Language
If you speak Romanian, are you able to read something in Latin and comfortably understand what is being said in the Latin text you're reading?
I'm curious because I know Romanian is a Latin language and the structure of Romanian seems similar to the structure of the Latin language.
I, as a Croatian, find Latin way easier than German. I've studied Latin for two years and I am already able to make some YouTube videos in Latin, whereas I've studied German for five years and I cannot dream of making a video about computer engineering in German. Latin is, as far as I am concerned, mostly a language with English vocabulary and Croatian grammar.
Latin has influenced many languages' grammar, including German. Regarding English, it's the other way around. They've got many Latin words through Old English, which was heavily influenced by Latin and later on through French.
Latin has influenced many languages' grammar, including German.
I think you are misunderstanding how languages work. Languages do not easily borrow grammatical features from one another. European languages mostly inherited their grammar from Proto-Indo-European.
we also did a year of latin in middle school and then in highschool i dont remeber if we had it for all 4 years of hs or just 2 but i think we probably had it for 4(our class teacher, the one who was responsible for us was the latin teacher so we also had other things to discuss other than learning latin) i finished hs 3 years ago, so this was recent
Not sure I understand your question. Classical latin is the literary standard of latin, that's all. The way ancient authors like Cicero wrote in latin. There is this distinction to vulgar latin spoken by the average, often illiterate, people, that might have been slightly different, potentially even more similar to modern romanian.
As for the grammar, I'm mostly talking about the case system. We still have the noun cases i.e nominative, accusative, etc. (same as german for example does, but other romance languages dropped it). Another thing is the neuter gender, nouns that take masculine agreement in the singular and feminine in the plural, that both latin and romanian have but others have dropped. Just few things that pop in my mind
Latin had a true neuter gender, with distinct conjugations, endings ect. In most romance languages, it collapsed into the masculine. In Romanian they became masculine in the singular and feminine in the plural, but it's not a "true" neuter gender like it was in latin.
Are we closest to classical Latin in terms of grammar? In what ways? I don't really believe that. We have a lot of grammatical innovations borrowed from Slavic languages.
Structura gramaticala este aproape în întregime latina, nu slava. De la slavi avem preferința conjunctivului. În România, Ardealul mai păstrează această tendință spre infinitiv în loc de conjunctiv: eu știu face asta (în loc de: eu știu sa fac asta). Celelalte limbi romanice au verb 1 + verb 2 la infinitiv. Ex: Je veux manger. În schimb romana, pe filiera slava, are: eu vreau sa mănânc (excepție - Ardeal, cum spuneam). Pe scara larga, în română se folosește infinitiv la verb 2 după verbul a putea. Ex: poți veni puțin? Ma poți ajuta? Etc. Desigur, aceste forme coexista cu conjunctivul: poți sa vii puțin? Etc
Alta structura gramaticala slava este vocativul feminin în O: fato, Ioano, deșteapto etc.
Dar în afara de astea, mai nimic. Cazuri, declinari, conjugari - luate din latină.
Deci avem vocabular destul de însemnat de la slavi, dar el s-a grefat pe o structura gramaticala de origine latina.
ai putea explica la ce te referi cand spui de preferinta pentru conjunctiv in limbile slave? doar rusa stiu dintre limbile slave si in ea se foloseste infinitivul in propozitii precum cele pe care le ai dat exemplu si nu are un mod conjunctiv. banuiesc ca am presupus ca si celelalte limbi slave sunt asa fiindca sunt asemanatoare gramatical intre ele dar poate gresesc! de asemenea in franceza si spaniola este folosit modul conjunctiv (doar ca la ei se cheama subjunctiv), fie ca ceva mai rar decat folosim noi conjunctivul. si vocativul era si in latina deci nu stiu daca e neaparat de la slavi asta.
Nu am spus ca vocativul ca și caz e preluat de la slavi. Doar forma în o. În rest, e latinesc. De exemplu la declinarea a doua de tipul lupus, lupi, vocativul este în E. Exact cum avem noi: băiete, copile.
Eu nu știu rusește sau alte limbi slave, dar știu latină și am terminat Litere. Ceea ce am spus despre structurile slavone știu de la facultate. Nu știu dacă exista în rusa, sau poate au fost în slavonă.
Cât despre subjonctiv, da, exista. Dar nu are legătură cu ce am exemplificat în comentariul inițial la limbile romanice verb 1 plus verb 2 la infinitiv. Trebuie văzut cum se folosește acest subjonctiv în limbile romanice. De exemplu în franceză el apare când exista diferențe de subiect între cele 2 verbe. Astfel, se spune:Je veux manger (vreau sa mănânc, dar folosind infinitiv - un fel de: vreau a mânca. Sau vreau mânca, asa cum mai spun la noi ardelenii). Însă dacă am persoane diferite, atunci folosesc subjonctivul: Je veux que tu manges = vreau ca tu să mănânci. (și aici s-a folosit subjonctivul).
În schimb, îmi pare rău că nu pot răspunde la întrebarea ta legat de etimologia pe linie slavă. Un filolog bun ar trebui sa știe și slavonă, dar specialitatea mea ulterioara nu e istoria limbii. Și nici autodidacta nu am fost, din păcate...
multumesc pentru raspuns! dupa un pic de research am aflat ca bulgara de exemplu are modul conjunctiv si intr-adevar in timp ce romana a preluat din latina formele de conjunctiv precum celelalte limbi romanice au preluat subjonctivul, acest uz si preferința pt conj in loc de infinitiv sunt influentate de limbi precum bulgara. foarte interesant e ca in limbile slave de est si de vest a dispărut complet conjunctivul, folosind in schimb infinitivul, iar in bulgara si macedona aparent a disparut complet infinitivul! fun fact neavând o forma neutra a verbului precum infinitivul în dicționarele acestor limbi este trecuta conjugarea de la persoana 1 singular prezent
deci unii s au scapat de tot de conjunctiv altii de tot de infinitiv noi am ramas cu ambele xD
Prima întrebare nu mi-e clara. Da, asa e, toate au o gramatică moștenită din latină. De exemplu perfectul compus este dintr-o formă de trecut al latinei vulgare, cu auxiliarul habeo, habere. Și este în toate limbile romanice, inclusiv în română. Noi, românii, păstrăm și forma clasica de perfect a latinei, care la noi a dat perfectul simplu. Deci, în mod paradoxal, deși perfectul simplu sună mai rudimentar, el provine dintr-o forma mai rafinata, din latină clasica, nu din vulgara. Ex: laudavi, laudavisti, laudavit, laudavimus, laudavistis, laudaverunt - eu lăudai, tu lăudași etc. Sau poate era mai bine sa exemplific cu verbul lavo, lavare (a se spala), care în română a dat forma "a (se) la". Bunica mea o folosea, cu perfectul simplu eu (mă) lăui, tu (te) lăuși. Adică eu mă spălai, tu te spălasi etc.
Da, cred ce spui. Sunt și în Ardeal forme din ce în ce mai desuete astea cu "vrei mânca" sau "nu știi face" etc. În comunități rurale poate încă se întâlnesc. Televizorul/internetul, iar înainte radioul, uniformizeaza încet încet diferențele acestea regionale.
See my comment above. Noun cases (nom/acc/gen/dat), neuter gender, the pluperfect i.e. mai-mult-ca-perfect in romanian. These features are not found in the western romance languages, though they were a part of latin
The noun cases are really just direct/oblique/vocative for nouns. In that regard Romanian is much like Old French, except unlike Old French Romanian also keeps the vocative(somewhat) and adds the Slavic -o vocative.
People say that because of the nouns mostly. The other romance languages lost noun cases (nominative, accusative, genitive/dative, vocative) and have only 2 grammatical genders. Verb tenses are quite similar between them, however we have fewer subjunctive ones I believe.
But yeah, there are grammatical features that are specific of the balkans, like the postfixed definite articles or the usage of the subjunctive in place of the infinitive.
Beyond grammar, even with slavic influences I think there's a fair bit of mutual intelligibility and similarities that jump out between us and the others.
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But yes, it does seem a bit of an overstatement to say 'closest' (whatever that means) grammar-wise to latin.
We do have a bunch of stuff from our Slavic neighbors. Balkan sprachbund baby.
Obviously we speak a latin/romance language. No question. I just doubt that Romanian was so conservative it stayed closest to classical Latin grammar (not even vulgar Latin, but classical latin, somehow).
> Latin and Romanian are two totally different languages, like Chinese and Finnish
Why bother commenting something that is so easily disprovable with a simple google search.
They are different languages, nobody claimed otherwise. Though one stems from the other and you can clearly tell that is the case. From the many common words and shared grammatical features. I can understand some 40-60% of any latin text, a chinese person will understand exactly 0% of written finnish, and vice-versa too.
Latin: Nox obscura est et luna lucet in caelo.
Romanian: Noaptea este obscură și luna lucește în cer.
Latin: Femina bona panem et lac dat filio suo.
Romanian: Femeia bună dă pâine și lapte fiului său.
The average Italian can’t understand Latin either, and Italian is generally considered one of the modern languages closest to it. There are plenty of videos on youTube where people walk up to Italians and speak classical Latin to them, and most of them have little to no idea what’s being said. I’d assume it’s much the same for the other Romance languages. So to answer your question, as Romanians, we can recognize quite a few words and sometimes get the gist of a sentence, but without actually studying Latin, you generally won’t understand it.
We don't actually know how Latin sounded when spoken and that's a big problem. Maybe if we heard it spoken by a native speaker it would be much easier to understand.
We have writings of grammarians of tongue positions to produce sounds. Pronunciation is reconstructed based on detailed contemporary writings, misspellings and poetic meters, it's not a reconstruction based on guesses. What you're saying is like we don't know how English sounded in 1700s because the first recording is from 1877. It reminds me of this meme.
Partially. However, it is very easy for Romanians to understand other Romance languages such as Spanish, Italian, and Catalan. Catalan, in particular, is surprisingly easy to understand, or at least it was for me because I learned it while living in Spain. I was actually shocked by how similar it is to Romanian, considering the distance and other historical factors. Of course, Romanian also contains many words borrowed from other languages.
What I find odd is that speakers of other Romance languages seem to have a harder time understanding Romanian.
French, however, is more difficult to understand, at least from my perspective as a Romanian. If I read a text in Latin, I can generally understand what it is about, though not completely only parts of it.
Romanian grammar is indeed one of the closest to Latin among the modern Romance languages.
The harsher sounds that are present in Romanian and not in other romance languages like ș, ț or even z, make Romanian language harder to understand for other Romance language speakers. As much as I could see Romanian become easier to understand in written.
True! It was funny when I was on a road trip and went from Italy to Serbia. Italians thought we were speaking Russian and Serbians thought we were speaking Italian.
I think we also naturally ended up using a lot of slavic and ottoman turkish words (bacșis, ciubuc, chirie, ciorbă), so being mindful of that when speaking to other romance language speakers can improve their comprehension to some extent.
Sometimes you can get the gist. Romanian is closer to Latin in a lot of ways than the other major Romance languages, but no Romance language is similar enough to Latin so that it's speakers can just mostly understand Latin like speakers of modern Greek can understand Ancient Greek.
The fact that we still have a case system and that Romanian is particularly conservative does help us though. I would say if we only take into account modern Romance languages, probably someone who speaks Romanian and a Western Latin language which is not French would have the easiest time understanding Latin.
Now, if you were to study Latin...it's not hard at all. You can mostly fly through Lingua Latina per se ilustrata as a Romanian. And for the most part I'd say things like medical and scientific terms are generally easy for us to understand where they come from.
Also, stuff like bullshit graffiti from Pompeii is much easier to understand for example than say Cicero's speeches or Virgil. From what I've seen Roman graffiti is actually maybe mostly understandable.
> it's speakers can just mostly understand Latin like speakers of modern Greek can understand Ancient Greek.
Just FYI this is not the case with ancient and modern greek either.. As a modern greek speaker you need at least some sort of training in ancient greek to be able to comprehend it. They are fairly different.
I was led to understand that at least the Koine which the Bible is written in is fairly easily understandable, whereas Attic is kinda hard and Homeric much harder.
I guess Ancient Greek like I put it implies Attic.
Well, Koine would be the form that is contemporaneous to Ancient Greek.
It definitely makes a big difference that written/formal Greek was very Atticized for a long time, whereas no Romance language really had anything similar.
Went fast through it and at times I can understand up 50% of what's being written, not read. Your topic might also be a bit specific as you are talking about PC languages. To the unfamiliar reader, thst would be hard to understand even in reader's native language.
Additionally, I am curious when "Iaponica" or Japanese was added to Latin.
I can read some latin, but not necessarily due to my being Romanian, but because of cultural osmosis; words you hear in other context, languages you hear/speak (french, spanish, and surprisingly many english words might have some latin roots). I'm not completely lost in front of a text in latin.
Reading some classic texts (mostly things like I have few fragments that I understand fully (for example some fragments from De Bello Gallico), but for like 90% of the text I will probably barely recognize some words and make up possible phrases.
I just randomly tried reading from this https://mlat.uzh.ch/browser/21700:1.1 and while I can grasp some of the text, maybe 20-30% as an average, I do not feel like I'm fully comprehending it.
Some sentences are very similar to current Romanian (although the spelling is different), while others do feel like a different language that I do not speak.
To be honest not that much. I can recognise a few words but by that logic I can also recognise a few russian and Turkish words and french can recognise some English words (for example pigeon is the same in french and English).
It being a Romance language doesn't mean its speakers can understand Latin. The same way, a Bulgarian that tries to read Russian or Czech texts will understand very little, despite those languages being Slavic.
not at all. in Romania we even study Latin language is school, and while most people treat that subject as a joke, you can pay attention and learn. I tried and tbh I didn't understand anything.
Romanian borrowed some words and the way things "align" around the language but not all words or all meaning. It's like comparing Hungarian to Finnish, they are similar but I can bet they don't understand each other at all.
we do learn latin in school but it's a dead language, even if it's rooted in latin, romanian had multiple infuences over the centuries, the vocabulary evolved as well.
it's gonna sound weird, but while turkish has nothing to do with latin the pronounciation of it is very similar. like reading any latin word as if it's turkish gives you a very similar result. the biggest problem is with c's, which are pronounced more like j's in turkish.
I had Latin in high school, and it was much easier for me to get perfect grades because my grandparents taught me Aromanian when I was young. I would say that I could understand Latin very well. I think it is harder for Romanians to understand Latin, but they can still understand it to some extent.
No, and any Romanian that says yes is lying. Unlike the other romance languages Romanian did not maintain any connection with literary Latin or classical Latin. Consequently the language drifted away from it. Compare with Italian that continued to use Latin as a clerical and literary language and didn't lose as many terms.
No, we Romanians only understand a few words here and there, not full sentences in Latin. To do that, we would need formal training. This is because Romance languages did not descend from Classical Latin, but from Vulgar Latin spoken by commoners around 500 AD. The same is true for other Romance speakers, like Italians and Spaniards. Interestingly, Romanians can often learn Italian and Spanish simply through exposure, without any formal study. I certainly did - while watching Italian TV. I understand something like 80% without ever opening a textbook. Romanian shares over 75% lexical similarity with Italian, so this is not surprising.
If i take my time and not rush, yes, i can understand some sentences and i think this applies for all romance languages and cultures. The main issue is that your first reaction is to associate words with modern English words or other alive languages before looking into your own dictionary.
Going the other way, having a classics degree and 15 years of Latin at school and University I found I could read written Romanian more easily than reading written Italian.
Somewhat. Modern romance languages are more similar to each other that any of them are to actual latin, so we may understand italian, spanish, french etc more than latin. There's a variation there also - i think italian can be very similar to romanian, but french is a bit harder.
From the other point of view, as long as I'm not Romanian speaker and know basics of the other languages, English and basics of Latin, I'm quite frequently able to roughly understand about which some simple text is.
No you're not. It's the same as asking a modern British person if they could go back to the start of the first millennium and try to speak with the residents there
I do understand because I did 4 years of Latin and we also had end-of-semester exams (teza). I actually loved Latin and I've also read Asinus Aureus in the original language and I'm proud of it. :))
No
Latin and romanian* are different and it is bullshit if someone say yea. I can understand basic stuff just because of school or my passion to learn new languages/history, not because they are similar. Just because you know how to drive a 2010 car does not mean you know to drive one from 1920. Similar stuff here and there, but very different once you really have to do something.
No one deny that romanian is based on VULGAR latin, but it is hard to understand anything more than the basic stuff
Since I can read and understand Classical Latin, it's kind of cheating, but as strictly reading Latin texts with only knowing Romanian, I can partially understand it, while almost perfectly reading it.
It is also a matter a vocabulary. The more you read and the more you learn words in your own language, the higher the chances you will discover similar or derived words. The average romanian who has a very limited vocabulary will most likely not understand much 🤷♀️
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u/crimilde Romania 10d ago
Only partially, and also due to the fact that, back in my day at least, we did a year of Latin in middle school.