Common Romanian Romanian descended from the
Latin spoken in the
Roman provinces of
Southeastern Europe north of the
Jireček Line (a hypothetical boundary between the dominance of Latin and Greek influences). The exact geographic origin and continuity (especially after Roman withdrawal from Dacia in the 3rd century) is still debated among historians. Most scholars agree that two major dialects had developed from Common Romanian by the 10th century. Daco-Romanian (the official language of Romania and Moldova) and
Istro-Romanian (a language spoken today by no more than 2,000 people in
Istria) descended from the northern dialect. Two other languages,
Aromanian and
Megleno-Romanian, developed from the southern version of Common Romanian. These two languages are now spoken in lands to the south of the
Jireček Line. Of the features that individualize Common Romanian, inherited from Latin or subsequently developed, of particular importance are: • appearance of
schwa (written as
ă in Romanian) vowel; • growth of the plural inflectional ending -uri for the neuter gender; • analytic present conditional (ex: Daco-Romanian ); • analytic future with an auxiliary derived from Latin volo (ex: Aromanian ); •
enclisis of the definite article (ex. Istro-Romanian – ); • nominal declension with two case forms in the singular feminine.
Old Romanian The use of the denomination
Romanian () for the language and use of the demonym
Romanians () for speakers of this language predate the foundation of the modern Romanian state. Romanians always used the general term / or regional terms such as (or ), or to designate themselves. Both the name of or for the Romanian language and the self-designation are attested as early as the 16th century, by various foreign travelers into the Carpathian Romance-speaking space, as well as in other historical documents written in Romanian at that time such as (
The Chronicles of the land of Moldova) by
Grigore Ureche. The few allusions to the use of Romanian in writing as well as common words, anthroponyms and toponyms preserved in the Old Church Slavonic religious writings and chancellery documents, attested prior to the 16th century, along with the analysis of graphemes show that the writing of Romanian with the Cyrillic alphabet started in the second half of the 15th century. is the oldest surviving document written in
Old Romanian that can be precisely dated The
Hurmuzaki Psalter (
Psaltirea Hurmuzaki) is the oldest writing in Romanian, dated on the basis of watermarks between 1491–1504. It is a copy of an older, fifteenth-century translation of the Psalter, which was bilingual (written in Church Slavonic, with Romanian translation after each verse). The oldest Romanian document precisely dated is
Neacșu's letter (1521) and was written using the
Romanian Cyrillic alphabet, which was used until the late 19th century. The letter is the oldest testimony of Romanian epistolary style and uses a prevalent lexis of Latin origin. The slow process of Romanian establishing itself as an official language, used in the public sphere, in literature and ecclesiastically, began in the late 15th century and ended in the early decades of the 18th century, by which time Romanian had begun to be regularly used by the Church. The oldest Romanian texts of a literary nature are liturgical texts of the
Eastern Orthodox Church: Psalter (
Hurmuzaki Psalter, Scheian Psalter, Psalter of Voroneț) and
Apostolos lectionary (Bratu's Codex, Codex of Voroneț). Their origins go back to the 15th century. The fact that they are bilingual writings or descend from bilingual writings shows that the initiative to translate them was prompted by the need to facilitate access to the Church Slavonic liturgical text.
Modern Romanian The modern age of Romanian starts in 1780 with the printing in Vienna of a very important grammar book The Modern age of Romanian language can be further divided into three phases: pre-modern or modernizing between 1780 and 1830, modern phase between 1831 and 1880, and contemporary from 1880 onwards.
Pre-modern period Beginning with the printing in 1780 of
Elementa linguae daco-romanae sive valachicae, the pre-modern phase was characterized by the publishing of school textbooks, appearance of first normative works in Romanian, numerous translations, and the beginning of a conscious stage of
re-latinization of the language. of a group portrait by
Constantin Daniel Rosenthal, showing Paris-based revolutionaries during the early 1840s. From left: Rosenthal (wearing a
Phrygian cap),
C. A. Rosetti,
Modern period Starting from 1831 and lasting until 1880 the modern phase is characterized by the development of literary styles: scientific, administrative, and
belletristic. It quickly reached a high point with the printing of
Dacia Literară, a journal founded by
Mihail Kogălniceanu and representing a literary society, which together with other publications like and spread the ideas of
Romantic nationalism and later contributed to the formation of other societies that took part in the
Revolutions of 1848. Their members and those that shared their views are collectively known in Romania as "of '48"(), a name that was extended to the literature and writers around this time such as
Vasile Alecsandri,
Grigore Alexandrescu,
Nicolae Bălcescu,
Timotei Cipariu. Between 1830 and 1860 "transitional alphabets" were used, adding Latin letters to the
Romanian Cyrillic alphabet. The Latin alphabet became official at different dates in Wallachia and Transylvania1860, and Moldova1862. Following the
unification of Moldavia and Wallachia further studies on the language were made, culminating with the founding of on 1 April 1866 on the initiative of
C. A. Rosetti, an academic society that had the purpose of standardizing the orthography, formalizing the grammar and (via a dictionary) vocabulary of the language, and promoting literary and scientific publications. This institution later became the
Romanian Academy.
Contemporary period The third phase of the modern age of Romanian language, starting from 1880 and continuing to this day, is characterized by the prevalence of the supradialectal form of the language, standardized with the express contribution of the school system and Romanian Academy, bringing a close to the process of literary language modernization and development of literary styles. The current orthography, with minor reforms to this day and using Latin letters, was fully implemented in 1881, regulated by the Romanian Academy on a fundamentally phonological principle, with few morpho-syntactic exceptions.
Modern history of Romanian in Bessarabia The first
Romanian grammar was published in Vienna in 1780. The publishing works established by Archbishop
Gavril Bănulescu-Bodoni were able to produce books and liturgical works in Moldavian between 1815 and 1820. Bessarabia during the 1812–1918 era witnessed the gradual development of
bilingualism. Russian continued to develop as the official language of privilege, whereas Romanian remained the principal vernacular. The period from 1905 to 1917 was one of increasing linguistic conflict spurred by an increase in Romanian nationalism. In 1905 and 1906, the Bessarabian asked for the re-introduction of Romanian in schools as a "compulsory language", and the "liberty to teach in the mother language (Romanian language)". At the same time, Romanian-language newspapers and journals began to appear, such as (1906), (1907), (1907), (1908), (1913), (1913). From 1913, the synod permitted that "the churches in
Bessarabia use the Romanian language".