Re: [tied] cuman , slavic or balcanic?

As far as I know, the historically natural form Rumânia was initially used as the official name of the Walachian/Moldavian union in the mid-19th century, but the Latinised variant România soon came to be regarded as more correct. Other nations, apparently unaware of the change of fashion in Romanian itself, continued to refer to the country as R(o)umania (English), Rum&nija (Bulgarian), Rumynija (Russian), Rumunia (Polish), Rumunsko (Czech), Rumania (Spanish, Greek), Roumanie (French), Rumänien (German), Roemenië (Dutch), etc. In some countries, however, new forms with <Rom-> have now been introduced for older <Rum-> (e.g. Italian Romania, Portuguese Roménia, Macedonian Romanija). The spelling <Rumania(n)> prevailed in English until very recently and is still used as an occasional variant, but <Romania(n)> (rare until the 1950s) is now considered official and politically correct, since it's supposed to respect the preferences of the Romanians.

Piotr

----- Original Message -----
From: alexmoeller@...

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Sunday, April 28, 2002 3:07 PM

Subject: Re: [tied] cuman , slavic or balcanic?

[PG:] Romanian român (+ românesc, românca) is a late, artificially Latinised form, emphasising the Latin etymology of the word. The regular phonological development of <ro:má:n-> in Romanian was <rumîn> with the historically normal change of pretonic o > u and of stressed pre-nasal a > î (the original form of the adjective was actually <rumînesc> with the borrowed suffix <-esc>, cf. Rus. rumynskij).

[Moeller] this is what I suspected to be too. But I needed to know the opinion of you ,lingvists, and you confirmed it must be "rum". In fact everyone tell to this "rum" but not romanians thierself and this is just of recent times ( I guess even in Ceaucescu time was made this " transformation". )

many thanks for your help