î î (i with circumflex)	/ɨ/	like the unwritten vowel between n and t in “rant”, but slightly longer
J j	/ʒ/	s in “treasure”
K k	/k/	k in “like”
L l	/l/	l in “lamp”
M m	/m/	m in “mouth”
N n	/n/	n in “north”
O o	/o/	o in “floor”
	/o̯/	(semivocalic /o/)
P p	/p/	p in “post”
Q q	/k/	k in “kettle”
R r	/r/	(trilled r)
S s	/s/	s in “song”
Ş ş (s with comma)	/ʃ/	s in “sugar”
T t	/t/	t in “tip”
Ţ ţ (t with comma)	/ʦ/	zz in “pizza”
U u	/u/	u in “group”
	/w/	w in “cow”
V v	/v/	v in “vision”
W w	/v/	v in “vision”
	/w/	w in “west”
X x	/ks/	x in “six”
	/ɡz/	x in “example”
Y y	/j/	y in “yes”
	/i/	i in “machine”
Z z	/z/	z in “zipper”

OTHER IMPORTANT PHONOLOGICAL RULES:

• Speak and p in peak are not the same sounds: The second is aspirated. Romanian /p/ is not aspirated. The same holds for /t/ and /k/.

• While in English they are alveolar, pronounced by touching the alveolar ridge with the tip of the tongue, in Romanian and other Romance languages they are dental, obtained by touching the roof of the mouth just behind the teeth with the flat of the tongue. The same remark is valid for consonants /n/, /s/, and /z/, although the difference is not as obvious.

• Consonant /r/ is an alveolar trill, informally also called “rolled r,” present in a number of languages such as Italian, Spanish, or Russian. Romanian phonetics sources classify this sound as dental. It is sometimes compared with the consonant in the middle of “get up” in informal American English (spelled “geddup” to mark the changed pronunciation); this phrase could be transcribed phonetically in Romanian as “gherap.”

MORPHOLOGY

The number names from 1 to 10 derive from Latin. The table below gives the cardinal numbers in Romanian and its three dialects, Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian and Istro-Romanian.

When counting, the number names for 1 and 2 change according to the gender of the noun they modify or replace. It is worth noting that the two adjectival forms of the cardinal number for 1 (un and o) are identical with the corresponding indefinite articles.

* un băiat (one boy, a boy),

* unul dintre băieţi (one of the boys),

* o fată (one girl, a girl),

* una dintre fete (one of the girls),

* doi băieţi (two boys),

* două fete (two girls).

The numbers 11-19

Unlike all other Romance languages, Romanian has a consistent way of naming the numbers from 11 to 19. These are obtained by joining three elements: the units, the word spre (derived from Latin super = over, currently meaning towards), and the word for ten. For example, fifteen is cincisprezece: cinci + spre + zece which literally means “five over ten”.

The number name and the noun it modifies must agree in number and gender. The gender agreement is somewhat complicated by the fact that the Romanian nouns are classified into three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter. Specifically, the neuter gender is a combination of the other two: A neuter noun behaves like a masculine noun in the singular, and like a feminine noun in the plural. The gender has implications on the morphology of some of the grammatically connected words, including the number names. When the units digit of a number is 1 or 2, its name has two distinct forms, masculine and feminine. The only exception is unsprezece (eleven) which has only one form used for both genders.

Plural Formation

Like the gender, the plural formation is an intrinsic property of the noun, and is acquired by native speakers one by one together with the respective noun. The tables below show the plural formation modes for nouns according to their gender, in the non-articulated nominative/accusative case. The asterisk c(*) indicates irregular plural formation, requiring the insertion of consonants belonging neither to the stem nor to the plural ending, the deletion of stem consonants, or some unusual vocalic shifts.

 

 

Depending on gender, otherwise similar nouns will inflect differently. For example, the nouns “câine” (dog, compare Latin canis) and “pâine” (bread, compare Latin panis) have phonetically identical endings in the main form (nominative singular), but the former is a masculine noun, while the latter is feminine. For this reason, when inflected they behave in very different manners.

• Definite article: “câinele” (the dog) – “pâinea” (the bread);
• Plural, with definite article: “câinii” (the dogs) – “pâinile” (the loaves of bread);
• Genitive/dative: “câinelui” (of/to the dog) – “pâinii” (of/to the bread).

Also, the gender of a noun determines the morphology of most determiners, such as articles, adjectives, demonstratives, numerals. The two nouns taken as examples above will give:

• masculine: “om” (man, human being), “copil” (child), “bou” (ox, bull);
• neuter: “ac” (needle), “drum” (road), “ou” (egg), “lucru” (thing, job);
• feminine proper nouns of foreign origin or diminutives: “Carmen”, “Corinuş” (diminutive from “Corina”), “Catrinel”, “Lulu.”

Nouns ending in a consonant or in vowel or semivowel u are almost always masculine or neuter with some feminine exceptions::

• masculine: “ochi” (eye), “pui” (chicken), “unchi” (uncle);
• neuter: “unghi” (angle), “ceai” (tea), “cui” (nail), “nai” (Pan’s pipe);
• feminine: “zi” (day), “tanti” (aunt).

SYNTAX

As in all Romance languages, Romanian verbs are highly inflected for person, number, tense, mood, voice. The usual word order in sentences is SVO (Subject – Verb – Object). Romanian has four verbal conjugations which further split into ten conjugation patterns. Verbs can be put in five moods that are inflected for the person (indicative, conditional/optative, imperative, subjunctive, and presumptive) and four impersonal moods (infinitive, gerund, supine, and participle).

Simple Sentence (James E. Augerot):

Am păzit palatul.

I guarded the palace.

Clauses linked by a coordinating conjunction (Laura and Radu Daniliuc):

Ana este o fată şi Ion este un băiat.

Ana is a girl and Ion is a boy.

Syntactically, Romanian nouns can be in any of five grammatical cases:

* nominative, when the noun is the subject;
* genitive, when the noun shows the possessor;
* dative, when the noun shows the receiver of an action;
* accusative, when the noun is the direct object, often also required by prepositions;
* vocative, when the noun shows the (usually animate) addressee of what is said.

The short definitions above are only an approximate indication of the actual usage. Here are some examples with the noun “băiat” (boy) in the various cases:

Nominative is the case of the subject and of the predicate nominal. Here are some examples:

Subject:

• • Apa trece, pietrele rămân. (Water passes, rocks stay.)
  • Poştaşul sună întotdeauna de două ori. (The postman always rings twice.)
  • Mă doare capul. (I have a headache. – lit. The head hurts me.)
  • Îmi plac merele. (I like apples – lit. Apples are likable to me.)

Predicate Nominal:

• • Fotografia este o artă. (Photography is an art.)
  • Ochii sunt oglinda sufletului. (The eyes are the soul’s mirror.)
  • Roma a devenit un imperiu. (Rome became an empire.)

CITATIONS

“Geography of Romanian.” Discovery Communications. c1998-2008. Sept 24, 2008. <http://geography.howstuffworks.com/europe/geography-of-romania1.htm>

“Information about Romanian Language.” Ipedia.Net Free Information Center. c2008. 24 Sept 2008. <http://www.ipedia.net/information/Romanian+language>

James E. Augerot, “Romanian / Limba română: A Course in Modern Romanian,” Center for Romanian Studies (2000) referenced by Wikipedia. 10 Sept 2008. 24 Sept 2008.

“Languages of the World: Romanian limba Romanian” National Virtual Translational Center. c2007. 24 Sept 2008 <http://www.nvtc.gov/lotw/months/january/Romanian.html>

Laura Daniliuc and Radu Daniliuc, “Descriptive Romanian Grammar: An Outline,” Lincom Europa, München, Germany (2000) referenced by Wikipedia. 10 Sept 2008. 24 Sept 2008.

“Learn Romanian for Free.” <www.byki.com.> Transparent Language, USA. c2007. 8 August 2008. Note: This website offers free downloadable software.

“Lesson 1: Pronunciation.” 6 Dec 2005. 24 Sept 2008. <http://www.romanianlessons.com/Lesson1.htm>

Merriam Webster Online Dicationary. 12 September 2008. <http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/romanian>

“Portal: Romania.” Wikipedia Free Encyclopedia. 3 March 2008. 24 Sept 2008. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Romania>

Pronunciation of the Romanian Language <http://www.linguata.com/romanian/Romanian_Pronunciation.html>

Romanian Alphabet <http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Romanian_alphabet>
The Purdue Owl Family of Sites. “Web Sources.” Purdue University. Sept 15, 2008. Sept 24, 2008. <http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/557/09/>

Romanian Vowels <//www.101languages.net/romanian/vowels.html>

“Romanian Orthography and Phonology.” 28 Dec 2004. 24 Sept 2008. <http://www.unilang.org/wiki/index.php/Romanian_orthography>

The Leading Online Romanian Course <http://www.easyromanian.com/>
Romance Language <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Romanian_language>

“Romanian Phrasebook, ”http://www.ravenglass.com/vlad/romania/romphrase.html> 19 Aug 1997. 3 October 2008.

“Wikijunior: Europe/Romania.” Wikibooks. 31 July 2008. 24 Sept 2008. http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikijunior:Europe/Romania