Romania:Romania (formerly also spelled Rumania or Roumania; Romanian: România ) is a country in Europe. It is bordered by Ukraine and Moldova in the northeast; Hungary in the west; Serbia and Bulgaria to the south along the Danube River. Romania has a stretch of sea coast on the Black Sea and the eastern and southern Carpathian mountains run through its centre. Romania has been a member of NATO since 2004, and is also an acceding country to the European Union. The EU Accession Treaty was signed in early 2005, and Romania is due to join the Union on January 1, 2007.
Name
Main article: Etymology of Romania
The name of Romania (România) comes from Român (Romanian) which is a derivative of the word Romanus ("Roman") from Latin.
The oldest surviving document written in the Romanian language is a 1521 letter which notifies the mayor of Braşov about the imminent attack of the Ottoman Turks. This document is also notable for having the first occurrence of "Rumanian", Wallachia being here named The Rumanian Land - Ţeara Rumânească (Ţeara < Latin Terra = land). In the following centuries, Romanian documents use both forms: Român and Rumân, with the latter being the more common form.
It was only in the 19th century, with the rise of nationalism that the form Român was adopted as an official spelling, being chosen over Rumân in order to emphasise the linguistic connection to ancient Rome.
Romanians take pride in being the most eastern Romance people, completely surrounded by non-Latin peoples ("an island of Latinity").
History
Main article: History of Romania
In 513 BC, south of the Danube, the tribal confederation of the Getae were defeated by Darius during his campaign against the Scythians (Herodotus IV.93). Over half a millennium later, the Getae (also named Daci by Romans) were defeated by the Roman Empire under Emperor Trajan in two campaigns stretching from 101 to 106, and the core of their kingdom was turned into the Roman province of Dacia. The Gothic and Carpic campaigns in the Balkans during 238–256 forced the Roman Empire to reorganize a new Roman province of Dacia south of Danube, inside former Moesia Superior.
In 271 the ancient Dacia became the Kingdom of the Goths until the end of the fourth century, when it was included in the Hunnic Empire. The Gepids and the Avars ruled Transylvania until the 8th century, after which the Bulgars included Romania in their Empire until 1000. The Pechenegs, the Cumans and Uzes were also mentioned by historic chronicles on the territory of Romania until the founding of the Vlachian principalities of Wallachia by Basarab I, and Moldavia by Dragoş during the 13th and 14th centuries respectively. In the Middle Ages, Romanians lived in three distinct principalities: Wallachia, Moldavia, and Transylvania.
In 1475, Stephen the Great of Moldavia scored a decisive victory over the Ottoman Empire at the Battle of Vaslui. Wallachia and Moldavia would later come under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire during the 15th and 16th centuries respectively, with internal autonomy under the millet system, and brief periods of independence. Moldova lost its eastern side Bessarabia to the Russian Empire in 1812 (though partially regained it with the Treaty of Paris in 1856), its northern part Bukovina to the Austrian Empire in 1775 and its south-eastern part Bugeac to the Ottoman Empire.
Transylvania came under control of the Kingdom of Hungary by the 11th century (from 1301, Hungary and Transylvania became possessions of the Houses of Anjou and Habsburg). The greatest Hungarian ruler—emperor Matthias Corvinus (known in Romanian as Matei Corvin, ruled 1458–1490)—is claimed by the Romanians because of his half-Romanian father, Iancu de Hundoara, and by the Hungarians because of his Hungarian mother. Later, in 1541, Transylvania became a multi-ethnic principality under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire following the Battle of Mohács. At the end of the 18th century, the Austrian Habsburgs incorporated Transylvania into the Austrian Empire. During the time of the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary (1867–1918), Romanians in Transylvania experienced heavy oppression in the form of the Magyarization policies of the Hungarian government.
The modern state of Romania was formed by the merging of the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia in 1859 under the Moldavian domnitor Alexander John Cuza. He was replaced by Prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen in 1866. During the Russo-Turkish War, Romania fought on the Russian side; in the Treaty of Berlin in 1878 Romania was recognized as an independent state by the Great Powers. In return for ceding to Russia the two southern districts of Bessarabia which had been regained by Moldavia after the Crimean War in 1852, the Kingdom of Romania acquired Dobruja. In 1881 the principality was raised to a kingdom and Prince Carol I became King Carol I.
In spite of its previous alliance with Imperial Germany and Austria-Hungary, Romania entered World War I on the side of the Triple Entente in a move aimed at acquiring Transylvania. By war's end Austria-Hungary and the Russian Empire had collapsed, allowing Bessarabia, Bukovina and Transylvania to unite with the Kingdom of Romania in 1918. Union of Transylvania with Romania was ratified in the Treaty of Trianon in 1920.
In 1940 during World War II, Northern Bukovina and Bessarabia, Northern Transylvania, and southern Dobrudja were occupied by the Soviet Union, Hungary and Bulgaria respectively (see Romania during World War II). The authoritarian King Carol II abdicated in 1940 and the subsequent year Romania entered the war joining Nazi Germany, Italy, Hungary and Bulgaria. Because Romania participated in the invasion of the Soviet Union, the country recovered Bessarabia and northern Bukovina under the leadership of general Ion Antonescu. During the Second World War, the Antonescu regime, allied with Nazi Germany, played an active role in the Holocaust, following its policy of oppression and massacre of the Jews, and, to a lesser extent, Roma. According to a report released by the Romanian government in 2004, the Romanian authorities killed at least 280,000 to 380,000 Jews, primarily in the Eastern territories Romania recovered or occuppied from the Soviet Union and in Moldavia (historical region), though some estimates are even higher.
In August 1944 the Antonescu regime was toppled, and Romania joined the Red Army against Nazi Germany, but its role in the defeat of Germany was not recognized by the Paris Peace Conference of 1947.
With the Red Army forces still stationed in the country and exerting defacto control, communists and their allied parties claimed 80% of the vote in the 1946 Romanian elections, through a combination of vote manipulation, elimination and forced mergers of competing parties, establishing themselves as the dominant force; Western democracies left Romania in the hands of the Soviet Union. In 1947, King Michael I was forced by the communists to abdicate and leave the country. Romania was proclaimed a communist state, under direct military and economic control of the USSR until 1958. During this period, Romania's scarce resources left after WWII were drained by the "SovRom" agreements: mixed Soviet-Romanian companies established in the aftermath of World War II to mask the looting of Romania by the Soviet Union, in addition to excessive war reparations paid to the USSR. During this dark period, hundreds of thousands of people were imprisoned for political reasons, there were thousands of abuses, deaths and incidents of torture against political opponents, bringing gloom over Romania.
A short-lived period of relative economic well-being and openness followed in late 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s, still regarded by some as a "golden era". This period gradually ended, first politically, and then economically. Some party leaders (such as Ion Iliescu, Corneliu Manescu, or Gheorghe Apostol) who questioned the achievements of the regime during the latter portion of this era, were sent to lower positions, which, in 1989, justified their "dissident" position. From an economic point of view, Romania's foreign debt sharply increased between 1977 and 1981 (from 3 to 10 billion US dollars). Thus, the influence of international financial organisms such as the IMF or the World Bank grew, conflicting with Ceauşescu's autarchic policies. Ceauşescu eventually initiated a project of total reimbursement of the foreign debt (completed in 1989, shortly before his overthrow). To achieve this goal, he imposed policies that impoverished Romanians and exhausted the Romanian economy. He transformed Romania into a police state (see Securitate) and imposed a cult of personality.
One positive achievement of the Communist period was the spread of near-universal literacy and the development of a very efficient education system. However, this educational transformation was not coupled with appropriate industrial development and urbanization policies, so that almost half of Romania's population is still rural (47.3%; see Demography of Romania), and mostly poor.
Another achievement is the negotiated retreat of Soviet troops from Romania, in 1958. This allowed the country to pursue independent policies, including the condemnation by the Communist Party of Romania of the Soviet-led 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia (Romania was the only country of the Warsaw pact not to take part into the invasion), the continuation of Romanian-Israeli diplomatic relations after the Six-Day War of 1967 (Romania was the only country in the Warsaw pact to do so), the establishment of economic (1963) and diplomatic (1967) relations with the Federal Republic of Germany, and so forth.
Close ties between Romania and both Israel and the Arab countries (and the PLO) allowed Romania to play an essential role in the Israel-Egypt and Israel-PLO peace processes.
The Communist dictatorship ended 22 December 1989 (see Romanian Revolution of 1989).
During the 1989 revolution (the term "revolution" is contested by many), power was taken by an ad hoc group called the National Salvation Front (FSN), which grouped a number of dissidents with other personalities and (then-unknown) persons that participated in the uprising. The FSN assumed the missions of restoring civil order, taking immediate democratic measures, and organizing elections for a new legislative body. Given the slow pace of reconstruction of the social and democratic system after 45 years of Communism (as emphasized by events such as the Ethnic clashes of Târgu Mureş in March 1990), the largest part of the FSN also constituted itself as a political party that participated in (and won by a large majority) the elections of summer 1990. The move was highly contested by the other emerging political parties, because the FSN controlled most media and therefore the election process was biased. The subsequent disintegration of the FSN, which did not have a clear political platform, produced several political parties including the Democratic Party (PD), which for a time retained the FSN name), the Social Democratic Party (PSD, formerly known as the Romanian Party for Social Democracy (PDSR) or the Democratic National Salvation Front-FDSN), and the Alliance for Romania (APR). Throughout several elections, coalitions, and governments, parties that emerged from the FSN governed or participated in the government of Romania from 1990 to 1996, and then from 2000 until today.
In 1996, the CDR entered power on a "Contract with Romania" platform which would have required the CDR to resign en masse after 200 days from a mixed coalition government. Some members had signed on to the contract programme, while others had not; once in power, the "Contract" was repudiated. The major CDR parties were electorally eviscerated in 2000, and the Social Democrats returned to power, with Ion Iliescu once again president of Romania and Adrian Năstase, the president of the Social-Democratic Party (PSD), as prime minister.
On December 12, 2004, Traian Băsescu was elected president of Romania. He was supported during elections by a coalition, called Justice and Truth Alliance (DA), formed of his Democratic Party and of the National-Liberal Party. The government was formed by a larger coalition which also included the Romanian Humanist Party (now called Conservative Party) and the ethnic Hungarian party UDMR.
Following the end of the Cold War in 1989, Romania developed closer ties with Western Europe, joined NATO in 2004 and became an acceding country to the European Union, being at an advanced stage to join on January 1, 2007. The Treaty of Accession of Romania has been signed by EU member states' representatives in Luxembourg, Abbaye de Neumünster, on April 25 2005. Ratification of the Romanian and Bulgarian Accession Treaty is ongoing in the parliaments of all member states.
Romanian heads of state (from the Unification of 1859)
Principalty of Romania
Kingdom of Romania
People's Republic of Romania
Socialist Republic of Romania (from 1965, Aug 21)
Republic of Romania
See also: Kings of Romania, Bessarabia, Moldavia, Wallachia, and Transylvania
Politics
Main article: Politics of Romania
Romania is a democratic republic. The legislative branch of the Romanian government consists of two chambers, the Senat (Senate), which has 137 members (as of 2005), and the Camera Deputaţilor (Chamber of Deputies), which has 314 members (as of 2004). In addition, 18 seats in the Chamber of Deputies are awarded to the representatives of national minorities. The members of both chambers are elected every four years.
The President, the head of the executive branch, is also elected by popular vote, every five years (until 2004, four years).
The president appoints a prime minister, who heads the government, the members of which are in turn appointed by the prime minister. The government is subject to a parliamentary vote of approval.
Administrative divisions
Main article: Counties of Romania
Romania is divided into 41 judeţe, or counties, and the municipality of Bucharest (Bucureşti) - the capital. See also Administrative divisions of Romania.
The counties are (in alphabetical order):
Administrative divisions of Romania blue, the Moldavian region red, and Dobrogea yellow]]
Geography
Main article: Geography of Romania
A large part of Romania's borders with Serbia and Bulgaria is formed by the Danube. The Danube is joined by the Prut River, which forms the border with Moldova. The Danube flows into the Black Sea forming the Danube Delta which is a reservation of the Biosphere.
Romanian sightseeing
Because many of Romania's borders are defined by natural, sometimes shifting rivers, and because the Danube Delta is constantly expanding towards the sea, about 2-5 linear metres yearly, Romania's surface area has changed over the past few decades, generally increasing. The number has increased from about 237,500 km² in 1969 to 238,391 km² in 2005.
Romanian sightseeing
Romania's terrain is distributed roughly equally among between mountainous, hilly and lowland territories.
The Carpathian Mountains dominate the centre of Romania surrounding the Transylvanian Plateau, 14 peaks reaching above the altitude of 2,000 m, the highest being Moldoveanu Peak at 2,544 m. In the south, the Carpathians sweeten into hills, towards the Bărăgan Plains.
The three highest mountains in Romania are:
Major cities are the capital Bucharest, Iaşi, Timişoara, Cluj-Napoca, Constanţa, Craiova, Braşov, and Galaţi.
See also:
- List of Romanian Cities
- Rivers of Romania
- Lakes of Romania
Largest cities
Source: [http://www.insse.ro/rpl2002rezgen/5.pdf National Institute of Statistics, 2002 Census]
Unofficially, sociologists say that in its 228 km², Bucharest has more than 3.5 million people, coming from every corner of the country.
Economy
Main article: Economy of Romania
Economy of Romania]
After Romania's Communist regime was overthrown in late 1989, the country experienced a decade of economic instability and decline, led in part by an obsolete industrial base as well as a lack of structural reform. Starting from 2000, however, the economy was transformed into one of relative macreconomic stability, high growth, low unemployment and increasing foreign investment, and is currently among the most developed in Southeastern Europe. Economic growth since 2000 has averaged 4-5%, rising to 8.3% in 2004. This has characterised Romania as a boom economy and one of the fastest growing in Europe. Romania was granted in October 2004 the much desired 'functional market economy' status by EU officials, and is expected to join the EU in January 2007. Romania's per-capita GDP, calculated by purchasing power parity is estimated to be $8,258 in 2005. The national budget is €28.9 billion euro, which represents 31.2% of GDP, estimated to be RON 322.5 billion (€90,8 billions) according to the Prime-Minister Tăriceanu.
Strong aspects of Romania are the technologically advanced market economy with substantial government participation. Having its own natural resources, Romania has intensively developed its agricultural and industrial sectors over the past 20 years. Romania is largely self-sufficient in food production. High-technology, car-manufacturing, military equipment, software, pharmaceuticals, fine chemicals, and agricultural products (fruits, vegetables, and flowers) are leading exports. Romania possesses extensive facilities for oil refining and semiconductor fabrication.
Romania]
Inflation in 2004 was registered at 9.2%, and is expected to fall to 7.5% in 2005 and 5.0% in 2006. Unemployment in Romania is at 5.5% (July 2005), which is very low compared to other large European countries such as Poland, France, or Germany.
Since the late 1990s, there have been several economic reforms, spurred on by the country's bid to join the EU, including the liquidation of large energy-intensive industries and major reforms in the agricultural and financial sectors. As of 2005, a significant amount of Romania's major companies have been privatised, including the majority of banks, the largest oil companies Petrom and Rompetrol, energy distributors and telecommunications companies. The country continues to privatise remaining state enterprises, including Romanian Post and the Romanian Commercial Bank. In comparison to its neighbours, Romania has a high number of small to medium sized enterprises (SMEes). Foreign investment has increased significantly since 2003, reaching € 5.1 billion in 2004.
Romania's economy grew 5.9% in the first quarter 2005 compared with the same period last year, according to the National Statistics Office. The service sector was the country's main economic growth engine showing a 6.8% rise from the same period last year, while industry grew by 5% and agriculture by 1.8%. Currently GDP growth is forecast at 5.5% per annum. Romania's economy is characterized by a huge potential of tourism.
Trade
The majority of Romania's trade is oriented towards the countries of the European Union. For the first 6 months of 2005, Romania's exports rose 17.2%, while imports rose 22%, in part due to a rise in real wages. In July 2005, Romanian exports grew to a record value of €2.0 billion/month. The trade deficit was about €3.2 billion (US$3.8 billion) in the first five months of the year, well within the target for 2005. In present, at a series of economical indicators, Romania has a similar situation of the new member states of EU, the export of highly technological products being of 3.2% from total exports, comparatively higher than Poland which has only 2.7% from exports.
Main indicators of the exports and imports of Romania's economy:
Taxation
In January 2005, Romania's new Tăriceanu government imposed major fiscal reforms, replacing Romania's progressive tax system with a 16% flat tax on both personal income and company profit. Romania now has one of the most liberal taxation systems in Europe, and it is expected that this, along with increased foreign investment, will boost economic growth in the coming years, as well as lower corruption and bring to light the grey economy. The tax cuts have led a 12 percent jump in household consumption, which was also boosted by a 13 percent rise in wages.
Debt
Romania's level of international debt is estimated at $24.59 billion in 2004, or 23.6% of GDP which is considered very low. However, as Romania is currently going through an economic boom and is undertaking several major infrastructure projects, especially in the context of its EU accession, debt is expected to rise in absolute terms.
During the latter part of the Ceauşescu period, Romania earned significant credits from several Arab countries, notably Iraq, for work related to the oil industry. In August 2005, Romania forgave US$2 billion of the US$2.5 billion debt owed it by an Iraq still largely occupied by the military forces of the U.S.-led "Coalition of the Willing", making Romania the first country outside of the Paris Club of wealthy creditor nations to forgive Iraqi debts. Romania has the largest international reserves in the region, estimated at € 19 billion, covering more than 7 months of imports.
[http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4§ion=0&article=68683&d=19&m=8&y=2005] [http://www.gandul.info/2005-08-24/actual/aurul_petrolul_si_regatenii] [http://www.phg.ro/stire.php?id=22333&cat_id=10]
Wages
The average gross wage per month in Romania is 965 new lei as of September 2005, an increase of 0.2% over the previous month. This equates to €266.58 and US$313.31. The average net salary per month in October 2005 was 742 new lei (€203.31), an increase of 12%, over the previous year. In 2009 it is calculated that the average wage will be 414€, and 339€ in 2007 respectively according to the Comisia Nationala de Prognoza (CNP).
Currency
Comisia Nationala de Prognoza (CNP)
Romania's legal tender is the leu (plural lei). On 1 July 2005, the leu was subjected to redenomination so that 10,000 old lei, in circulation on that date, was exchanged for 1 new leu. The existing banknotes and coins, i.e. the old lei, will be legal tender until the end of December 2006. The official exchange rate for 10 August 2005 for 1€=3.39 lei (National Bank of Romania). By 31 December 2006, the existing banknotes and coins, i.e. the old lei, are to be replaced gradually by the new banknotes and coins. The process will prepare Romania for the adoption of the euro, which is expected to take place several years after EU accession. The Romanian government has said that it expects the country will adopt the euro between 2011 and 2012.
Main indicators of the ROMANIA's economy:
Romania's GDP over 2005-2007 will go up by 10 billion euros per year, and will stand in 2007 at 96.138 billion euros.
National Budget
National budget, about € 29 billions euro, represents about 31,2% of GDP of RON 322,5 billions (EURO 90,8 billions), declared the Prime-Minister Tariceanu. National budget is increasing rapidly about 6 billions EURO each year for the interval of time 2005-2009. About 2 billions EURO/year are spend for national defense.
National budget of Romania:
National Holidays
The Christian holidays of Christmas and (Orthodox) Easter are celebrated (they are official, non-working, holidays). Unlike some other Eastern Orthodox Churches, the Romanian Orthodox Church celebrates Christmas on 25 December; however, they follow the usual Eastern Orthodox practice for the date of Easter. Other official holidays (non-working) are New Year's Day (January 1), Labour Day (May 1), and the National Day of Romania (December 1, the Union Day). For Christmas and for Labour Day, it is common for businesses to shut down more than a single day.
Minor, but widely observed, holidays include Mărţişor (March 1), marking the start of spring, and International Women's Day (March 8). Many businesses give women employees the day off for International Women's Day. Some holidays celebrated in the United States or in other parts of Europe have recently been gaining some currency in Romania, for example Valentine's Day (February 14).
Also see Holidays in Romania.
Sport in Romania
Holidays in Romania]]
Romania is successful in a number of sports at international level. See also List of Romanians (sport section).
The gymnast Nadia Comaneci was the first gymnast to score a perfect ten in Olympic competition (1976 Montreal Olympic Games). She also won three gold medals, one silver and one bronze - all at the age of fourteen. Her success continued in the 1980 Moscow Olympics when she was awarded two gold medals and two silver medals.
Ilie Nastase, the tennis player, is another internationally known Romanian sports star. He won several Grand Slam titles, dozens of other tournaments and also was a successful doubles player. Romania has also reached the Davis Cup finals three times.
Soccer is popular in Romania with international footballers such as Gheorghe Hagi who played for Steaua Bucuresti (Romania), Real Madrid, Barcelona (Spain) and Galatasaray (Turkey) among others. The Romanian soccer club Steaua Bucureşti was the first Eastern European club to ever win the prestigious European Champions Cup title (1986).
Demographics
Main article: Demographics of Romania
Ethnicity
Ethnic groups (Census 2001):
- Romanian 89.5%
- Hungarian 6.5%
- Roma 2.5%
- Ukrainian 0.3%
- German 0.3%
- Russian 0.2%
- Turkish and Tatar 0.2%
- Other 0.4%
An October 2005 report estimates that 1,061,400 Romanians are living in Italy, constituting 37.2% of 2.8 million immigrants in that country. [http://www.evz.ro/eveniment/?news_id=201813]
Other ethnic groups include natives of Romania's neighbouring countries and some smaller groups like the Polish minority (numbering a few thousand people) living in Suceava County.
Ethnic minorities can use their native language in education. Ethnic minorities are offered native language access to public administration in towns and villages where they make up for more that 20% of the population. In towns and villages where they make up for more than 30% of the population, local council meetings can be held in the minority language, provided that translation into Romanian is provided, and that official minutes are kept in Romanian (cf. the Public Administration Law, link below).
Some people say that the Roma population is undercounted in national censuses (by this account, some Roma choose to declare themselves as Romanians or Hungarians). The Roma people are commonly known in Romania as ţigani (tzigany). Most of them live a nomadic life.
Language
The official language is Romanian, a Romance language of the Italic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages, which are also called Romanic, Romantic or Romance languages. This language family includes French, Spanish, Catalan, Italian and Portuguese; its languages are spoken by about 670 million people in many parts of the world, but mainly in Europe and the Western Hemisphere. About 25 million people worldwide speak Romanian, mostly in Romania and Moldova (4,500,000).
A sizeable Hungarian minority in Transylvania speaks Hungarian as well as Romanian; until the 1990s, there were also a substantial number of German-speaking Transylvanian Saxons, but most of them have left the country since the fall of communism and the accompanying opening of borders.
The Romanian educational system puts a strong emphasis on foreign languages, and Radio România has a channel on which they broadcast in a number of foreign languages. More than a quarter of Romanians understand and speak French and Romania is a member of the Organisation de la Francophonie, with Bucharest being the host of the Summit of Francophony in 2006.
In terms of foreign languages, 5 million Romanians speak English, 4-5 million speak French , 1.5 million speak German, 2 million speak Italian, and 1 million speak Spanish. [http://www.anis.ro/index.php?page=afaceri&sec=afaceri_avantaje&lang=ro]
Historically, French was the leading foreign language for Romanians to study, now it is English, so that as a group the English-speakers in Romania are younger than the French-speakers.
Religion
Religions (2002 Census):
- Romanian Orthodox - 86.8%
- Roman Catholic - 4.5%
- Protestant - 3.7%
- Pentecostal - 1.5%
- Greek-Catholic Uniate - 0.9%
Most Romanians are members of the Romanian Orthodox Church, which is one of the churches of Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Catholicism (both Roman Catholic and Greek Catholic) and Protestantism are also represented, mostly in the areas inhabited by population closer to western influence.
In Dobrogea, the region lying on the shore of the Black Sea, there is a small Muslim minority (of Turkish and Tatar ethnicity), which is a remnant of the Ottoman rule and migrations from Crimea, respectively.
Culture
Main article: Culture of Romania
There are many TV stations in Romania like: TVR, PRO-TV, PRIMA-TV, Antena1, REALITATEA TV.
Culture of Romania
See also:
- Art of Romania
- Christmas customs in Romania
- List of Romanians
- Literature of Romania
- Music of Romania
- Romanian-American
- Romanian poets
- Tourism in Romania
Miscellaneous topics
- Căluşari - a traditional male folk dance
- Cercetaşii României
- Communications in Romania
- Government of Romania
- Foreign relations of Romania
- Health Care in Romania
- History of Romania
- Holidays in Romania
- List of national parks of Romania
- List of Romania-related topics
- Military of Romania
- Romanian cuisine
- Transportation in Romania
- List of Romanian newspapers
- List of universities in Romania
- Education in Romania
- Theaters in Romania
Gallery
image:palaceofpeopleromania.jpg|Palatul Parlamentului, Bucharest
image:Ateneul_Roman.jpg|Romanian Athenaeum, Bucharest
image:The_University.JPG|The University, Bucharest
image:CJROothodox.JPG|Orthodox Cathedral, Cluj-Napoca
image:CJROcatholic.JPG|Catholic Church, Cluj-Napoca
image:CJROtheatre.jpg|National Theatre, Cluj-Napoca
image:Baritiu.jpg|Bariţiu Street, Cluj-Napoca
image:CJROLupoaica.jpg|Eroilor Ave, Cluj-Napoca
image:PteatruTgM.JPG|National Theatre, Târgu Mureş
image:Sibiu.jpg|Sibiu Center Skyline
Image:Constanta-cazino.jpg|Casino, Constanţa
Image:Borzesti Side view.jpg|Borzeşti Church, Borzeşti
Image:Bucharest Revolution Monument.jpg|Memorial of Rebirth, Bucharest
Image:Bucuresti_fantana.jpg|Palatul Parlamentului, Bucharest
Image:pelescastle.jpg|Peleş Castle, Sinaia
Image:Poarta01.jpg|The Kiss Gate, Târgu Jiu
International rankings
- A.T. Kearney/Foreign Policy Magazine: [http://www.atkearney.com/main.taf?p=5,4,1,116 Globalization Index 2005], ranked 35 out of 62 countries
- Bertelsmann: [http://www.bertelsmann-transformation-index.de/37.0.html?&L=1 Bertelsmann Transformation Index 2006], ranked 19th out of 119 countries
- IMD International: [http://www01.imd.ch/wcy/ World Competitiveness Yearbook 2005], ranked 55 out of 60 economies (countries and regions)
- Reporters without borders: [http://www.rsf.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=554 Annual worldwide press freedom index (2005)], ranked 70 out of 167 countries
- The Wall Street Journal: [http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/ 2005] Index of Economic Freedom, ranked 125 out of 155 countries
- The Economist: [http://www.economist.com/theworldin/international/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3372495&d=2005 The World in 2005 - Worldwide quality-of-life index, 2005], ranked 58 out of 111 countries
- Transparency International: [http://ww1.transparency.org/cpi/2005/cpi2005_infocus.html Corruption Perceptions Index 2005], ranked 85 out of 158 countries (tied with Mongolia and Dominican Republic)
- United Nations Development Programme: [http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2005/ Human Development Index 2005], ranked 64 out of 177 countries
- World Economic Forum: [http://www.weforum.org/site/homepublic.nsf/Content/Growth+Competitiveness+Index+rankings+2005+and+2004+comparisons Global Competitiveness Report 2005-2006 - Growth Competitiveness Index Ranking], ranked 67 out of 117 countries
- World Bank: [http://www.doingbusiness.org/ExploreEconomies/Default.aspx?economyid=158 Doing Business 2006], ranked 78th out of 155
- World Bank: [http://www.doingbusiness.org/ExploreEconomies/Default.aspx?economyid=158 Ease of Starting a Business 2006], ranked 8th out of 155
- United Nations Conference on Trade and Development: [http://www.unctad.org/sections/dite_dir/docs/wir05_fs_ro_en.pdf Foreign Direct Investment Performance Index 2004], ranked 35th out of 140
External links
Official links
- [http://www.gov.ro/engleza/ Official site of the Romanian government]
- [http://www.presidency.ro/?lang=en Presidency of Romania]
- [http://www.senat.ro/ The Romanian Senate]
- [http://www.cdep.ro/pls/dic/site.page?id=103&idl=2 Camera Deputaţilor] (lower house of Parliament)
- [http://www.mtromania.ro/page.html?lg=eng Tourism Ministry]
- [http://www.mae.ro/index.php?lang=en Ministry of Foreign Affairs]
- [http://www.senat.ro/ The Romanian Senate]
- [http://www.recensamant.ro/ 2002 Census Data (Romanian only)]
- [http://www.cdep.ro/pls/legis/legis_pck.htp_act_text?idt=27123 Legea Administratiei Publice Locale] (Public Administration Law)
- [http://www.paginialbe.ro/index_engleza.php3 Telephone Directory]
- [http://www.paginialbe.ro/index.php3 Telephone Directory (romanian) ]
- [http://www.paginiaurii.ro/index_engleza.php3 Golden Pages ]
Travel guides
- [http://www.lonelyplanet.com/destinations/europe/romania Lonely Planet Guide - Romania]
- [http://www.spirit.ro/ The Spirit of Romania - travel journals, photography, stories]
- [http://travelromania.tripod.com/ Your Online Portal to Romania – Photographs and reviewed links to Web sites, articles and books about Romania]
- [http://wikitravel.org/en/article/Romania Romania travel guide at Wikitravel]
- [http://www.sibiu2007.ro - Sibiu/Hermanstadt, European Cultural Capital in 2007]
- [http://www.enjoyromania.ro - Enjoy Romania - Your Gateway to Romania]
Currency
- [http://www.bnro.ro/En/Info/curs_ext.asp Exchange Rates] - from the National Bank of Romania
- [http://www.denominare.ro/common/htmls/en.htm Information about redenomination]
Articles
- Alexandru Alexe, [http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/050810/balkan_tigers.html?.v=1 "Investors move east to booming Romania"], Associated Press story, 10 August 2005.
Category:Black Sea countries
fiu-vro:Romaania
als:Rumänien
roa-rup:România
zh-min-nan:România
ko:루마니아
ms:Romania
ja:ルーマニア
simple:Romania
th:ประเทศโรมาเนีย
Romanian language
Romanian (limba română IPA ), the official language of Romania, is an Eastern Romance language. It is spoken natively by about 24 to 26 million people, and it is an official language in Romania, Moldova and Vojvodina. The official form of the Moldovan language in the Republic of Moldova is identical to the official form of Romanian save for a minor rule in spelling.
History
Republic of Moldova
The Romanian territory was inhabited in ancient times by the Dacians, an Indo-European people. They were defeated by the Roman Empire in 106 and part of Dacia (Oltenia, Banat and Transylvania) became a Roman province. For the next 165 years, there is evidence of considerable Roman colonization in the area, the region being in close communication with the rest of the Roman empire. Vulgar Latin became the language of the administration and commerce.
Under the pressure of the Free Dacians and of the Goths, the Roman administration and legions were withdrawn from Dacia between 271-275. Whether the Romanians are the descendants of these people that abandoned the area and settled south of Danube or of the people that remained in Dacia is a matter of debate. For further discussion, see Origin of Romanians.
Due to its geographical isolation, Romanian was probably the first language that split and until the modern age was not influenced by other Romance languages, which can explain why it is one of the most uniform languages in Europe. It is more conservative than other Romance languages in nominal morphology. Romanian has preserved declension, but whereas Latin had six cases, Romanian has three, the nominative/accusative, the genitive/dative, and the vocative, and retains the neuter gender as well. However, the verbal morphology of Romanian has shown the same move towards a compound perfect and future tense as the other Romance languages.
future tense
All the dialects of Romanian are believed to have been unified in a Common Romanian language until sometime between the 7th and the 10th century when the area was influenced by the Byzantine Empire and Romanian became influenced by the Slavonic languages. Aromanian language has very few Slavonic words. Also, the variations in the Daco-Romanian dialect (spoken throughout Romania and Moldova) are very small, which is quite remarkable. The use of this uniform Daco-Romanian dialect extends well beyond the borders of the Romanian state: a Romanian-speaker from Moldova speaks the same language as a Romanian-speaker from the Serbian Banat, indicating a relatively recent migration to the northern territories.
Romanian developed in isolation with regard to the other Romance languages. Therefore, it was influenced by Slavonic (due to migration/assimilation, and feudal/ecclesiastical relations), Greek (Byzantine, then Phanariote), Turkish, and Hungarian, while the other Romance languages adopted words and features of Germanic.
Classification and related languages
Romanian is a Romance language, belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European language family, having much in common with languages such as French, Italian and Spanish.
However, the languages closest to Romanian are the other Eastern Romance languages, spoken south of Danube: Aromanian/Macedo-Romanian, Megleno-Romanian and Istro-Romanian, which are sometimes classified as dialects of Romanian. An alternate name for Romanian used by linguists to disambiguate with the other Eastern Romance languages is "Daco-Romanian", referring to the area where it is spoken (which corresponds roughly to the onetime Roman province of Dacia).
The Romanian variety spoken in Moldova has been named Moldovan language by the Soviet and later Moldovan authorities, but linguists do not recognize it as a different language.
Contacts with other languages
Dacian language
The Dacian language was an Indo-European language spoken by the ancient Dacians. It may have been the first language to influence the Latin spoken in Dacia, but there is very little knowledge about it. About 300 words found only in Romanian (in all dialects) or with a cognate in the Albanian language may be inherited from Dacian, many of them being related to pastoral life (for example: balaur=dragon; brânză=cheese; mal=shore; see: Eastern Romance substratum). Some linguists have asserted that Albanians are Dacians who were not Romanized, and migrated south.
A different view is that these non-Latin words (many with Albanian cognates) are not necessarily Dacian, but rather were brought into the territory that is modern Romania by Romance-speaking shepherds migrating north from Albania, Serbia, and northern Greece who became the Romanian people. However, the Eastern Romance substratum appears to have been a satem language, while the Paleo-Balkan languages spoken in Northern Greece (Ancient Macedonian language) and Albania (Illyrian language) were most likely centum languages.
The general view is that Dacian was a satem language, as was Thracian. Dacian was either close to the neighboring Albanian or Balto-Slavic branches of Indo-European, or a member of a distinct branch.
While most parts of the Romanian grammar and morphology are based on Vulgar Latin, there are however some features that are shared only with other languages of the Balkans and cannot be found in other Romance languages.
The languages of this sprachbund belong to distinct branches of the Indo-European languages: Bulgarian and Albanian, and in some cases Greek and Serbian.
Among the shared features, there are the postponed definite article, the syncretism of genitive and dative cases, the formation of the future and perfect tenses, as well as the avoidance of infinitive.
Slavic languages
The Slavic influence was first due to the migration of Slavic tribes, which traversed the territory of today's Romania during the formation of the language. It is interesting to note that Slavs were assimilated north of Danube, whereas they almost completely assimilated the Romanized population (Vlachs) living south of Danube. An important part of this population was still Vlach in the 10th century, only to fade away along with Vlach political power. For more information about this, see Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian.
Slavic influence continued during the Middle Ages, mainly due to the fact that Church Slavonic was the main liturgical language until the 18th century. The other surrounding languages (all Slavic, with the exception of Hungarian) also influenced Romanian.
Up to 20% of the vocabulary is of Slavic origin, including words such as: a iubi=to love; glas=voice; nevoie=need; prieten=friend; However, many Slavic words are archaisms and it is estimated that only 10% of the words in modern Romanian are Slavic [2].
There are some Slavonic influences, both on the phonetic level and on the lexical level—for example Romanian took the Slavonic da for yes.
Other influences
Even before the 19th century, Romanian came in contact with several other languages. Notable among these are:
- Greek (for example: folos < ófelos = use; buzunar < buzunára = pocket; proaspăt < prósfatos = fresh)
- Hungarian (for example: oraş < város = town; a cheltui < költeni = to spend; a făgădui < fogadni = to promise)
- Turkish (for example: cafea < kahve = coffee; cutie < kutu =box; papuc < papuç = slipper)
- German (for example: cartof < Kartoffel = potato; bere < Bier = beer; şurub < Schraube = screw)
International words
Since the 19th century, many modern words were borrowed from the other Romance languages, especially from French and Italian (for example: birou < bureau = desk, office; avion = airplane; exploata = exploit, etc). It was estimated that about 38% of the number of words in Romanian are of French or Italian origin and adding this to the words that were inherited from Latin, it makes about 75-85% of the Romanian words that can be traced to Latin.
Some Latin words have entered Romanian twice, first as part of its core or popular vocabulary and a second time as a more literary international borrowing. Typically, the popular word is a noun and the borrowed word an adjective:
- brother: frate / fratern
- finger: deget / digital
- water: apă / acvatic
- cold: frig / frigid
- eye: ochi / ocular
Recently, an increasing number of English words have been borrowed (such as: gem < jam; interviu < interview; meci < match; manager < manager). These words are assigned grammatical gender in Romanian and handled according to Romanian rules; thus "the manager" is managerul.
Geographic distribution
Romanian is spoken mostly in Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, Hungary, Serbia and Montenegro, Bulgaria, but there are also Romanian language speakers in countries like Canada, United States, Germany, Israel, Australia and New Zealand, mainly due to immigration after World War II.
Official status
Romanian is the official language of Romania. In Vojvodina it is established as equal in rights to the official languages, but in fact its status is inferior to that of Serbian.
The official language in Moldova is officially called Moldovan, but the official form of this language is identical to Romanian, with some minor differences in spelling.
In other parts of Serbia and in Ukraine, Romanian communities have very few rights regarding the use and preservation of their language in schools, press, administration and institutions.
Romanian is one of the five languages in which religious services are performed in the autonomous monastic state of Mount Athos, spoken in the sketae of Prodromos and Lacu (a sketa being a community of monks; sketae is plural).
Dialects and regional varieties
:Main article: Varieties of Romanian language
The term "Romanian" in a general sense envelops four hardly mutually intelligible speech varieties commonly regarded as independent languages. For more on these, please see the article "Eastern Romance languages".
It is thought that the Romanian language appeared north and south of the Danube. All the four dialects are offsprings of the Romance language spoken both in the North and South Danube, before the settlement of the Slavonian tribes south of the river - Daco-Romanian in the North, and the other three dialects in the south.
However, this article deals primarily with Daco-Romanian, and thus the regional variations of that will be discussed here instead. The differences between these variaties are usually very small, usually consisting in a few dozen regional words and some phonetic changes.
Daco-Romanian
Like all other languages, Romanian can be regarded as a dialect continuum. However, such a formulation tends to obscure the high homogeneity and uniformity of the language. The Romanian language cannot be neatly divided into separate dialects and Romanians themselves speak of the differences as accents or "speeches" (in Romanian: "accent" or "grai"). This correctly conveys the linguistics notion of accent, as language variants that only feature slight pronounciation differences (Romanian accents are fully mutually intelligible). Several accents are usually distinguished:
- Muntenian accent (Graiul muntenesc), spoken mainly in Wallachia and southern parts of Dobruja.
- Moldavian accent (Graiul moldovenesc), spoken mainly in Moldavia, northern parts of Dobruja and the Republic of Moldova. Written is realised as /k/; written before front vowels is realised as /ʃ/. Written <ă>, in final position, is palatalized.
- Maramureşian accent (Graiul maramureşean), spoken mainly in Maramureş.
- Transylvanian accent (Graiul ardealean), spoken mainly in Ardeal.
- Banatian accent (Graiul bănăţean), spoken mainly in Banat. Written before front vowels is realised as /ʧ/.
- Oltenian accent (Graiul oltenesc), spoken mainly in Oltenia and by the Romanian minority in Timok region of Serbia. Notable feature of this dialect is the usage of the Simple perfect tense rather than the Complex perfect which is used in other dialects.
Over the last century, however, regional accents have been weakened due to mass communications and greater mobility.
Moldovan language
The Moldovan language is the official language of the Republic of Moldova, as defined by its constitution.
However, as stated by Vasile Stati (a linguist and hard-line supporter of the Moldovan identity), the literary forms of Moldovan and Romanian are identical. The official form of the Moldovan is identical to Romanian, in its form from before the 1991 reform (minor changes in the form of one letter and in spelling). There is no documented linguistic division at the Prut River that divides the two countries.
More significant differences compared to Romania occur in the colloquial speech of highly-russified areas of the Republic of Moldova, such as Chişinau and Transnistria. The spoken language of these areas features Russian loanwords and expressions, not present in Romania-born speakers (who tend to use English and French loanwords). Speakers who use such loanwords are aware of doing so and can easily express themselves without using them.
Of all Moldovans claiming either "Romanian" or "Moldovan" as their mother tongue, 45.2% declared their native language to be "Moldovan", while 54.8% declared their native language to be "Romanian".
Grammar
Romanian nouns are inflected by gender (feminine, masculine and neuter), number (singular and plural) and case (nominative/accusative, dative/genitive and vocative). The articles, as well as most adjectives and pronouns, agree in gender with the noun they reference.
Romanian is the only Romance language where definite articles are enclitic: that is, attached to the end of the noun (as in North Germanic languages), instead of in front (proclitic). They were formed, as in other Romance languages, from the Latin demonstrative pronouns.
Romanian has four verbal conjugations which further split into several conjugation patterns. Verbs can be put in five moods that are inflected according to the person (indicative, conditional/optative, imperative, subjunctive, and presumptive) and four impersonal moods (infinitive, gerund, supine, and participle).
Sounds
Main article: Romanian phonology
Romanian has seven vowels: , , , , , , and . Additionally, vowel may appear in some words.
In final positions after consonants (rarely inside words) a short non-syllabic can occur, which is marked in IPA by and is produced as a palatalization of the preceding consonant. A similar sound, the voiceless ending u, existed in old Romanian but has disappeared from the standard language.
There are also four semivowels and twenty consonants.
Diphthongs
Descending diphthongs: ai, au, ei, eu, ii, iu, oi, ou, ui, ăi, ău, îi, îu.
Ascending diphthongs: ea, eo, ia, ie, io, iu, oa, ua, uă.
Triphthongs
Pattern S-V-S (main vowel between two semivowels): eai, eau, iai, iau, iei, ieu, ioi, iou, oai.
Pattern S-S-V (two-semivowel glide before the main vowel): eoa, ioa.
Phonetic changes
Due to its isolation from the other Romance languages, the phonetic evolution of Romanian was quite different, but does share a few changes with Italian, such as [kl] > [kj] (Lat. clarus > Rom. chiar, Ital. chiaro) and also a few with Dalmatian, such as [gn] > [mn] (Lat. cognatus > Rom. cumnat, Dalm. comnut).
Among the notable phonetic changes are:
- diphthongization of e, i, o
- : Lat. cera > Rom. ceară (wax)
- : Lat. sole > Rom. soare (sun)
- iotacism [e] → [i]
- : Lat. herba > Rom. iarbă (grass, herb)
- velar [k], [g] → labial [p], [b], [m]
- : Lat. octo > Rom. opt (eight)
- : Lat. lingua > Rom. limbă (tongue, language)
- : Lat. signum > Rom. semn (sign)
- : Lat. coxa > Rom. coapsă (thigh)
- rotacism [l] → [r]
- : Lat. caelum > Rom. cer (sky)
- Alveolars [d] and [t] palatalized to [dz]/[z] and [ts] when before [e] or [i]
- : Lat. deus > Rom. zeu (god)
- : Lat. tenem > Rom. ţine (hold)
Romanian is the only widely-spoken contemporary Romance language that retains the original phoneme . (The Norman language also retains phoneme . In many dialects of Spanish, particularly in the Americas, is pronounced as , but this appears not to be a matter of "retention": the original Castilian phoneme is . In some dialects of Portuguese, depending on the surrounding phonemes, is pronounced as , but likewise, the original phoneme appears to have been . In these dialects, arguably corresponds to two phonemes, one for [r], and one for [h].)
Writing system
Norman language
Norman language
The first written record of a Romanic language spoken in the Middle Ages in the Balkans was written by the Byzantine chronicler Theophanes Confessor in the 6th century about a military expedition against the Avars from 587, when a Vlach muleteer accompanying the Byzantine army noticed that the load was falling from one of the animals and shouted to a companion "Torna, torna fratre" (meaning "Return, return brother!").
The oldest written text in Romanian is a letter from 1521, in which Neacşu of Câmpulung wrote to the mayor of Braşov about an imminent attack of the Turks. It was written using the Cyrillic alphabet, like most early Romanian writings. The earliest writing in Latin script was a late 16th century Transylvanian text which was written with the Hungarian alphabet conventions.
In the late 1700s, Transylvanian scholars noted the Latin origin of Romanian and adapted the Latin alphabet to the Romanian language, using some rules from Italian, recognized as Romanian's closest relative. The Cyrillic alphabet remained in (gradually decreasing) use until 1860, when Romanian writing was first officially regulated.
In the Soviet Republic of Moldova, a special version of the Cyrillic alphabet derived from the Russian version was used, until 1989, when it returned to the Romanian Latin alphabet.
Romanian alphabet
Main article: Romanian alphabet
The Romanian alphabet is as follows:
A, a (a); Ă, ă (ă); Â, â (â din a); B, b (be), C, c (ce); D, d (de), E, e (e); F, f (fe / ef); G, g (ghe / ge); H, h (ha / haş); I, i (i); Î, î (î din i); J, j (je), K, k (ka de la kilogram), L, l (le / el); M, m (me / em); N, n (ne / en); O, o (o); P, p (pe); R, r, (re / er); S, s (se / es); (e); T, t (te); (e); U, u (u); V, v (ve); X, x (ics); Z, z (ze / zet).
The Romanian alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet, and has five additional letters (these are not diacriticals, but letters in their own right). Initially, there were as many as 12 additional letters, but some of them disappeared in subsequent reforms. Also, until the early 20th century, a short vowel marker was used.
Today, the Romanian alphabet is largely phonetic. However, the "â" (used inside the words) and "î" (used at the beginning or the end) both represent the same close central unrounded vowel , which is a slack sound somewhere between "i" in English "bit" and "oo" in English "food". Until 1904 there were four letters representing this sound: â, ê, î and û. During Communist rule in Romania (more precisely between 1953 and 1993) only the letter î was used to transcribe this sound (with a few accepted exceptions). According to the current usage accepted by the Romanian Academy, is transcribed as either î when used as the first or last letter of words, or â when it occurs in the middle of the word. In practice, either usage is acceptable and some publications still retain the Communist-era orthography.
Another exception from a completely phonetic writing system is the fact that vowels and their respective semivowels are not distinguished in writing. In dictionaries the distinction is marked by separating the entry word into syllables for the words containing a hiatus that might be mispronounced as a diphthong or a triphthong.
Stressed vowels also are not marked in writing, except very rarely in cases where by misplacing the stress a word might change its meaning. For example "trei copíi" means three children while "trei cópii" means three copies.
Q, W and Y are not part of the core Romanian alphabet; they are used mainly to write imported words, such as quasar, watt, and yoga.
Writing the letters Ș () and Ț () with a cedilla instead of a comma (i.e., Ş, Ţ) is incorrect but rather widespread, especially in computer environments.
Reading rules
Reading Romanian involves learning a few rules, quite similar to reading Italian.
- The letters c and g represent the affricates and before i and e, and and before a, o, u, ă, and â/î. The digraphs ch and gh before front vowels represent slightly palatalized and .
- h represents
- j represents
- The letter with comma below, and represent and , though the allographs with cedilla, ş and ţ became widespread when pre-Unicode and early Unicode character sets did not include the standard form.
- A final orthographical i after a consonant represents palatalization of the consonant (e. g. lup "wolf" vs. lupi "wolves").
- ă represents the schwa, .
Group of letters
Letters c and g have special pronunciation when used in these groups of characters, which are the same as in Italian
Punctuation and Capitalization
The only particularities Romanian has relative to other languages using the Latin alphabet are:
- The quotation marks use the German format;
- Dialogues are identified with quotation dashes;
- Proper quotations which span multiple paragraphs don't start each paragraph with the quotation marks; one single pair of quotation marks is always used, regardless of how many paragraphs are quoted;
- The Oxford comma before "and" is considered incorrect ("red, yellow and blue" is the proper format);
- Punctuation signs which follow a text in parentheses always follow the final bracket;
- In titles, only the first letter of the first word is capitalized, the rest of the title using sentence capitalization (with all its rules: proper names are capitalized as usual, etc.).
Exceptions and trends
Dialogues are identified with quotation dashes in everyday use, although the specific character is typically replaced with an ordinary dash ("-") in informal electronic communication.
Usage of German quotation marks has decreased considerably in favor of the much more convenient English-language format, at least in informal messages. Even in writing, because of the awkwardness of properly drawing German dashes (reversing the direction of writing upwards for the final quotation symbol), the proper format is rarely used, typically using the Polish format instead, if any attempt at proper formatting is done. In practice, only the most formal documents, such as literary works or very formal letters, use what are formally considered the proper form of quotation marks.
Language sample
English text:
: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
::(Universal Declaration of Human Rights)
Contemporary Romanian - highlighted words are French or Italian loanwords:
: Toate fiinţele umane se nasc libere şi egale în demnitate şi în drepturi. Ele sunt înzestrate cu raţiune şi conştiinţă şi trebuie să se comporte unele faţă de altele în spiritul fraternităţii.
Romanian, excluding French or Italian loanwords - highlighted words are Slavic loanwords:
: Toate fiinţele omeneşti se nasc slobode şi deopotrivă în destoinicie şi în drepturi. Ele sunt înzestrate cu cuget şi înţelegere şi trebuie să se poarte unele faţă de altele după firea frăţiei.
Romanian, excluding loanwords:
: Toate fiinţele omeneşti se nasc nesupuse şi asemenea în preţuire şi în drepturi. Ele sunt înzestrate cu cuget şi înţelegere şi se cuvine să se poarte unele faţă de altele după firea frăţiei.
See also: Lord's Prayer in Romanian
Common words and phrases
| English | Romanian | Phonetical transcription
|
|---|
| Romanian (person) | Român |
| | Hello! | Salut! |
| | What's your name? | Cum te cheamă? |
| | How are you? | Ce mai faci? |
| | Goodbye! | La revedere! |
| | Bye! | Pa! |
| | Please. | Vă rog. |
| | Sorry. | Îmi pare rău. |
| | Thank you. | Mulţumesc. |
| | Yes. | Da. |
| | No. | Nu. |
| | I don't understand. | Nu înţeleg. |
| | Where's the bathroom? | Unde e toaleta? |
| | Do you speak English? | Vorbiţi engleza? |
|
Note
(1) The constitution of the Republic of Moldova refers to the country's language as Moldovan rather than Romanian, though in practice it is often called "Romanian". Between 1989 and 1994 it was officially recognized Romanian as the official language of Moldova. For more information, please see Moldovan language.
See also
- Romanian proverbs
References
¹ Rosetti, Alexandru, Istoria limbii române, 2 vols., Bucharest, 1965-1969.
² Uwe, Hinrichs, Handbuch der Südosteuropa-Linguistik
External links
Learning Romanian
- [http://www.EasyRomanian.com/ Learn the Romanian language at EasyRomanian.com]
- [http://www.geocities.com/romanianlessons/ Romanian Lessons]
- [http://rolessons.bizhat.com/ More Romanian Lessons]
- [http://www.verbix.com/languages/romanian.shtml Verbix - Romanian verbs conjugation]
- [http://www.geocities.com/email_theguy/rromanian.htm Romanian grammar]
- [http://www.seelrc.org:8080/grammar/pdf/stand_alone_romanian.pdf Detailed Romanian grammar - 183 pages - 4.6 MB - pdf]
- [http://www.geocities.com/language_directory/languages/romanian.htm List of online Romanian-related resources]
Phrasebooks
- [http://www.wikitravel.org/en/article/Romanian_phrasebook WikiTravel Romanian Phrasebook]
- [http://www.unilang.org/resources/vocab/basicwords.ro.html Romanian Basic Words]
Dictionaries
- [http://ro.wiktionary.org Wiktionary in Romanian]
- [http://dictionar.allnet.ro/dictionar.php A complete Romanian-English dictionary]
- [http://www.dictionare.com/dictionaries/dictionary.htm Online Romanian-English dictionary]
- [http://dexonline.ro DEX Online - Romanian explicative dictionary]
- [http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/Romanian-english/ Romanian - English Dictionary from Webster's Rosetta Edition]
- [http://www.free-soft.ro/index-en.html Free downloadable dictionary]
Miscellaneous
- [http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/sampa/rom-uni.htm SAMPA for Romanian]
- [http://www.cimec.ro/Istorie/neacsu/eng/default.htm The Letter of Neacşu from Câmpulung - The oldest written document in Romanian (English translation)]
- [http://www.unusus.com/bib/editor/0002.htm The Letter of Neacşu from Câmpulung - Transliteration in Romanian from the Cyrillic alphabet]
- [http://diacritics.typo.cz Diacritics Project - All you need to design a font with correct accents]
- [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=ron Ethnologue report for Romanian]
Category:Romanian language
Category:Languages of Austria
Category:Languages of Kazakhstan
Category:Languages of Romania
Category:Languages of Russia
Category:Languages of Moldova
Category:Languages of Ukraine
Category:Languages of Vojvodina
Category:Languages of Hungary
zh-min-nan:România-gí
ja:ルーマニア語
th:ภาษาโรมาเนีย
Europe:This article is about the continent. For other meanings, see Europe (disambiguation).
Europe is geologically and geographically a peninsula or subcontinent, forming the westernmost part of Eurasia. It is conventionally considered a continent, which, in this case, is more of a cultural distinction than a geographic one. It is bounded to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the west by the Atlantic Ocean and to the south by the Mediterranean and Black Seas and the Caucasus. Europe's boundary to the east is vague, but has traditionally been given as the Ural Mountains and Caspian Sea to the southeast: the Urals are considered by most to be a geographical and tectonic landmark separating Asia from Europe.
:See also Continent, Bicontinental country, and Table of European territories and regions.
Table of European territories and regions
Table of European territories and regions
Europe is the world's second-smallest continent in terms of area, covering around 10,790,000 km² (4,170,000 sq mi) or 2.1% of the Earth's surface, and is only larger than Australia. In terms of population, it is the third-largest continent (Asia and Africa are larger) with a population of more than 700,000,000, or about 11% of the world's population.
Etymology
Africa.]]
In Greek mythology, Europa was a Phoenician princess who was abducted by Zeus in bull form and taken to the island of Crete, where she gave birth to Minos. For Homer, Europé (Greek: Ευρωπη; see also List of traditional Greek place names) was a mythological queen of Crete, not a geographical designation. Later Europa stood for mainland Greece, and by 500 BC its meaning had been extended to lands to the north.
The Greek term Europe has been derived from Greek words meaning broad (eurys) and face (ops) -- broad having been an epitheton of Earth herself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion; see Prithvi (Plataia). A minority, however, suggest this Greek popular etymology is really based on a Semitic word such as the Akkadian erebu meaning "sunset" (see also Erebus). From the Middle Eastern vantagepoint, the sun does set over Europe, the lands to the west. Likewise, Asia is sometimes thought to have derived from the Akkadian word asu, meaning "sunrise", and is the land to the east from a Mesopotamian perspective.
History
Europe has a long history of cultural and economic achievement, starting as far back as the Palaeolithic, although this is true for the rest of the Old World as well. The recent discovery at Monte Poggiolo, Italy, of thousands of hand-shaped stones, tentatively carbon-dated to 800,000 years ago, may prove to be of particular importance.
The origins of Western democratic and individualistic culture are often attributed to Ancient Greece, though numerous other distinct influences, in particular Christianity, can also be credited with the spread of concepts like egalitarianism and universality of law.
The Roman Empire divided the continent along the Rhine and Danube for several centuries. Following the decline of the Roman Empire, Europe entered a long period of changes arising from what is known as the Age of Migrations. That period has been known as the "Dark Ages" to Renaissance thinkers. During this time, isolated monastic communities in Ireland and elsewhere carefully safeguarded and compiled written knowledge accumulated previously. The Renaissance and the New Monarchs marked the start of a period of discovery, exploration, and increase in scientific knowledge. In the 15th century Portugal opened the age of discoveries, soon followed by Spain. They were later joined by France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom in building large colonial empires with vast holdings in Africa, the Americas, and Asia.
After the age of discovery, the ideas of democracy took hold in Europe. Struggles for independence arose, most notably in France during the period known as the French Revolution. This led to vast upheaval in Europe as these revolutionary ideas propagated across the continent. The rise of democracy led to increased tensions within Europe on top of the tensions already existing due to competition within the New World. The most famous of these conflicts was when Napoleon Bonaparte rose to power and set out on a conquest, forming a new French empire that soon collapsed. After these conquests Europe stabilised, but the old foundations were already beginning to crumble.
The Industrial Revolution started in the United Kingdom in the late 18th century, leading to a move away from agriculture, much greater general prosperity and a corresponding increase in population. Many of the states in Europe took their present form in the aftermath of World War I. From the end of World War II through the end of the Cold War, Europe was divided into two major political and economic blocks: Communist nations in Eastern Europe and capitalist countries in Western Europe. Around 1990, with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Eastern bloc disintegrated.
Geography and extent
Eastern bloc
Geographically Europe is a part of the larger landmass known as Eurasia. The continent begins at the Ural Mountains in Russia, which define Europe's eastern boundary with Asia. The southeast boundary with Asia isn't universally defined. Most commonly the Ural or, alternatively, the Emba river can serve as possible boundaries. The boundary continues with the Caspian Sea, and then the Araxes river in the Caucasus, and on to the Black Sea; the Bosporus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles conclude the Asian boundary. The Mediterranean Sea to the south separates Europe from Africa. The western boundary is the Atlantic Ocean, but Iceland, much farther away than the nearest points of Africa and Asia, is also often included in Europe. There is ongoing debate on where the geographical centre of Europe is.
At times "Europe" is defined with greater regard to political, economic, and other cultural considerations. This has led to there being several different Europes that are not always identical in size, including or excluding countries according to the definition of Europe used.
Almost all European countries are members of the Council of Europe, the exceptions being Belarus, and the Holy See (Vatican City).
The idea of the European continent is not held across all cultures. Some non-European geographical texts refer to the continent of Eurasia, or to the European peninsula, given that Europe is not surrounded by sea. In the past concepts such as Christendom were deemed more important.
In another usage, Europe is increasingly being used as a short-form for the European Union (EU) and its members, currently consisting of 25 member states. A number of other European countries are negotiating for membership, and several more are expected to begin negotiations in the future (see Enlargement of the European Union).
Physical features
In terms of shape, Europe is a collection of connected peninsulas. The two largest of these are "mainland" Europe and Scandinavia to the north, divided from each other by the Baltic Sea. Three smaller peninsulas (Iberia, Italy and the Balkans) emerge from the southern margin of the mainland into the Mediterranean Sea, which separates Europe from Africa. Eastward, mainland Europe widens much like the mouth of a funnel, until the boundary with Asia is reached at the Ural Mountains.
Land relief in Europe shows great variation within relatively small areas. The southern regions, however, are more mountainous, while moving north the terrain descends from the high Alps, Pyrenees and Carpathians, through hilly uplands, into broad, low northern plains, which are vast in the east. This extended lowland is known as the Great European Plain, and at its heart lies the North German Plain. An arc of uplands also exists along the northwestern seaboard, beginning in the western British Isles and continuing along the mountainous, fjord-cut spine of Norway.
This description is simplified. Sub-regions such as Iberia and Italy contain their own complex features, as does mainland Europe itself, where the relief contains many plateaus, river valleys and basins that complicate the general trend. Iceland and the British Isles are special cases. The former is a land unto itself in the northern ocean which is counted as part of Europe, while the latter are upland areas that were once joined to the mainland until rising sea levels cut them off.
Due to the few generalisations that can be made about the relief of Europe, it is less than surprising that its many separate regions provided homes for many separate nations throughout history.
Biodiversity
Having lived side-by-side with agricultural peoples for millennia, Europe's animals and plants have been profoundly affected by the presence and activities of man. With the exception of Scandinavia and northern Russia, few areas of untouched wilderness are today to be found in Europe, except for different natural parks.
The main natural vegetation cover in Europe is forest. The conditions for growth are very favourable. In the north, the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Drift warm the continent. Southern Europe could be described as having a warm, but mild climate. There are frequent summer droughts in this region. Mountain ridges also affect the conditions. Some of these (Alps, Pyrenees) are oriented east-west and allow the wind to carry large masses of water from the ocean in the interior. Others are oriented south-north (Scandinavian Mountains, Dinarides, Carpathians, Apennines) and because the rain falls primarily on the side of mountains that is oriented towards sea, forests grow well on this side, while on the other side, the conditions are much less favourable. Few corners of mainland Europe have not been grazed by livestock at some point in time, and the cutting down of the pre-agricultural forest habitat caused disruption to the original plant and animal ecosystems.
Eighty to ninety per cent of Europe was once covered by forest. It stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to the Arctic Ocean. Though over half of Europe's original forests disappeared through the centuries of colonisation, Europe still has over one quarter of the world's forests - spruce forests of Scandinavia, vast pine forests in Russia, chestnut rainforests of the Caucasus and the cork oak forests in the Mediterranean. During recent times, deforestation has been stopped and many trees were planted. However, in many cases conifers have been preferred over original deciduous trees, because these grow quicker. The plantations and monocultures now cover vast areas of land and this offers very poor habitats for European forest dwelling species. The amount of original forests in Western Europe is just two to three per cent (in the European part of Russia five to ten per cent). The country with the smallest forest-covered area is Ireland (eight per cent), while the most forested country is Finland (72 per cent).
In "mainland" Europe, deciduous forest prevails. The most important species are beech, birch and oak. In the north, where taiga grows, a very common tree species is the birch tree. In the Mediterranean, many olive trees have been planted, which are very well adapted to its arid climate. Another common species in Southern Europe is the cypress. Coniferous forests prevail at higher altitudes up to the forest boundary and as one moves north within Russia and Scandinavia, giving way to tundra as the Arctic is approached. The semi-arid Mediterranean region hosts much scrub forest. A narrow east-west tongue of Eurasian grassland—the steppe—extends eastwards from Ukraine and southern Russia and ends in Hungary and traverses into taiga to the north.
Glaciation during the most recent ice age and the presence of man affected the distribution of European fauna. As for the animals, in many parts of Europe most large animals and top predator species have been hunted to extinction. The woolly mammoth and aurochs were extinct before the end of the Neolithic period. Today wolves (carnivores) and bears (omnivores) are endangered. Once they were found in most parts of Europe. However, deforestation caused these animals to withdraw further and further. By the Middle Ages the bears' habitats were limited to more or less inaccessible mountains with sufficient forest cover. Today, the brown bear lives primarily in the Balkan peninsula, in the North and in Russia; a small number also persist in other countries across Europe (Austria, Pyrenees etc.), but in these areas brown bear populations are fragmented and marginalised because of the destruction of their habitat. In the far North of Europe, polar bears can also be found. The wolf, the second largest predator in Europe after the brown bear, can be found primarily in Eastern Europe and in the Balkans.
Other important European carnivores are Eurasian lynx, European wild cat, foxes (especially the red fox), jackal and different species of martens, hedgehogs, different species of snakes (vipers, grass snake...), different birds (owls, hawks and other birds of prey)
Important European herbivores are snails, amphibians, fish, different birds, and mammals, like rodents, deers and roe deers, boars, and living in the mountains, marmots, steinbocks, chamoises among others.
Sea creatures are also an important part of European flora and fauna. The sea flora is mainly phytoplankton. Important animals that live in European seas are zooplankton, molluscs, echinoderms, different crayfish, squids and octopuses, fish, dolphins, and whales.
Some animals live in caves, for example proteus and bats.
Demographics
Almost all of Europe was possibly settled before or during the last ice age ca. 10,000 years ago. Neanderthal man and modern man coexisted during at least some of this time. Roman road building helped with the interbreeding of the native Europeans' genetics. In contemporary times Europe has one of the lowest inbreeding rates in the world because of an extensive transport network paired with open borders.
Europe passed well over 600 million people before the turn of the 20th century, but now is entering a period of population decline, for a variety of social factors.
Territories and divisions
Political divisions
Independent states
interbreeding on this map.]]
:See also: Table of European territories and regions
The following independ |
