Peles Castle, Sinaia, Romani

Language of the Month May 2021: Romanian

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I have made it relatively clear in the past that besides languages and traveling my main hobby is video games. (see these articles for how games have actually shaped my language learning!) Recently, one of my favorite series, Resident Evil, released the 8th game in the main series, and although it was fairly obviously the game is meant to take place in Eastern Europe, the game plays coy about its exact location. However, the currency used in-game, lei, provided evidence that the setting is intended to be Romania. 

Although there is no Romanian present in the game, this piqued my interest about Romanian language and culture, and as I consistently discover with the languages chosen for this series, this is a rich history and plenty of interesting facts about the language.

Romanian is unique in that it is a Romantic language that uses the cyrillic alphabet. Before the official adaptation, there was Romanian script, but this largely only existed in official church writings. In spite of the use of cyrillic, and in spite of its earliest written evidence only dating to the 1500s, grammatically it is most likely the closest modern language to the original Latin. This is mostly due to its isolation from other languages because of the Balkans. Because of its evolution in Eastern Europe, we also see more Slavic influence on vocabulary compared to other Romance languages. The most unique retention of Latin is the use of 5 cases, mostly lost in other Romance languages.

Due to its close relation with Latin, consonants and vowels are relatively “pure” and sound as written, both in cyrillic and when written in Latin script. One interesting point of the written language is that for s and t, instead of cedillas, it is actually considered correct to use commas underneath the letters. Likewise, k, q, y, and w only appear in loanwords. Another unique feature among Romance languages is that definite articles are actually attached to the end of words, as opposed to appearing separately at the beginning.

With around 24 million speakers, Romanian is the least-utilized Romance language in modern times. Still, it enjoys status as an official language not only in its home country, but also Moldova and parts of Serbia and Greece. There are millions of diaspora speakers in Spain, Greece, and other European countries. The most popular contribution to English is undoubtedly a name familiar to us all, Dracula. Drac is Romanian for dragon, and ul represents the definite article attached to the end. So where does the a come in? A represents “son of,” so when put together, Dracula means “son of the dragon!”

Further Reading

Romanian

Image of book cover for Dracula is Dead

Our Advisory Board member, Senator James Rosapepe, and his wife Sheilah Kast wrote this book, Dracula is Dead, about the time they spent in Romania. (non-affiliated link, we do not profit from clicks or purchases from Amazon)

Omniglot’s page for the writing system for Romanian https://omniglot.com/writing/romanian.htm

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Fanni is Radnóti's wife
Located near the Tang capital city of Chang’an, site of the modern city of Xi’an in Shaanxi province, in central China.
Soldiers of that time commonly wore a white head cloth, similar to what is still worn by some peasants in China today.  The implication is that the conscripts were so young that they didn’t know how to wrap their head cloths, and needed help from elders.
Before China’s unification under the Qin dynasty in 221 B.C. there were several competing smaller kingdoms.  Han and Qin were two of these kingdoms. Han was located east of famous mountain passes that separated that area from the power base of the Qin dynasty, with its capital in Chang’an. The Qin dynasty itself only lasted about 15 years after unification due to its draconian rule, but soldiers under Qin rule retained a reputation as strong fighters.
The area of Guanxi, meaning “west of the passes”, refers to the area around the capital city of Chang’an.
This is an alternative name for a province in western China, now known as Qinghai, which literally means “blue sea”.  Kokonor Lake, located in Qinghai, is the largest saline lake in China.  
Before China’s unification under the Qin dynasty in 221 B.C. there were several competing smaller kingdoms.  Han and Qin were two of these kingdoms. Han was located east of famous mountain passes that separated that area from the power base of the Qin dynasty, with its capital in Chang’an. The Qin dynasty itself only lasted about 15 years after unification due to its draconian rule, but soldiers under Qin rule retained a reputation as strong fighters.
Oulart Hollow was the site of a famous victory of the Irish rebels over British troops, which took place on May 27, 1798. The rebels killed nearly all the British attackers in this battle. (Source: Maxwell, W. H. History of the Irish Rebellion in 1798. H. H. Bohn, London 1854, pp 92-93, at archive.org)
The phrase "United Men" is elaborated upon in the Notes section below.

Ghetto

An Italian word meaning “foundry.” It originally referred to a part of the city of Venice where the Jews of that city were forced to live; the area was called “the ghetto” because there was a foundry nearby. The term eventually came to refer to any part of a city in which a minority group is forced to live as a result of social, legal, or economic pressure. Because of the restrictions placed upon them, ghetto residents are often impoverished.

"You’re five nine, I am do-uble two"

A reference to the year 1959 and the year 2020.

"The Currency"

Meaning US dollars - this is drawing attention to the fact that Cuba is effectively dollarized.

"Sixty years with the dom-ino stuck"

This sentence is a reference to the Cold War notion that countries would turn Communist one after the other - like dominos. Cuba was the first domino, but it got stuck - no one else followed through into communism.

رحلنا

رحلنا, or "rahalna," means "we have left."

Habibi

Habibi means "my love."

Ra7eel

Ra7eel, or "raheel," means "departure."

3awda

3awda, or "awda," means "returning."

أهلاً

أهلاً, or "ahalan," means "welcome."

a5 ya baba

a5 ya baba, pronounced "akh ya baba," means "Oh my father."

golpe

Treece translates "golpe" as "beating", which is correct, however misses the secondary meaning of the word: "coup".

Carlos

The “Carlos” referred to in the poem is most likely Carlos Bolsonaro, a politician from Rio de Janeiro and the second son of Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s current president. His and his father’s involvement in Marielle’s murder has been questioned and investigated.