The Eastern Romance languages developed from the Proto-Romanian language, which in turn developed 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 ...

spoken in a region of the

Balkans 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 has not yet been exactly determined, but is generally agreed to have been a region north of the Jireček Line. Language influence border between Latin and Hellenic

Language influence border between Latin and Hellenic

That there was language contact between

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

or Vulgar Latin speakers and speakers of indigenous Paleo-Balkan languages in the area is a certainty; however, it is not known which Paleo-Balkan language or languages comprise the substratal influence in the Eastern Romance languages. The substratal elements in the languages are mostly

lexical Lexical may refer to: Linguistics * Lexical corpus or lexis, a complete set of all words in a language * Lexical item, a basic unit of lexicographical classification * Lexicon, the vocabulary of a person, language, or branch of knowledge * Lex ...

items. Around 300 words are considered by many linguists to be of substratum origin. Including place-names and river-names, and most of the forms labelled as being of unknown

etymology Etymology ()The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p. 633 "Etymology /ˌɛtɪˈmɒlədʒi/ the study of the class in words and the way their meanings have changed throughout time". is the study of the history of the Phonological chan ...

, the number of the substratum elements in Eastern Romance may surpass 500 basic roots. Linguistic research in recent years has increased the body of Eastern Romance words that may be considered indigenous. In addition to

vocabulary A vocabulary is a set of familiar words within a person's language. A vocabulary, usually developed with age, serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge. Acquiring an extensive vocabulary is one of the la ...

items, some other features of Eastern Romance, such as

phonological 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 ...

features and elements of grammar (see Balkan sprachbund) may also be from Paleo-Balkan languages.

Lexical items

Older Romanian etymological dictionaries tended to assume a borrowing in many cases, usually from a Slavic language or from Hungarian, but etymological analysis may show that, in many cases, the direction of borrowing was from Romanian to the neighboring languages. The current ''Dicționar explicativ'' (DEX) published by the

Romanian Academy The Romanian Academy ( ro, Academia Română ) is a cultural forum founded in Bucharest, Romania, in 1866. It covers the scientific, artistic and literary domains. The academy has 181 active members who are elected for life. According to its byl ...

continues to list many words as borrowings, though the work of other linguists (Sorin Olteanu, Sorin Paliga, Ivan Duridanov, ''et al.'') may indicate that a number of these are in fact indigenous, from local

Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...

. Though the substratum status of many Romanian words is not much disputed, their status as Dacian words is controversial, some more than others. There are no significant surviving written examples of the Dacian language, so it is difficult to verify in most cases whether a given Romanian word is actually from Dacian or not. Many linguists however favor a Dacian source for the Romanian substratum. Many of the Romanian substratum words have Albanian

cognates In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language. Because language change can have radical eff ...

, and if these words are in fact Dacian, it indicates that the Dacian language may have been on the same branch as Albanian. The Bulgarian Thracologist Vladimir Georgiev helped develop the theory that the Romanian language has a Daco-Moesian language as its substrate, a language that had a number of features which distinguished it from the

Thracian language The Thracian language () is an extinct and poorly attested language, spoken in ancient times in Southeast Europe by the Thracians. The linguistic affinities of the Thracian language are poorly understood, but it is generally agreed that it wa ...

spoken further south, across the Haemus range. According to Romanian historian , there are supposedly over 160 Romanian words of Dacian origin, representing, together with derivates, 10% of the basic Romanian vocabulary. Below is a list of Romanian words believed by early scholars to be of Dacian origin, which have also been attributed to other origins. The list does not include the Dacian plant names collected by

Dioscorides Pedanius Dioscorides ( grc-gre, Πεδάνιος Διοσκουρίδης, ; 40–90 AD), “the father of pharmacognosy”, was a Greek physician, pharmacologist, botanist, and author of '' De materia medica'' (, On Medical Material) —a 5-vo ...

and Pseudo-Apuleius, since these words were not retained in Romanian. * The ''Notes'' column contains information found in various dictionaries. "Not in current use" indicates words not found in dictionaries of contemporary Romanian. * The ''Sources'' column indicates the linguist(s) or the works who suggested including the words in the list: *"Sala"
Marius Sala
''De la latină la română'' (1998

*"Hasdeu":

Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu ( 26 February 1838 – ) was a Romanian writer and philologist, who pioneered many branches of Romanian philology and history. Life He was born Tadeu Hâjdeu in Cristineștii Hotinului (now Kerstentsi in Chernivtsi ...

, ''Etymologicum Magnum Romaniae'', 1894. *"Russu": , ''Limba traco-dacilor'', Editura Științifică, 1967. The words that have been identified by I. I. Russu to have cognates in Albanian are marked with ''(Alb.)''. *"Vraciu": Ariton Vraciu, ''Limba daco-geților'', Timișoara: Editura Facla, 1980. *"NODEX": ''Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române'' 'The New Dictionary of the Romanian Language'' Litera Internațional, 2002. In this dictionary substratum words are labeled ''cuvînt autohton'' "native word". *"Olteanu": Sorin Olteanu, "The TDM Palatal". Sorin Olteanu
"The TDM Palatal"
*"Ciorănescu": Alexandru Ciorănescu, ''Diccionario etimológico rumano'', Tenerife: Universidad de la Laguna, 1958–1966. *Sorin Paliga, Etymological Lexicon of the Indigenous (Thracian) Elements in Romanian, Bucharest: Editura Evenimentul, 2006.

Other languages

There are also some Romanian substratum words in languages other than Romanian, these examples having entered via Romanian (

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 ...

) dialects. An example is ''vatră'' (home or hearth) which is found in Albanian,

Serbo-Croatian Serbo-Croatian () – also called Serbo-Croat (), Serbo-Croat-Bosnian (SCB), Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian (BCS), and Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS) – is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia an ...

, Carpathian highlander dialects of Polish and Ukrainian and other neighboring languages, though with modified meaning. Another one is Bryndza, a type of cheese made in Eastern

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

, the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...

(Moravian Wallachia),

Slovakia Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the s ...

and

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

, the word being derived from the Romanian word for cheese (''brânză'').

Lexical items

Other languages

See also

Notes

References

Further reading