Nicolae Ianovici was from
Moscopole, then in the
Ottoman Empire and now in
Albania. He originated from the Căliva (or Kaliva) family, originally from Moscopole but later settled in
Timișoara (in the
Habsburg monarchy, now in
Romania). To this family also belonged
Gheorghe Ioanovici, who became a prominent politician in
Hungary. Nicolae Ianovici left for Timișoara and lived in the city for a short period of time, later moving to
Pest (the eastern half of modern
Budapest,
Hungary). Ianovici was one of the
Aromanian figures of the early 19th century in
Vienna (
Austria) and Budapest who contributed to the effort for the national awakening of the Aromanians. In Budapest, other such figures included
Mihail G. Boiagi and
Gheorghe Constantin Roja. His contributions to the Aromanian cause consisted on the compilation of a dictionary in two volumes with 1302 pages in total, titled
Diccionariu tru cinci limbe: ellinescu, grecescu, rumanescu, nemcescu shii madsarescu ("Dictionary for Five Languages: Hellenic, Greek, Aromanian, German and Hungarian"). In the preface of the dictionary, Ianovici argued for the importance and necessity of his work, aimed for public use by Aromanians and for the cultural development between the speakers of all the languages compiled in his dictionary. It was also of relevance to merchants in the Habsburg monarchy and in the
Balkans. In the preface of the dictionary, Ianovici makes use of the
endonym for "Aromanian". This is typical of the
Farsherot dialect spoken in modern Albania, suggesting that Ianovici belonged to the subgroup of Farsherot Aromanians. It is noticed that Ianovici was influenced by the
Transylvanian School, a
Romanian cultural and intellectual movement active in Habsburg and
Austrian Transylvania at the time. Thus, just like the Romanian writer of the Transylvanian School
Petru Maior stated that the
origin of the Romanians was the
Roman Empire and that the
Romanian language came from
Latin, so did Ianovici note the Roman and Latin origin of the Aromanians and of
their language. In the preface, Ianovici also refers to the Aromanians as "Romanians beyond the Danube"; the Transylvanian School held the stance that the Romanians and the Aromanians were part of the same
ethnic group. Despite its approval for publication by its censor Gheorghe Petrovici in 1821, Ianovici's dictionary was for some reason not printed in the printing house of
Buda (most of the western half of modern Budapest). Today, Ianovici's dictionary is in possession of the
Romanian Academy. ==References==