As in the various strata of the English language: Celtic (pre-Roman
invasion) - Latin (1st - 5th century) - Germanic (from 5th century on) -
Scandinavian (during Norse invasions) - French (post-Hastings), the
Romanian language presents the same succesion of linguistical strata coming
from different major linguistical I-E groups: Thracian (pre-Roman conquest,
2nd century BC), Latin (2nd - 4th century BC), Scythian / Indo-Iranian
(5-10th century), Slavic (from the 8th-9th centuries on), Turkish (15-18th
century; non I-E language) and, most recent, French (19th century, national
revival).
The most important influences are Latin (aprox. 60%) and Slavic (aprox.
30%), although the neo-Latin / French "cleansing" made by purists during the
19th century definitely helped to reinforce the Latin structure.
Piotr is right: Slavic words mostly technical, but also everyday words.
However, I'd rather take :
MCLSSAA2@... 's side: Romanian
(R*o*manian, please, not R*u*manian!!) everyday words (the basic lexicon)
are mostly Latin.
Another typology might be: the Latin words are related to the personal /
family / nature / religious domain (bodily parts: eye, hand, head, nose;
close relatives: mother, fother, sister, natural phenomena: sky, light,
clouds, fields; religious terms: God, cross), while the Slavic ones with the
social structure / relational domain (social ierarchy, tools).
For the moment, I am not sure of the "balta" etymology. I will check
Serghei's statement about its 100% Slavic etymology.
Mirel Palada
Bucharest, Romania
Relevant messages included below.
Message: 24
Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2001 20:39:26 +0100
From: "Piotr Gasiorowski" <
gpiotr@...>
Subject: Re: Odp: Romanian and Slavic
True, and what I said in my original posting on Romanian balta was to the
same effect. Much of the Slavic stratum in Romanian consists of "technical"
terms. But also the everyday Romanian words for "love", "hour", "relative",
"nation", "quarter", "hundred", "rich", "poor", "wise", "stupid", "pay",
etc., are borrowed from Slavic. This is what I call heavy Slavicisation.
Please note that in your posting (cited below) you used the following
Latinate/Romance words:
language (2x), proportion (4x), dictionary (2x), necessarily, random
(ultimately Germanic, but via French), sample, text (2x), classes (2x),
common (2x), Rumanian, usage, bias, Latin, origin, Greek, list (Germanic via
French), rarely, used, scientific, term, -papers.
There are two Norse borrowings (take and big), so the Anglo-Saxon element is
represented by
in (8x), a (4x), the (3x), of (4x), words (4x), from, is (2x), not, same
(2x), as (2x), some, are, much (2x), more (2x), that (2x, including a typo
for "than"), other, and, going, by, my, well, towards, every, than, day, to,
speech, or, news-
Even if we count tokens rather than types, your English is very heavily
Franco-Latinised.
:))
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
From: MCLSSAA2@...
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, February 12, 2001 5:48 PM
Subject: Re: Odp: [tied] Romanian and Slavic
In a language X, the proportion of words taken from language Y in a
dictionary is not necessarily the same as the proportion in a random
sample of text. Some classes of words are much more common that other
classes, and in Rumanian going by proportion of usage in text may well
bias towards words of Latin origin. Same as: in English the proportion
of Greek words is much more common in a big dictionary that lists
every rarely-used scientific term, than in day-to-day speech or in
newspapers.
----- Original Message -----
From Serghei:
2. Romanian balta is 100% borrowing from Slavic *bo'lto < *ba'lta(m),
which is 100% Slavic. Slavic *ba'lt- 'marsh, pool etc.' MAY BE
connected to Baltic *ba'lt- (see my answer to Girts), by hardly
connected with Latin balteus.