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Several theories address the issue of the origin of the Romanians. The
Romanian language Romanian (obsolete spellings: Rumanian or Roumanian; autonym: ''limba română'' , or ''românește'', ) is the official and main language of Romania and the Republic of Moldova. As a minority language it is spoken by stable communities in ...
descends from the
Vulgar Latin Vulgar Latin, also known as Popular or Colloquial Latin, is the range of non-formal registers of Latin spoken from the Late Roman Republic onward. Through time, Vulgar Latin would evolve into numerous Romance languages. Its literary counterpa ...
dialects spoken in the
Roman provinces The Roman provinces (Latin: ''provincia'', pl. ''provinciae'') were the administrative regions of Ancient Rome outside Roman Italy that were controlled by the Romans under the Roman Republic and later the Roman Empire. Each province was ruled ...
north of the "
Jireček Line The Jireček Line is a conceptual boundary through the ancient Balkans that divides the influence of the Latin (in the north) and Greek (in the south) languages in the Roman Empire from antiquity until the 4th century. The border has been repe ...
" (a proposed notional line separating the predominantly Latin-speaking territories from the Greek-speaking lands in
Southeastern Europe Southeast Europe or Southeastern Europe (SEE) is a geographical subregion of Europe, consisting primarily of the Balkans. Sovereign states and territories that are included in the region are Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia (a ...
) in
Late Antiquity Late antiquity is the time of transition from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages, generally spanning the 3rd–7th century in Europe and adjacent areas bordering the Mediterranean Basin. The popularization of this periodization in English h ...
. The theory of Daco-Roman continuity argues that the
Romanians The Romanians ( ro, români, ; dated exonym '' Vlachs'') are a Romance-speaking ethnic group. Sharing a common Romanian culture and ancestry, and speaking the Romanian language, they live primarily in Romania and Moldova. The 2011 Romania ...
are mainly descended from the
Daco-Romans The term Daco-Roman describes the Romanized culture of Dacia under the rule of the Roman Empire. Etymology The Daco-Roman mixing theory, as an origin for the Romanian people, was formulated by the earliest Romanian scholars, beginning with Dosof ...
, a people developing through the cohabitation of the native
Dacians The Dacians (; la, Daci ; grc-gre, Δάκοι, Δάοι, Δάκαι) were the ancient Indo-European inhabitants of the cultural region of Dacia, located in the area near the Carpathian Mountains and west of the Black Sea. They are often consi ...
and the Roman colonists in the province of
Dacia Traiana Roman Dacia ( ; also known as Dacia Traiana, ; or Dacia Felix, 'Fertile/Happy Dacia') was a province of the Roman Empire from 106 to 271–275 AD. Its territory consisted of what are now the regions of Oltenia, Transylvania and Banat (today ...
(primarily in present-day
Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...
) north of the river
Danube The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , pa ...
. The competing immigrationist theory states that the Romanians' ethnogenesis commenced in the provinces south of the river with Romanized local populations (known as
Vlachs "Vlach" ( or ), also "Wallachian" (and many other variants), is a historical term and exonym used from the Middle Ages until the Modern Era to designate mainly Romanians but also Aromanians, Megleno-Romanians, Istro-Romanians and other Easte ...
in the Middle Ages) spreading through mountain refuges, both south to
Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders wi ...
and north through the
Carpathian Mountains The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians () are a range of mountains forming an arc across Central Europe. Roughly long, it is the third-longest European mountain range after the Urals at and the Scandinavian Mountains at . The range stretche ...
. Other theories state that the Romanized local populations were present over a wide area on both sides of the Danube and the river itself did not constitute an obstacle to permanent exchanges in both directions; according to the "admigration" theory, migrations from the
Balkan Peninsula The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the who ...
to the lands north of the Danube contributed to the survival of the Romance-speaking population in these territories. Political motivationsthe Transylvanian Romanians' efforts to achieve their emancipation, Austro-Hungarian and Romanian expansionism, and Hungarian irredentisminfluenced the development of the theories, and "national passions" still color the debates. In 2013, authors of ''The Cambridge History of the Romance Languages'' came to the conclusion that the "historical, archaeological and linguistic data available do not seem adequate to give a definitive answer" in the debate. Their view was accepted by scholars contributing to ''The Oxford Guide to the Romance Languages'', published in 2016, which reiterates that "the location and extent of the territory where "Daco-Romance" originated" is uncertain.


Historic background

Three major ethnic groupsthe
Dacians The Dacians (; la, Daci ; grc-gre, Δάκοι, Δάοι, Δάκαι) were the ancient Indo-European inhabitants of the cultural region of Dacia, located in the area near the Carpathian Mountains and west of the Black Sea. They are often consi ...
,
Illyrians The Illyrians ( grc, Ἰλλυριοί, ''Illyrioi''; la, Illyrii) were a group of Indo-European-speaking peoples who inhabited the western Balkan Peninsula in ancient times. They constituted one of the three main Paleo-Balkan populations, a ...
and
Thracians The Thracians (; grc, Θρᾷκες ''Thrāikes''; la, Thraci) were an Indo-European speaking people who inhabited large parts of Eastern and Southeastern Europe in ancient history.. "The Thracians were an Indo-European people who occupied ...
inhabited the northern regions of Southeastern Europe in Antiquity. Modern knowledge of their languages is based on limited evidence (primarily on proper names), making all scholarly theories proposing a strong relationship between the three languages or between Thracian and Dacian speculative. The Illyrians were the first to be conquered by the Romans, who organized their territory into the province of Illyricum around 60 BC. In the lands inhabited by Thracians, the Romans set up the province of
Moesia Moesia (; Latin: ''Moesia''; el, Μοισία, Moisía) was an ancient region and later Roman province situated in the Balkans south of the Danube River, which included most of the territory of modern eastern Serbia, Kosovo, north-eastern Alban ...
in 6 AD, and
Thracia Thracia or Thrace ( ''Thrakē'') is the ancient name given to the southeastern Balkan region, the land inhabited by the Thracians. Thrace was ruled by the Odrysian kingdom during the Classical and Hellenistic eras, and briefly by the Greek D ...
forty years later. The territory between the Lower Danube and the
Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Rom ...
(now
Dobruja Dobruja or Dobrudja (; bg, Добруджа, Dobrudzha or ''Dobrudža''; ro, Dobrogea, or ; tr, Dobruca) is a historical region in the Balkans that has been divided since the 19th century between the territories of Bulgaria and Romania. I ...
in Romania and Bulgaria) was attached to Moesia in 46. The Romans annihilated the
Dacian kingdom Dacia (, ; ) was the land inhabited by the Dacians, its core in Transylvania, stretching to the Danube in the south, the Black Sea in the east, and the Tisza in the west. The Carpathian Mountains were located in the middle of Dacia. It t ...
to the north of the
Lower Danube The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , pa ...
under Emperor
Trajan Trajan ( ; la, Caesar Nerva Traianus; 18 September 539/11 August 117) was Roman emperor from 98 to 117. Officially declared ''optimus princeps'' ("best ruler") by the senate, Trajan is remembered as a successful soldier-emperor who presi ...
in 106. Its western territories were organized into the province of Dacia (or "Dacia Traiana"), but
Maramureș or Marmaroshchyna ( ro, Maramureș ; uk, Мармарощина, Marmaroshchyna; hu, Máramaros) is a geographical, historical and cultural region in northern Romania and western Ukraine. It is situated in the northeastern Carpathians, alon ...
and further regions inhabited by the
Costoboci The Costoboci (; lat, Costoboci, Costobocae, Castabocae, Coisstoboci, grc, Κοστωβῶκοι, Κοστουβῶκοι or Κοιστοβῶκοι) were a Dacian tribe located, during the Roman imperial era, between the Carpathian Mountains a ...
,
Bastarnae The Bastarnae ( Latin variants: ''Bastarni'', or ''Basternae''; grc, Βαστάρναι or Βαστέρναι) and Peucini ( grc, Πευκῖνοι) were two ancient peoples who between 200 BC and 300 AD inhabited areas north of the Roman front ...
and other tribes remained free of Roman rule. The Romans officially abandoned Dacia under Emperor
Aurelian Aurelian ( la, Lucius Domitius Aurelianus; 9 September 214 October 275) was a Roman emperor, who reigned during the Crisis of the Third Century, from 270 to 275. As emperor, he won an unprecedented series of military victories which reunited ...
(''r.'' 270–275). The presence of a primarily Latin-speaking population in the former province after the legions and imperial administration had been withdrawn is the core of the debate between scholars who support the continuity theory and their opponents. Along with the abandonment of Dacia, Aurelian organized a new province bearing the same name ("
Dacia Aureliana Dacia Aureliana was a province in the eastern half of the Roman Empire established by Roman Emperor Aurelian in the territory of former Moesia Superior after his evacuation of Dacia Traiana beyond the Danube in 271. Between 271/275 and 285, ...
") south of the Lower Danube. Roman forts were erected north of the river in the 320s, but the river became the boundary between the empire and the
Goths The Goths ( got, 𐌲𐌿𐍄𐌸𐌹𐌿𐌳𐌰, translit=''Gutþiuda''; la, Gothi, grc-gre, Γότθοι, Gótthoi) were a Germanic people who played a major role in the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the emergence of medieval Euro ...
in the 360s. Meanwhile, from 313 under the
Edict of Milan The Edict of Milan ( la, Edictum Mediolanense; el, Διάταγμα τῶν Μεδιολάνων, ''Diatagma tōn Mediolanōn'') was the February 313 AD agreement to treat Christians benevolently within the Roman Empire. Frend, W. H. C. ( ...
, the Roman Empire began to transform itself into a Christian state. Roman emperors supported Christian missionaries in the north-Danubian territories which were dominated by the Goths from the 340s. The
Huns The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe between the 4th and 6th century AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was part ...
destroyed all these territories between 376 and 406, but their empire also collapsed in 453. Thereafter the
Gepids The Gepids, ( la, Gepidae, Gipedae, grc, Γήπαιδες) were an East Germanic tribe who lived in the area of modern Romania, Hungary and Serbia, roughly between the Tisza, Sava and Carpathian Mountains. They were said to share the relig ...
exercised control over Banat,
Crișana Crișana ( hu, Körösvidék, german: Kreischgebiet) is a geographical and historical region in north-western Romania, named after the Criș (Körös) River and its three tributaries: the Crișul Alb, Crișul Negru, and Crișul Repede. In Rom ...
, and Transylvania. The
Bulgars The Bulgars (also Bulghars, Bulgari, Bolgars, Bolghars, Bolgari, Proto-Bulgarians) were Turkic semi-nomadic warrior tribes that flourished in the Pontic–Caspian steppe and the Volga region during the 7th century. They became known as noma ...
, Antes,
Sclavenes The ' (in Latin) or ' (various forms in Greek, see below) were early Slavic tribes that raided, invaded and settled the Balkans in the Early Middle Ages and eventually became the progenitors of modern South Slavs. They were mentioned by early ...
and other tribes made frequent raids across the Lower Danube against the Balkans in the 6th century. The Roman Empire revived under Emperor
Justinian I Justinian I (; la, Iustinianus, ; grc-gre, Ἰουστινιανός ; 48214 November 565), also known as Justinian the Great, was the Byzantine emperor from 527 to 565. His reign is marked by the ambitious but only partly realized '' renov ...
(''r.'' 527–565), but the Avars, who had subjugated the Gepids, invaded the Balkans from the 580s. In 30 years all Roman troops were withdrawn from the peninsula, where only Dyrrhachium,
Thessaloniki Thessaloniki (; el, Θεσσαλονίκη, , also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece, with over one million inhabitants in its metropolitan area, and the capital of the geographic region of ...
and a few other towns remained under Roman rule. The next arrivals, the Bulgars, established their own state on the Lower Danube in 681. Their territorial expansion accelerated after the collapse of the
Avar Khaganate The Pannonian Avars () were an alliance of several groups of Eurasian nomads of various origins. The peoples were also known as the Obri in chronicles of Rus, the Abaroi or Varchonitai ( el, Βαρχονίτες, Varchonítes), or Pseudo-Avars ...
in the 790s. The ruler of the
First Bulgarian Empire The First Bulgarian Empire ( cu, блъгарьско цѣсарьствиѥ, blagarysko tsesarystviye; bg, Първо българско царство) was a medieval Bulgar- Slavic and later Bulgarian state that existed in Southeastern Eur ...
,
Boris I Boris I, also known as Boris-Mihail (Michael) and ''Bogoris'' ( cu, Борисъ А҃ / Борисъ-Михаилъ bg, Борис I / Борис-Михаил; died 2 May 907), was the ruler of the First Bulgarian Empire in 852–889. At ...
(''r.'' 852–889) converted to Christianity in 864. A synod of the
Bulgarian Orthodox Church The Bulgarian Orthodox Church ( bg, Българска православна църква, translit=Balgarska pravoslavna tsarkva), legally the Patriarchate of Bulgaria ( bg, Българска патриаршия, links=no, translit=Balgars ...
promoted a
liturgy Liturgy is the customary public ritual of worship performed by a religious group. ''Liturgy'' can also be used to refer specifically to public worship by Christians. As a religious phenomenon, liturgy represents a communal response to and partic ...
in Old Church Slavonic in 893. Bulgaria was invaded by the Magyars (or
Hungarians Hungarians, also known as Magyars ( ; hu, magyarok ), are a nation and  ethnic group native to Hungary () and historical Hungarian lands who share a common culture, history, ancestry, and language. The Hungarian language belongs to the ...
) in 894, but a joint counter-attack by the Bulgars and the
Pechenegs The Pechenegs () or Patzinaks tr, Peçenek(ler), Middle Turkic: , ro, Pecenegi, russian: Печенег(и), uk, Печеніг(и), hu, Besenyő(k), gr, Πατζινάκοι, Πετσενέγοι, Πατζινακίται, ka, პა� ...
a nomadic Turkic peopleforced the Magyars to find a new homeland in the Carpathian Basin. Historians still debate whether they encountered a Romanian population in the territory. The Byzantines occupied the greater part of Bulgaria under Emperor
John I Tzimiskes John I Tzimiskes (; 925 – 10 January 976) was the senior Byzantine emperor from 969 to 976. An intuitive and successful general, he strengthened the Empire and expanded its borders during his short reign. Background John I Tzimiskes ...
(''r.'' 969–976). The Bulgars regained their independence during the reign of
Samuel Samuel ''Šəmūʾēl'', Tiberian: ''Šămūʾēl''; ar, شموئيل or صموئيل '; el, Σαμουήλ ''Samouḗl''; la, Samūēl is a figure who, in the narratives of the Hebrew Bible, plays a key role in the transition from the bib ...
(''r.'' 997–1014), but Emperor
Basil II Basil II Porphyrogenitus ( gr, Βασίλειος Πορφυρογέννητος ;) and, most often, the Purple-born ( gr, ὁ πορφυρογέννητος, translit=ho porphyrogennetos).. 958 – 15 December 1025), nicknamed the Bulgar S ...
of Byzantium conquered their country around 1018. The Hungarians' supreme ruler,
Stephen Stephen or Steven is a common English first name. It is particularly significant to Christians, as it belonged to Saint Stephen ( grc-gre, Στέφανος ), an early disciple and deacon who, according to the Book of Acts, was stoned to death; ...
, was baptized according to the Western rite. He expanded his rule over new territories, including Banat. Pecheneg groups, pushed by the
Ouzes The Oghuz or Ghuzz Turks (Middle Turkic: ٱغُز, ''Oγuz'', ota, اوغوز, Oġuz) were a western Turkic people that spoke the Oghuz branch of the Turkic language family. In the 8th century, they formed a tribal confederation conventi ...
a coalition of Turkic nomadssought asylum in the Byzantine Empire in the 1040s. After the Ouzes there followed the
Cumans The Cumans (or Kumans), also known as Polovtsians or Polovtsy (plural only, from the Russian exonym ), were a Turkic nomadic people comprising the western branch of the Cuman–Kipchak confederation. After the Mongol invasion (1237), many so ...
also a Turkic confederationwho took control of the Pontic steppes in the 1070s. Thereafter, specific groups, including the Hungarian-speaking
Székelys The Székelys (, Székely runes: 𐳥𐳋𐳓𐳉𐳗), also referred to as Szeklers,; ro, secui; german: Szekler; la, Siculi; sr, Секељи, Sekelji; sk, Sikuli are a Hungarian subgroup living mostly in the Székely Land in Romania. ...
and the Pechenegs, defended the frontiers of the
Kingdom of Hungary The Kingdom of Hungary was a monarchy in Central Europe that existed for nearly a millennium, from the Middle Ages into the 20th century. The Principality of Hungary emerged as a Christian kingdom upon the Coronation of the Hungarian monarch, c ...
against them. The arrival of mostly German-speaking colonists in the 1150s also reinforced the Hungarian monarch's rule in the region. The Byzantine authorities introduced new taxes, provoking an uprising in the Balkan Mountains in 1185. The local Bulgarians and Vlachs achieved their independence and established the
Second Bulgarian Empire The Second Bulgarian Empire (; ) was a medieval Bulgarian state that existed between 1185 and 1396. A successor to the First Bulgarian Empire, it reached the peak of its power under Tsars Kaloyan and Ivan Asen II before gradually being conque ...
in coalition with the Cumans. A chieftain of the western Cuman tribes accepted Hungarian supremacy in 1227. The Hungarian expansion towards the Pontic steppes was halted by the large Mongol campaign against Eastern and Central Europe in 1241. Although the Mongols withdrew in a year, their invasion caused destruction throughout the region. The unification of small polities ruled by local Romanian leaders in
Oltenia Oltenia (, also called Lesser Wallachia in antiquated versions, with the alternative Latin names ''Wallachia Minor'', ''Wallachia Alutana'', ''Wallachia Caesarea'' between 1718 and 1739) is a historical province and geographical region of Romania ...
and
Muntenia Muntenia (, also known in English as Greater Wallachia) is a historical region of Romania, part of Wallachia (also, sometimes considered Wallachia proper, as ''Muntenia'', ''Țara Românească'', and the seldom used ''Valahia'' are synonyms in R ...
led to the establishment of a new principality,
Wallachia Wallachia or Walachia (; ro, Țara Românească, lit=The Romanian Land' or 'The Romanian Country, ; archaic: ', Romanian Cyrillic alphabet: ) is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Lower Danube and s ...
. It achieved independence under Basarab the Founder, who defeated a Hungarian army in the
battle of Posada The Battle of Posada (9–12 November 1330)Djuvara, pp. 19– "''... marea bătălie zisă de la Posada (9–12 noiembrie 1330)''". was fought between Basarab I of Wallachia and Charles I of Hungary (also known as Charles Robert). The small Wall ...
in 1330. A second principality,
Moldavia Moldavia ( ro, Moldova, or , literally "The Country of Moldavia"; in Romanian Cyrillic: or ; chu, Землѧ Молдавскаѧ; el, Ἡγεμονία τῆς Μολδαβίας) is a historical region and former principality in Centr ...
, became independent in the 1360s under
Bogdan I Bogdan I, or Bogdan the Founder ( ro, Bogdan Întemeietorul), was the first independent ruler, or voivode, of Moldavia in the 1360s. He had initially been the voivode, or head, of the Vlachs in the Voivodeship of Maramureș in the Kingdom of H ...
, a Romanian nobleman from the Voivodeship of Maramureș.


Theories on the Romanians' ethnogenesis

Romanians, known by the
exonym An endonym (from Greek: , 'inner' + , 'name'; also known as autonym) is a common, ''native'' name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside that particular place, group ...
Vlachs "Vlach" ( or ), also "Wallachian" (and many other variants), is a historical term and exonym used from the Middle Ages until the Modern Era to designate mainly Romanians but also Aromanians, Megleno-Romanians, Istro-Romanians and other Easte ...
in the Middle Ages, speak a language descended from the
Vulgar Latin Vulgar Latin, also known as Popular or Colloquial Latin, is the range of non-formal registers of Latin spoken from the Late Roman Republic onward. Through time, Vulgar Latin would evolve into numerous Romance languages. Its literary counterpa ...
that was once spoken in south-eastern Europe. Inscriptions from the Roman period prove that a line, known as the "
Jireček Line The Jireček Line is a conceptual boundary through the ancient Balkans that divides the influence of the Latin (in the north) and Greek (in the south) languages in the Roman Empire from antiquity until the 4th century. The border has been repe ...
", can be drawn through the
Balkan Peninsula The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the who ...
, which separated the Latin-speaking northern provinces, including Dacia, Moesia and
Pannonia Pannonia (, ) was a province of the Roman Empire bounded on the north and east by the Danube, coterminous westward with Noricum and upper Italy, and southward with Dalmatia and upper Moesia. Pannonia was located in the territory that is now west ...
from the southern regions where Greek remained the predominant language. Balkan Romance now has four variants, which are former dialects of a
Proto-Romanian language Common Romanian ( ro, româna comună), also known as Ancient Romanian (), or Proto-Romanian (), is a comparatively reconstructed Romance language evolved from Vulgar Latin and considered to have been spoken by the ancestors of today's Roman ...
.
Daco-Romanian Romanian (obsolete spellings: Rumanian or Roumanian; autonym: ''limba română'' , or ''românește'', ) is the official and main language of Romania and the Republic of Moldova. As a minority language it is spoken by stable communities in t ...
, the official language of Romania, is the most widespread of the four variants. Speakers of the
Aromanian language The Aromanian language (, , , or ), also known as Macedo-Romanian or Vlach, is an Eastern Romance language, similar to Megleno-Romanian, Istro-Romanian and Romanian, spoken in Southeastern Europe. Its speakers are called Aromanians or Vl ...
live in scattered communities in Albania, Bulgaria, Greece and
North Macedonia North Macedonia, ; sq, Maqedonia e Veriut, (Macedonia before February 2019), officially the Republic of North Macedonia,, is a country in Southeast Europe. It gained independence in 1991 as one of the successor states of Socialist Feder ...
. Another two, by now nearly extinct variants, Megleno-Romanian and Istro-Romanian, are spoken in some villages in North Macedonia and Greece, and in Croatia, respectively. Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian are spoken in the central and southern regions of the Balkans (to the south of the Jireček Line), indicating that they migrated to these territories in the Middle Ages. One of the first scholars who systematically studied the
Romance languages The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language ...
,
Friedrich Christian Diez Friedrich Christian Diez (15 March 179429 May 1876) was a German philologist. The two works on which his fame rests are the ''Grammar of the Romance Languages'' (published 1836–1844), and the ''Etymological Dictionary of the Romance Languages'' ...
(1797-1876), described Romanian as a semi-Romance language in the 1830s. In his ''Grammar of the Romance Languages'' (1836) Diez singles out six Romance languages which attract attention, in terms of their grammatical or literary significance: Italian and Romanian, Spanish and Portuguese, Provençal and French. All six languages have their first and common source in Latin, a language which is 'still intertwined with our civilization' In 2009, Kim Schulte likewise argued that "Romanian is a language with a hybrid vocabulary". The proportion of loanwords in Romanian is indeed higher than in other Romance languages. Its certain structural featuressuch as the construction of the future tensealso distinguish Romanian from other Romance languages. The same peculiarities connect it to Albanian, Bulgarian and other tongues spoken in the Balkan Peninsula. Nevertheless, as linguist Graham Mallinson emphasizes, Romanian "retains enough of its Latin heritage at all linguistic levels to qualify for membership of the Romance family in its own right", even without taking into account the " re-Romancing tendency" during its recent history. The territories south of the Danube were subject to the Romanization process for about 800 years, while Dacia province to the north of the river was only for 165 years under Roman rule, which caused "a certain disaccord between the effective process of Roman expansion and
Romanization Romanization or romanisation, in linguistics, is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, a ...
and the present ethnic configuration of Southeastern Europe", according to Lucian Boia. Political and ideological considerations, including the dispute between Hungary and Romania over
Transylvania Transylvania ( ro, Ardeal or ; hu, Erdély; german: Siebenbürgen) is a historical and cultural region in Central Europe, encompassing central Romania. To the east and south its natural border is the Carpathian Mountains, and to the west the A ...
, have also colored these scholarly discussions. Accordingly, theories on the Romanian ''
Urheimat In historical linguistics, the homeland or ''Urheimat'' (, from German '' ur-'' "original" and ''Heimat'', home) of a proto-language is the region in which it was spoken before splitting into different daughter languages. A proto-language is the r ...
'' or "homeland" can be divided into two or more groups, including the theory of Daco-Roman continuity of the continuous presence of the Romanians' ancestors in the lands north of the Lower Danube and the opposite immigrationist theory. Independently of the theories, a number of scholars propose that Romanian developed from the tongue of a bilingual population, because bilingualism is the most probable explanation for its peculiarities.


Historiography: origin of the theories

Byzantine authors were the first to write of the Romanians (or Vlachs). The 11th-century scholar Kekaumenos wrote of a Vlach homeland situated "near the Danube and  ..nbsp;the Sava, where the Serbians lived more recently". He associates the Vlachs with the Dacians and the
Bessi The Bessi (; grc, Βῆσσοι, or , ) were a Thracian tribe that inhabited the upper valley of the Hebros and the lands between the Haemus and Rhodope mountain ranges in historical Thrace. Geography The exact geographic location of the Be ...
. Accordingly, historians have located this homeland in several places, including
Pannonia Inferior Pannonia Inferior, lit. Lower Pannonia, was a province of the Roman Empire. Its capital was Sirmium. It was one of the border provinces on the Danube. It was formed in the year 103 AD by Emperor Trajan who divided the former province of Pannonia ...
( Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu) and
Dacia Aureliana Dacia Aureliana was a province in the eastern half of the Roman Empire established by Roman Emperor Aurelian in the territory of former Moesia Superior after his evacuation of Dacia Traiana beyond the Danube in 271. Between 271/275 and 285, ...
(Mátyás Gyóni). When associating the Vlachs with ancient ethnic groups, Kekaumenos followed the practice of Byzantine authors who named contemporary peoples for peoples known from ancient sources. The 12th-century scholar
John Kinnamos Joannes Kinnamos, or John Cinnamus ( el, or Κίναμος; born shortly after 1143, died after 1185), was a Byzantine historian. He was imperial secretary (Greek "grammatikos", most likely a post connected with the military administration) to Em ...
wrote that the Vlachs "are said to be formerly colonists from the people of Italy".
William of Rubruck William of Rubruck ( nl, Willem van Rubroeck, la, Gulielmus de Rubruquis; ) was a Flemish Franciscan missionary and explorer. He is best known for his travels to various parts of the Middle East and Central Asia in the 13th century, including the ...
wrote that the Vlachs of Bulgaria descended from the ''Ulac'' people, who lived beyond Bashkiria. According to
Victor Spinei Victor Spinei (born 26 October 1943 in Lozova, Lăpușna County, Romania) is Emeritus Professor of history and archaeology at the Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, member and vice president of the Romanian Academy. He is a specialist on the history ...
, Rubruck's words imply that he regarded the Vlachs a migrant population, coming from the region of the Volga like their Hungarian and Bulgarian neighbors. Another idea has been put forward by turkologist
László Rásonyi László () is a Hungarian male given name and surname after the King-Knight Saint Ladislaus I of Hungary (1077–1095). It derives from Ladislav, a variant of Vladislav. Other versions are Lessl or Laszly. The name has a history of being frequen ...
that similar terms actually apply to the Bulaqs. The late 13th-century Hungarian chronicler
Simon of Kéza Simon of Kéza ( hu, Kézai Simon) was the most famous Hungarian chronicler of the 13th century. He was a priest in the royal court of king Ladislaus IV of Hungary. In 1270–1271, bearing the title "master" (''magister''), Simon was part of a d ...
states that the Vlachs (''Blackis'') were "shepherds and husbandmen" who "remained in Pannonia". An unknown author's ''Description of Eastern Europe'' from 1308 likewise states that the Balkan Vlachs "were once the shepherds of the Romans" who "had over them ten powerful kings in the entire Messia and Pannonia".
Poggio Bracciolini Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini (11 February 1380 – 30 October 1459), usually referred to simply as Poggio Bracciolini, was an Italian scholar and an early Renaissance humanist. He was responsible for rediscovering and recovering many clas ...
, an Italian scholar was the first to write (around 1450) that the Romanians' ancestors had been Roman colonists settled in Dacia Traiana. In 1458,
Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini Pope Pius II ( la, Pius PP. II, it, Pio II), born Enea Silvio Bartolomeo Piccolomini ( la, Aeneas Silvius Bartholomeus, links=no; 18 October 1405 – 14 August 1464), was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 19 Augus ...
stated in his work ''De Europa'' (1458) that the Vlachs were a ''genus Italicum'' ("an Italian race") and were named after one Pomponius Flaccus, a commander sent against the Dacians. Piccolomini's version of the Vlachs' origin from Roman settlers in Dacia Traiana was repeated by many scholarsincluding the Italian
Flavio Biondo Flavio Biondo (Latin Flavius Blondus) (1392 – June 4, 1463) was an Italian Renaissance humanist historian. He was one of the first historians to use a three-period division of history (Ancient, Medieval, Modern) and is known as one of the f ...
and
Pietro Ranzano Pietro Ranzano (Palermo, 1428– Lucera, 1492) was an Italian Dominican friar, bishop, historian, humanist and scholar who is best known for his work, '' De primordiis et progressu felicis Urbis Panormi'', a history of the city of Palermo from ...
, the Transylvanian Saxon Johannes Lebelius and the Hungarian István Szántó in the subsequent century.
Nicolaus Olahus Nicolaus Olahus (Latin for ''Nicholas, the Vlach''; hu, Oláh Miklós; ro, Nicolae Valahul); 10 January 1493 – 15 January 1568) was the Archbishop of Esztergom, Primate of Hungary, and a distinguished Catholic prelate, humanist and historiogr ...
wrote in his work ''Hungaria'' that "by tradition the Romanians are Roman colonists".
Laonikos Chalkokondyles Laonikos Chalkokondyles, Latinized as Laonicus Chalcocondyles ( el, Λαόνικος Χαλκοκονδύλης, from λαός "people", νικᾶν "to be victorious", an anagram of Nikolaos which bears the same meaning; c. 1430 – c. 1470; ...
a late-15th-century Byzantine scholarstated that he never heard anyone "explain clearly where" the Romanians "came from to inhabit" their lands. Chalkokondyles wrote: "the race that inhabits Dacia and the mount
Pindus The Pindus (also Pindos or Pindhos; el, Πίνδος, Píndos; sq, Pindet; rup, Pindu) is a mountain range located in Northern Greece and Southern Albania. It is roughly 160 km (100 miles) long, with a maximum elevation of 2,637 metres ...
also spread into
Thessaly Thessaly ( el, Θεσσαλία, translit=Thessalía, ; ancient Thessalian: , ) is a traditional geographic and modern administrative region of Greece, comprising most of the ancient region of the same name. Before the Greek Dark Ages, Thes ...
: both groups are called Vlachs, but I cannot tell which group migrated to the region of the other" claiming also that it is said they have come "from many places and settled that area". This means Chalkokondyles knew that the Balkan Romanians were of common origin. He also says that the Dacians' language is "similar to Italian but very altered" and that their country "stretches from '' Ardelion'', in the Paionian Dacia, to the Black Sea". The 17th-century Johannes Lucius expressed his concerns about the survival of Romans in the territory of the former Dacia Traiana province, exposed to invasions for a millennium. A legend on the origin of the Moldavians, preserved in the ''Moldo-Russian Chronicle'' from around 1505, narrates that one "King Vladislav of Hungary" invited their Romanian ancestors to his kingdom and settled them "in Maramureș between the ''Moreș'' and Tisa at a place called ''Crij''". ''
Logofăt Logothete ( el, λογοθέτης, ''logothétēs'', pl. λογοθέται, ''logothétai''; Med. la, logotheta, pl. ''logothetae''; bg, логотет; it, logoteta; ro, logofăt; sr, логотет, ''logotet'') was an administrative title ...
'' Istratie and other 17th-century Moldavian historians continued to credit "King Vladislav" with the settlement of the Romanians' ancestors in Maramureș.
Grigore Ureche Grigore Ureche (; 1590–1647) was a Moldavian chronicler who wrote on Moldavian history in his ''Letopisețul Țării Moldovei'' ('' Chronicles of the Land of Moldavia''), covering the period from 1359 to 1594. Biography Grigore Ureche was th ...
's ''Chronicle of Moldavia'' of 1647 is the first Romanian historical work stating that the Romanians "all come from ''Rîm''" (Rome). In 30 years
Miron Costin Miron Costin (March 30, 1633 – 1691) was a Moldavian (Romanian) political figure and chronicler. His main work, ''Letopiseţul Ţărâi Moldovei e la Aron Vodă încoace' (''The Chronicles of the land of Moldavia Aron Vodă">Aron_Tiranul.h ...
explicitly connected the Romanians'
ethnogenesis Ethnogenesis (; ) is "the formation and development of an ethnic group". This can originate by group self-identification or by outside identification. The term ''ethnogenesis'' was originally a mid-19th century neologism that was later introd ...
to the conquest of "Dacia Traiana". The oldest Muntenian chronicle, preserving significant popular tradition among Wallachians, wrote "Crossing the waters of the Danube, some settled at Turnu Severin; others, along the waters of the
Olt Olt or OLT may refer to: People: * Károly Olt (1904–1985), Hungarian politician * Mike Olt (born 1988), American baseball player Places: * Olt County, a county (județ) of Romania * Olt (river), a river in Romania ** Olt Defile, a defile t ...
, the Mureș and the
Tisza The Tisza, Tysa or Tisa, is one of the major rivers of Central and Eastern Europe. Once, it was called "the most Hungarian river" because it flowed entirely within the Kingdom of Hungary. Today, it crosses several national borders. The Tisza be ...
; and still others in
Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Cr ...
, reaching as far as
Maramureș or Marmaroshchyna ( ro, Maramureș ; uk, Мармарощина, Marmaroshchyna; hu, Máramaros) is a geographical, historical and cultural region in northern Romania and western Ukraine. It is situated in the northeastern Carpathians, alon ...
. Those who settled at Turnu Severin, extended along the foot of the mountains to the waters of the Olt, and others wandered downward along the Danube, and thus all places having been filled with them". Constantin Cantacuzino stated in 1716 that the native Dacians also had a role in the formation of the Romanian people. Petru Maior and other historians of the "
Transylvanian School The Transylvanian School ( ro, Școala Ardeleană) was a cultural movement which was founded after part of the Romanian Orthodox Church in Habsburg-ruled Transylvania accepted the leadership of the pope and became the Greek-Catholic Church (). The ...
" flatly denied any interbreeding between the natives and the conquerors, claiming that the autochthonous Dacian population which was not eradicated by the Romans fled the territory. The Daco-Roman mixing became widely accepted in the Romanian historiography around 1800. This view is advocated by the Greek-origin historians Dimitrie Philippide in his work ''History of Romania'' (1816) and
Dionisie Fotino Dionisie Fotino ( el, Dionysios Foteinos, 1769–1821) was a Wallachian historian and high ranking civil servant of Greek origin. Born in Patras, Fotinos (Photeinos, Gr. Φωτεινός ) hailed from the so-called Phanariote families within ...
, who wrote ''History of Dacia'' (1818). The idea was accepted and taught in the
Habsburg monarchy The Habsburg monarchy (german: Habsburgermonarchie, ), also known as the Danubian monarchy (german: Donaumonarchie, ), or Habsburg Empire (german: Habsburgerreich, ), was the collection of empires, kingdoms, duchies, counties and other polities ...
, including Hungary until the 1870s, although the Austrian Franz Joseph Sulzer had by the 1780s rejected any form of continuity north of the Danube, and instead proposed a 13th-century migration from the Balkans. The development of the theories was closely connected to political debates in the . Important historians of this timeLike Joseph Sulzer, Joseph Karl Eder, Johann Christian Engel, Michael Balmann, Carol Shuller or Martin Bolla. theorized Romanian migration from the Balkans. Sulzer's theory was apparently connected to his plans on the annexation of Wallachia and Moldavia by the Habsburg Monarchy, and the settlement of German colonists in both principalities. The three political "nations" of the Principality of Transylvania, actually meaning: its
Estates Estate or The Estate may refer to: Law * Estate (law), a term in common law for a person's property, entitlements and obligations * Estates of the realm, a broad social category in the histories of certain countries. ** The Estates, representati ...
(Hungarian nobility, and the leading classes of the free Saxons and Székelys, which excluded serfs of all these ethnicities) enjoyed special privileges, while local legislation emphasized that the Romanians had been "admitted into the country for the public good" and they were only "tolerated for the benefit of the country". When suggesting that the Romanians of Transylvania were the direct descendants of the Roman colonists in Emperor Trajan's Dacia, the historians of the "Transylvanian School" also demanded that the Romanians were to be regarded as the oldest residents of the country. The ''
Supplex Libellus Valachorum ''Supplex Libellus Valachorum Transsilvaniae'' (Latin for ''Petition of the Romanians of Transylvania'') is the name of two petitions sent by the leaders of the ethnic Romanians of Transylvania to the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II, demanding eq ...
''a petition completed by the representatives of the local Romanians in 1791explicitly demanded that the Romanians should be granted the same legal status that the three privileged "nations" had enjoyed because the Romanians were of Roman stock. The concept of the common origin of the Romanians of the Habsburg Empire, Moldavia and Wallachia inevitably gave rise to the development of the idea of a united Romanian state. A series of "Dacian" projects about the unification of all lands inhabited by Romanians emerged in the 19th century. Moise Nicoară was the first to claim that the Romanian nation extends "from the Tisza to the Black Sea, from the Danube to the Dniester" in 1815. After irredentism became an important element of political debates among Romanian nationalists in the 1890s, the continuity theory "added a considerable element of historical prestige to Romanian claims to Transylvania". After World War I, the
peace treaties A peace treaty is an agreement between two or more hostile parties, usually countries or governments, which formally ends a state of war between the parties. It is different from an armistice, which is an agreement to stop hostilities; a surren ...
confirmed Romania's new borders, acknowledging the incorporation of Transylvania, Bukovina and some neighboring regions in
Greater Romania The term Greater Romania ( ro, România Mare) usually refers to the borders of the Kingdom of Romania in the interwar period, achieved after the Great Union. It also refers to a pan-nationalist idea. As a concept, its main goal is the creatio ...
. Debates about the venue of the formation of the Romanian people became especially passionate after Hitler enforced the restoration of northern Transylvania to Hungary in 1940. Hungarian scholars published a series of detailed studies to disprove the continuity theory, and the Romanians did not fail to take issue with them. After some oscillations in the 1950s, the strictest variant of the continuity theory became dominant in Communist Romania. Official historians claimed that the formation of the Romanian people started in the lands within the actual Romanian borders, stating that the south-Danubian territories had only had a role during the preceding "Romanic" phase of the Romanians' ethnogenesis.
Nicolae Ceaușescu Nicolae Ceaușescu ( , ;  – 25 December 1989) was a Romanian communist politician and dictator. He was the general secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and the second and last Communist leader of Romania. He ...
made history one of the "pillars of national Communism" in the 1970s. To meet his expectations, historians started to diminish the role of Slavs, and even of Romans, emphasizing the authochthonous character of Romanian culture and society. On the other hand, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences published a three-volume monography about the history of Transylvania in 1986, presenting the arguments of the immigrationist theory. The Hungarian government had supported its publication and the Minister of Education, the Romanian born linguist and historian, Béla Köpeczi, was the general editor of the volumes. Historian
Keith Hitchins Keith Arnold Hitchins (April 2, 1931 – November 1, 2020) was an American historian and a professor of Eastern European history at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, specializing in Romania and its history. He was born in Schenect ...
notes that the controversy "has lasted down to the post-Communist era", but it "has assumed an attenuated form as membership in the European Union has softened territorial rivalries between Romania and Hungary". According to Vlad Georgescu, Bulgarian historians tend to support the continuity theory, but also to diminish the Vlachs' role in the history of the Balkans, while most Russian historians accept the continuous presence of the Romanians' ancestors in Transylvania and Banat, but deny any form of continuity in Moldova. Linguist Gottfried Schramm emphasizes that the Romanians' ethnogenesis is a "fundamental problem of the history and linguistic history of Southeastern Europe" and urges scholars from third countries to start studying it.


Theory of Daco-Roman continuity

Scholars supporting the continuity theory argue that the Romanians descended primarily from the
Daco-Romans The term Daco-Roman describes the Romanized culture of Dacia under the rule of the Roman Empire. Etymology The Daco-Roman mixing theory, as an origin for the Romanian people, was formulated by the earliest Romanian scholars, beginning with Dosof ...
, the inhabitants of "
Dacia Traiana Roman Dacia ( ; also known as Dacia Traiana, ; or Dacia Felix, 'Fertile/Happy Dacia') was a province of the Roman Empire from 106 to 271–275 AD. Its territory consisted of what are now the regions of Oltenia, Transylvania and Banat (today ...
", a people developing through the cohabitation of the native
Dacians The Dacians (; la, Daci ; grc-gre, Δάκοι, Δάοι, Δάκαι) were the ancient Indo-European inhabitants of the cultural region of Dacia, located in the area near the Carpathian Mountains and west of the Black Sea. They are often consi ...
and the Roman colonists in the province of
Dacia Traiana Roman Dacia ( ; also known as Dacia Traiana, ; or Dacia Felix, 'Fertile/Happy Dacia') was a province of the Roman Empire from 106 to 271–275 AD. Its territory consisted of what are now the regions of Oltenia, Transylvania and Banat (today ...
(primarily in present-day
Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...
) north of the river
Danube The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , pa ...
. The province encompassing the three regions of present-day Romania: Wallachia, Transylvania and Moldavia; to the north of the Lower Danube from 106. In these scholars' view, the close contacts between the autochthonous Dacians and the Roman colonists led to the formation of the Romanian people because masses of provincials stayed behind after the
Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Roman Republic, Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings aro ...
abandoned the province in the early 270s. Thereafter the process of Romanization expanded to the neighboring regions due to the free movement of people across the former imperial borders. The spread of Christianity contributed to the process, since Latin was the language of liturgy among the Daco-Romans. The Romans held bridgeheads north of the Lower Danube, keeping Dacia within their sphere of influence uninterruptedly until 376. Proponents of the theory argues that the north-Danubian regions remained the main "center of Romanization" after the Slavs started assimilating the Latin-speaking population in the lands south of the Danube, or forcing them to move even further south in the 7th century. The natural barriers of the
Carpathian Mountains The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians () are a range of mountains forming an arc across Central Europe. Roughly long, it is the third-longest European mountain range after the Urals at and the Scandinavian Mountains at . The range stretche ...
allowing the
Daco-Romans The term Daco-Roman describes the Romanized culture of Dacia under the rule of the Roman Empire. Etymology The Daco-Roman mixing theory, as an origin for the Romanian people, was formulated by the earliest Romanian scholars, beginning with Dosof ...
to preserve their cultural and linguistic identity while other peoples in the region were assimilated by various migratory tribes. Although for a millennium migratory peoples invaded the territory, a sedentary Christian
Romance-speaking The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language fam ...
population survived, primarily in the densely forested areas, separated from the "heretic" or pagan invaders. Only the "semisedentarian" Slavs exerted some influence on the Romanians' ancestors, especially after they adopted Orthodox Christianity in the 9th century. They played the role in the Romanians' ethnogenesis that the Germanic peoples had played in the formation of other Romance peoples. Historians who accept the continuity theory emphasize that the Romanians "form the numerically largest people" in southeastern Europe. Romanian ethnographers point at the "striking similarities" between the traditional Romanian folk dress and the Dacian dress depicted on
Trajan's Column Trajan's Column ( it, Colonna Traiana, la, Columna Traiani) is a Roman triumphal column in Rome, Italy, that commemorates Roman emperor Trajan's victory in the Dacian Wars. It was probably constructed under the supervision of the architect Ap ...
as clear evidence for the connection between the ancient Dacians and modern Romanians. They also highlight the importance of the massive and organized colonization of Dacia Traiana. One of them, Coriolan H. Opreanu underlines that "nowhere else has anyone defied reason by stating that a omancepeople, twice as numerous as any of its neighbours..., is only accidentally inhabiting the territory of a former Roman province, once home to a numerous and strongly Romanized population". With the colonists coming from many provinces and living side by side with the natives, Latin must have emerged as their common language. The Dacians willingly adopted the conquerors' "superior" culture and they spoke Latin as their native tongue after two or three generations. Estimating the provincials' number at 500,000-1,000,000 in the 270s, supporters of the continuity theory rule out the possibility that masses of Latin-speaking commoners abandoned the province when the Roman troops and officials left it. After the abandonment of Dacia by the Roman army and administration and the frequent invasions of barbarians, the Daco-Roman population moved from the plains and river valleys to mountainous and hilly areas with better natural defenses. In this regard, on the first plan in the economy was put forward animal husbandry with the existence of agriculture and some crafts, and the settlements became small and relatively short-lived. Historian Ioan-Aurel Pop concludes that the relocation of hundreds of thousands of people across the Lower Danube in a short period was impossible, especially because the commoners were unwilling to "move to foreign places, where they had nothing of their own and where the lands were already occupied." Historians who accept the continuity theory also argue that Roman sources do not mention that the Roman population was moved from Dacia Traiana, but that the military and administration were removed. Most Romanian scholars accepting the continuity theory regard the archaeological evidence for the uninterrupted presence of a Romanized population in the lands now forming Romania undeniable. Especially, artefacts bearing Christian symbolism, hoards of bronze Roman coins and Roman-style pottery are listed among the archaeological finds verifying the theory. The same scholars emphasize that the Romanians directly inherited the basic Christian terminology from Latin, which also substantiates the connection between Christian objects and the Romanians' ancestors. Other scholars who support the same theory underline that the connection between certain artefacts or archaeological assemblages and ethnic groups is uncertain. Instead of archaeological evidence, Alexandru Madgearu highlights the importance of the linguistic traces of continuity, referring to the Romanian river names in the
Apuseni Mountains The Apuseni Mountains ( ro, Munții Apuseni, hu, Erdélyi-középhegység) is a mountain range in Transylvania, Romania, which belongs to the Western Romanian Carpathians, also called ''Occidentali'' in Romanian. Their name translates from Ro ...
and the preservation of archaic Latin lexical elements in the local dialect. The survival of the names of the largest rivers from Antiquity is often cited as an evidence for the continuity theory, although some linguists who support it note that a Slavic-speaking population transmitted them to modern Romanians. Some words directly inherited from Latin are also said to prove the continuous presence of the Romanians' ancestors north of the Danube, because they refer to things closely connected to these regions. As well as the preservation of Romanian words of latin origin that the other
Romance languages The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language ...
have lost. Linguists
Grigore Nandriș Grigore Nandriș (born January 17, 1895, Mahala, Austro-Hungarian Empire - d. March 2, 1968, Kew, United Kingdom) was a Romanian linguist, philologist and memorialist, professor at Chernivtsi, Kraków and Oxford Oxford () is a city in Engla ...
and Marius Sala argue that the Latin words for natural oil, gold and bison could only be preserved in the lands to the north of the river. Written sources did not mention the Romanians, either those who lived north of the Lower Danube or those living to the south of the river, for centuries. Scholars supporting the continuity theory notes that the silence of sources does not contradict it, because early medieval authors named the foreign lands and their inhabitants after the ruling peoples. Hence, they mentioned Gothia, Hunia, Gepidia, Avaria, Patzinakia and Cumania, and wrote of Goths, Huns, Gepids, Avars, Pechenegs and Cumans, without revealing the multi-ethnic character of these realms. References to the ''Volokhi'' in the ''Russian Primary Chronicle'', and to the ''Blakumen'' in Scandinavian sources are often listed as the first records of north-Danubian Romanians. The ''
Gesta Hungarorum ''Gesta Hungarorum'', or ''The Deeds of the Hungarians'', is the earliest book about Hungarian history which has survived for posterity. Its genre is not chronicle, but ''gesta'', meaning "deeds" or "acts", which is a medieval entertaining li ...
''the oldest extant Hungarian ''gesta'', or book of deeds, written around 1200, some 300 years after the described events mentions the Vlachs and the "shepherd of the Romans" (''et Blachij, ac pastores romanorum'') along with the Bulgarians, Slavs, Greeks, Khazars, Székelys, and other people among the inhabitants of the Carpathian Basin at the time of the arrival of the Hungarians in the late 9th century.
Simon of Kéza Simon of Kéza ( hu, Kézai Simon) was the most famous Hungarian chronicler of the 13th century. He was a priest in the royal court of king Ladislaus IV of Hungary. In 1270–1271, bearing the title "master" (''magister''), Simon was part of a d ...
's later Hungarian chronicle described the Vlachs (''Blackis'') as "shepherds and husbandmen" who remained in Pannonia. Historian I.A. Pop concludes that the two chronicles "assert the Roman origin of Romanians... by presenting them as the Romans' descendants" who stayed in the former Roman provinces.


Immigrationist theory

Scholars who support the immigrationist theory propose that the Romanians descended from the Romanized inhabitants of the provinces to the south of the Danube. Following the collapse of the empire's frontiers around 620, some of this population moved south to regions where Latin had not been widely spoken. During the Slavic invasion, many took refuge in the
Balkan Mountains The Balkan mountain range (, , known locally also as Stara planina) is a mountain range in the eastern part of the Balkan Peninsula in Southeastern Europe. The range is conventionally taken to begin at the peak of Vrashka Chuka on the border bet ...
where they adopted an itinerant form of sheep- and goat-breeding, giving rise to the modern
Vlach "Vlach" ( or ), also "Wallachian" (and many other variants), is a historical term and exonym used from the Middle Ages until the Modern Era to designate mainly Romanians but also Aromanians, Megleno-Romanians, Istro-Romanians and other Easter ...
shepherds. They intermingled with
Albanians The Albanians (; sq, Shqiptarët ) are an ethnic group and nation native to the Balkan Peninsula who share a common Albanian ancestry, culture, history and language. They primarily live in Albania, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Ser ...
. Their mobile lifestyle contributed to their spread in the mountainous zones. The start of their northward migration cannot exactly be dated, but they did not settle in the lands north to the Lower Danube before the end of the 10th century, and they crossed the Carpathians after the mid-12th century. Immigrationist scholars emphasize that all other Romance languages developed in regions which had been under Roman rule for more than 500 years and nothing suggests that Romanian was an exception. Even in Britain, where the Roman rule lasted for 365 years (more than twice as long as in Dacia Traiana), the pre-Roman languages survived. Proponents of the theory have not developed a consensual view about the Dacians' fate after the Roman conquest, but they agree that the presence of a non-Romanized rural population (either the remnants of the local Dacians, or immigrant tribesmen) in Dacia Traiana is well-documented. The same scholars find it hard to believe that the Romanized elements preferred to stay behind when the Roman authorities announced the withdrawal of the troops from the province and offered the civilians the opportunity to follow them to the Balkans. Furthermore, the Romans had started fleeing from Dacia Traiana decades before it was abandoned. Almost no place name has been preserved in the former province (while more than twenty settlements still bear a name of Roman origin in England). The present forms of the few river names inherited from antiquity show that non-Latin-speaking populationsDacians and Slavsmediated them to the modern inhabitants of the region. Both literary sources and archaeological finds confirm this conjecture: the presence of Carpians, Vandals,
Taifals The Taifals or Tayfals ( la, Taifali, Taifalae or ''Theifali''; french: Taïfales) were a people group of Germanic or Sarmatian origin, first documented north of the lower Danube in the mid third century AD. They experienced an unsettled and fra ...
, Goths, Gepids, Huns, Slavs, Avars, Bulgarians and Hungarians in the former Roman province in the early Middle Ages is well documented. Sporadic references to few Latin-speaking individualsmerchants and prisoners of waramong the Huns and Gepids in the 5th century do not contradict this picture. Since Eastern Germanic peoples inhabited the lands to the north of the Lower Danube for more than 300 years, the lack of loanwords borrowed from them also indicates that the Romanians' homeland was located in other regions. Likewise, no early borrowings from Eastern or Western Slavic languages can be proven, although the Romanians' ancestors should have had much contact with Eastern and Western Slavs to the north of the Danube. Immigrationist scholars underline that the population of the Roman provinces to the south of the Danube was "thoroughly Latinized". Romanian has common features with idioms spoken in the Balkans (especially with Albanian and Bulgarian), suggesting that these languages developed side by side for centuries. South Slavic loanwords also abound in Romanian. Literary sources attest the presence of significant Romance-speaking groups in the Balkans (especially in the mountainous regions) in the Middle Ages. Dozens of place names of Romanian origin can still be detected in the same territory. The Romanians became Orthodox Christians and adopted
Old Church Slavonic Old Church Slavonic or Old Slavonic () was the first Slavic literary language. Historians credit the 9th-century Byzantine missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius with standardizing the language and using it in translating the Bible and othe ...
as liturgical language, which could hardly have happened in the lands to the north of the Danube after 864 (when
Boris I of Bulgaria Boris I, also known as Boris-Mihail (Michael) and ''Bogoris'' ( cu, Борисъ А҃ / Борисъ-Михаилъ bg, Борис I / Борис-Михаил; died 2 May 907), was the ruler of the First Bulgarian Empire in 852–889. A ...
converted to Christianity). Early medieval documents unanimously describe the Vlachs as a mobile pastoralist population. Slavic and Hungarian loanwords also indicate that the Romanians' ancestors adopted a settled way of life only at a later phase of their ethnogenesis. Reliable sources refer to the Romanians' presence in the lands to the north of the Danube for the first time in the 1160s. No place names of Romanian origin were recorded where early medieval settlements existed in this area. Here, the Romanians adopted Hungarian, Slavic and German toponyms, also indicating that they arrived after the Saxons settled in southern Transylvania in the mid-12th century. The Romanians initially formed scattered communities in the Southern Carpathians, but their northward expansion is well-documented from the second half of the 13th century. Both the monarchs and individual landowners (including Roman Catholic prelates) promoted their immigration because the Romanian sheep-herders strengthened the defense of the borderlands, and settled areas which could not be brought into agricultural cultivation. The Romanians adopted a sedentary way of life after they started settling on the edge of lowland villages in the mid-14th century. Their immigration continued during the following centuries and they gradually took possession of the settlements in the plains which had been depopulated by frequent incursions.


Admigration theory

According to the "admigration" theory, proposed by Dimitrie Onciul (1856–1923), the formation of the Romanian people occurred in the former "Dacia Traiana" province, and in the central regions of the Balkan Peninsula. However, the Balkan Vlachs' northward migration ensured that these centers remained in close contact for centuries. It's a compromise between the immigrationist and the continuity theories.


Written sources


On peoples north of the Lower Danube


Antiquity

In the 5th century BC,
Herodotus Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria (Italy). He is known fo ...
was the first author to write a detailed account of the natives of south-eastern Europe. In connection with a Persian campaign in 514 BC, he mentions the
Getae The Getae ( ) or Gets ( ; grc, Γέται, singular ) were a Thracian-related tribe that once inhabited the regions to either side of the Lower Danube, in what is today northern Bulgaria and southern Romania. Both the singular form ''Get'' an ...
, which he called "the most courageous and upright Thracian tribe". The Getae were Thracian tribes living on either side of the Lower Danube, in what is today northern Bulgaria and southern Romania.
Strabo Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called " Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-sighted that he could s ...
(64/63 BCE-24 CE) wrote that the language of the Dacians was "the same as that of the Getae". Literary tradition on the conquest of Dacia was preserved by 3-4 Roman scholars.
Cassius Dio Lucius Cassius Dio (), also known as Dio Cassius ( ), was a Roman historian and senator of maternal Greek origin. He published 80 volumes of the history on ancient Rome, beginning with the arrival of Aeneas in Italy. The volumes documented the ...
wrote that "numerous Dacians kept transferring their allegiance" to Emperor Trajan before he commenced his war against Decebalus.
Lucian of Samosata Lucian of Samosata, '; la, Lucianus Samosatensis ( 125 – after 180) was a Hellenized Syrian satirist, rhetorician and pamphleteer who is best known for his characteristic tongue-in-cheek style, with which he frequently ridiculed superstiti ...
(c. 125 – after 180 CE), Eutropius (fl. around 360 CE), and
Julian the Apostate Julian ( la, Flavius Claudius Julianus; grc-gre, Ἰουλιανός ; 331 – 26 June 363) was Roman emperor from 361 to 363, as well as a notable philosopher and author in Greek. His rejection of Christianity, and his promotion of Neoplat ...
(331/332–363 CE) unanimously attest the memory of a "deliberate
ethnic cleansing Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, and religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making a region ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal, extermination, deportation or population transfer ...
" that followed the fall of the Dacian state. For instance, Lucian of Samosata who cites Emperor Trajan's physician
Criton of Heraclea Criton of Heraclea ( el, Κρίτων, la, Titus Statilius Crito) was a 2nd-century (c. 100 AD) Greek chief physician and procurator of Roman Emperor Trajan (98–117) in the campaign in Dacia. He is perhaps the Criton mentioned in Martial's ''Ep ...
states that the entire Dacian "people was reduced to forty men". In fact, Thracian or possibly Dacian names represent about 2% of the approximately 3,000 proper names known from "Dacia Traiana". Bitus, Dezibalos and other characteristic Dacian names were only recorded in the empire's other territories, including
Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning the North Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via a land bridg ...
and Italy.
Constantin Daicoviciu Constantin Daicoviciu (; March 1, 1898 – May 27, 1973) was a Romanian historian and archaeologist, professor at the University of Cluj, and titular member of the Romanian Academy. He was born in Căvăran, at the time in Austria-Hungary, no ...
, Dumitru Protase, Dan Ruscu and other historians have debated the validity of the tradition of the Dacians' extermination. They state that it only refers to the men's fate or comes from Eutropius's writings to provide an acceptable explanation for the massive colonisation that followed the conquest. Indeed, Eutropius also reported that Emperor Trajan transferred to the new province "vast numbers of people from all over the Roman world". Onomastic evidence substantiates his words: about 2,000 Latin, 420 Greek, 120 Illyrian, and 70
Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language *Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Foo ...
names are known from the Roman period. Barbarian attacks against "Dacia Traiana" were also recorded. For instance, "an inroad of the Carpi" forced Emperor
Galerius Gaius Galerius Valerius Maximianus (; 258 – May 311) was Roman emperor from 305 to 311. During his reign he campaigned, aided by Diocletian, against the Sasanian Empire, sacking their capital Ctesiphon in 299. He also campaigned across th ...
's mother to flee from the province in the 240s.
Aurelius Victor Sextus Aurelius Victor (c. 320 – c. 390) was a historian and politician of the Roman Empire. Victor was the author of a short history of imperial Rome, entitled ''De Caesaribus'' and covering the period from Augustus to Constantius II. The work ...
, Eutropius and Festus stated that Dacia "was lost" under Emperor
Gallienus Publius Licinius Egnatius Gallienus (; c. 218 – September 268) was Roman emperor with his father Valerian from 253 to 260 and alone from 260 to 268. He ruled during the Crisis of the Third Century that nearly caused the collapse of the empi ...
(''r.'' 253268). The ''
Augustan History The ''Historia Augusta'' (English: ''Augustan History'') is a late Roman collection of biographies, written in Latin, of the Roman emperors, their junior colleagues, designated heirs and usurpers from 117 to 284. Supposedly modeled on the si ...
'' and
Jordanes Jordanes (), also written as Jordanis or Jornandes, was a 6th-century Eastern Roman bureaucrat widely believed to be of Gothic descent who became a historian later in life. Late in life he wrote two works, one on Roman history ('' Romana'') an ...
refer to the Roman withdrawal from the province in the early 270s. The ''Augustan History'' says that Emperor Aurelian "led away both soldiers and provincials" from Dacia in order to repopulate Illyricum and Moesia. Scholars supporting the immigrationist theory argue that for total assimilation at least 400 years of Roman rule would be needed, as in other provinces.


Early Middle Ages

In less than a century, the one-time province was named "Gothia", by authors including the 4th-century
Orosius Paulus Orosius (; born 375/385 – 420 AD), less often Paul Orosius in English, was a Roman priest, historian and theologian, and a student of Augustine of Hippo. It is possible that he was born in ''Bracara Augusta'' (now Braga, Portugal), t ...
. The existence of Christian communities in Gothia is attested by the ''Passion'' of
Sabbas Sabbas (Σάββας pronounced Sávvas) is a Greek language, Greek masculine given name. Variant forms or transliterations include Sabas, Savas (disambiguation), Savas, Savvas (given name), Savvas, Saba (given name), Saba, Sava (given name), Sava, ...
, "a Goth by race" and by the
martyrologies A martyrology is a catalogue or list of martyrs and other saints and beati arranged in the calendar order of their anniversaries or feasts. Local martyrologies record exclusively the custom of a particular Church. Local lists were enriched by na ...
of Wereka and Batwin, and other Gothic Christians. Large number of Goths, Taifali, and according to Zosimus "other tribes that formerly dwelt among them" were admitted into the
Eastern Roman Empire The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantino ...
following the invasion of the Huns in 376. In contrast with these peoples, the Carpo-Dacians "were mixed with the Huns". Priscus of Panium, who visited the Hunnic Empire in 448, wrote that the empire's inhabitants spoke either Hunnic or Gothic, and that those who had "commercial dealings with the western Romans" also spoke Latin. He also mentions the local name of two drinks, ''medos'' and ''kam''. Emperor
Diocletian Diocletian (; la, Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus, grc, Διοκλητιανός, Diokletianós; c. 242/245 – 311/312), nicknamed ''Iovius'', was Roman emperor from 284 until his abdication in 305. He was born Gaius Valerius Diocles ...
's '' Edict on Prices'' states that the
Pannonians This is a list of ancient tribes in the ancient territory of Illyria ( grc-gre, Ἰλλυρία; la, Illyria). The name ''Illyrians'' seems to be the name of a single Illyrian tribe that was the first to come into contact with the ancient Greeks ...
had a drink named ''kamos''. ''Medos'' may have also been an Illyrian term, but a Germanic explanation cannot be excluded. The 6th-century author
Jordanes Jordanes (), also written as Jordanis or Jornandes, was a 6th-century Eastern Roman bureaucrat widely believed to be of Gothic descent who became a historian later in life. Late in life he wrote two works, one on Roman history ('' Romana'') an ...
who called Dacia "Gepidia" was the first to write of the Antes and Slavenes. He wrote that the Slavenes occupied the region "from the city of Noviodunum and the lake called Mursianus" to the river
Dniester The Dniester, ; rus, Дне́стр, links=1, Dnéstr, ˈdⁿʲestr; ro, Nistru; grc, Τύρᾱς, Tyrās, ; la, Tyrās, la, Danaster, label=none, ) ( ,) is a transboundary river in Eastern Europe. It runs first through Ukraine and t ...
, and that the Antes dwelled "in the curve of the sea of Pontus".
Procopius Procopius of Caesarea ( grc-gre, Προκόπιος ὁ Καισαρεύς ''Prokópios ho Kaisareús''; la, Procopius Caesariensis; – after 565) was a prominent late antique Greek scholar from Caesarea Maritima. Accompanying the Roman gen ...
wrote that the Antes and the Slaveni spoke "the same language, an utterly barbarous tongue". He also writes of an Antian who "spoke in the Latin tongue". The late 7th-century author
Ananias of Shirak Anania Shirakatsi ( hy, Անանիա Շիրակացի, ''Anania Širakac’i'', anglicized: Ananias of Shirak) was a 7th-century Armenian polymath and natural philosopher, author of extant works covering mathematics, astronomy, geography, chron ...
wrote in his geography that the Slavs inhabited the "large country of Dacia" and formed 25 tribes. In 2001, Florin Curta argues, that the Slaveni ethnonym may have only been used "as an
umbrella term In linguistics, semantics, general semantics, and ontologies, hyponymy () is a semantic relation between a hyponym denoting a subtype and a hypernym or hyperonym (sometimes called umbrella term or blanket term) denoting a supertype. In othe ...
for various groups living north of the Danube frontier, which were neither 'Antes', nor 'Huns' or 'Avars'". The
Ravenna Geographer The ''Ravenna Cosmography'' ( la, Ravennatis Anonymi Cosmographia,  "The Cosmography of the Unknown Ravennese") is a list of place-names covering the world from India to Ireland, compiled by an anonymous cleric in Ravenna around 700 AD. Text ...
wrote about a Dacia "populated by the  ..nbsp;Avars", but written sources from the 9th and 10th centuries are scarce. The ''
Royal Frankish Annals The ''Royal Frankish Annals'' (Latin: ''Annales regni Francorum''), also called the ''Annales Laurissenses maiores'' ('Greater Lorsch Annals'), are a series of annals composed in Latin in the Carolingian Francia, recording year-by-year the state ...
'' refers to the
Abodrites The Obotrites ( la, Obotriti, Abodritorum, Abodritos…) or Obodrites, also spelled Abodrites (german: Abodriten), were a confederation of medieval West Slavic tribes within the territory of modern Mecklenburg and Holstein in northern Germany ( ...
living "in Dacia on the Danube as neighbors of the Bulgars" around 824. The ''
Bavarian Geographer The epithet "Bavarian Geographer" ( la, Geographus Bavarus) is the conventional name for the anonymous author of a short Latin medieval text containing a list of the tribes in Central- Eastern Europe, headed (). The name "Bavarian Geographer" was ...
'' locates the '' Merehanii'' next to the Bulgars. By contrast,
Alfred the Great Alfred the Great (alt. Ælfred 848/849 – 26 October 899) was King of the West Saxons from 871 to 886, and King of the Anglo-Saxons from 886 until his death in 899. He was the youngest son of King Æthelwulf and his first wife Osburh, who bo ...
wrote of "Dacians, who were formerly Goths", living to the south-east of the "Vistula country" in his abridged translation (''ca''. 890) of
Paulus Orosius Paulus Orosius (; born 375/385 – 420 AD), less often Paul Orosius in English, was a Roman priest, historian and theologian, and a student of Augustine of Hippo. It is possible that he was born in ''Bracara Augusta'' (now Braga, Portugal), th ...
' much earlier work ''Historiae Adversus Paganos'' written around 417. Emperor Constantine VII's ''
De Administrando Imperio ''De Administrando Imperio'' ("On the Governance of the Empire") is the Latin title of a Greek-language work written by the 10th-century Eastern Roman Emperor Constantine VII. The Greek title of the work is ("To yown son Romanos"). It is a domes ...
'' contains the most detailed information on the history of the region in the first decades of the 10th century. It reveals that ''Patzinakia'', the Pechenegs' land was bordered by Bulgaria on the Lower Danube around 950, and the Hungarians lived on the rivers Criș, Mureș, Timiș, Tisa and ''Toutis'' at the same time. That the Pechenegs' land was located next to Bulgaria is confirmed by the contemporary
Abraham ben Jacob Ibrahim ibn Yaqub ( ar, إبراهيم بن يعقوب ''Ibrâhîm ibn Ya'qûb al-Ṭarṭûshi'' or ''al-Ṭurṭûshî''; he, אברהם בן יעקב, ''Avraham ben Yaʿakov''; 961–62) was a tenth-century Hispano-Arabic, Sephardi Jewish t ...
.


First references to Romanians

The ''
Gesta Hungarorum ''Gesta Hungarorum'', or ''The Deeds of the Hungarians'', is the earliest book about Hungarian history which has survived for posterity. Its genre is not chronicle, but ''gesta'', meaning "deeds" or "acts", which is a medieval entertaining li ...
'' from around 1150 or 1200 is the first chronicle to write of Vlachs in the intra-Carpathian regions. Its anonymous author stated that the Hungarians encountered "Slavs, Bulgarians, Vlachs, and the shepherds of the Romans" when invading the Carpathian Basin around 895. He also wrote of
Gelou Gelou ( ro, Gelu; hu, Gyalu) was the Vlach ruler of Transylvania at the time of the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin around 900 AD, according to the ''Gesta Hungarorum ''Gesta Hungarorum'', or ''The Deeds of the Hungarians'', i ...
, "a certain Vlach" ruling Transylvania, a land inhabited by "Vlachs and Slavs". In his study on medieval Hungarian chronicles, Carlile Aylmer Macartney concluded that the ''Gesta Hungarorum'' did not prove the presence of Romanians in the territory, since its author's "manner is much rather that of a
romantic novel A romance novel or romantic novel generally refers to a type of genre fiction novel which places its primary focus on the relationship and romantic love between two people, and usually has an "emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending." Pre ...
ist than a historian". In contrast, Alexandru Madgearu, in his monography dedicated to the Gesta, stated that this chronicle "is generally credible", since its narration can be "confirmed by the archaeological evidence or by comparison with other written sources" in many cases. The late 12th-century chronicle of
Niketas Choniates Niketas or Nicetas Choniates ( el, Νικήτας Χωνιάτης; c. 1155 – 1217), whose actual surname was Akominatos (Ἀκομινάτος), was a Byzantine Greek government official and historian – like his brother Michael Akominatos, w ...
contains another early reference to Vlachs living north of the Danube. He wrote that they seized the future
Byzantine emperor This is a list of the Byzantine emperors from the foundation of Constantinople in 330 AD, which marks the conventional start of the Eastern Roman Empire, to its fall to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 AD. Only the emperors who were recognized as ...
, Andronikos Komnenos when "he reached the borders of
Halych Halych ( uk, Га́лич ; ro, Halici; pl, Halicz; russian: Га́лич, Galich; german: Halytsch, ''Halitsch'' or ''Galitsch''; yi, העליטש) is a historic city on the Dniester River in western Ukraine. The city gave its name to the P ...
" in 1164. Thereafter, information on Vlachs from the territory of present-day Romania abounds. Choniates mentioned that the Cumans crossed the Lower Danube "with a division of Vlachs" from the north to launch a plundering raid against
Thrace Thrace (; el, Θράκη, Thráki; bg, Тракия, Trakiya; tr, Trakya) or Thrake is a geographical and historical region in Southeast Europe, now split among Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey, which is bounded by the Balkan Mountains to ...
in 1199.
Pope Gregory IX Pope Gregory IX ( la, Gregorius IX; born Ugolino di Conti; c. 1145 or before 1170 – 22 August 1241) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 19 March 1227 until his death in 1241. He is known for issuing the '' Decre ...
wrote about "a certain people in the Cumanian bishopric called ''Walati''" and their bishops around 1234. The oldest extant documents from Transylvania, dating from the 12th and 13th centuries, make passing references to both Hungarians and Vlachs. A royal charter of 1223 confirming a former grant of land is the earliest official document mentioning the presence of Romanians in Transylvania. It refers to the transfer of land previously held by them to the monastery of Cârța, which proves that this territory had been inhabited by Vlachs before the monastery was founded. According to the next document, the
Teutonic Knights The Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem, commonly known as the Teutonic Order, is a Catholic religious institution founded as a military society in Acre, Kingdom of Jerusalem. It was formed to aid Christians o ...
received the right to pass through the lands possessed by the Székelys and the Vlachs in 1223. Next year the
Transylvanian Saxons The Transylvanian Saxons (german: Siebenbürger Sachsen; Transylvanian Saxon: ''Siweberjer Såksen''; ro, Sași ardeleni, sași transilvăneni/transilvani; hu, Erdélyi szászok) are a people of German ethnicity who settled in Transylvania ( ...
were entitled to use certain forests together with the Vlachs and Pechenegs. Simon of Kéza knew that the Székelys "shared with the Vlachs" the mountains, "mingling with them" and allegedly adopting the Vlachs' alphabet. A charter of 1247 of King
Béla IV of Hungary Béla IV (1206 – 3 May 1270) was King of Hungary and Croatia between 1235 and 1270, and Duke of Styria from 1254 to 1258. As the oldest son of King Andrew II, he was crowned upon the initiative of a group of influential noblemen in his fath ...
lists small Romanian polities existing north of the Lower Danube.
Thomas Tuscus Thomas Tuscus or Thomas of PaviaLatin: ''Thomas de Papia'' (c. 1212 – c. 1282)Pierre Péano, "Thomas de Pavie", ''Dictionnaire de spiritualité ascetique e mystique'' XV (Paris: Beauchenes, 1991), col. 867–68. was a Franciscan friar and historia ...
mentioned Vlachs fighting against the
Ruthenes Ruthenian and Ruthene are exonyms of Latin origin, formerly used in Eastern and Central Europe as common ethnonyms for East Slavs, particularly during the late medieval and early modern periods. The Latin term Rutheni was used in medieval sourc ...
in 1276 or 1277. References to Vlachs living in the lands of secular lords and prelates in the Kingdom of Hungary appeared in the 1270s. First the canons of the
cathedral chapter According to both Catholic and Anglican canon law, a cathedral chapter is a college of clerics ( chapter) formed to advise a bishop and, in the case of a vacancy of the episcopal see in some countries, to govern the diocese during the vacancy. ...
in
Alba Iulia Alba Iulia (; german: Karlsburg or ''Carlsburg'', formerly ''Weißenburg''; hu, Gyulafehérvár; la, Apulum) is a city that serves as the seat of Alba County in the west-central part of Romania. Located on the Mureș River in the historica ...
received a royal authorization to settle Romanians to their domains in 1276. Thereafter, royal charters attest the presence of Romanians in more
counties A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesChambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...
, for instance in Zaránd from 1318, in
Bihar Bihar (; ) is a state in eastern India. It is the 2nd largest state by population in 2019, 12th largest by area of , and 14th largest by GDP in 2021. Bihar borders Uttar Pradesh to its west, Nepal to the north, the northern part of West ...
and in Máramaros from 1326, and in Torda from 1342. The first independent Romanian state, the Principality of Wallachia, was known as ''Oungrovlachia'' ("Vlachia near Hungary") in Byzantine sources, while Moldavia received the Greek denominations ''Maurovlachia'' ("Black Vlachia") or ''Russovlachia'' ("Vlachia near Russia"). Historian
Ioan-Aurel Pop Ioan-Aurel Pop (born 1 January 1955) is a Romanian historian. Pop was appointed Professor of History at Babeș-Bolyai University in 1996. He has since been Chairman of the Department of Medieval History and the History of Premodern Art at Babeș ...
writes that hundreds of 15th-century Hungarian documents prove that the Romanians were thought to have held lands in Transylvania and the neighboring regions already early in the 11th century or even around 450. For instance, he lists documents mentioning liberties that ''"divi reges Hungariae"'' granted to the Romanians, proposing that the Latin text does not refer to the "deceased kings of Hungary" in general (which is its traditional translation), but specifically to the two 11th-century "holy kings of Hungary", Stephen I and Ladislaus I. Pop also refers to the testimony of a Romanian nobleman who stated in 1452 that his family had been in the possession of his estates for a thousand years in order to defend his property rights against another Romanian noble.


On Balkan Vlachs

The words ''"torna, torna fratre"'' recorded in connection with a Roman campaign across the Balkan Mountains by
Theophylact Simocatta Theophylact Simocatta (Byzantine Greek: Θεοφύλακτος Σιμοκάτ(τ)ης ''Theophýlaktos Simokát(t)ēs''; la, Theophylactus Simocatta) was an early seventh-century Byzantine historiographer, arguably ranking as the last historian o ...
and
Theophanes the Confessor Theophanes the Confessor ( el, Θεοφάνης Ὁμολογητής; c. 758/760 – 12 March 817/818) was a member of the Byzantine aristocracy who became a monk and chronicler. He served in the court of Emperor Leo IV the Khazar before taking ...
evidence the development of a Romance language in the late 6th century. The words were shouted "in native parlance" by a local soldier in 587 or 588. When narrating the rebellion of Bulgar noble
Kuber Kuber, (also Kouber or Kuver), was a Bulgar leader who, according to the ''Miracles of Saint Demetrius'', liberated a mixed Bulgar and Byzantine Christian population in the 670s, whose ancestors had been transferred from the Eastern Roman Empi ...
and his people against the Avars, the 7th-century ''Miracles of St. Demetrius'' mentions that a close supporter of his, Mauros spoke four languages, including "our language" (Greek) and "that of the Romans" (Latin). Kuber led a population of mixed originincluding the descendants of Roman provincials who had been captured in the Balkans in the early 7th centuryfrom the region of Sirmium to Thessaloniki around 681.
John Skylitzes John Skylitzes, commonly Latinized as Ioannes, la, Johannes, label=none, la, Iōannēs, label=none Scylitzes ( el, Ἰωάννης Σκυλίτζης, ''Iōánnēs Skylítzēs'', or el, Σκυλίτση, ''Skylítsē'', label=none ; la, ...
's chronicle contains one of the earliest records on the Balkan Vlachs. He mentions that "some vagabond Vlachs" killed
David David (; , "beloved one") (traditional spelling), , ''Dāwūd''; grc-koi, Δαυΐδ, Dauíd; la, Davidus, David; gez , ዳዊት, ''Dawit''; xcl, Դաւիթ, ''Dawitʿ''; cu, Давíдъ, ''Davidŭ''; possibly meaning "beloved one". w ...
, one of the four Cometopuli brothers between
Kastoria Kastoria ( el, Καστοριά, ''Kastoriá'' ) is a city in northern Greece in the region of Western Macedonia. It is the capital of Kastoria regional unit, in the geographic region of Macedonia. It is situated on a promontory on the weste ...
and
Prespa Prespa ( mk, Преспа, sq, Prespa, el, Πρέσπα) is a region shared between North Macedonia, Albania and Greece. It shares the same name with the two Prespa lakes which are situated in the middle of the region. The largest town is Rese ...
in 976. After the Byzantine occupation of Bulgaria, Emperor Basil II set up the
autocephalous Autocephaly (; from el, αὐτοκεφαλία, meaning "property of being self-headed") is the status of a hierarchical Christian church whose head bishop does not report to any higher-ranking bishop. The term is primarily used in Eastern O ...
Archbishopric of Ohrid The Archbishopric of Ohrid, also known as the Bulgarian Archbishopric of Ohrid *T. Kamusella in The Politics of Language and Nationalism in Modern Central Europe, Springer, 2008, p. 276 *Aisling Lyon, Decentralisation and the Management of Ethni ...
with the right from 1020 to collect income "from the Vlachs in the whole of '' theme'' of
Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedo ...
". The late 11th-century Kekaumenos relates that the Vlachs of the region of
Larissa Larissa (; el, Λάρισα, , ) is the capital and largest city of the Thessaly region in Greece. It is the fifth-most populous city in Greece with a population of 144,651 according to the 2011 census. It is also capital of the Larissa regiona ...
had "the custom of having their herds and families stay in high mountains and other really cold places from the month of April to the month of September". A passing remark by
Anna Comnena Anna Komnene ( gr, Ἄννα Κομνηνή, Ánna Komnēnḗ; 1 December 1083 – 1153), commonly Latinized as Anna Comnena, was a Byzantine princess and author of the ''Alexiad'', an account of the reign of her father, the Byzantine emperor, ...
reveals that nomads of the Balkans were "commonly called Vlachs" around 1100. Occasionally, the Balkan Vlachs cooperated with the Cumans against the Byzantine Empire, for instance by showing them "the way through the passes" of the
Stara Planina The Balkan mountain range (, , known locally also as Stara planina) is a mountain range in the eastern part of the Balkan Peninsula in Southeastern Europe. The range is conventionally taken to begin at the peak of Vrashka Chuka on the border be ...
in the 1090s. Most information on the 1185 uprising of the Bulgars and Vlachs and the subsequent establishment of the
Second Bulgarian Empire The Second Bulgarian Empire (; ) was a medieval Bulgarian state that existed between 1185 and 1396. A successor to the First Bulgarian Empire, it reached the peak of its power under Tsars Kaloyan and Ivan Asen II before gradually being conque ...
is based on Niketas Choniates's chronicle. He states that it was "the rustling of their cattle" which provoked the Vlachs to rebel against the imperial government. Besides him,
Ansbert Ansbert (died c. 695), sometimes called Ansbert of Chaussy, was a Frankish monk, abbot and bishop of Rouen, today regarded as a saint in the Catholic Church. Early life Ansbert was born at Chaussy-sur-Epte, a village in the Norman historical ...
, and a number of other contemporary sources refer to the Vlach origin of the Asen brothers who initiated the revolt.Ansbert referred to one of the Asen brothers, Peter II of Bulgaria as "Kalopetrus Flachus". The Vlachs' pre-eminent role in the Second Bulgarian Empire is demonstrated by ''Blacia'', and other similar denominations under which the new state was mentioned in contemporary sources. The '' Annales Florolivienses'', the first such source, mentions the route of Emperor
Frederick I Barbarossa Frederick Barbarossa (December 1122 – 10 June 1190), also known as Frederick I (german: link=no, Friedrich I, it, Federico I), was the Holy Roman Emperor from 1155 until his death 35 years later. He was elected King of Germany in Frankfurt o ...
"through Hungary,
Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...
,
Cumania The name Cumania originated as the Latin exonym for the Cuman–Kipchak confederation, which was a tribal confederation in the western part of the Eurasian Steppe, between the 10th and 13th centuries. The confederation was dominated by two Tu ...
, ''Vlakhia'', Durazzo, Byzantium and
Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula ...
" during his crusade of 1189.
Pope Innocent III Pope Innocent III ( la, Innocentius III; 1160 or 1161 – 16 July 1216), born Lotario dei Conti di Segni (anglicized as Lothar of Segni), was the head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 8 January 1198 to his death in 16 ...
used the terms "Vlachia and Bulgaria" jointly when referring to the whole territory of the Second Bulgarian Empire. Similarly, the chronicler Geoffrey of Villehardouin refers to the Bulgarian ruler Kaloyan as "Johanitsa, the king of Vlachia and Bulgaria". The Icelandic author
Snorri Sturluson Snorri Sturluson ( ; ; 1179 – 22 September 1241) was an Icelandic historian, poet, and politician. He was elected twice as lawspeaker of the Icelandic parliament, the Althing. He is commonly thought to have authored or compiled portions of th ...
mentioned the Balkan Vlachs' territory as '' Blokumannaland'' in his early 13th-century text ''
Heimskringla ''Heimskringla'' () is the best known of the Old Norse kings' sagas. It was written in Old Norse in Iceland by the poet and historian Snorre Sturlason (1178/79–1241) 1230. The name ''Heimskringla'' was first used in the 17th century, derive ...
''. William of Rubruck distinguished Bulgaria from ''Blakia''. He stated that "Bulgaria, ''Blakia'' and
Slavonia Slavonia (; hr, Slavonija) is, with Dalmatia, Croatia proper, and Istria, one of the four historical regions of Croatia. Taking up the east of the country, it roughly corresponds with five Croatian counties: Brod-Posavina, Osijek-Bar ...
were provinces of the Greeks", implying that his ''Blakia'' was also located south of the Danube. Likewise, the "Vlach lands" mentioned in the works of
Abulfeda Ismāʿīl b. ʿAlī b. Maḥmūd b. Muḥammad b. ʿUmar b. Shāhanshāh b. Ayyūb b. Shādī b. Marwān ( ar, إسماعيل بن علي بن محمود بن محمد بن عمر بن شاهنشاه بن أيوب بن شادي بن مروان ...
,
Ibn Khaldun Ibn Khaldun (; ar, أبو زيد عبد الرحمن بن محمد بن خلدون الحضرمي, ; 27 May 1332 – 17 March 1406, 732-808 AH) was an Arab The Historical Muhammad', Irving M. Zeitlin, (Polity Press, 2007), p. 21; "It is, of ...
and other medieval Muslim authors are identical with Bulgaria.


Uncertain references

The 10th-century Muslim scholars,
Al-Muqaddasi Shams al-Dīn Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Abī Bakr al-Maqdisī ( ar, شَمْس ٱلدِّيْن أَبُو عَبْد ٱلله مُحَمَّد ابْن أَحْمَد ابْن أَبِي بَكْر ٱلْمَقْدِسِي), ...
and
Ibn al-Nadim Abū al-Faraj Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq al-Nadīm ( ar, ابو الفرج محمد بن إسحاق النديم), also ibn Abī Ya'qūb Isḥāq ibn Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq al-Warrāq, and commonly known by the ''nasab'' (patronymic) Ibn al-Nadīm ...
mentioned the ''Waladj'' and the ''Blaghā'', respectively in their lists of peoples. The lists also refer to the
Khazars The Khazars ; he, כּוּזָרִים, Kūzārīm; la, Gazari, or ; zh, 突厥曷薩 ; 突厥可薩 ''Tūjué Kěsà'', () were a semi-nomadic Turkic people that in the late 6th-century CE established a major commercial empire coverin ...
,
Alans The Alans (Latin: ''Alani'') were an ancient and medieval Iranian nomadic pastoral people of the North Caucasus – generally regarded as part of the Sarmatians, and possibly related to the Massagetae. Modern historians have connected the A ...
, and Greeks, and it is possible that the two ethnonyms refer to Vlachs dwelling somewhere in south-eastern Europe. For instance, historian Alexandru Madgearu says that Al-Muqaddasi's work is the first reference to Romanians living north of the Danube.
Victor Spinei Victor Spinei (born 26 October 1943 in Lozova, Lăpușna County, Romania) is Emeritus Professor of history and archaeology at the Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, member and vice president of the Romanian Academy. He is a specialist on the history ...
writes that a runestone which was set up around 1050 contains the earliest reference to Romanians living east of the Carpathians. It refers to ''
Blakumen ''Blakumen'' or ''Blökumenn'' were a people mentioned in Scandinavian sources dating from the 11th through 13th centuries. The name of their land, ''Blokumannaland'', has also been preserved. Victor Spinei, Florin Curta, Florin Pintescu and oth ...
'' who killed a
Varangian The Varangians (; non, Væringjar; gkm, Βάραγγοι, ''Várangoi'';Varangian
" Online Etymo ...
merchant at an unspecified place. The 11th-century Persian writer,
Gardizi Abū Saʿīd ʿAbd-al-Ḥayy ibn Żaḥḥāk b. Maḥmūd Gardīzī ( fa, ابوسعید عبدالحی بن ضحاک بن محمود گردیزی), better known as Gardizi (), was an 11th-century Persian historian and official, who is notable for ...
, wrote about a Christian people "from the Roman Empire" called ''N.n.d.r'', inhabiting the lands along the Danube. He describes them as "more numerous than the Hungarians, but weaker". Historian Adolf Armbruster identified this people as Vlachs. In Hungarian, the
Bulgarians Bulgarians ( bg, българи, Bǎlgari, ) are a nation and South Slavic ethnic group native to Bulgaria and the rest of Southeast Europe. Etymology Bulgarians derive their ethnonym from the Bulgars. Their name is not completely underst ...
were called ''Nándor'' in the Middle Ages. The ''
Russian Primary Chronicle The ''Tale of Bygone Years'' ( orv, Повѣсть времѧньныхъ лѣтъ, translit=Pověstĭ vremęnĭnyxŭ lětŭ; ; ; ; ), often known in English as the ''Rus' Primary Chronicle'', the ''Russian Primary Chronicle'', or simply the ...
'' from 1113 contains possible references to Vlachs in the Carpathian Basin. It relates how the ''Volokhi'' seized "the territory of the Slavs" and were expelled by the Hungarians. Therefore, the Slavs' presence antedates the arrival of the ''Volokhi'' in the chronicle's narration. It places their country west to the
Baltic sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain. The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from ...
.' Madgearu and many other historians argue that the ''Volokhi'' are Vlachs, but the ''Volokhi'' have also been identified with either Romans or
Franks The Franks ( la, Franci or ) were a group of Germanic peoples whose name was first mentioned in 3rd-century Roman sources, and associated with tribes between the Lower Rhine and the Ems River, on the edge of the Roman Empire.H. Schutz: Tools ...
annexing Pannonia (for instance, by Lubor Niederle is a representative of the first approach, and Dennis Deletant and
Vladimir Petrukhin Vladimir Petrukhin (full name: Vladimir Yakovlevich Petrukhin, russian: link=no, Влади́мир Я́ковлевич Петру́хин; born on July 25, 1950 in Pushkino, Moscow Oblast, Soviet Union) is a Russian historian, archaeologist and ...
associates the ''Volokhi" with the Franks'').' The poem ''
Nibelungenlied The ( gmh, Der Nibelunge liet or ), translated as ''The Song of the Nibelungs'', is an epic poem written around 1200 in Middle High German. Its anonymous poet was likely from the region of Passau. The is based on an oral tradition of Germani ...
'' from the early 1200s mentions one "duke Ramunc of Wallachia" in the retinue of
Attila the Hun Attila (, ; ), frequently called Attila the Hun, was the ruler of the Huns from 434 until his death in March 453. He was also the leader of a tribal empire consisting of Huns, Ostrogoths, Alans, and Bulgars, among others, in Central and E ...
. The poem alludes to the Vlachs along with the Russians, Greeks, Poles and
Pechenegs The Pechenegs () or Patzinaks tr, Peçenek(ler), Middle Turkic: , ro, Pecenegi, russian: Печенег(и), uk, Печеніг(и), hu, Besenyő(k), gr, Πατζινάκοι, Πετσενέγοι, Πατζινακίται, ka, პა� ...
, and may refer to a "Wallachia" east of the Carpathians. The identification of the Vlachs and the '' Bolokhoveni'' of the '' Hypatian Chronicle'' whose land bordered on the
Principality of Halych The Principality of Halych ( uk, Галицьке князівство, translit=Halytske kniazivstvo; rus, Галицкое княжество; orv, Галицкоє кънѧжьство; ro, Cnezatul Galiția), or Principality of Halychian Ru ...
is not unanimously accepted by historians (for instance, Victor Spinei refuses it).


Archaeological data


North of the Lower Danube

''
Tumuli A tumulus (plural tumuli) is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds or ''kurgans'', and may be found throughout much of the world. A cairn, which is a mound of stones built ...
'' erected for a cremation rite appeared in Oltenia and in Transylvania around 100 BC, thus preceding the emergence of the Dacian kingdom. Their rich inventory has analogies in archaeological sites south of the Danube. Although only around 300 graves from the next three centuries have been unearthed in Romania, they represent multiple burial rites, including '' ustrinum'' cremation and
inhumation Burial, also known as interment or inhumation, is a method of final disposition whereby a dead body is placed into the ground, sometimes with objects. This is usually accomplished by excavating a pit or trench, placing the deceased and objec ...
. New villages in the Mureș valley prove a demographic growth in the 1st century BC. Fortified settlements were erected on hilltops, mainly in the Orăștie Mountains, but open villages remained the most common type of settlement. In contrast with the finds of 25,000 Roman ''
denarii The denarius (, dēnāriī ) was the standard Roman silver coin from its introduction in the Second Punic War to the reign of Gordian III (AD 238–244), when it was gradually replaced by the antoninianus. It continued to be minted in very ...
'' and their local copies, imported products were virtually missing in Dacia. The interpretations of Geto-Dacian archaeological findings are problematic because they may be still influenced by methodological nationalism. The conquering Romans destroyed all fortresses and the main Dacian sanctuaries around 106 AD. All villages disappeared because of the demolition. Roman settlements built on the location of former Dacian ones have not been identified yet. However, the rural communities at Boarta, Cernat, and other places used "both traditional and Roman items", even thereafter. Objects representing local traditions have been unearthed at Roman villas in Aiudul de Sus,
Deva Deva may refer to: Entertainment * ''Deva'' (1989 film), a 1989 Kannada film * ''Deva'' (1995 film), a 1995 Tamil film * ''Deva'' (2002 film), a 2002 Bengali film * Deva (2007 Telugu film) * ''Deva'' (2017 film), a 2017 Marathi film * Deva ...
and other places as well. A feature of the few types of native
pottery Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and ...
which continued to be produced in Roman times is the "Dacian cup", a mostly hand-made mug with a wide rim, which was used even in military centers. The use of a type of tall cooking pot indicates the survival of traditional culinary practices as well. Colonization and the presence of military units gave rise to the emergence of most towns in "Dacia Traiana": for instance,
Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa Colonia Ulpia Traiana Augusta Dacica Sarmizegetusa was the capital and the largest city of Roman Dacia, later named ''Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa'' after the former Dacian capital, located some 40 km away. Built on the ground of a camp of th ...
was founded for veterans, Apulum and
Potaissa Turda (; hu, Torda, ; german: link=no, Thorenburg; la, Potaissa) is a city in Cluj County, Transylvania, Romania. It is located in the southeastern part of the county, from the county seat, Cluj-Napoca, to which it is connected by the Europ ...
started to develop as '' canabae''. Towns were the only places where the presence of Christians can be assumed based on objects bearing Christian symbolism, including a lamp and a cup decorated with crosses, which have been dated to the Roman period. Rural cemeteries characterized by burial rites with analogies in sites east of the Carpathians attest to the presence of immigrant "barbarian" communities, for instance, at Obreja and Soporu de Câmpie. Along the northwestern frontiers of the province, "
Przeworsk Przeworsk (; uk, Переворськ, translit=Perevors'k; yi, פּרשעוואָרסק, translit=Prshevorsk) is a town in south-eastern Poland with 15,675 inhabitants, as of 2 June 2009. Since 1999 it has been in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship ...
" settlements were unearthed at Boinești, Cehăluț, and other places. Archaeological finds suggest that attacks against Roman Dacia became more intensive from the middle of the 3rd century: an inscription from Apulum hails Emperor
Decius Gaius Messius Quintus Traianus Decius ( 201 ADJune 251 AD), sometimes translated as Trajan Decius or Decius, was the emperor of the Roman Empire from 249 to 251. A distinguished politician during the reign of Philip the Arab, Decius was procl ...
(''r.'' 249–251) as the "restorer of Dacia"; and coin hoards ending with pieces minted in this period have been found. Inscriptions from the 260s attest that the two Roman legions of Dacia were transferred to
Pannonia Superior Pannonia Superior, lit. Upper Pannonia, was a province of the Roman Empire. Its capital was Carnuntum. It was one on the border provinces on the Danube. It was formed in the year 103 AD by Emperor Trajan who divided the former province of P ...
and Italy. Coins bearing the inscription "DACIA FELIX" minted in 271 may reflect that Trajan's Dacia still existed in that year, but they may as well refer to the establishment of the new province of "Dacia Aureliana". The differentiation of archaeological finds from the periods before and after the Roman withdrawal is not simple, but Archiud, Obreja, and other villages produced finds from both periods. In general, objects dating after the withdrawal are much more primitive, however, some elements of provincial Roman culture survived, particularly in pottery, but also in other areas of production, such as the one regarding the typical provincial Roman brooches. Towns have also yielded evidence on locals staying behind. For instance, in Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegatusa, at least one building was inhabited even in the 4th century, and a local factory continued to produce pottery, although "in a more restricted range". Roman coins from the 3rd and 4th centuries, mainly minted in bronze, were found in Banat where small Roman forts were erected in the 290s. Coins minted under Emperor Valentinian I (''r.'' 364–375) were also found in Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa, where the gate of the
amphitheater An amphitheatre (British English) or amphitheater (American English; both ) is an open-air venue used for entertainment, performances, and sports. The term derives from the ancient Greek ('), from ('), meaning "on both sides" or "around" and ...
was walled at an uncertain date. A votive plate found near a spring at Biertan bears a Latin inscription dated to the 4th century, and has analogies in objects made in the Roman Empire. Whether this ''donarium'' belonged to a Christian missionary, to a local cleric or layman or to a pagan Goth making an offering at the spring is still debated by archaeologists. A new cultural synthesis, the " Sântana de Mureș-Chernyakhov culture", spread through the plains of Moldavia and Wallachia in the early 4th century. It incorporated elements of the " Wielbark culture" of present-day Poland and of local tradition. More than 150 "Sântana de Mureș-Chernyakhov" settlements suggest that the territory experienced a demographic growth. Three sites in the Eastern Carpathians already inhabited in the previous century Botoșana, Dodești, and Mănoaia ''(Heather, Matthews 1991, p. 91.)''. prove the natives' survival as well. Growing popularity of inhumation burials also characterizes the period. "Sântana de Mureș-Chernyakhov" cemeteries from the 4th century were also unearthed in Transylvania. Coin hoards ending with pieces from the period between 375 and 395 unearthed at Bistreț,
Gherla Gherla (; hu, Szamosújvár; german: Neuschloss) is a municipiu, municipality in Cluj County, Romania (in the historical region of Transylvania). It is located from Cluj-Napoca on the river Someșul Mic, and has a population of 20,203. Three vil ...
, and other settlements point to a period of uncertainty. Featuring elements of the "Przeworsk" and "Sântana de Mureș-Chernyakhov" cultures also disappeared around 400. Archaeological sites from the next centuries have yielded finds indicating the existence of scattered communities bearing different traditions. Again, cremation became the most widespread burial rite east of the Carpathians, where a new type of buildingsunken huts with an oven in the corneralso appeared. The heterogeneous vessel styles were replaced by the more uniform "Suceava-Șipot"
archaeological horizon In archaeology, the general meaning of horizon is a distinctive type of sediment, artefact, style, or other cultural trait that is found across a large geographical area from a limited time period. The term derives from similar ones in geology, ...
of hand made pottery from the 550s. In contrast with the regions east of the Carpathians, Transylvania experienced the spread of the "row grave" horizon of inhumation necropolises in the 5th century, also known from the same period in Austria,
Bohemia Bohemia ( ; cs, Čechy ; ; hsb, Čěska; szl, Czechy) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. Bohemia can also refer to a wider area consisting of the historical Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by the Bohem ...
,
Transdanubia Transdanubia ( hu, Dunántúl; german: Transdanubien, hr, Prekodunavlje or ', sk, Zadunajsko :sk:Zadunajsko) is a traditional region of Hungary. It is also referred to as Hungarian Pannonia, or Pannonian Hungary. Administrative divisions Trad ...
and
Thuringia Thuringia (; german: Thüringen ), officially the Free State of Thuringia ( ), is a state of central Germany, covering , the sixth smallest of the sixteen German states. It has a population of about 2.1 million. Erfurt is the capital and lar ...
. At the same time, large villages appeared in Crișana and Transylvania, in most cases in places where no earlier habitation has yet been proven. Moreover, imported objects with Christian symbols, including a fish-shaped lamp from Lipova, and a "
Saint Menas Menas of Egypt (also Mina, Minas, Mena, Meena; el, Άγιος Μηνάς, ; 285 – c. 309), a martyr and wonder-worker, is one of the most well-known Coptic saints in the East and the West, due to the many miracles that are attributed to his in ...
flask" from Moigrad, were unearthed. However, only about 15% of the 30 known "row grave" cemeteries survived until the late 7th century. They together form the distinct "Band-Noșlac" group of graveyards which also produced weapons and other objects of Western or Byzantine provenance. The earliest examples in Transylvania of inhumation graves with a corpse buried, in accordance with nomadic tradition, with remains of a horse were found at
Band Band or BAND may refer to: Places *Bánd, a village in Hungary *Band, Iran, a village in Urmia County, West Azerbaijan Province, Iran * Band, Mureș, a commune in Romania *Band-e Majid Khan, a village in Bukan County, West Azerbaijan Province, I ...
. The "Gâmbaș group" of cemeteries emerged in the same period, producing weapons similar to those found in the Pontic steppes. Sunken huts appeared in the easternmost zones of Transylvania around the 7th century. Soon the new horizon of "Mediaș" cemeteries, containing primarily cremation graves, spread along the rivers of the region. The "Nușfalău-Someșeni" cemeteries likewise follow the cremation rite, but they produced large ''
tumuli A tumulus (plural tumuli) is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds or ''kurgans'', and may be found throughout much of the world. A cairn, which is a mound of stones built ...
'' with analogies in the territories east of the Carpathians. In the meantime, the "Suceava-Șipot horizon" disappeared in Moldavia and Wallachia, and the new " Dridu culture" emerged on both sides of the Lower Danube around 700. Thereafter the region again experienced demographic growth. For instance, the number of settlements unearthed in Moldavia grew from about 120 to about 250 from the 9th century to the 11th century. Few graveyards yielding artifacts similar to "Dridu cemeteries" were also founded around Alba Iulia in Transylvania. The nearby "Ciumbrud group" of necropolises of inhumation graves point at the presence of warriors. However, no early medieval fortresses unearthed in Transylvania, including Cluj-Mănăștur, Dăbâca, and Șirioara, can be definitively dated earlier than the 10th century. Small inhumation cemeteries of the "Cluj group", characterized by "partial symbolic horse burials", appeared at several places in Banat, Crișana, and Transylvania including at
Biharia Biharia ( hu, Bihar) is a commune in Bihor County, Crișana, Romania. It is composed of two villages, Biharia and Cauaceu (''Hegyközkovácsi''). In 2011 it had 4,205 inhabitants, of whom 85.87% were Hungarians, 12.12% Romanians and 1.73% Roma. ...
,
Cluj ; hu, kincses város) , official_name=Cluj-Napoca , native_name= , image_skyline= , subdivision_type1 = County , subdivision_name1 = Cluj County , subdivision_type2 = Status , subdivision_name2 = County seat , settlement_type = City , ...
and
Timișoara ), City of Roses ( ro, Orașul florilor), City of Parks ( ro, Orașul parcurilor) , image_map = Timisoara jud Timis.svg , map_caption = Location in Timiș County , pushpin_map = Romania#Europe , pushpin_ ...
around 900. Cauldrons and further featuring items of the "
Saltovo-Mayaki Saltovo-Mayaki or Saltovo-Majaki is the name given by archaeologists to the early medieval culture of the Pontic steppe region roughly between the Don and the Dnieper Rivers, flourishing roughly between the years of 700 and 950. History Saltovo ...
culture" of the Pontic steppes were unearthed in Alba Iulia, Cenad, Dăbâca, and other settlements. A new custom of placing coins on the eyes of the dead was also introduced around 1000. " Bijelo Brdo" cemeteries, a group of large graveyards with close analogies in the whole Carpathian Basin, were unearthed at Deva, Hunedoara and other places. The east–west orientation of their graves may reflect Christian influence, but the following "Citfalău group" of huge cemeteries that appeared in royal fortresses around 1100 clearly belong to a Christian population. Romanian archaeologists propose that a series of archaeological horizons that succeeded each other in the lands north of the Lower Danube in the early Middle Ages support the continuity theory. In their view, archaeological finds at
Brateiu Brateiu (german: Pretai; hu, Baráthely; Transylvanian Saxon dialect: ''Pretoa'') is a commune located in Sibiu County, Transylvania, Romania. It is composed of two villages, Brateiu and Buzd, each of which has a fortified church. There is a bu ...
(in Transylvania), Ipotești (in Wallachia) and Costișa (in Moldavia), part of the Ipotești-Ciurel-Cândești Culture, represent the Daco-Roman stage of the Romanians' ethnogenesis which ended in the 6th century. The next ("Romanic") stage can be detected through assemblages unearthed in Ipotești, Botoșana, Hansca and other places which were dated to the 7th-8th centuries. Finally, the Dridu culture is said to be the evidence for the "ancient Romanian" stage of the formation of the Romanian people. In contrast to these views, Opreanu emphasizes that the principal argument of the hypothesisthe presence of artefacts imported from the Roman Empire and their local copies in allegedly "Daco-Roman" or "Romanic" assemblagesis not convincing, because close contacts between the empire and the neighboring Slavs and Avars is well-documented. He also underlines that Dridu culture developed after a "cultural discontinuity" that followed the disappearance of the previous horizons. Regarding both the Slavs and Romanians as sedentary populations, Alexandru Madgearu also underlines that the distinction of "Slavic" and "Romanian" artefacts is difficult, because archaeologists can only state that these artifacts could hardly be used by nomads. He proposes that "The wheel-made pottery produced on the fast wheel (as opposed to the tournette), which was found in several settlements of the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries, may indicate the continuation of Roman traditions" in Transylvania. Thomas Nägler proposes that a separate "Ciugud culture" represents the Vlach population of southern Transylvania. He also argues that two treasures from
Cârțișoara Cârțișoara (also ''Cârța Românească''; german: Oberkerz; hu, Kercisóra) is a commune in Sibiu County, Transylvania, Romania. It is composed of a single village, Cârțișoara. Bâlea Lake is located on the territory of Cârțișoara. The ...
and
Făgăraș Făgăraș (; german: Fogarasch, Fugreschmarkt, hu, Fogaras) is a city in central Romania, located in Brașov County. It lies on the Olt River and has a population of 28,330 as of 2011. It is situated in the historical region of Transylvania, and ...
also point at the presence of Vlachs. Both hoards contain Byzantine coins ending with pieces minted under Emperor
John II Komnenos John II Komnenos or Comnenus ( gr, Ἱωάννης ὁ Κομνηνός, Iōannēs ho Komnēnos; 13 September 1087 – 8 April 1143) was Byzantine emperor from 1118 to 1143. Also known as "John the Beautiful" or "John the Good" (), he ...
who died in 1143. Tudor Sălăgean proposes that these treasures point at a local elite with "at least" economic contacts with the Byzantine Empire. Paul Stephenson argues that Byzantine coins and jewellery from this period, unearthed at many places in Hungary and Romania, are connected to salt trade. File:Sarmizegetusa Regia - Sanctuarul mare circular. (Zona sacra).jpg, alt=Stone columns forming concentric circles, Ruins of a Dacian sanctuary at
Sarmizegetusa Regia Sarmizegetusa Regia, also Sarmisegetusa, Sarmisegethusa, Sarmisegethuza, Ζαρμιζεγεθούσα (''Zarmizegethoúsa'') or Ζερμιζεγεθούση (''Zermizegethoúsē''), was the capital and the most important military, religious and ...
File:Colonia Dacica Sarmizegetusa 2011 - Amphitheater-5.jpg, alt=Ruined stone walls in a meadow, Ruins of the Roman
amphitheatre An amphitheatre (British English) or amphitheater (American English; both ) is an open-air venue used for entertainment, performances, and sports. The term derives from the ancient Greek ('), from ('), meaning "on both sides" or "around" and ...
at
Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa Colonia Ulpia Traiana Augusta Dacica Sarmizegetusa was the capital and the largest city of Roman Dacia, later named ''Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa'' after the former Dacian capital, located some 40 km away. Built on the ground of a camp of th ...
File:Colonia Dacica Sarmizegetusa 2011 - Inscription on the Forum Column.jpg, alt=A broken stone column with inscriptions, Latin inscription in Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa File:DonariumBiertan.JPG, alt=Soldiers fight near a hill and a crowned man steps on the back of another man who also wears a crown before mounting his horse, The 4th-century
Biertan Donarium The Biertan Donarium is a fourth-century Christian votive object found near the town of Biertan, in Transylvania, Romania. Made out of bronze in the shape of a Labarum, it has the Latin text EGO ZENO VOTUM POSVI, which can be approximatively ...
with the Latin writing "EGO ZENOVIUS VOTUM POSVI" (i.e. 'I, Zenovius, brought this offering.')


Central and Northern Balkans

Fortified settlements built on hill-tops characterized the landscape in Illyricum before the Roman conquest. In addition,
pile dwellings Stilt houses (also called pile dwellings or lake dwellings) are houses raised on stilts (or piles) over the surface of the soil or a body of water. Stilt houses are built primarily as a protection against flooding; they also keep out vermin. The ...
formed villages along the rivers Sava and its tributaries. Roman coins unearthed in the northwestern regions may indicate that trading contacts between the Roman Empire and Illyricum began in the 2nd century BC, but piracy, quite widespread in this period, could also contribute to their cumulation. The first Roman road in the Balkans, the
Via Egnatia The Via Egnatia was a road constructed by the Romans in the 2nd century BC. It crossed Illyricum, Macedonia, and Thracia, running through territory that is now part of modern Albania, North Macedonia, Greece, and European Turkey as a con ...
which linked Thessaloniki with Dyrrhachium was built in 140 BC.
Byllis Byllis ( gr, Βύλλις; sq, Bylis; la, Byllis) or Bullis or Boullis (Βουλλίς) was an ancient city and the chief settlement of the Illyrian tribe of the Bylliones, traditionally located in southern Illyria. In Hellenistic times the c ...
and Dyrrhachium, the earliest Roman
colonies In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the '' metropolitan state'' ...
were founded a century later. The Romans established a number of colonies for veterans and other towns, including
Emona Emona (early gkm, Ἤμονα) or Aemona (short for ) was a Roman castrum, located in the area where the navigable Ljubljanica river came closest to Castle Hill,
, Siscia, Sirmium and
Iovia Botivo Ludbreg is a town in Croatia, located halfway between Varaždin and Koprivnica near the river Drava. It has 3,603 inhabitants, and a total of 8,478 in the entire municipality (census 2011). History For centuries Ludbreg has been a popular plac ...
, in the next four centuries. Hand-made pottery of local tradition remained popular even after potter's wheel was introduced by the Romans. Likewise, as it is demonstrated by altars dedicated to Illyrian deities at
Bihać Bihać ( cyrl, Бихаћ) is a city and the administrative centre of Una-Sana Canton of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, an entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is situated on the banks of river Una in northwestern Bosnia and Herzegovin ...
and
Topusko Topusko is a municipality in Sisak-Moslavina County, Croatia. Topusko is an underdeveloped municipality which is statistically classified as the First Category Area of Special State Concern by the Government of Croatia. Demographics The populati ...
, native cults survived the Roman conquest. Latin inscriptions on stone monuments prove the existence of a native aristocracy in Roman times. Native settlements flourished in the mining districts in Upper Moesia up until the 4th century. Native names and local burial rites only disappeared in these territories in the 3rd century. In contrast, the frontier region along the Lower Danube in Moesia had already in the 1st century AD transformed into "a secure Roman-only zone" (Brad Bartel), from where the natives were moved. Emperors born in Illyricum, a common phenomenon of the period, erected a number of imperial residences at their birthplaces. For instance, a palace was built for
Maximianus Herculius Maximian ( la, Marcus Aurelius Valerius Maximianus; c. 250 – c. July 310), nicknamed ''Herculius'', was Roman emperor from 286 to 305. He was ''Caesar'' from 285 to 286, then ''Augustus'' from 286 to 305. He shared the latter title with his ...
near Sirmium, and another for Constantine the Great in
Mediana Mediana is an important archeological site from the late Roman period, located in the eastern suburb of the Serbian city of Niš. It represents a luxurious residence with a highly organised economy. Excavations have revealed a villa with peristy ...
. New buildings, rich burials and late Roman inscriptions show that
Horreum Margi A ''horreum'' (plural: ''horrea'') was a type of public warehouse used during the ancient Roman period. Although the Latin term is often used to refer to granaries, Roman ''horrea'' were used to store many other types of consumables; the giant Hor ...
, Remesiana, Siscia,
Viminacium Viminacium () or ''Viminatium'', was a major city (provincial capital) and military camp of the Roman province of Moesia (today's Serbia), and the capital of ''Moesia Superior'' (hence once a metropolitan archbishopric, now a Latin titular see). ...
, and other centers of administration also prospered under these emperors. Archaeological researchincluding the large cemeteries unearthed at Ulpianum and Naissusshows that Christian communities flourished in Pannonia and Moesia from the 4th century. Inscriptions from the 5th century point at Christian communities surviving the destruction brought by the Huns at Naissus, Viminacium and other towns of Upper Moesia. In contrast, '' villae rusticae'' which had been centers of agriculture from the 1st century disappeared around 450. Likewise, forums, well planned streets and other traditional elements of urban architecture ceased to exist. For instance, Sirmium "disintegrated into small hamlets emerging in urban areas that had not been in use until then" after 450. New fortified centers developed around newly erected Christian churches in Sirmium,
Novae A nova (plural novae or novas) is a transient astronomical event that causes the sudden appearance of a bright, apparently "new" star (hence the name "nova", which is Latin for "new") that slowly fades over weeks or months. Causes of the dramati ...
, and many other towns by around 500. In contrast with towns, there are only two archaeological sitesAt Novgrad in Bulgaria and at Slava Rusă in Romania ''(Barford 2001, p. 60.)''. from this period identified as rural settlements. Under Justinian the walls of
Serdica Serdika or Serdica ( Bulgarian: ) is the historical Roman name of Sofia, now the capital of Bulgaria. Currently, Serdika is the name of a district located in the city. It includes four neighbourhoods: "Fondovi zhilishta"; "Banishora", "Orlandov ...
, Ulpianum and many other towns were repaired. He also had hundreds of small forts erected along the Lower Danube, at mountain passes across the
Balkan Mountains The Balkan mountain range (, , known locally also as Stara planina) is a mountain range in the eastern part of the Balkan Peninsula in Southeastern Europe. The range is conventionally taken to begin at the peak of Vrashka Chuka on the border bet ...
and around Constantinople. Inside these forts small churches and houses were built.
Pollen analysis Palynology is the "study of dust" (from grc-gre, παλύνω, palynō, "strew, sprinkle" and ''-logy'') or of "particles that are strewn". A classic palynologist analyses particulate samples collected from the air, from water, or from deposits ...
suggest that the locals cultivated legumes within the walls, but no other trace of agriculture have been identified. They were supplied with grain, wine and oil from distant territories, as it is demonstrated by the great number of amphorae unearthed in these sites which were used to transport these items to the forts. Most Roman towns and forts in the northern parts of the Balkans were destroyed in the 570s or 580s. Although some of them were soon restored, all of them were abandoned, many even "without any signs of violence", in the early 7th century. The new horizon of "Komani-Kruja" cemeteries emerged in the same century. They yielded grave goods with analogies in many other regions, including belt buckles widespread in the whole
Mediterranean Basin In biogeography, the Mediterranean Basin (; also known as the Mediterranean Region or sometimes Mediterranea) is the region of lands around the Mediterranean Sea that have mostly a Mediterranean climate, with mild to cool, rainy winters and wa ...
, rings with Greek inscriptions, pectoral crosses, and weapons similar to "Late Avar" items. Most of them are situated in the region of Dyrrhachium, but such cemeteries were also unearthed at Viničani and other settlements along the Via Egnatia. "Komani-Kruja" cemeteries ceased to exist in the early 9th century. John Wilkes proposes that they "most likely" represent a Romanized population, while Florin Curta emphasizes their Avar features. Archaeological finds connected to a Romance-speaking population have also been searched in the lowlands to the south of the Lower Danube. For instance, Uwe Fiedler mentions that inhumation graves yielding no grave goods from the period between the 680s and the 860s may represent them, although he himself rejects this theory. File:Carska palata Sirmijum1.JPG, alt=Ruined chambers of a stone building, Ruins of the imperial palace in
Sirmium Sirmium was a city in the Roman province of Pannonia, located on the Sava river, on the site of modern Sremska Mitrovica in the Vojvodina autonomous provice of Serbia. First mentioned in the 4th century BC and originally inhabited by Illyria ...
File:Bela Palanka Sept Sev.jpg, alt=A stone with a hole, Latin inscription in Remesiana


Linguistic approach


Development of Romanian

The formation of Proto-Romanian (or Common Romanian) from Vulgar Latin started in the 5th-7th centuries and was completed in the 8th century. The common language split into variants during the 10th-12th centuries. The
Romanian dialects The Romanian dialects ( ro, subdialecte or ) are the several regional varieties of the Romanian language (Daco-Romanian). The dialects are divided into two types, northern and southern, but further subdivisions are less clear, so the number of dial ...
spoken to the north of the Danube display a "remarkable unity". Primarily the use of different words differentiate them, because their
phonology Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
is quite uniform. Linguist Gabriela P. Dindelegan (who accepts the continuity theory) asserts that the Romanian shepherds' seasonal movements, and commercial contacts across the mountains secured the preservation of language unity. From another point of view, Paul Wexler proposes that the "relative recency of the Romance-speaking settlement" is a more plausible explanation, because the levelling effect of migrations is well-documented (for instance, in
eastern Germany The new states of Germany () are the five re-established states of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) that unified with the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) with its 10 states upon German reunification on 3 October 1990. The new st ...
, and along the western coasts of the USA). Some Balkan Romance variants retained more elements of their Latin heritage than others. Primarily, the dialects of the peripheral areas (like Maramureș and Moldavia) preserved archaic linguistic features. For instance, the Maramureș subdialect of Romanian still uses both the ancient ''-a'' ending of verbs, and the Latin word for sand (''arină'') instead of standard ''nisip'' (a Slavic loanword), and Aromanian kept dozens of wordsincluding ''arină'', ''oarfăn'' ("orphan") and ''mes'' ("month")lost in other variants. Emphasizing that western Transylvania used to be an integral part of Dacia Traiana, Nandriș concludes that "Transylvania was the centre of linguistic expansion", because the Transylvanian dialects preserved Latin words which were replaced by loanwords in other variants; furthermore, place names with the archaic ''-ești'' ending abound in the region. There are about 100-170 Romanian words with a possible
substratum In linguistics, a stratum (Latin for "layer") or strate is a language that influences or is influenced by another through contact. A substratum or substrate is a language that has lower power or prestige than another, while a superstratum or sup ...
origin. Almost one third of these words represent the specific vocabulary of sheep- and goat-breeding. The substrate language has been identified as Thraco-Dacian, Thracian, or Daco-Moesian, but the origin of these wordsAlbanian, Thraco-Dacian or an unidentified third languageis actually uncertain. When analyzing the historical circumstances of the adoption of these words, linguist Kim Schulte asserts that initially the "political and cultural dominance of the Romans" defined the relationship between the Latin-speaking groups and speakers of the substrate language, but the two communities continued to live side by side, communicating "on regular basis about everyday matters regarding their pastoral activity and the natural environment" even after the end of Roman rule. About 70-90 possible substrate words have Albanian cognates, and 29 terms are probably loanwords from Albanian. Similarities between Romanian and Albanian are not limited to their common Balkan features and the assumed substrate words: the two languages share
calque In linguistics, a calque () or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. When used as a verb, "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from another language ...
s and
proverb A proverb (from la, proverbium) is a simple and insightful, traditional saying that expresses a perceived truth based on common sense or experience. Proverbs are often metaphorical and use formulaic language. A proverbial phrase or a proverbia ...
s, and display analogous phonetic changes. Most linguists suppose that Albanian descended directly from the Balkan Romance substratum, or from a language closely related to it. Marius Sala, who supports the continuity theory, argues that Thraco-Dacian was "a variant of Thracian from which Albanian originated". Vladimir I. Georgiev proposes that both Albanian and Romanian developed in the "Daco-Mysian region" (encompassing Dacia to the north of the Lower Danube, and Moesia to the south of the river). He describes Romanian as a "completely Romanized Daco-Mysian" and Albanian as a "semi-Romanized Daco-Mysian". According to Nandriș, the common features of the two languages have been overvalued. On the other hand, proponents of the immigrationist theory regard these similarities as an important evidence for the Romanians' south-Danubian homeland. One of the latter scholars, Schramm proposes that the Romanians' ancestors were Roman refugees who settled near the native pastoralist population of the mountains in the central Balkans in the 5th-6th centuries; they could only take possession of the highest mountain pastures where they lived surrounded by the semi-sedentary Proto-Albanians for centuries. Every Romance language inherited only about 2,000 words directly from Latin. Around one-fifth of the entries of the 1958 edition of the ''Dictionary of the Modern Romanian'' have directly been inherited from Latin. The core vocabulary is to a large degree Latin, including the most frequently used 2500 words. More than 75% of the words in the semantic fields of sense perception, quantity, kinship and spatial relations are of Latin origin, but the basic lexicons of religion and of agriculture have also been preserved. More than 200 Latin words that other Romance languages preserved are missing in Romanian, but about 100 Latin terms were inherited only by Romanian. The preservation of the latter termsincluding ''creștin'' ("Christian") and ''împărat'' ("emperor")was due to their frequent use, according to Sala. Proponents of the continuity theory are convinced that the preservation or lack of certain Latin terms reveal that Romanian developed north of Lower Danube. One of these terms is the Latin word for gold ''(aurum)'', preserved in Daco-Romanian, but lost in Aromanian and Istro-Romanian. For Nandriș, the word is important evidence for the Romanians' continuous presence in Transylvania, because Romanian mountaineers owned many Transylvanian gold mines in Modern Times, and Nandriș thinks that newcomers would not have been allowed to open mines in the province. The Latin terms for fig tree ''(ficus)'' and chestnut ''(castaneus)'' were kept in Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian, but they disappeared from Daco-Romanian. Nandriș and Sala say that this fact is also a clear testimony for the Daco-Romanians' north-Danubian homeland, because these plants did not grow there. Nandriș asserts that the semantic evolution of certain inherited Latin words also supports the continuity theory. For instance, he refers to the development of Latin ''terminus'' ("border, boundary, frontier") into Daco-Romanian ''țărm'' ("embankment, sea-shore, river bank"), proposing that this must have occurred north of the Lower Danube after the Roman withdrawal which made the river the empire's northern frontier. He also mentions a Latin inscription in Dacia Traiana which contains the Latin word for moon ''(luna)'' with the meaning for month, because Daco-Romanian displays a similar semantic development. Other scholars attribute the same change to Slavic influence. Romanian reflects most changes of Latin which occurred in the 2nd-6th centuries. In Gábor Vékony's view, only uninterrupted contacts between the ancestors of Romanians, Dalmatians, Italians and other Romance peoples within the Roman Empire could secure the adoption of these changes, which excludes the north-Danubian territories, abandoned by the Romans in the late 3rd century. Vékony and Schramm also emphasize that the meaning of almost a dozen of inherited Latin terms changed in parallel in Romanian and Albanian, suggesting that contacts between the speakers of Proto-Romanian and Proto-Albanian were frequent. For instance, the Latin word for dragon ''(draco)'' developed into Daco-Romanian ''drac'' and Albanian ''dreq'', both meaning devil; Daco-Romanian ''bătrîn'' and Albanian ''vjetër'' (both meaning old) descend from the Latin term for
veteran A veteran () is a person who has significant experience (and is usually adept and esteemed) and expertise in a particular occupation or field. A military veteran is a person who is no longer serving in a military. A military veteran that h ...
''(veteranus)''. Furthermore, Romanian ''sat'' ("village") was not directly inherited from Latin, but borrowed from Albanian ''fshat'' ("village"), the direct continuation of Latin ''fossatum'' ("military camp"). However, Saramandu states that the similarities between Romanian and Albanian do not presuppose a limited space for coexistence, in the past, of the speakers of the two languages; the similarities in question are satisfactorily explained by a common heritage, in a large Romanized space in the north and south of the Danube, "from the Carpathians to the Pindus". In addition to words of Latin or of possible substratum origin, loanwords make up more than 40% (according to certain estimations 60-80%) of the Romanian vocabulary. Schulte notes that even "relatively basic words denoting continually present meanings, such as features of the natural environment, are frequently borrowed". The names for most species of fish of the Danube and of dozens of other animals living in Romania are of Slavic origin. Dindelegan says that contacts with other peoples has not modified the "Latin structure of Romanian" and the "non-Latin grammatical elements" borrowed from other languages were "adapted to and assimilated by the Romance pattern". Nandriș also says that linguistic influences "are due to cultural intercourse" and do not reveal closer contacts. No loanwords of
East Germanic East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the ...
origin have so far been proven. Scholars who accept the immigrationist theory emphasize that the lack of East Germanic loanwords excludes that the Romanians' homeland was located north of the Lower Danube, because Germanic tribes dominated these lands from the 270s to the 560s. Accepting this as a decisive argument, Bogdan P. Hasdeu placed it in
Oltenia Oltenia (, also called Lesser Wallachia in antiquated versions, with the alternative Latin names ''Wallachia Minor'', ''Wallachia Alutana'', ''Wallachia Caesarea'' between 1718 and 1739) is a historical province and geographical region of Romania ...
, as he falsely believed the Germanic tribes didn't occupy that region. Stelian Brezeanu argues that the absence of East Germanic loanwords is "basically the consequence of the gap" between the Orthodox Romanians and the Arian Germans. He adds that the Daco-Romans assimilated the last Eastern Germanic groups in Transylvania before the middle of the 7th century. Linguist Sala mentions that the Germanic peoples stayed in the former Dacia Traiana province "for a relatively brief span of time, only a couple of centuries", without maintaining close contacts with the Daco-Romans. Nandriș says that those who propose a south-Danubian homeland "on the ground of the lack of Germanic elements" in Romanian "have the same argument against them", because Germanic tribes also settled in the Balkans in the early Middle Ages. In contrast, Schramm proposes that both Proto-Romanian and Proto-Albanian must have developed in the central Balkan regions where no Germanic tribes settled, because direct borrowings from East Germanic are also missing in Albanian. Slavic loanwords make up about one-fifth of Romanian vocabulary. According to certain estimations, terms of Slavic origin are more numerous than the directly inherited Latin roots, although the Slavic loanwords often replaced or doubled the Latin terms. All Balkan Romance variants contain the same 80 Slavic loanwords, indicating that they were borrowed during the Common Romanian period. The vast majority of Slavic loanwords display phonetic changes occurring after around 800. To explain the lack of early borrowings, Brezeanu supposes that the Christian Proto-Romanians and the pagan Proto-Slavs did not mix. Schulte proposes that the Proto-Romanians and Proto-Slavs lived in close proximity under Avar rule, but neither group could achieve cultural dominance, because the Avars formed the elite. In contrast, Schramm argues that the only explanation for the lack of early Slavic borrowings is that the Proto-Albanians separated the Proto-Romanians (who lived in the mountains in the central Balkans) from the agriculturalist Proto-Slavs (who inhabited the lowlands) for centuries. The most intensive phase of borrowings form Slavic (specifically from South Slavic) tongues started around 900. The proportion of Slavic loanwords is especially high (20-25%) in the Romanians' religious, social and political vocabulary, but almost one-fifth of the Romanian terms related to emotions, values, speech and languages were also borrowed from Slavs. Slavic loanwords tend to have positive connotations in "antonym pairs with one element borrowed from Slavic". Romanians also adopted dozens of Latin words through Slavic mediation. Wexler proposes that Slavic patterns gave rise to the development of significant part of about 900 Romanian words that are deemed to descend from hypothetical Latin words (that is words reconstructed on the basis of their Romanian form). Linguists often attribute the development of about 10 phonological and morphological features of Romanian to Slavic influence, but there is no consensual view. For instance, contacts with Slavic-speakers allegedly contributed to the appearance of the
semi-vowel In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel, glide or semiconsonant is a sound that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary, rather than as the nucleus of a syllable. Examples of semivowels in English are th ...
before the vowel at the beginning of basic words and to the development of the
vocative case In grammar, the vocative case ( abbreviated ) is a grammatical case which is used for a noun that identifies a person (animal, object, etc.) being addressed, or occasionally for the noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and nume ...
in Romanian. Linguist Kim Schulte says, the significant common lexical items and the same morpho-syntactic structures of the Romanian and Bulgarian (and Macedonian) languages "indicates that there was a high decree of bilingualism" in this phase of the development of Romanian. Brezeanu argues that contacts between the Romanians' ancestors and the Slavs became intense due to the arrival of Bulgarian clerics to the lands north of the Lower Danube after the conversion of Bulgaria to Christianity. Thereafter, Brezeanu continues, Slavs formed the social and political elite for a lengthy period, as demonstrated both by loanwords (such as ''voivode'' and ''cneaz'', both referring to the leaders of the Vlach communities) and by the semantic development of the term ''rumân'' (which referred to Wallachian serfs in the Middle Ages). Schramm argues that the Proto-Romanians' spread in the mountains in search for new pastures and the Slavicization of the Balkans suggest that close contacts developed between the Proto-Romanians and the Bulgarians in the 10th century. Borrowings from Slavic languages show that there were "localized contacts" between Romanian and Slavic groups even after the disintegration of Common Romanian. The Daco-Romanian subdialects of Maramureș and Moldavia contains loanwords from Ukrainian, Polish and Russian. The Romanian form of loanwords from Ukrainian evidences that they were borrowed after the characteristic Ukrainian sound change from ''h'' to ''g'' was completed in the 12th century. Serbian influenced the subdialects spoken in Banat and Crișana from the 15th century. Bulgarian influenced the Wallachian subdialects even after Bulgarian ceased to influence other variants. About 1.7% of Romanian words is of Greek origin. The earliest layer of Greek loanwords was inherited from the variant of Vulgar Latin from which Romanian descends. Schulte proposes that
Byzantine Greek Medieval Greek (also known as Middle Greek, Byzantine Greek, or Romaic) is the stage of the Greek language between the end of classical antiquity in the 5th–6th centuries and the end of the Middle Ages, conventionally dated to the Ottoman c ...
terms were adopted through close contacts between Romanian, South Slavic and Greek communities until the 10th century. However, H. Mihailescu proposed that all
Byzantine Greek Medieval Greek (also known as Middle Greek, Byzantine Greek, or Romaic) is the stage of the Greek language between the end of classical antiquity in the 5th–6th centuries and the end of the Middle Ages, conventionally dated to the Ottoman c ...
terms in Romanian are indirect loanwords from old Slavonic or Medieval Bulgarian not from a direct contact. Hungarian loanwords represent about 1.6% of Romanian vocabulary. According to Schulte, the Hungarian loanwords show that contacts between Romanians and Hungarians were limited to occasional encounters. On the other hand, Sala says that bilingualism must have existed. Loanwords from Pecheneg or Cuman are rare, but many Romanian leaders bore Cuman names, implying that they were of Cuman origin. All neighboring peoples adopted a number of Romanian words connected to goat- and sheep-breeding. Romanian loanwords are rare in standard Hungarian, but abound in its Transylvanian dialects. In addition to place names and elements of the Romanian pastoral vocabulary, the Transylvanian Hungarians primarily adopted dozens of Romanian ecclesiastic and political terms to refer to specific Romanian institutions already before the mid-17th centuries (for instance, '' bojér'', '' logofét'', '' kalugyér'' and '' beszerika''). The adoption of the Romanian terminology shows that the traditional Romanian institutions, which followed Byzantine patterns, significantly differed from their Hungarian counterparts. Linguistic research plays a preeminent role in the construction of the way of life of the Romanians' ancestors, because "historical sources are almost silent". The Romanians preserved the basic Latin agricultural vocabulary, but adopted a significant number of Slavic technical terms for agricultural tools and techniques. Inherited terminology for motion is strikingly numerous, showing the preeminent role of transhumant pastoralism in medieval Romanians' economy. In his study dedicated to the formation of the Romanian language, Nandriș concludes that the Latin population was "reduced to a pastoral life in the mountains and to agricultural pursuits in the foothills of their pastural lands" in the whole "Carpatho-Balkan area" (both to the north and to the south of the Lower Danube) after the collapse of the Roman rule. For historian Victor Spinei, the Slavic loanwords evince that the Romanians had already "practiced an advanced level of agriculture" before they entered into close contacts with the Slavs: otherwise they would not have needed the specialized terminology. On the other hand, Sala says that the Slavic terms "penetrated Romanian" because they designed the Slavs' more advanced technology which replaced the Romanians' obsolete tools. Schramm concludes that the Proto-Romanians were pastoralists with superficial knowledge of agriculture, limited to the basic vocabulary and retained only because they regularly wintered their flocks on their sedentary neighbors' lands in the foothills. According to him, the adoption of Slavic (and later Hungarian) agricultural terminology clearly shows that the Romanians started to practice agriculture only at a later stage of their ethnogenesis.


Place names

In an article dedicated to the development of the Romanian language, Nandriș states that the study of place names "does not solve the problem of the cradle of primitive" Romanian. In contrast to this view, Schramm says that the toponyms are crucial for the determination of the Romanians' homeland, because "the whole of Romania is threaded with toponyms which conclusively ''exclude'' any form of continuity there". Place names provide a significant proportion of modern knowledge of the extinct languages of Southeastern Europe. The names of the longest rivers in Romania those longer than 500 kilometersDanube, Mureș, Olt, Prut, Siret and Tisa.are thought to be of Dacian origin. About twenty of their tributaries had names with probable Indo-European roots, also suggesting a Dacian etymology.For instance, the modern name of the river
Ampoi The Ampoi ( hu, Ompoly) is a river in the Apuseni Mountains, Alba County, western Romania. It is a right tributary of the river Mureș. It flows through the town Zlatna, and joins the Mureș near Alba Iulia Alba Iulia (; german: Karlsburg ...
may be connected to the Iranian words ''am'' ("with") and ''pel-/pal-'' ("color"), and the name of
Săsar River The Săsar ( hu, Zazar) is a right tributary of the river Lăpuș in Maramureș County, Romania. It discharges into the Lăpuș in Bozânta Mare, southwest of Baia Mare. The Romans adopted the native names of the longest rivers after they conquered Dacia;for instance, ''Crisia'' for the Criș, ''Maris(sos)'' for the Mureș, ''*Samus'' for the
Someș The Someș (; hu, Szamos; german: Somesch or ''Samosch'') is a left tributary of the Tisza in Hungary and Romania. It has a length of (including its source river Someșul Mare), of which 50 km are in Hungary.Timiș Linguists Oliviu and Nicolae Felecan say that the "preservation of river names from Antiquity until today is one of the most solid arguments" in favor of the continuity theory, because these names must have been "uninterruptedly transmitted" from the Dacians to the Romans, and then to the Daco-Romans. Sala also states that the Romanian forms of some ancient river names "are a conclusive argument" for the continuity theory. The three scholars specifically refer to the Romanian name of the Danube, Dunărea, proposing that it developed from a supposed native (Thraco-Dacian or Daco-Moesian) ''*Donaris'' form. They also emphasize that the names of six other riversArgeș (from ''Ardesos''), Criș (from ''Crisus'' or ''Crisia''), Mureș (from ''Maris''), Olt (from ''Alutus''), Someș (from ''Samus'') and (Timiș from ''Tibisis''). display phonetic changesthe development of the
consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced w ...
''" ʃ"'' from ''" s"'', and the
vowel shift A vowel shift is a systematic sound change in the pronunciation of the vowel sounds of a language. The best-known example in the English language is the Great Vowel Shift, which began in the 15th century. The Greek language also underwent ...
from ''" a"'' to ''" o"''featuring the 2nd- and 3rd-century form of the native language. In contrast to these views, Nandriș (although he also accepts the continuity theory) states that alone among the rivers in Dacia, the development of the name of the Criș from ancient ''Crisius'' would be in line with the phonetical evolution of Romanian. Scholars who reject the continuity theory emphasize that the Romanian names of the large rivers show that the Romanians did not directly inherit them from their Latin-speaking ancestors. According to Vékony (who promotes the immigrationist theory), the Romanian name of the Danube demonstrates that the Romanians' ancestors lived far from it, because otherwise they should have preserved its Latin name, ''Danuvius''. He also emphasizes that the hypothetical ''*Donaris'' form is not attested in written sources and ''Istros'' was the river's native name. According to Schramm, the early Slavs adopted the East Germanic name of the Danube, showing that a predominantly Gothic-speaking population inhabited the territory between the Slavs' homeland and the Lower Danube before the Slavs approached the river in the 5th century. Vékony proposes that the Romanians adopted the river's Cuman name, ''Dunay'', when they reached the Danube during their northward expansion around 1100. In Schramm's view, the phonetic changes from ''"s"'' to ''"ʃ"'' in the names of five large rivers also contradict the continuity theory, because Latin did not contain the latter consonant, thus only non-Romanized natives could transmit it to the peoples who settled in the north-Danubian regions after the Romans abandoned them. Similarly, historian László Makkai says that the change from ''"a"'' to ''"o"'' shows that a Slavic-speaking population mediated the ancient names of three large rivers to modern populations (including Romanians), because this vowel shift is attested in the development of the Slavic languages, but is alien to Romanian and other tongues spoken along the rivers. Linguists (including some proponents of the continuity theory) also accept a Slavic mediation which is undeniable in specific cases.For example, the modern name of the
Cerna Cerna may refer to: Populated places * Cerna, Croatia, Vukovar-Syrmia County, Croatia * Černá (Žďár nad Sázavou District), Czech Republic * Černá, Semily District, Czech Republic * Cerna, Tulcea, Romania * A village in Vaideeni Commune ...
(which is similar to the Slavic word for black) obviously developed from ancient ''Dierna'' through the mediation of a Slavic-speaking population.
Around half of the longest tributaries of the large riversthe tributaries which are longer than 200 kilometershas a name of Slavic origin.
Bistrița (; german: link=no, Bistritz, archaic , Transylvanian Saxon: , hu, Beszterce) is the capital city of Bistrița-Năsăud County, in northern Transylvania, Romania. It is situated on the Bistrița River. The city has a population of approxima ...
, Dâmbovița, Ialomița, Jijia, Târnava, and possibly
Moldova Moldova ( , ; ), officially the Republic of Moldova ( ro, Republica Moldova), is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. The unrecognised state of Transnistri ...
.
In Schramm's view, the name of one of them, Dâmbovița, evinces that the Romanians reached Wallachia between around 900 and 1200, because it already reflects the change of the Proto-Bulgarian
back vowel A back vowel is any in a class of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the highest point of the tongue is positioned relatively back in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be c ...
"ǫ", but it was borrowed before
nasal vowel A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the soft palate (or velum) so that the air flow escapes through the nose and the mouth simultaneously, as in the French vowel or Amoy []. By contrast, oral vowels are produced with ...
s disappeared from most Bulgarian variants. One of longest tributaries, Bârlad River, Bârlad bears a Turkic (Pecheneg or Cuman) name. Almost 50 watercourses (including small rivers and creeks) bear a name of Turkic origin in the
Wallachian Plain The Romanian Plain ( ro, Câmpia Română) is located in southern Romania and the easternmost tip of Serbia, where it is known as the Wallachian Plain ( sr, Vlaška nizija/Влашка низија). Part of the historical region of Wallachia, it ...
and river names of Turkic origin also abound in southern Moldavia. The names of the litoral lakes in Dobruja are also of Turkic origin. To explain the great number of Turkic river names, historian Victor Spinei, who supports the continuity theory, proposes that these "bodies of water were not sufficiently important" to the sedentary local Romanians in contrast to the nomadic Turkic peoples who used them as important "permanent markers in the landscape" during their seasonal movements. The longest tributaries of the large rivers in Banat, Crișana and Transylvania had modern names of German, Hungarian, Slavic or Turkic origin, which were also adopted by the Romanians.For instance, the names of the tributaries of the Someșul Mic River are of Hungarian (
Căpuș The Căpuș ( hu, Kapus) is a left tributary of the river Someșul Mic in Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine ...
, Nadăș, and Fizeș) or Slavic ( Lonea and
Lujerdiu The Lujerdiu is a left tributary of the river Someșul Mic The Someșul Mic (''Little Someș'', Hungarian: ''Kis-Szamos'') is a river in north-western Romania (Cluj County). At its confluence with the Someșul Mare in Mica, the Someș is f ...
) origin.
These tributaries run through the most populated areas where "was a greater likelihood that their names would be lodged in the collective memory", according to Makkai. In immigrationists scholars' view, these river names prove that the presence of the Slavs, Hungarians, Transylvanian Saxons predated the arrival of the Romanians who thus must have crossed the Carpathians only after the first Transylvanian Saxon groups settled in southern Transylvania around 1150. Many small riversall shorter than 100 kilometersand creeksFor instance, Baicu, Ghișa, Manciu. bear a name of Romanian origin in Romania. Most of these watercourses run in the mountainous regions. Based on the Repedea name for the upper course of the river
Bistrița (; german: link=no, Bistritz, archaic , Transylvanian Saxon: , hu, Beszterce) is the capital city of Bistrița-Năsăud County, in northern Transylvania, Romania. It is situated on the Bistrița River. The city has a population of approxima ...
(both names meaning "quick" in Romanian and Slavic, respectively), Nandris writes that translations from Romanian into Slavic could also create Romanian hydronyms. Madgearu also says that Bistrița is "most likely a translation" of the Romanian Repedea form. In his view, the distribution of the Romanian river names "coincides with that of a series of archaic cranial features within the restricted area of the Apuseni Mountains", evincing the early presence of a Romanian-speaking population in the mountainous regions of Transylvania. On the other hand, historian Pál Engel underlines that Romanian place names are dominant only in "areas of secondary human settlement" which "seem to have been colonised during the late Middle Ages". Drobeta, Napoca, Porolissum, Sarmizegetusa and other settlements in Dacia Traiana bore names of local origin in Roman times. According to historian Coriolan H. Opreanu (who supports the continuity theory), the survival of the local names proves the native Dacians' presence in the province at the beginning of the Roman rule. Historian Endre Tóth (who accepts the immigrationist theory) remarks that the native names do not prove the continuity of Dacian settlements, especially because the Roman towns bearing local names developed from military camps and their establishment "generally entailed the annihilation of whatever Dacian settlement there might have been". Immigrationist scholars emphasize that the names of all Roman settlements attested in Dacia Traiana disappeared after the Romans abandoned the province, in contrast to the names of dozens of Roman towns in the south-Danubian provinces which survived until now.For instance, ''Naissus (
Niš Niš (; sr-Cyrl, Ниш, ; names in other languages) is the third largest city in Serbia and the administrative center of the Nišava District. It is located in southern part of Serbia. , the city proper has a population of 183,164, whi ...
,
Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia ( Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hu ...
)'', ''Poetovio'' (
Ptuj Ptuj (; german: Pettau, ; la, Poetovium/Poetovio) is a town in northeastern Slovenia that is the seat of the Municipality of Ptuj. Ptuj, the oldest recorded city in Slovenia, has been inhabited since the late Stone Age and developed from a Roman ...
,
Slovenia Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, and ...
), Scupi (
Skopje Skopje ( , , ; mk, Скопје ; sq, Shkup) is the capital and largest city of North Macedonia. It is the country's political, cultural, economic, and academic centre. The territory of Skopje has been inhabited since at least 4000 BC; r ...
,
North Macedonia North Macedonia, ; sq, Maqedonia e Veriut, (Macedonia before February 2019), officially the Republic of North Macedonia,, is a country in Southeast Europe. It gained independence in 1991 as one of the successor states of Socialist Feder ...
), ''Siscia'' (
Sisak Sisak (; hu, Sziszek ; also known by other alternative names) is a city in central Croatia, spanning the confluence of the Kupa, Sava and Odra rivers, southeast of the Croatian capital Zagreb, and is usually considered to be where the Posavin ...
,
Croatia , image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg , image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg , anthem = " Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland") , image_map = , map_caption = , capi ...
).
In defense of the continuity theory, Sala proposes that the names of the towns vanished because the Huns destroyed them, but the Daco-Romans endured the Huns' rule in the villages. Place names of certainly Slavic,For instance, Câlnic ("muddy place"), Straja ("guard"), Sumurducu ("stink"), and Ulciug ("highlanders") bear names of Slavic origin. HungarianIncluding, Agârbiciu ("alder mountain"), Hașag ("linden hill"), Hosasău ("long valley"), Tioltiur ("Slavic guard"), and Verveghiu ("dried stream's valley"), which have Hungarian names. and GermanFor instance,
Nocrich Nocrich (german: Leschkirch; hu, Újegyház) is a commune in Sibiu County, Romania, in the region of Transylvania. The commune is situated between Agnita and Sibiu. It is composed of five villages: Fofeldea, Ghijasa de Jos, Hosman, Nocrich an ...
("new church") and Viscri ("white church") bear names of German origin.
origin can be found in great number in medieval royal charters pertaining to Banat, Crișana, Maramureș, and Transylvania. In the mountains between the rivers
Arieș The Arieș ( hu, Aranyos) is a left tributary of the river Mureș in Transylvania, Romania. It discharges into the Mureș in Gura Arieșului, southwest of Luduș. Its total length (including its headwater Arieșul Mare) is , and its drainag ...
and Mureș and in the territory to the south of the Târnava Mare River, both the Romanians and the Transylvanian Saxons directly (without Hungarian mediation) adopted the Slavic place names. In almost all cases, when parallel Slavic-Hungarian or Slavic-German names are attested,Including, the adoption of Bălgrad instead of Hungarian Gyulafehérvár, and of Straja instead of Őregyház. Romanians borrowed the Slavic forms, suggesting a long cohabitation of the Romanians and the Slavs or a close relationship between the two ethnic groups. The great number of place names of Slavic origin is a clear evidence for the presence of a Slavic-speaking population when the Hungarians started settling in the regions, according to a number of historians. On the other hand, historian Tudor Sălăgean (who supports the continuity theory) states that the name of Slavic origin of a settlement does not itself prove that Slavs inhabited it in the 10th-13th century. Sălăgean underlines that Romanians live in the same settlements in the 21st century and "what is possible in the 21st century was not less possible in 10th century". According to him, the adoption of the Slavic names by the Romanians in cases when a settlement bears parallel Hungarian or German and Slavic names proves that the Romanians and the Slavs had lived side by side in the same settlements already before the arrival of the Hungarians in the late 9th century. In Makkai's contrasting view, the direct adoption of Slavic place names by the Transylvanian Saxons and Romanians proves that significant Slavic-speaking groups lived in southern and central Transylvania when the first Transylvanian Saxon and Romanian groups moved to the region in the second half of the 12th century. The earliest toponym of certain Romanian origin ( Nucșoara from the Romanian word for "walnut") was recorded in the Kingdom of Hungary in 1359. According to Kristó, the late appearance of Romanian place names indicates that the Romanians insisted on their mobile way of life for a lengthy period after they penetrated into the kingdom and their first permanent settlements appeared only in the second half of the 14th century. The region near the confluence of the Argeș and Lower Danube is called Vlașca. The name clearly shows that a small Romance-speaking community existed in Slavic environment in Wallachia. No place names mentioned in ''
Gesta Hungarorum ''Gesta Hungarorum'', or ''The Deeds of the Hungarians'', is the earliest book about Hungarian history which has survived for posterity. Its genre is not chronicle, but ''gesta'', meaning "deeds" or "acts", which is a medieval entertaining li ...
'' in Transylvania and
Banat Banat (, ; hu, Bánság; sr, Банат, Banat) is a geographical and historical region that straddles Central and Eastern Europe and which is currently divided among three countries: the eastern part lies in western Romania (the counties of ...
are of Romanian origin, but mainly of Hungarian. Numerous place names of Latin or Romanian origin can be detected in the lands south of the Lower Danube (in present-day Albania, Bulgaria, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Greece, Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia). Place names of Latin origin abound in the region of
Lake Shkodër Lake Skadar ( sh-Cyrl-Latn, Скадарско језеро, Skadarsko jezero, ; sq, Liqeni i Shkodrës, ) also called Lake Scutari, Lake Shkodër and Lake Shkodra lies on the border of Albania and Montenegro, and is the largest lake in Southern ...
, along the rivers Drin and Fan and other territories to the north of the Via Egnatia. According to
John Wilkes John Wilkes (17 October 1725 – 26 December 1797) was an English radical journalist and politician, as well as a magistrate, essayist and soldier. He was first elected a Member of Parliament in 1757. In the Middlesex election dispute, he ...
, they are a clear evidence for the survival of a numerous Romance-speaking populationwhom he associates with the "Romanoi" mentioned by Porphyrogenitusuntil the 9th century. Schramm says that the names of at least eight towns in the same region,Including
Elassona Elassona ( el, Ελασσόνα; Katharevousa: gr, Ἐλασσών, Elasson) is a town and a municipality in the Larissa regional unit in Greece. During antiquity Elassona was called Oloosson (Ὀλοοσσών) and was a town of the Perrhaebi ...
,
Florina Florina ( el, Φλώρινα, ''Flórina''; known also by some alternative names) is a town and municipality in the mountainous northwestern Macedonia, Greece. Its motto is, 'Where Greece begins'. The town of Florina is the capital of the F ...
, and
Veria Veria ( el, Βέροια or Βέρροια), officially transliterated Veroia, historically also spelled Berea or Berœa, is a city in Central Macedonia, in the geographic region of Macedonia, northern Greece, capital of the regional unit of ...
.
likewise suggest the one-time presence of a Romance speaking population in their vicinity. In Schramm and Makkai's view, they are consequences of the well-documented 7th-century southward movement of the Latin-speaking groups from the northern Balkan provinces. Romanian place namesFor instance, Pasarel, Surdul, Vakarel,
Durmitor Durmitor ( Montenegrin: Дурмитор, or ) is a massif located in northwestern Montenegro. It is part of the Dinaric Alps. Its highest peak, Bobotov Kuk, reaches a height of . The massif is limited by the Tara River Canyon on the north, the ...
, Pirlitor and
Visitor A visitor, in English and Welsh law and history, is an overseer of an autonomous ecclesiastical or eleemosynary institution, often a charitable institution set up for the perpetual distribution of the founder's alms and bounty, who can inter ...
.
are concentrated in the wider region of Vlasina (both in present-day Bulgaria and Serbia) and in Montenegro and Kosovo. These names still prove that a significant Romanian-speaking population used to inhabit these territories. In Makkai's view, significant groups of Romanians left these territories for the lands to the north of the Lower Danube from the late 12th century and those who stayed behind were assimilated by the neighboring Slavic peoples by the 15th century.


DNA / Paleogenetics

The use of genetic data to supplement traditional disciplines has now become mainstream. Given the palimpsest nature of modern genetic diversity, more direct evidence has been sought from ancient DNA (aDNA). Although data from southeastern Europe is still at an incipient stage, general trends are already evident. For example, it has shown that the Neolithic revolution imparted a major demographic impact throughout Europe, disproving the Mesolithic adaptation scenario in its pure form. In fact, the arrival of Neolithic farmers might have been in at least two "waves", as suggested by a study which analysed mtDNA sequences from Romanian Neolithic samples. This study also shows that 'M_NEO' (''Middle Neolithic populations that lived in what is present-day Romania/Transylvania'') and modern populations from Romania are very close (but comparison with other populations of Neolithic Anatolian origin was not performed), in contrast with Middle Neolithic and modern populations from Central Europe. However, the samples extracted from Late Bronze Age DNA from Romania are farther from both of the previously mentioned. The authors have stated "Nevertheless, studies on more individuals are necessary to draw definitive conclusions." However, the study performed a "genetic analysis of a relatively large number of samples of Boian, Zau and Gumelnița cultures in Romania (n = 41) (M_NEO)" Ancient DNA study on human fossils found in Costișa, Romania, dating from de Bronze Age shows "close genetic kinship along the maternal lineage between the three old individuals from Costișa and some individuals found in other archeological sites dated from the Bronze and Iron Age. We also should note that the point mutations analyzed above are also found in Romanian modern population, suggesting that some old individuals from the human populations living on the Romanian land in the Bronze and Iron Age, could participate to a certain extent in the foundation of the Romanian genetic pool." A major demographic wave occurred after 3000 BC from the steppe, postulated to be linked with the expansion of Indo-European languages. Bronze and Iron Age samples from Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania, however, suggest that this impact was less significant for today's Southeastern Europe than areas north of the Carpathians. In fact, in the abovementioned studies, the Bronze and Iron Age Balkan samples do not cluster with modern Balkan groups, but lie between
Sardinians The Sardinians, or Sards ( sc, Sardos or ; Italian and Sassarese: ''Sardi''; Gallurese: ''Saldi''), are a Romance language-speaking ethnic group native to Sardinia, from which the western Mediterranean island and autonomous region of Italy de ...
and other southwestern European groups, suggesting later phenomena (i.e. in Antiquity, Great Migration Period) caused shifts in population genetic structure. However, aDNA samples from southeastern Europe remain few, and only further sampling will allow a clear and diachronic overview of migratory and demographic trends. No detailed analyses exist from the Roman and early medieval periods. Genome-wide analyses of extant populations show that intra-European diversity is a continuum (with the exception of groups like
Finns Finns or Finnish people ( fi, suomalaiset, ) are a Baltic Finnic ethnic group native to Finland. Finns are traditionally divided into smaller regional groups that span several countries adjacent to Finland, both those who are native to these ...
,
Sami Acronyms * SAMI, ''Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange'', a closed-captioning format developed by Microsoft * Saudi Arabian Military Industries, a government-owned defence company * South African Malaria Initiative, a virtual expertise ...
,
Basques The Basques ( or ; eu, euskaldunak ; es, vascos ; french: basques ) are a Southwestern European ethnic group, characterised by the Basque language, a common culture and shared genetic ancestry to the ancient Vascones and Aquitanians. Ba ...
and
Sardinians The Sardinians, or Sards ( sc, Sardos or ; Italian and Sassarese: ''Sardi''; Gallurese: ''Saldi''), are a Romance language-speaking ethnic group native to Sardinia, from which the western Mediterranean island and autonomous region of Italy de ...
). Romanians cluster amidst their Balkan and East European neighbours. However, they generally lie significantly closer to Balkan groups (Bulgarians and Macedonians) than to central and eastern Europeans like Hungarians, Czechs, Poles and Ukrainians, and many lie in the center of the Balkan cluster, near Albanians, Greeks, and Bulgarians, while many former Yugoslav populations like Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes may draw closer to central European West Slavs. On autosomal studies, genetic distance of some Romanian samples to some Italians, such as Tuscans, is greater than that of the distance to neighboring Balkan peoples, but can in some cases still be relatively close when considering the overall European population structure; this likely reflects mainly ancient or prehistoric population patterns rather than more recent ties due to linguistic relationships.


See also

*
Ethnogenesis Ethnogenesis (; ) is "the formation and development of an ethnic group". This can originate by group self-identification or by outside identification. The term ''ethnogenesis'' was originally a mid-19th century neologism that was later introd ...
* Etymology of Romania * History of Christianity in Romania * Balkan–Danubian culture *
Bulgarian lands across the Danube The Bulgarian lands across the Danube or Transdanubian Bulgaria ( bg, Отвъддунавска България) is a term by which Bulgarian historiography means the territories under the rule and control of the Bulgarian Empire north of the ...


Notes


References


Sources


Primary sources

*''Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini: Europe (c. 1400–1458)'' (Translated by Robert Brown, introduced and commented by Nancy Bisaha) (2013). The Catholic University of America press. . *''Anna Comnena: The Alexiad'' (Translated by E. R. A. Sewter) (1969). Penguin Books. . *''Anonymus, Notary of King Béla: The Deeds of the Hungarians'' (Edited, Translated and Annotated by Martyn Rady and László Veszprémy) (2010). In: Rady, Martyn; Veszprémy, László; Bak, János M. (2010); ''Anonymus and Master Roger''; CEU Press; . *''Aurelius Victor: De Caesaribus'' (Translated with an introduction and commentary by H. W. Bird) (1994). Liverpool University Press. . *''Cecaumeno: Consejos de un aristócrata bizantino'' (Introducción, traducción y notas de Juan Signes Codoñer) Kekaumenos: A Byzantine Nobleman's Advice: Introduction, Translation and Notes by Juan Signes Codoñer(2000). Alianza Editorial. . *''Constantine Porphyrogenitus: De Administrando Imperio'' (Greek text edited by Gyula Moravcsik, English translation b Romillyi J. H. Jenkins) (1967). Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies. . *''Deeds of John and Manuel Comnenus by John Kinnamos'' (Translated by Charles M. Brand) (1976). Columbia University Press. . *''Geoffrey of Villehardouin: The Conquest of Constantinople'' (2008). In: ''Joinville and Villehardouin: Chronicles of the Crusades'' (Translated with an Introduction and Notes by Caroline Smith); Penguin Classics; . *''John Skylitzes: A Synopsis of Byzantine History, 811–1057'' (Translated by John Wortley with Introductions by Jean-Claude Cheynet and Bernard Flusin and Notes by Jean-Claude Cheynet) (2010). Cambridge University Press. . *''Laonikos Chalkokondyles: Demonstrations of Histories (Books I-III)'' (A translation with commentary by Nicolaos Nicoloudis) (1996). St. D. Basilopoulos. . *''O City of Byzantium, Annals of Niketas Choniatēs'' (Translated by Harry J. Magoulias) (1984). Wayne State University Press. . *''Paulus Orosius: The Seven Books of History against the Pagans'' (Translated by Roy J. Deferrari) (1964). The Catholic University of America Press. . *''Procopius: History of the Wars (Books VI.16–VII.35.)'' (With an English Translation by H. B. Dewing) (2006). Harvard University Press. . *''Royal Frankish Annals'' (1972). In: ''Carolingian Chronicles: Royal Frankish Annals and Nithard's Histories'' (Translated by Bernhard Walter Scholz with Barbara Rogers); The University of Michigan Press; . *''Simon of Kéza: The Deeds of the Hungarians'' (Edited and translated by László Veszprémy and Frank Schaer with a study by Jenő Szűcs) (1999). CEU Press. . *''The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor: Byzantine and Near Eastern History, AD 284–813'' (Translated with Introduction and Commentary by Cyril Mango and Roger Scott with the assistance of Geoffrey Greatrex) (2006). Oxford University Press. . *''The Geography of Ananias of Širak (AŠXARHAC'OYC'): The Long and the Short Recensions'' (Introduction, Translation and Commentary by Robert H. Hewsen) (1992). Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag. . *''The Gothic History of Jordanes'' (in English Version with an Introduction and a Commentary by Charles Christopher Mierow, Ph.D., Instructor in Classics in Princeton University) (2006). Evolution Publishing. . *''The History of Theophylact Simocatta'' (An English Translation with Introduction and Notes: Michael and Mary Whitby) (1986). Clarendon Press. . *''The Mission of Friar William of Rubruck: His journey to the court of the Great Khan Möngke, 1253–1255'' (Translated by Peter Jackson, Introduction, notes, and appendices by Peter Jackson and David Morgan) (2009). The Hakluyt Society. . *''The Nibelungenlied: The Lay of the Nibelungs'' (Translated with an Introduction and Notes by Cyril Edwards) (2010). Oxford University Press. . *''The Russian Primary Chronicle: Laurentian Text'' (Translated and edited by Samuel Hazzard Cross and Olgerd P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor) (1953). Medieval Academy of America. .


Secondary sources

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Further reading

* * * * * * *


External links


Historical myths in Communist Romania
(als
part 2


{{human genetics Romanian language History of the Romanians Pastoralists
Romanians The Romanians ( ro, români, ; dated exonym '' Vlachs'') are a Romance-speaking ethnic group. Sharing a common Romanian culture and ancestry, and speaking the Romanian language, they live primarily in Romania and Moldova. The 2011 Romania ...