Romanian lexis
The lexis of the Romanian language (or Daco-Romanian), a Romance language, has changed over the centuries as the language evolved from Vulgar Latin, to Proto-Romanian, to medieval, modern and contemporary Romanian.
Proto-Romanian
Romanian has inherited a number of about 2000 lexical items from its ancestral language, Latin. These comprise most basic concepts of society, for example:
- om "human" (< Latin homo)
- muiere "wife" (< Latin mulier)
- fiu "son" (< Latin filius)
- popor "folk" (< Latin populus)
Many words have not only changed their shape, but also their meaning during their evolution from Latin to Romanian. Such are:
- bărbat "man" (< Latin barbatus "bearded")
- femeie "woman" (< Latin familia "people belonging to a household")
- inimă "heart" (< Latin anima "soul")
- soț "husband" (< Latin socius "fellow")
Medieval Romanian
By the later Middle Ages, a great number of Slavic loanwords had already entered Romanian.
Among the basic Slavic loanwords are:
- ceas clock
- citi to read
- crai king
- curvă whore
- da yes (the word may be derived from the Latin word "ita" meaning "of course" or "thus")
- drag dear
- dragoste love
- duh spirit, ghost
- haină shirt
- iubi to love
- izvor source
- mândru proud
- muncă work
- noroc luck
- opri stop
- porni start
- praf dust
- prieten friend
- prost stupid; simple
- rând row; order
- sărac poor
- sfânt holy
- sfert quarter
- slanină bacon
- smântână sour cream
- sută hundred
- târg market
- tigaie pan
- trup body
- veac century
- vreme weather; time
- zid wall
(see also Slavic influence on Romanian)
Modern Romanian
In the 19th century, as the Romanian society transitioned from rural and agricultural towards urban and industrial, the lexis underwent a vigorous enrichment with loanwords from its Romance relatives, French and Italian. Many scholarly and technical terms were also imported from Neo-Latin. Some words, especially of Greek (arvună, ipochimen, simandicos) and Turkish (acadea, beizadea, hatâr) origin, fell into relative disuse or acquired a ironic connotation. The Slavic part of the lexis, of earlier entry and more deeply anchored into the language, survived relatively unscathed.
Among the words which entered the language:
- deja "already" (from French déjà)
- jena "disturb" (from French gener)
- medic "physician" (from Latin medicus)
- servi "serve" (from French or Italian)
- ziar "newspapers" (from Italian diario)
See also
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