Romanian lexis

Romanian has inherited a number of about 10.000 (on a study based on 49,649 words) lexical items from its ancestral language, Latin. These comprise most basic concepts of society, for example:

• om "human" (< Latin homo)
• muiere "wife" (< Latin mulier)
• fiu "son" (< Latin filius)
• popor "folk" (< Latin populus)

Many words have not only changed their shape, but also their meaning during their evolution from Latin to Romanian. Such are:

• bărbat "man" (< Latin barbatus "bearded")
• femeie "woman" (< Latin familia "people belonging to a household")
• inimă "heart" (< Latin anima "soul")
• soț "husband" (< Latin socius "fellow")

By the later Middle Ages, a great number of Slavic loanwords had already entered Romanian.

Among the basic Slavic loanwords are:

• ceas clock
• citi to read
• crai king
• curvă whore
• da yes
• drag dear
• dragoste love
• duh spirit, ghost
• haină shirt
• iubi to love
• izvor source
• mândru proud
• muncă work
• noroc luck
• opri stop
• porni start
• praf dust
• prieten friend
• prost stupid; simple
• rând row; order
• sărac poor
• sfânt holy
• sfert quarter
• slănină bacon
• smântână sour cream
• sută hundred
• târg market
• tigaie pan
• trup body
• veac century
• vreme weather; time
• zid wall

(see also Slavic influence on Romanian)

In the 19th century, as the Romanian society transitioned from rural and agricultural towards urban and industrial, the lexis underwent a vigorous enrichment with loanwords from its Romance relatives, French and Italian. Many scholarly and technical terms were also imported from Neo-Latin. Some words, especially of Greek (arvună, ipochimen, simandicos) and Turkish (acadea, beizadea, hatâr) origin, fell into relative disuse or acquired an ironic connotation. The Slavic part of the lexis, of earlier entry and more deeply anchored into the language, survived relatively unscathed.

Among the words which entered the language:

• deja "already" (from French déjà)
• jena "disturb" (from French gener)
• medic "physician" (from Latin medicus)
• servi "serve" (from French or Italian)
• ziar "newspapers" (from Italian diario)

Romanian's core lexicon (2,581 words); Marius Sala, VRLR (1988)

A statistical analysis sorting Romanian words by etymological source carried out by Macrea (1961)[1] based on the DLRM[2] (49,649 words) showed the following makeup:[3]

• 43% recent Romance loans (mainly French: 38.42%, Latin: 2.39%, Italian: 1.72%)
• 20% inherited Latin
• 11.5% Slavic (Old Church Slavonic: 7.98%, Bulgarian: 1.78%, Bulgarian-Serbian: 1.51%)
• 8.31% Unknown/unclear origin
• 3.62% Turkish
• 2.40% Modern Greek
• 2.17% Hungarian
• 1.77% German (including Austrian High German)[4]
• 2.24% Onomatopoeic

If the analysis is restricted to a core vocabulary of 2,500 frequent, semantically rich and productive words, then the Latin inheritance comes first, followed by Romance and classical Latin neologisms, whereas the Slavic borrowings come third.

Romanian has a lexical similarity of 77% with Italian, 75% with French, 74% with Sardinian, 73% with Catalan, 72% with Portuguese and Rheto-Romance, 71% with Spanish.[5]

Large parts of modern-day Romania were under Ottoman suzerainty for several centuries. As a result, exchanges in language, food and culture occurred, and Romanian has absorbed several words of Turkish origin. A small ethnic Turkish minority exists in Dobruja.

• abanos "ebony" (< Turkish abanoz)
• arpagic "chive" (< Turkish arpacık)
• baclava "baclava" (< Turkish baklava)
• bacșiṣ "tip, gratuity" (< Turkish bahșiș)
• basma "kerchief" (< Turkish basma)
• batal "wether" (< Turkish batal)
• belea "misfortune" (< Turkish bela)
• boi "to paint" (< Turkish boy)
• bre "hey" (< Turkish bre)
• briceag "pocket knife" (< Turkish bıçak)
• buluc "pile" (< Turkish böluk)
• burghiu "drill" (< Turkish bürgu)
• bursuc "badger" (< Turkish porsuk)
• caimac "cream" (< Turkish kaymak)
• caisă "apricot" (< Turkish kayısı)
• calcană "turbot" (< Turkish kalkan balığı)
• caldarâm "pavement" (< Turkish kaldırım)
• capcană "trap" (< Turkish kapkan)
•  caraghios "funny" (< Turkish Karagöz)
• cat "storey" (< Turkish kat)

Lots of the Ottoman and Phanariot Greek words have acquired pejorative meanings compared with their original meaning:

• Turkish çubuk ("stick") became ciubuc ("the tube of a hookah") and now is "bribe", since, like a pipe, it is offered to ease a deal.[8]
• Ottoman خزینه, hazine ("treasure, treasure chamber") became hazna ("septic tank, latrine").[8]
• Phanariot Greek πρα(γ)ματεία, pra(gh)matia ("practical-minded man") became pramatie ("immoral person"). Its cognate pragmatic from French pragmatique has mantained a neutral meaning.[8]
• Arabic ‏رَاحَة الْحُلْقُوم‎, rāḥa(t) al-ḥulqūm ("throat comfort"), through Turkish rahat lokum ("Turkish delights") became Romanian rahat ("shit").[9]

• Substrate in Romanian
• List of Romanian words of possible Dacian origin
• Romanian Academy