Why do some people consider Romanian a Slavic language?

Doggy   Mon Jun 18, 2007 3:00 pm GMT
I have meet people from Western Europe who consider the Romanian language a Slavic one...

Once I was at an international meeting, where the Bulgarians, Slovaks, Polish were standing next to each other talking in their own language... Each of them was understanding what the other one was saying... A Spanish guy came to the Romanians and asked them why don't they join their discussion...

So why do people consider Romanian a Slavic Language?
edy   Mon Jun 18, 2007 4:55 pm GMT
lack of knowleadge and culture...that's why!
furrykef   Mon Jun 18, 2007 5:10 pm GMT
It's certainly more Slavic than the other Romance languages, but it's not really a Slavic language per se.

I didn't even know Romanian is a Romance language until perhaps a year or two ago, but that's because I was totally ignorant of anything about Romanian...

- Kef
Mallorquí.   Mon Jun 18, 2007 5:47 pm GMT
Le roumain est une langue nettement latine, avec des influences slaves, grecques et turques, tout comme l'espagnol et le portugais sont latines avec une forte influence (lexicale surtout) arabe, et le catalan, l'occitan et le français sont des langues latines avec una grande quantité de germanismes.

Une anecdote qui montre la forte parenté latine entre le roumain et le catalan. Des amis majorquains à moi étaient allés a Bucarest. Un type les a abordés dans la rue et leur a vendu un soi-disant Rolex. Après avoir payé, l'un des majorquains s'est aperçu que son copain avait été arnaqué et lui a dit "t'ha fotut" (il t'a foutu). Il se trouve qu'en roumain cela se dit exactement de la même façon. Il s'en est suivi une bagarre... mais le majorquain n'ha pas récupére son argent.

Plein de mots sont communs au roumain et au catalan: cap, nas, bou, nou, fum, pruna, drac (tête, nez, boeuf, nouveau, fumée, prune, dragon, etc.). "Drac", chez nous, signifie "dragon", tandis qu'en roumain veut dire "le diable"; vous y ajoutez l'article masculin déterminé et vous avez "Dracul", i après, pour le plaisir, un tout petit "a" et voilà Dracula.

La revedere, prieteni (en catalan, "a reveure, amics").

Miquel
K. T.   Mon Jun 18, 2007 6:35 pm GMT
I thought Romanian was a Slavic language when I was a child, maybe because I associated it with communism or being a closed country. As an adult, I know this is not true, but I still think of it as having Slavic influences. I'd like to learn some Romanian.


I thought M's comments about Romanian, the Iberian languages and other Latin languages were interesting. I never think about French being germanic...

After reading the comparison between Catalan and Romanian, it made me think how Dracula really represents the devil in a way.
darko   Mon Jun 18, 2007 7:19 pm GMT
Even people from the Slavic countries around Romania (like my countery - Serbia) think that Romanian is Slavic language and thay usually get confused when thay hear it for first time. Romanian is not similar with Slavic languages. To non slavic speakers maybee think that Romanian pronunciation sounds slavic but thats not correct. Its true that Romanian got some words of slavic origin but slavic people cant understan even a word in Romanian
I think people consider Romanian a slavic language because lack of knowleadge, because Romania was wery conservative countrey ( and it is even today), because of Romanians geographical position in estern europe around slavic people and because hystoricly Romania was more connected with the east and the countrey and people look more like slavic neighbours than any other romance speakin nation.
I agree that Romanian is different from other romance languges but learning Italian helped me a lot to undertand Romanian more than my mother tongue Serbian
Alba   Mon Jun 18, 2007 8:49 pm GMT
No Romanian is more similar to Albanian, its the only language Albanian is slightly related to I think.
Stefan   Mon Jun 18, 2007 10:07 pm GMT
yes, look at the names of animals inRomanian and Albanian some of tham are similar and some could not been found in any other language:

Romanian Albanian English

Cal Kali Horse
Pui Pula Chicken
măgar magjari Donkey
iepure Lepuri Rabbit
raţă Rosa Duck
broască Bretkosa Frog
peşte Peshku Fish
Fluture flutura butterfly
şarpe gjarpri Snake
bufniţă bufi Owl

Lexcly Romanian and Albanian are wery close in in words that anciet people use a lot like animals,some objects in nature.....
Alba   Mon Jun 18, 2007 10:10 pm GMT
"măgar magjari Donkey"

I guess thats a dialect because in Tosk we say gomar for donkey lol
Guest   Mon Jun 18, 2007 10:47 pm GMT
The Albanian and Romanian words for some animals have cognates in Western Romance languages as well. Chicken in French is "poulet". In Spanish and Italian, chicken is pronounced "pollo". Horse, in French is "Cheval". IN Italian it is "cavallo". In Spanish, it's "caballo". Many words for animals in the Albanian language probably have Latin roots.
Doggy   Tue Jun 19, 2007 4:27 am GMT
Some of the similarities between Romanian and Albanian words is because they both have Dacian and Latin influences.
Amalampere   Thu Jun 21, 2007 9:38 am GMT
Romanian and Albanian are not related. There are some common words, but they are few. Cal, pui, iepure, peste, sarpe are from Latin. Romanian is a Romanic language with slavic influence, but not so strong slavic influence as many people think. If you want to convince yourself about the Romanic character of Romanian, just learn Romanian and that will become evident.
Daudet   Thu Jun 21, 2007 12:27 pm GMT
The Romanian spoken in Moldavia sounds closer to Slavic,they speak very fast,while the people from Transylvania have sweeter and more melodic accent which is also slower.
Alba   Thu Jun 21, 2007 1:36 pm GMT
<<Romanian and Albanian are not related. >>
Yes they are! In fact, the name of your capital, Bucuresti, can also be translated in Albanian.
Alba   Thu Jun 21, 2007 2:20 pm GMT
And why would you want it to have slavic influence?? lol. we're one of the few people in Eastern Europe that can say we're not slavic so we're special lol