16
votes
How did Latin "aqua" became Sardinian "abba" and Romanian "apă"?
Labiovelars like /kʷ/ (that is, the Latin qu- sound) and /ɡʷ/ have turned into labial stops in at least some environments in a few different languages (almost exclusively in European Indo-European ...
- 2,427
14
votes
How did Latin "aqua" became Sardinian "abba" and Romanian "apă"?
The change of /kʷ/ > /p/ is moderately common, cross-linguistically. It also happened in Osco-Umbrian aka "P-Italic" (Oscan pis ~ Latin quis "who"), the "P-Celtic" ...
- 69.5k
13
votes
Excepting Romanian, is "Wales" ever translated/transliterated in modern languages with the same term as that meaning "Gaul" or "Gauls"?
This may sound weird, but it's not. Well, in fact, it is very weird indeed.
–– With equal right one might say that Romania should correctly be called Wales. ––
If that joke is lost on you, read the ...
- 247
11
votes
Accepted
How close are the Italian and the Romanian open central unrounded vowels?
Short answer: there is more variation than what is expected, but the data could be interpreted 'on average' to show that Romanian has more instances of a back /a/ than Italian.
The /a/ phoneme covers ...
- 7,626
7
votes
Why do so many core Romanian words with Latin roots come from different roots than in the other Romance languages?
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 ...
- 780
7
votes
Accepted
Why is the Romanian tense system so "simple", compared to other Romance languages?
The short answer: centuries of use of Old Church Slavonic instead of Latin or Romanian as a written language BUT note there is a tendency towards analytic tenses in spoken languages across Europe.
...
- 8,189
7
votes
How come the Romanian verb for love iubi does not originate from the Latin iubeo
The Latin-Romanian sound correspondences exclude any possibility for the Romanian iubi 'to love' to be a descendant of the Latin iubeō (iubēre, iussī, iussum) 'command, order'.
Latin ē/oe and i became ...
- 18.6k
6
votes
What is the substrate of Romanian language?
I will first answer to the title of the question, namely "What is the substrate of Romanian language".
Romanian could have several substrate layers. The most frequent one is the Dacian layer, which ...
- 2,572
5
votes
Which is the origin of Romanian /h/?
All examples in the article are of Slavic origin: e.g. duh & hrean.
Also note Slavic loanwords spread the consonant "h" in Common Romanian in Slavic influence on Romanian:
The majority ...
- 205
5
votes
Accepted
Why is Portuguese 'mundo' transcribed phonemically /ˈmũ.du/ but for other languages not even phonetic transcription records a "deviation" from /n/?
You'll only get a phonemic transcription like /ˈmũ.du/ in a language that can be analyzed as having nasal vowel phonemes. This is arguably the case for Portuguese, whereas I don't think anyone has ...
- 18.7k
5
votes
Accepted
Can it be that the etymology of the Balkan root for "tickle" stretches as far as Korean?
I think I have an answer, based on the comments under the question.
The answer is basically "no". The Romanian and Bulgarian form is common, and is of Slavic origin, and has to be ...
- 780
4
votes
Can it be that the etymology of the Balkan root for "tickle" stretches as far as Korean?
In Korean, 간지럼 ganjireom is the noun referring to a sensation of feeling 'ticklish' but also 'itchy'; the verbal adjective / descriptive verb 간지럽다 ganjireopda is its basic lemma form.
The related verb ...
- 7,626
4
votes
In the Romanian language standard accepted pronunciation, is **noștri** pronounced differently from **noștrii**?
Noștrii doesn't exist in Romanian. It is never written like that.
The false impression that it could be otherwise comes from the influence of the form of the definite article for plural masculine ...
- 780
3
votes
How come the Romanian verb for love iubi does not originate from the Latin iubeo
Besides the rather large semantic shift from "to command" to "to love", there is another argument against the derivation of Romanian iubi from Latin iubeo: Latin iubeo is an irregular verb having the ...
- 31.1k
3
votes
Accepted
Is "nea" <- "*nivis" proof that metaphonic diphthongisation occured in Romanian before the loss of intervocalic "v"?
No, it's not. Rumanian didn't have metaphonic diphthongisation like that of South Italian; what it had was the reverse: all mid vowels (Latin ē, ĭ, ae, ĕ and the back ō, ŏ) diphthongised unless a [+...
- 421
3
votes
Etymology of Romanian "amor" (cf. "iubire")
"Amor" is a neologism in Romanian, much more recent than the Middle Ages suggested in another answer. Romanian dictionaries mark Latin as its origin, because it entered the language for the ...
- 780
2
votes
Why is the Romanian tense system so "simple", compared to other Romance languages?
As far as I know know as a Romanian myself, who has studied grammar in school, Romanian has more than 5 tenses. First of all, we have verbal moods. These are personal and impersonal. The personal ...
- 121
2
votes
Why is the Romanian syntax for "Good night!" opposite to all the other Romance languages?
In Albanian it's Natën e mirë - Night good , which is the original order of Name Adjective order of IndoEuropean languages, rather than the inverted order found in most western languages. So even ...
- 206
2
votes
How could Vulgar Latin divide in so many branches in the Balkans in a such small timespan?
In the question the evolution of the Balkan romance languages is treated in the terms of a tree model with intermediate proto-languages at different stages. Some of the perceived difficulties can be ...
- 31.1k
2
votes
Accepted
Romanian â and î: Is /ɨ/ closer to /i/ than to /ə/?
Historically speaking Romanian /ɨ/ evolved from /ə/, and there are very few words where they contrast. Hence I would suggest â to emphasise the connection with ă.
- 576
2
votes
Are there Romance parallel descendants to Italian "cicalare" and Romanian "cicăli(re)"?
I don’t have any particular sources for this, but this is too long for a comment, so it’ll have to go in an answer.
My guess (and it is only a guess) would be that Romanian has obtained the word for a ...
- 5,281
1
vote
Are there Romance parallel descendants to Italian "cicalare" and Romanian "cicăli(re)"?
Spanish and Portuguese have the word cigarra, which also refers to the insect and ultimately comes from Latin (there is debate whether the Portuguese word is native or replaced its native word with ...
- 134
1
vote
Romanian â and î: Is /ɨ/ closer to /i/ than to /ə/?
SHORT ANSWERS:
You say in a comment:
no one offers an answer as why not to use the "â" letter alone,
instead of "î"
If that is your main question, the answer is the following: ...
- 780
1
vote
Is the Romanian verb "pișca" etymologically related to Spanish "pellizcar" ( to pinch )?
The origin is in fact unknown, and an expressive, onomatopoeic origin was pointed as probable.
The closeness between pișca=to pinch and piele=skin, also pieliță="peeled skin" seems to plead ...
- 780
1
vote
How come the Romanian verb for love iubi does not originate from the Latin iubeo
It is a very difficult question, because it is difficult to know exactly what was happening at the time to trigger such things without many proofs. I would say that it was probably a way the slavic ...
- 1,456
1
vote
When was the name of Wales first attested in Romanian, and in which form?
Your theory can well explain why the name stuck, but assumption of an ignorant scribe would need more evidence to be convincing. It's not very likely in matters of hegemony. The assumption of public ...
- 1,391
1
vote
What is the substrate of Romanian language?
To sum it up: Romanian substrate is more complex than what the formula Romanian=Latin+Dacian might suggest, and Romanian is not just "Latin spoken by Dacians". The Dacians by themselves (and their ...
- 780
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