Sergei Says:
> What always astonished me is a (never commented?) BALTIC loan in
> Romanian: doina (Rex, correct the spelling in case it's wrong,
> please) 'folk song and dance' (correct the semantics as well, if...)
> < (?) Baltic *daina: 'song'. Any ideas?
Checking a bit, the spelling is good..but it carries a meaning of a specific
group/type of older country/folk songs, without accompanying dance meaning.
Sad mournful songs, what Americans would call a "tear jerker", a country
lost love..life is unfair..type of lament (it is also used often as a girls
name.)
With Mirel's and Piotr's input (neatly filed :-) balanced, we get closer to
my perception I think...the 60%+ I felt a little high to describe the Salvic
influence on the language in general, beyond the lexicon.
Adding to Mirel's assessment of components, the greatest single source of
new vocabulary recently is: English words, fully incorporated into the
language unchanged. Of course, the flood of cyber-tech and computing
words, but also marketing/commerce words:
nonstop (usually narrowed in meaning to a market open 24 hours)
supermarket / market
media
manager
model (as in female, clothing)
babysitter
catering
valentine's day (day not translated to ziua)
shooting (for camera work)
burger
sandwiches
fast food
pub
master
supervisor
..and a very cute one: mcdrive (for any drive through service window)
(Piotr: I haven't overlooked your Ruthenian source question..I will look for
the forgotten reference, as I commented from memory..but will report when I
find it.)
Regards;
Rex H. McTyeire
Bucharest, Romania
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