Why do so many core Romanian words with Latin roots come from different roots than in the other Romance languages?

Question

Romanian is a romance language like Catalan, Italian, French, Portuguese, and Spanish so much of its core vocabulary is derived from Latin.

Why then even in core vocabulary does Romanian so often seem to be based on different Latin roots than its sister languages?

to go a merge < mergere

• Catalan: anar < ambulāre
• French: aller < ambulāre
• Italian: andare < ambulāre
• Portuguese: ir < īre
• Spanish: ir < īre

Or is this perhaps a false impression I get just because these words stand out more? I'll add some more examples if I remember some. (I'm not immersed in Romanian anymore)

Answer 1

Romanian is a language that's been well established in the Balkan Sprachbund (which is a German term linguists use to talk about a collection of languages that have shared features over a certain period of time).

Alongside Romanian in this Sprachbund are languages like Greek, Albanian and Macedonian (among others) and they have each played some influence in altering the other, and this is in all sorts of linguistic domains such as Phonology / Morphology / Syntax.

An interesting thing to note about Romanian is that, although deriving from Latin which had no articles, as East/West-Latin were still splitting up, Proto-Romance had started the grammaticalisation process resulting in the determiners observable today in Modern Romance. As Italian and Romanian both share the East-Latin branch they both originally had determiners that PRE-modified the elements they were attached to and over the course of time, due to influences from languages like Bulgarian (another Slavic language) and Albanian, these have their determiners AFTER the noun.

So to quote the oft-cited example here, look at the Italian word for 'the man', which is 'l'uomo' and then compare it with the Romanian word 'om' (man; notice the similarity) then after developing in this Sprachbund around other languages that put their word for the word 'the' AFTER the noun, Romanian also took this on and has 'the man' as 'om-ul'

So, as much as you do cross-linguistic comparison among the Romance languages, you will find out time and time again that Romanian is often the black sheep of the family due to its development in this language area where linguistic features are shared and different characteristics can be shown to have spread around to neighbouring languages after a long period of bi- and multi-lingualism throughout the history.

To swing this back to your point, this is exactly the reason why not just the Phonology, but also the word-stock (vocabulary) of Romanian is often very different from its sister languages in Western Europe. The same reasons for the sharing of features at a level of linguistic structure only happen in a very sort of 'linguistically intimate' setting and when two or more languages are close, the first thing to cross over are words into the other languages. So, if you see that structure has been shared, you'd be wise to make an educated guess that the level of vocabulary-absorption is considerably higher, and in this case you'd be right.

Romanian's history after splitting off and developing in a co-evolutative zone meant that it has slowly been moving further and further away from its core features in the Italic family, in not just words (but very much so), but also in many other aspects of structure (as I mentioned before).

I hope this helps you with your query.

Answer 2

Romanian does, in fact, have a reflex of Latin ambulāre: a umbla "to walk". (There are reflexes of ire as well, though it's become a future modal) I've often found that the familiar roots from other Romance languages do indeed exist in Romanian, though as in this case they'll have slightly different meanings.

The reasons for this are Romanian's relative isolation from other Romance languages, and its cultural domination by Slavic, Greek, and Hungarian neighbors for most of its history.

Answer 3

Regarding Romanian's history: it's a member of the Eastern Romance (sensu strictu) subfamily or the "Vlach" languages. The peculiarities of Romanian are shared by its sisters in that branch such as Aromanian in Greece, Macedonia, Albania; Megleno-romanian in Greece, Macedonia, and Turkey; and Istrian in, well, Istria. Their peculiar history was influenced by at least 4 distinct factors:

1. Being the earliest area to split off from the Empire, in 271 AD - leading to loss of stabilizing linguistic influence from Rome
2. Geographical and later social separation from the other Romance languages, leading to less influence by and fewer borrowings from Germanic. E.g. 'white', instead of coming from Germanic blank, is alb from Latin albus
3. The Balkan Sprachbund shared with Slavic, Greek, and Albanian. The Sprachbund had a significant influence on both grammar and, to a lesser extent, lexicon.
4. The influence of the Paleo-balkan substratum which is not inconsiderable - some scholars report up to 500 roots may be inherited from Dacian

Of course, every modern Romance language has its own peculiar history, but the above I think covers the bases about what makes the Dacian language different.

Answer 4

One possibility is because of its relative isolation from the other Latin-based languages. Imagine you're looking at early Latin dialects diverging from one another, and they've all got both ambulare and mergere.

If people in town A tend to use ambulare more, people in town B next-door might be influenced to do the same. But town Q isn't on the other side of the continent, and so there's no influence to end up with ambulare over mergere, so they've got 50/50 odds (assuming those are the only two words).

This theory requires two phenomena: 1) that a language variant's lexicon can drift over time and 2) that one language variant can influence a similar one nearby. I imagine neither of those would be controversial.

Answer 5

even in core vocabulary ...Romanian so often seems to be based on different Latin roots than its sister languages

I think one can argue not only against a too strict meaning of that, but against its basic meaning: that is simply not true about the core vocabulary.

As said in comment ambulāre gave "a umbla"=to move, walk, ”umblător”=moving, "umblet"=walk, way of walking. And that was more popular until recently than "a merge".

The only example given is wrong.

The core statement of the question is false, and thus the question is misleading, because suggesting (without discussing the issue) that the implicit statement must be true. (If one asks why X? an implicit statement was made that X is the case.)

The majority of Romanian Latin words are common to at least one of the main Romance languages (most often to Italian):

• anatomic elements: mind, eye, ear, nose, forehead, skull, spine, bone, tooth, finger, hand, shoulder, elbow, ribs, knee, thigh, heel, nail, flesh/meat, tongue/language, gum, liver, lungs, kidney, blood, veins, tear, sweat, spit, hair, skin, breasts, chest, navel: minte, ochi, ureche, nas, frunte, țeastă, spinare, os, dinte, deget, mână, umăr, cot, coaste, genunchi, călcâi, coapsă, unghie, carne, limbă, gingie, ficat, plâmâni, rinichi, sânge, vine, lacrimă, sudoare, scuipat, păr, piele, sâni/sîni, piept, buric

• essential objects, beings, elements and actions (water, air, fire, sky, cloud, rain, snow, ice, wind, sun, moon, star, mountain, river, lake, sea, fountain, fish, bird, wolf, raven, bear, dog, sheep, goat, deer, cow, bull, pig, wheat, barley, millet, hay, day, year, week, the days of the week, the year seasons, wood, iron, gold, silver, short, long, smoke, bread, milk, wine, must (grape juice), fruit, house, window, gate/door, to be/is, stay, state, have, come, put, grow, give, die/death, live/life, sin, saint, cemetery, cross, peace, good, to believe/have faith, be born, laugh, weep, lie, feel, see/sight, taste, sweet, bitter, sour, eat, drink, hunger, thirst, blind, lame, crippled, wait, marry, wear, hold, press, cut, brake, bind, [to]judge, fight: apă, aer, foc, cer, nor, ploaie, nea, gheață, vânt, soare, lună, stea, munte, râu/rîu, lac, mare, fântână, pește, pasăre, lup, corb, urs, câine, oaie, capră, cerb, vacă, taur, porc, grâu, orz, mei, fân, zi, an, săptămână, [luni, marți, miercuri etc], [primăvară, vară, toamnă, iarnă], lemn, fier, aur, argint, scurt, lung, fum, pâine, lapte, vin, must, fruct, casă, fereastră, poartă/uşă [Ital.: uscita, uscio], a fi/este, a sta, stat/stare, a avea, veni, pune, creşte, a da, a muri/moarte, viaţă, păcat, sânt, cimitir, cruce, pace, bine/bun, a crede/credinţă, a naşte, a râde/rîde, a plânge, a minţi , simți, vedea/vedere, gust, dulce, amar, acru, mânca, bea, foame, sete, orb, șchiop, ciung, aștepta, mărita, purta, ține, strânge, tăia, rupe, lega, judeca/jude, luptă), family members, most colors, etc.

Most words based on a different root than in the other Neolatin languages have not eliminated the roots used by these other languages. I can only give a few examples:

• the already mentioned a merge for ”to walk” has not eliminated umbla from ambulare

• anima has given in Romanian inimă (heart) instead of ”soul” (which is suflet, still from Latin),

• God is oddly Dumnezeu - but that has the same root deus: Dominus Deus

• "Old man" is bătrân from veteranus, unlike the Italian vecchio etc, but practically the same word (vechi) is to be applied to inanimate things .

• ”head” (cap) comes from the very classical caput instead of the more vulgar testa, which gave ”țeastă” (skull)

• mouth (gură) is like the Italian gola (throat) and the French gueule (snout, face, mug), while bucă (the root of which gave ”mouth” in sister languages) means both cheek and buttock

• the usual word for ”garlic” is usturoi from Latin ustulare, but in Transilvania it is simply called ai, pronounced like French ail.

• picior (foot) comes exotically from petiolus, the diminutive of pēs, but the root remained as such in the special forms piez (archaism for foot), în piezi buni (literally like in English: ”on the right foot”) and în piezi răi (”on the wrong foot”), then pieziș (twisted, not straight, uncertain), piază rea (bad omen, unlucky).

• the word for man/married man/male is bărbat and comes from barbatus, not homo, but from there comes om which means also human (and man/male)

• femeie (woman), unlike French femme is surprisingly coming from familia! - but there is the more colloquial, archaic, now humorous but possibly derogatory muiere (wife. woman) from mulier like Spanish mujer etc.

The same phenomenon can be documented between Italian and French, between French and the rest, between Spanish and the rest, etc. I think that, while getting to the margins of the core vocabulary more uniquely-rooted words may be found in Romanian, and more than in other Neolatin languages, it would not be too difficult to find such words in each of these languages.

---

There are a few completely surprising and exotic forms that really amount to a sort of exceptionalism and reflect more than others the high degree of isolation of Romanian language and of its speakers from the main body of Latin and Neolatin speaking Europe. Many of these are not the same notions/meanings connected to other Latin roots (than the rest of the Neolatin languages), as much as the same words with a different meaning reflecting the absence of the initial object of reference. The words in this case stayed the same, but they changed their meaning as their object disappeared or transformed, within a process that can be described as radical ruralization - in order to avoid the outdated "barbarization":

• mormânt comes from monumentum, but it only means ”grave”, ”tomb” (without any idea of a mortuary monument)

• pământ (earth, land) comes from the urban term pavimentum, the meaning of which has mutated in the absence of any urban structures (but again, the root terra was fertile in the formation of related words like țară=land, country, țărână=dirt, dry earth, țăran=peasant)

• in the same logic, cărare (small, thin ”path” through field or forest) comes from via carraria (a path for carts, carriages); the root was fertile in all Neolatin languages, and it seems that in some it was humbled like in Romanian

• cetate comes from from Latin civītās, civītātem but it only means stronghold, fortress - not "city", of which there weren't any!

Completely "original" Latin roots are hard to find in Romanian. I can only mention the following:

• cale (way, road, path, means) comes from callis (rough path trodden by animals, subsequently any road) and is the main term which in other Romance languages is based on via (more here)

• the word for ”groom” (mire) might come from miles, ”soldier” - as said in Boerescu - Etimologii românești..., page 436:

The often contested Latin etymology of Romanian mire ‘(young) man about to get married, bridegroom’: from Latin miles ‘soldier’, (later) also ‘officer in guard’ could be explained by historical data resulting from the Roman Diplomata Militaria, found in Dacia Traiana, the ex-Roman province on the territory of Romania. The legal marriage (iustum matrimonium) of the Roman soldiers in Dacia was allowed by Emperor’s decree, granting them civitas and connubium after their discharge from the army (Latin: honesta missio), by which the new Roman citizen was accepted into the community as a legally married man and pater familias. Before the wedding, the man was only a miles → mire ‘soldier’, later ‘bridegroom’, while the woman was *milissa – mireasă (promised) ‘wife’ → ‘bride’ (with the Greek suffix -íssa). There is a perfect parallel between Latin miles ‘soldier’ > Romanian mire ‘young man/ bridegroom’ and Latin veteranus ‘veteran (ex-soldier)’ > Romanian bătrân ‘old man’.

(in more detail, In Romanian, page 129 onwards)

These few exceptions come only in the context of a large common background. When Romanian shows words of "original" Latin roots this happens on this background and the phenomenon loses the exceptionalism suggested in the question, given other Neolatin languages show marginal traits of exceptionalism.

The differences when they exist are easy to explain by geographical and historical reasons which mostly amount, as said in other answers and in my initial answer below, to geographical isolation.

It is always useful to remember the map:

If more such roots were active in Romanian instead of the ones common to all Romance the geopolitical isolation would have explained it in the same way it explains the list above. But such roots are the exception!

---

Local languages of Western Romance with more similarities with the Romanian context (isolated, rural) prove a reach pool of words common with Romanian, to the point that a lot of Romanian words of confirmed Latin origin, as well as words considered to belong to pre-Roman substrate have been recently identified in Neolatin idioms (see Dan Ungureanu here) like the Provensal, Romansh, Sardinian, Corsican, and dialects of different Italian and Spanish regions. - For example, the aforementioned "cale/path" seems to have an equivalent in Dalmatian, an extinct Romance language, while pitic (midget) considered of Slavic/Greek origin seems extremely common in Romance along with the related pici (small boy, kid) - see here and here. - Ungureanu also mentions words that were considered pre-Latin, and thus possibly of Dacian/Balkan origin, which in fact have non-Latin but still Italian origin, brought in by the same path of Roman conquest as the Latin words.)

Latin roots present in Romanian but possibly absent in the other four main Neolatin languages may eventually be identified in regional languages and dialects of Western Romance.

Answer 6

To be all fair and square to both sides of this discussion, the actual truth can go either way.

However, in defense of those who say that Dacian was already related to Latin, it makes more sense than you think, if you but try to think it over. This may explain the many dissimilarities between Romanian and other Romance languages, mainly why so many Romanian words have roots in Latin words different than their French, Spanish, Italian etc. counterparts. Roman Emperor Trajan himself said that he was from a Dacian (or related) village, where as a child he spoke a sort of Latin, much like all Dacians from other neighboring villages - this can be found in his correspondence and journals.

Of course that such a theory has a lot of opposition and I understand why that is so. If this theory held, it would refute 99% of all doctoral studies, books, and textbooks about Romanians' origins and their Roman-Dacian heritage. This would spell a big Ouch! for those who issued these studies. Campaigns to change the idea of Romanian heritage have taken place before, and not just in Romania. Before the 18-19th centuries, many sought to restore a Greater Dacia; after that, many sought to create a Greater Romania (which happened for a short spell of time). During Communism, they sought to teach Romanians of their Slavic heritage (thank the Soviets for that), although Romanian and Russian barely had anything in common, as opposed to the other Romance languages. After the 1989 fall of Communism, we returned to the idea of purely Roman heritage while seeking the support of the West and EU accession. I don't know what Dacians did wrong to be sidelined as an uncivilized people (as I, myself, was taught they were, in school). Interestingly enough, all invaders and foreign occupation have been described in Romanian history textbooks as evil, except the Romans. In terms of defining foreign occupation, what makes the Romans so much better than the Russians, the Poles, the Ottomans, or the Austro-Hungarians? The Romans were as much of an invading power as all the other ones. Do you see the politics in this? I know that I am biased, but I try not to be. In the end, all history is more or less biased, because we explain it in accordance with our current knowledge, perceptions, and feelings.

If we but apply common sense, here's one fact we are all aware of: The Roman Empire conquered only about 14% of the Dacian kingdom, which it occupied for only ~160 years. Comparatively, the Romans occupied other areas of Europe, Asia, and Africa for even 400-800 years at a time. For some reason, as stated by many historians, Dacians seem to have forgotten their language completely in the 160-year occupation of only 14% of Dacia, while other peoples who were under Roman occupation for many more centuries seem to have kept their language just fine. To me, that makes no sense.

The Dacian kingdom was pretty well developed when it was conquered (partially) by the Romans. Hence all the artisan work that has been discovered, the complex decorations on Dacian battle shields, Dacian fortifications and other ruins, the over 100 statues of Dacians exhibited in Rome (more than any other people conquered by the Romans), the 4 statues of Dacians guarding Constantine's arch, and the references to the Dacians made in the writings of Ptolemy, Socrates, Pythagoras, Herodotus and others as a well-organized, fearless people. They were well known at the beginning of our era as a strong kingdom that often plundered the Roman Empire before they were conquered, during Roman occupation, and even after the Aurelian retreat in 271 AD (although to a much lesser extent). After the Aurelian retreat south of the Danube they struck a deal with the Romans to protect the Roman Danubian borders from invaders (I'm not sure how well that played out).

References to Romanians' being referred to as Dacians date all the way to the 18th century. Horia, a famous Romanian revolutionary of that century, is depicted on a painting made for the Emperor of Austria at the time (whom he met at least three times at his court) as Rex Daciae (King of Dacia). Horia was known as Rex Daciae, being known to seek the reunification of old Dacia.

The idea that Romanians are pure descendants of the Romans was implanted in the minds of Romanians especially in Transylvania, by Transylvanian Romanian scholars who sought the support of the West, particularly France and the Vatican, in their struggle against Hungarian occupation and persecution of Transylvanian Romanians. It makes perfect sense to seek such a relationship with these European (and heavily Catholic) powers when the Catholic Church was clearly at odds with the Protestant movement (later on), the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Ottoman Empire (the Muslim threat). The Orthodox Church was considered a Slavic church by most; the Slavs were not liked because of their connection to the great migrations that had heavily impaired European civilization and Catholic development, previously. Mind you, the pan-European movement to latinize language occurred mostly after the Great Schism (1054) between the Vatican and Constantinople. Therefore, the Dacians and proto-Romanians could not have been as heavily affected by Carolingian renaissance, or by the Catholic campaign of the Middle Ages that sought to instill the importance of Latin in the sociopolitical relations of Europe.

Moreover, the University of Hamburg, Germany, ran some paleogenetic tests - that is, they compared the DNA of bones dated up to ~6000 BC with the DNA of Romanians nowadays. The resemblance was staggering (around 75%). At the same time, they compared the DNA of Romanians with the DNA of Italians... only about 5-6% resemblance. There were more similarities between Romanians and Italians from Northern Italy, but nowhere near 75%.

Apparently, Micheál Ledwith, adviser to Pope John Paul II, having had access to the Vatican Library, stated that indeed Romanian is not resulted from Latin, but rather that both Latin and Romanian stem from the same mother language, Thracian. Basically, that means that Dacian and Latin were sister languages long before Dacians and Romans met. When Dacians surrendered to Rome, after years-long wars, there is no mention of any translators mediating the peace talks, which would have normally been the case. I conclude from this that Latin was a very important adstratum to the evolution of Romanian (as were the surrounding Slavic languages), but no more than that.

Either way, all of this can be interpreted both ways... There is a lot more to be told about these things, but I don't think I will. If you speak Romanian, you may want to watch these two documentaries released last year about the Dacians and Romanians' heritage. There are also versions on Youtube with English subtitles.

"Dacii - Adevaruri tulburatoare" - Documentary on YouTube 2012 HD

"Dacii - Noi dezvăluiri" - YouTube 2012 HD

PS - I am Romanian and I'm studying linguistics (particularly French). I am proud to be Romanian and am proud of my heritage. I don't dispute the Roman contribution to world civilization and to the Dacian people, by all means they were a great political and cultural empire. But I do dispute the idea that the main ancestors of Romanians are the Romans. For reasons aforementioned and others that I will not mention at this point, I do believe that there is more to Romanian heritage than the Romans and the Latin language. I believe that the Dacian and Latin languages were closely related, enough that there was never a complete latinization and subsequent replacement of the Dacian language by Latin. As for the Romanian words asserted to be Dacian, they are present in other Balkan countries/languages as well, and may very well be of Thracian descent (hence the pan-Balkan similitude). You will find specific sources to the things I just mentioned in the above documentaries (which you can find on Youtube with English subtitles).

Answer 7

I would like to bring in a different point of view which was wrongly marginalized because it does not suit political agendas.

Romanian does not stem from Latin, this is why it is different compared to some of the Romance languages, it stems from Dacian. According to this view and ancient documents, the Dacian language (the language of the people that inhabited Romanian territory and the Balkans during Roman times) and the Latin language were related languages already, there are a lot of very strong scientific/historic arguments to support this idea.

An example: around 3000BC Aryans arrived in India and left there the Vedic Bible which is a monument to the Proto-European language that originated in the territory of Dacia. Well, in Vedic Sanskrit [water] is not [aqua] but is APA exactly like in Romanian APA that came directly from the Dacian language, and Sanskrit APA gave words that are similar to Romanian words that have no analog in Latin, ex. Vedic: APAYA, Rom.: APARAIA - a lot of water, flood.