View source for Substrate in Romanian

{{Short description|none}}
{{Main|Romanian language}}
[[File:Roman province of Dacia (106 - 271 AD).svg|350px|thumb|right|[[Roman Dacia]] and [[Moesia Inferior]]: according to one of the theories about the [[origin of the Romanians]], the Romanians' ancestors included Roman provincials who preferred to remain in Dacia after the withdrawal of Roman troops and administration in the early 270s AD]]

The proposed substratal elements in [[Romanian language|Romanian]] are mostly [[lexicon|lexical]] items. The process of determining if a word is from the [[Substratum (linguistics)|substratum]] involves comparison to [[Latin]], languages with which Romanian came into contact, or determining if it is an internal construct.  If there are no matching results, a comparison to [[Albanian language|Albanian]] vocabulary, [[Thracian language|Thracian]] remnants or [[Proto-Indo-European language|Proto-Indo-European]] reconstructed words is made.<ref name="Brâncuș 2005 44">{{Cite book|last=Brâncuș |first=Grigore |trans-title=Introduction to the History of Romanian Language |title=Introducere în istoria limbii române] |publisher=Editura Fundaţiei România de Mâine |year=2005 |isbn=973-725-219-5  |page=44 }}</ref>

In addition to [[vocabulary]], some other features of Eastern Romance, such as [[Romanian phonology|phonological]] features and elements of grammar (see [[Balkan sprachbund]]) may also be from Paleo-Balkan languages.

[[Romanian language|Romanian]] developed from the [[Common Romanian]] language, which in turn developed from [[Vulgar Latin]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Vrabie |first=Emil |title=An English-Aromanian (Macedo-Romanian) Dictionary  |publisher=Romance Monographs |year=2000 |isbn= 1-889441-06-6 |page=21 }}</ref> According to a widely accepted theory, the territory where the language formed was a large one, consisting of both the north and the south of the Danube (encompassing the regions of [[Dacia]], [[Moesia]], and possibly [[Illyria]]), more precisely to the north of the [[Jireček Line]].<ref>[[Gabriela Pană Dindelegan|Pană Dindelegan, Gabriela]], [https://books.google.com/books?id=DlrPPUCQmk4C ''The Grammar of Romanian''], Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013, ISBN 978-0-19-964492-6, page 2.</ref> Other scholars place the origin of the Romanian language in the [[Balkan Peninsula]], strictly south of the [[Danube]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Malcolm |first=Noel |url=http://macedonia.kroraina.com/en/nm/kosovo.html |title=Kosovo, a short history}}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Izzo |first=Herbert J |title=On the history of Romanian (Marino, Mary C.; Pérez, Luis A. ed.). |publisher=Linguistic Association of Canada and the United States}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Schramm |first=Gottfried |title=Ein Damm bricht. Die römische Donaugrenze und die Invasionen des 5-7. Jahrhunderts in Lichte der Namen und Wörter [=A Dam Breaks: The Roman Danube frontier and the Invasions of the 5th-7th Centuries in the Light of Names and Words] |publisher=R. Oldenbourg Verlag |language=German}}</ref> ''The Cambridge History of the Romance Languages'', published in 2013, came to the conclusion that the "historical, archaeological and linguistic data available do not seem adequate" to [[Origin of the Romanians|determine the territory]] where the development of the Romanian language began.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Andreose |first1=Alvise |last2=Renzi |first2=Lorenzo |author-link2=Lorenzo Renzi |editor1-last=Maiden |editor1-first=Martin |editor2-last=Smith |editor2-first=John Charles |editor3-last=Ledgeway |editor3-first=Adam |title=The Cambridge History of the Romance Languages, Volume II: Contexts |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2013 |pages=283–334 (287) |chapter=Geography and distribution of the Romance languages in Europe |isbn=978-0-521-80073-0}}
</ref>

==Lexical items==

The study of the substrate involves [[Comparative linguistics|comparative methods]] applied to:<ref name="Brâncuș 2005 44"/>
#[[Albanian language|Albanian]] and its reconstructed ancient precursor – [[Proto-Albanian language|Proto-Albanian]] – an Indo-European language and the only surviving representative of the [[Albanoid]] branch, belonging to the [[Paleo-Balkan languages|Paleo-Balkan group]] of antiquity.<ref>{{cite book|last=Friedman|first=Victor A.|editor-last1=Aminian Jazi|editor-first1=Ioana|editor-last2=Kahl|editor-first2=Thede|chapter=The importance of Aromanian for the study of Balkan language contact in the context of Balkan-Caucasian parallels|title=Ethno-Cultural Diversity in the Balkans and the Caucasus|publisher=Austrian Academy of Sciences Press|year=2023|pages=345–360|doi=10.2307/jj.3508401.16|jstor=jj.3508401.16}}</ref><ref name=fine10-11>Fine, JA. ''The Early medieval Balkans''. University of Michigan Press, 1991. pp.&nbsp;10–11. [https://books.google.com/books?id=YbS9QmwDC58C Google Books]</ref> [[Albanian language|Albanian]] varieties are today spoken by approximately 6 million people in the Balkans, primarily in [[Albania]], [[Kosovo]], [[North Macedonia]], [[Serbia]], [[Montenegro]] and [[Greece]].<ref>{{cite book|title=The Indo-European Languages|last=Rusakov|first=Alexander|publisher=Routledge|year=2017|isbn=9781317391531|editor1-last=Kapović|editor1-first=Mate|chapter=Albanian|editor2-last=Giacalone Ramat|editor2-first=Anna|editor3-last=Ramat|editor3-first=Paolo|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8i0lDwAAQBAJ}}</ref> Albanian, especially the [[Tosk Albanian|Tosk dialect]], also represents one of the core languages of the [[Balkan sprachbund|Balkan Sprachbund]].<ref name="Schumacher2020">{{cite book|first=Stefan|last=Schumacher|title=Perfects in Indo-European Languages and Beyond|date=2020|publisher=John Benjamins Publishing Company|isbn=978-90-272-6090-1|language=en|chapter=The perfect system of Old Albanian (Geg variety)|editor1=Robert Crellin|editor2=Thomas Jügel|volume=352|series=Current Issues in Linguistic Theory|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2Zz6DwAAQBAJ}}</ref>
# [[Classification of Thracian|Thraco-Dacian]] or [[Thracian language|Thracian]], a language that although almost unattested has left traces in toponomy and inscriptions.<ref>Pană Dindelegan, Gabriela, [https://books.google.com/books?id=DlrPPUCQmk4C ''The Grammar of Romanian''], Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013, ISBN 978-0-19-964492-6</ref>
# [[Proto-Indo-European language|Proto-Indo-European]], if none of the other languages yielded any results.<ref name="Brâncuș 2005 44"/>

===Comparative methods applied to Albanian===

In general, words assumed to belong to substratum can be placed into two categories:<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rosetti |first=Alexandru |author-link=Alexandru Rosetti |chapter=La situation du romain parmi les langues balkaniques|title=Linguistica |pages=216-225 [222] |location=Berlin, Boston |publisher=De Gruyter Mouton |date=1965 |doi=10.1515/9783111349039-037 |lang=FR}}</ref><ref name="Sala 2012 84">{{Cite book|last=Sala |first=Marius |trans-title=From Latin to Romanian |title=De la Latină la Română |publisher=Editura Pro Universitaria |year=2012 |isbn=978-606-647-435-1 |page=84 }}</ref>

those related to [[nature |nature and natural world]]
* [[terrain]]: {{lang|ro|ciucă}}, {{lang|ro|groapă}}, {{lang|ro|mal}}, {{lang|ro|măgură}}, {{lang|ro|noian}}; 
* [[Body of water|bodies of water]]: {{lang|ro|bâlc}}, {{lang|ro|pârâu}};
* [[flora]]: {{lang|ro|brusture}}, {{lang|ro|bung(et)}}, {{lang|ro|ciump}}, {{lang|ro|coacăză}}, {{lang|ro|copac}}, {{lang|ro|curpen}}, {{lang|ro|druete}}, {{lang|ro|leurdă}}, {{lang|ro|ghimpe}}, {{lang|ro|mazăre}}, {{lang|ro|mărar}}, {{lang|ro|mugure}}, {{lang|ro|sâmbure}}, {{lang|ro|spânz}}, {{lang|ro|strugure}}, {{lang|ro|ţeapă}};
* [[fauna]]: {{lang|ro|[[balaur]]}}, {{lang|ro|bală}}, {{lang|ro|baligă}}, {{lang|ro|barză}}, {{lang|ro|brad}}, {{lang|ro|călbează}}, {{lang|ro|căpușă}}, {{lang|ro|cioară}}, {{lang|ro|cioc}}, {{lang|ro|ciut}}, {{lang|ro|ghionoaie}}, {{lang|ro|măgar}}, {{lang|ro|mânz(at)}}, {{lang|ro|murg}}, {{lang|ro|mușcoi}}, {{lang|ro|năpârcă}}, {{lang|ro|pupăză}}, {{lang|ro|raţă}}, {{lang|ro|strepede}}, {{lang|ro|şopârlă}}, {{lang|ro|ştiră}}, {{lang|ro|ţap}}, {{lang|ro|viezure}}, {{lang|ro|vizuină}};
and those used in [[Pastoralism|pastoral life]] for:
* [[food]]: {{lang|ro|abur}}, {{lang|ro|brânză}}, {{lang|ro|fărâmă}}, {{lang|ro|grunz}}, {{lang|ro|sarbăd}}, {{lang|ro|scrum}}, {{lang|ro|urdă}}, {{lang|ro|zară}};
* [[clothing]]: {{lang|ro|bască}}, {{lang|ro|brâu}}, {{lang|ro|căciulă}}, {{lang|ro|sarică}};
* [[housing]]: {{lang|ro|argea}}, {{lang|ro|cătun}}, {{lang|ro|gard}};
* [[human body|body]] (some initially used for livestock): {{lang|ro|buză}}, {{lang|ro|ceafă}}, {{lang|ro|ciuf}}, {{lang|ro|grumaz}}, {{lang|ro|guşă}}, {{lang|ro|rânză}};
* [[agriculture|related activities]]: {{lang|ro|baci}}, {{lang|ro|bâr}}, {{lang|ro|buc}}, {{lang|ro|grapă}}, {{lang|ro|gresie}}, {{lang|ro|lete}}, {{lang|ro|strungă}}, {{lang|ro|ţarc}}, {{lang|ro|zgardă}}.

Other words from substratum are: {{lang|ro|bucur(ie)}}, {{lang|ro|ciupi}}, {{lang|ro|copil}}, {{lang|ro|cursă}}, {{lang|ro|fluier}}, {{lang|ro|droaie}}, {{lang|ro|gata}}, {{lang|ro|ghiuj}}, {{lang|ro|jumătate}}, {{lang|ro|mare}} (adj.), {{lang|ro|moş}}, {{lang|ro|scăpăra}}.
 
Words possibly of substratum but not generally agreed among linguists are: {{lang|ro|arichiță}}, {{lang|ro|băiat}}, {{lang|ro|băl}}, {{lang|ro|brâncă}}, {{lang|ro|borţ}}, {{lang|ro|bulz}}, {{lang|ro|burduf}}, {{lang|ro|burtă}}, {{lang|ro|codru}}, {{lang|ro|Crăciun}}, {{lang|ro|creţ}}, {{lang|ro|cruţa}}, {{lang|ro|curma}}, {{lang|ro|daltă}}, {{lang|ro|dărâma}}, {{lang|ro|fluture}}, {{lang|ro|lai}}, {{lang|ro|mătură}}, {{lang|ro|mire}}, {{lang|ro|negură}}, {{lang|ro|păstaie}}, {{lang|ro|scorbură}}, {{lang|ro|spuză}}, {{lang|ro|stăpân}}, {{lang|ro|sterp}}, {{lang|ro|stână}}, {{lang|ro|traistă}}.<ref name="Sala 2012 84"/>

===Comparative methods applied to Thraco-Dacian and/or other Indo-European languages===

The comparative method can be extended to other languages of the Indo-European family, including ones from which Romanian could not have borrowed directly or indirectly, in order to reconstruct Thraco-Dacian substratum words. This yields results with varying degrees of probability. Between 80 and 100 words belong to this category.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Sala |first=Marius |trans-title=From Latin to Romanian |title=De la Latină la Română |publisher=Editura Pro Universitaria |year=2012 |isbn=978-606-647-435-1 |page=83 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Sala |first=Marius |chapter=Contact and Borrowing |title=The Cambridge History of the Romance Languages |editor1=Martin Maiden |editor2=John Charles Smith |editor3=Adam Ledgeway |pages=187–236 [201] |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |date=2013 |doi=10.1017/cho9781139019996.007}}</ref>

Substratum words like ''mal'' (1. shore, bank; 2. ravine, reg. a raised portion of land smaller than a hill and with abrupt sides) have almost identical correspondents in Albanian ''mal'' (mountain), but they can also be related to toponyms like Dacia Maluensis later renamed by Romans to Dacia Ripensis (''rīpa'' - meaning bank, shore -  has been inherited in Romanian as ''râpă'' - the abrupt side of a hill).<ref name="Brâncuș 2005 45">{{Cite book|last=Brâncuș |first=Grigore |trans-title=Introduction to the History of Romanian Language |title=Introducere în istoria limbii române] |publisher=Editura Fundaţiei România de Mâine |year=2005 |isbn=973-725-219-5  |page=45 }}</ref>

All river names over 500&nbsp;km and half of those between 200 and 500&nbsp;km derive from pre-[[Latin]] substratum, according to linguist and philologist Oliviu Felecan.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Felecan |first1=Oliviu |last2=Felecan |first2=Nicolae |title=Etymological strata reflected in Romanian hydronymy |journal=Quaderns de Filología. Estudis Lingüístics |volume=20 |issue=Toponímia Románica |pages=251–269 |year=2015 |issn=1135-416X |doi=10.7203/qfilologia.20.7521 |doi-access=free |hdl=10550/49693 |hdl-access=free }}</ref> Similarly, linguist [[Grigore Brâncuș]] states that almost the entire major hydronymy has been transmitted from Dacian to Romanian.<ref name="Brâncuș 2005 45"/> Other linguists have pointed out that the present Romanian forms of these hydronyms indicate that they were borrowed from [[Slavs]] or [[Hungarians]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Petrovici |first=Emil |title=Istoria și geografia României |quote=There is not a single river name of Romanian origin, the old river names have been transmitted into Romanian through Slavic transmission.}}</ref><ref name=":2" /><ref>{{cite journal |last=Nandris |first=Grigore |author-link=Grigore Nandriș |title=The Development and Structure of Rumanian |journal=The Slavonic and East European Review |volume=30 |issue=74 |pages=7–39 |date=December 1951}}</ref><ref name=":21">{{Cite book |last=Makkai |first=László |url= |title=History of Transylvania Volume I. From the Beginnings to 1606 - III. Transylvania in the Medieval Hungarian Kingdom (896–1526) - 1. Transylvania'a Indigenous Population at the Time of the Hungarian Conquest |publisher=Columbia University Press, (The Hungarian original by Institute of History Of The Hungarian Academy of Sciences) |year=2001 |isbn=0-88033-479-7 |location=New York |language=English |chapter=Toponymy and Chronology |chapter-url=http://mek.oszk.hu/03400/03407/html/61.html}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Miskolczy |first=Ambrus |date=2018 |title=A román nép születése – avagy egy rejtély filológiája |url=http://acta.bibl.u-szeged.hu/57282/1/aetas_2018_004_134-166.pdf |journal=Aetas - Történettudományi Folyóirat |language=Hungarian |publisher=Nemzeti Kulturális Alap, Szegedi Tudományegyetem Bölcsészettudományi Kara, Szegedért Alapítvány, Szeged Megyei Jogú Város Önkormányzata, Nemzeti Együttműködési Alap |volume=33 |issue=4 |pages=146}}</ref>

[[Image:Rivers Romania.png|thumb|350px|Major rivers of Romania. According to one theory, Romanian (a [[Romance language]]) has preserved the substrate form of their names instead of the Latin form. Other linguist say that the Romanian form of the names of these rivers indicate, that they are loanwords in Romanian mainly from [[Slavic languages|Slavic]] and [[Hungarian language|Hungarian]].]]

{| class="wikitable sortable"
|+ Romanian river names with the etymons found in Indo-European languages as per Felecan&Felecan.
|-
! Name in Romanian !! Proposed etymon !! Language of the etymon
|-
| [[Danube|Dunăre]] || Donaris || [[Thracian language|Thracian]]
|-
| [[Mureș (river)|Mureș]] || morisjo || [[Dacian language|Dacian]]
|-
| [[Olt (river)|Olt]] || *ol- || rowspan="3" | [[Proto-Indo-European language|Proto-Indo-European]]
|-
| [[Prut]] || *pltus 
|-
| [[Siret (river)|Siret]] || *ser-  
|-
| [[Tisza|Tisa]] || Tibisio || [[Dacian language|Dacian]]
|-
| [[Argeș (river)|Argeș]] || *arg- || rowspan="3" | [[Thracian language|Thracian]]
|-
| [[Buzău (river)|Buzău]] || *bhuǧ- 
|-
| [[Crișul Alb|Crișul]] || kres- 
|-
| [[Jiu (river)|Jiu]] || Gilpil  || [[Dacian language|Dacian]]
|-
| [[Someș]] || çam- || [[Sanskrit]]
|-
| [[Timiș (river)|Timiș]] || *ti- || [[Proto-Indo-European language|Proto-Indo-European]]
|-
| [[Ampoi]] || Ampee || [[Daco-Moesian|Daco-moesian]]
|-
| [[Bârzava (Timiș)|Bârzava]] || berzava || [[Thracian language|Thracian]]
|-
| [[Gilort]] || sil-arta || [[Dacian language|Dacian]]
|-
| Ibru || *eybhro || rowspan="3" | [[Proto-Indo-European language|Proto-Indo-European]]
|-
| [[Vedea]] || *ued- 
|-
| [[Nera (Danube)|Nera]] || *ner- 
|-
| [[Năruja (river)|Năruia]] || *ner- || [[Dacian language|Dacian]]
|-
| [[Săsar]] || *ser- || rowspan="2" | [[Proto-Indo-European language|Proto-Indo-European]]
|-
| [[Strei]] || *s(e)reu 
|}

==Phonetic, morphological and syntactic features==

A couple of phonetic changes have been agreed on as substratum influence:<ref name="Brâncuș 2005 46">{{Cite book|last=Brâncuș |first=Grigore |trans-title=Introduction to the History of Romanian Language |title=Introducere în istoria limbii române] |publisher=Editura Fundaţiei România de Mâine |year=2005 |isbn=973-725-219-5  |page=46 }}</ref>

* the fricative post-alveolar consonant ''ș'' - /ʃ/ - comes from the voiceless fricative ''s'' in a soft position for example Lat. ''serpens''> Rom. ''șarpe''.
* rhotacism of n consonant, seen only marginally in Romanian, is a general rule for lexical items of [[Istro-Romanian language|Istro-Romanian]] and [[Tosk Albanian]] prior to the contact with [[Slavic languages]] (before {{circa|600 CE}}).

Several other have been attributed to the influence of substratum by some researchers, but there is no general consensus among scholars. For example, the development of "ă" vowel: linguists Al. Phillipide and [[Grigore Brâncuș]] consider the spontaneous evolution of unstressed "a" from words like Lat. ''camisia''>Rom. ''cămașă'', and stresses "a" before a [[/n/]] or a consonant cluster beginning with [[/m/]], a vowel found also in [[Bulgarian language|Bulgarian]] and [[Albanian language|Albanian]], as the substratum influence in Romanian,<ref name="Brâncuș 2005 46"/> while linguist [[Marius Sala]] points this changes can also be seen as the tendency of the oral language to differentiate between forms of a [[linguistic paradigm|paradigm]], comparable to the development of similar central vowels in [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]] or [[Neapolitan language|Neapolitan]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Sala |first=Marius |trans-title=From Latin to Romanian |title=De la Latină la Română] |publisher=Editura Pro Universitaria |year=2012 |isbn=978-606-647-435-1 |page=148 }}</ref>

Likewise, the morphological and syntactical features attributed to substratum, identified by comparison to [[Albanian language|Albanian]] and other languages of the [[Balkan sprachbund]], are subject [[Balkan sprachbund|to scholarly debate]] since the grammatical structure of the [[Paleo-Balkan languages|ancient languages of the Balkans]], except Greek, is unattested.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Brâncuș |first=Grigore |trans-title=Introduction to the History of Romanian Language |title=Introducere în istoria limbii române] |publisher=Editura Fundaţiei România de Mâine |year=2005 |isbn=973-725-219-5  |page=47 }}</ref>

==A difficult research topic==

Numerous language studies and research papers discuss the problems of the Substrate in Romanian, considered by some to be the most controversial and difficult part of Romanian language since its nature and development could explain the evolution of Latin to Romanian.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Brâncuș |first=Grigore |trans-title=Introduction to the History of Romanian Language |title=Introducere în istoria limbii române] |publisher=Editura Fundaţiei România de Mâine |year=2005 |isbn=973-725-219-5  |page=43 }}</ref>

Some linguists (including Sorin Olteanu, [[Sorin Paliga]] and Ivan Duridanov) propose that a number of words presented as [[borrowing (linguistics)|borrowings]] from a [[Slavic languages|Slavic]] language or from [[Hungarian language|Hungarian]] in standard literature may have actually developed from reconstructed (not attested) words of local [[Indo-European languages]] and they were borrowed from Romanian by the neighboring languages. Though the substratum status of many Romanian words is not much disputed, their status as [[list of reconstructed Dacian words|Dacian words]] is controversial, some more than others since there are no significant surviving written examples of the [[Dacian language]]. Many of the possible pre-Roman lexical items of Romanian have [[Albanian language|Albanian]] parallels, and if they are in fact substratum words [[cognates]] with the Albanian ones, and not [[loanwords]] from Albanian, it indicates that the substrate language of Romanian may have been on the same Indo-European branch as Albanian.

==Other languages==

The Bulgarian Thracologist [[Vladimir I. Georgiev|Vladimir Georgiev]] developed the theory that the Romanian language has a "[[Daco-Thracian|Daco-Moesian]]" language as its substrate, a hypothesised language that according to him had a number of features which distinguished it from the [[Thracian language]] spoken further south, across the [[Haemus Mons|Haemus]] range.

There are also some Romanian substratum words in languages other than Romanian, these examples having entered via Romanian dialects. For example, [[Bryndza]] is a type of cheese made in Eastern [[Austria]], [[Poland]], the [[Czech Republic]] (Moravian Wallachia), [[Slovakia]] and [[Ukraine]], the name being derived from the Romanian word for [[cheese]] (''brânză'').

== See also ==
* [[List of Romanian words of possible pre-Roman origin]]
* [[Common Romanian]]
* [[Albanian–Eastern Romance linguistic parallels]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

{{Romanian language}}

[[Category:History of the Romanian language]]
[[Category:Linguistic strata]]