Loanwords in Romanian

Kim Schulte
University of Exeter
[email protected]

1. The language and its speakers

Romanian, also known as Rumanian (sometimes also spelt Roumanian, especially
until the 1940s), belongs to the Romance languages, which form a branch of the Indo-
European language family. Among the Romance languages, Romanian belongs to the
Daco-Romance sub-branch of the Eastern Romance branch. There are four distinct
Daco-Romance languages, all of which are frequently referred to as different
dialects of Romanian: Aromanian (c. 300,000 speakers in the Republic of
Macedonia, Albania, northern Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria), Megleno-Romanian (c.
5,000 speakers in northern Greece and the Republic of Macedonia), Istro-Romanian
(c. 1,000 speakers in the Istrian Peninsula in Croatia), and Daco-Romanian (c. 25
million speakers in Romania and Moldova). The loanword typology database for
Romanian is restricted to the lexicon of Daco-Romanian, the language generally
referred to as Romanian in everyday usage. Throughout the remainder of this
chapter, Romanian will be used as a synonym for Daco-Romanian.
Romanian, used in all domains from the most informal to the most official,
is the official language of Romania and the adjoining Republic of Moldova. Both are
located in south-eastern Europe, northeast of the Balkan Peninsula, in an area
including the inner and outer arch of the southern Carpathian Mountains, from the
lower Danube in the southwest and south of the territory to the river Dniester in the
northeast. This Romanian-speaking area is surrounded by speakers of non-Romance
languages, namely Hungarian and several Slavic languages (Ukrainian, Bulgarian,
Serbian). Beyond the territories of Romania and the Republic of Moldova, Romanian
has co-official status in the Vojvodina Province in northern Serbia, and speakers of
Romanian also live in Ukrainian areas close to the Romanian and Moldovan borders.
There is a large Romanian diaspora, estimated at around 8 million people, with
concentrations in North America, Australia and Israel; due to recent emigration, there
are also Romanian communities of considerable size in Italy and Spain (c. 1 million in
each country).
Within Romania, several historically established minority languages are
spoken by the corresponding ethnic groups; the most significant of which are the
Hungarians in western and central Transylvania, as well as the Romani minority, the
latter constituting approximately ten percent of the overall population. Smaller ethnic
groups include Albanians, Turks (mainly along the Danube in south-eastern
Romania), Tatars (mainly in the Dobrogea region), Russian Lipovens (in the Danube
Delta) and speakers of other Slavic languages, mainly near the borders with the
respective countries. Whilst Romanian is the second language for some speakers of
these minority languages, the majority can be considered to be partly or fully
bilingual.
In the Republic of Moldova, the Turkic language Gagauz is spoken by
approximately 150,000 inhabitants of the Province of Gagauzia, in the south of the
country. In Transnistria, a breakaway republic east of the river Dniester,
approximately one third of the population are ethnic Russians and another third are
ethnic Ukrainians. Within the remaining territory, there is a clear urban-rural divide,
with a comparatively large proportion of ethnic Russians in the cities, especially in the
capital Chiinu, due to migration during the period under Soviet rule; many native
Russian speakers only have limited linguistic competence in Romanian.

Fig. 1: Map of Romania and the Republic of Moldova

Romanian can be subdivided into two major dialect groups, the Muntenian-
based dialects spoken in the south, and the Moldavian-based ones spoken in the north
of Romania and the Republic of Moldova. The official name of the national language
of the Republic of Moldova is Moldovan or Moldavian, but linguistically speaking it
is very similar to the neighbouring dialects of north-eastern Romania. In general,
Romanian has comparatively little dialectal variation, but regional differences can
nevertheless be observed and are the basis for a distinction between dialects such as
Moldavian, Transylvanian, or that of the Banat region. An important distinguishing
feature between regional varieties is their lexicon, particularly lexical loans;
unsurprisingly, those donor languages spoken in the immediate vicinity tend to be the
source of a comparatively larger proportion of loanwords in the respective regional
varieties.
In order to provide loanword data for Romanian as a whole, the lexicon used
for the database entry is not based on any specific regional dialect, but on what is
considered to be part of the language according to the Romanian Academys
dictionary (Coteanu et al., 1998). As a result, a number of the loanwords included are
most commonly used in particular regions; in some cases, this results in the
incorporation of several synonyms borrowed from different source languages.
The historic foundations for the emergence of Romanian were laid when the
Dacians, inhabitants of an area broadly coinciding with modern-day Romania, were
defeated by the Romans under Emperor Trajan between 101 AD and 106 AD, leading
to the foundation of the Roman province of Dacia. This was followed by a period of
intense colonisation and Romanisation, during which a regional variety of Popular
Latin established itself as the local language. The contact with the rest of the Roman
Empire was relatively short-lived, as the invading Goths forced Rome to pull out of
Dacia after less than 170 years, around 271 AD. Despite the comparatively short
duration of direct contact with the rest of the Roman Empire, language shift from the
Thraco-Dacian substrate to Latin must have been sufficiently extensive for a Latin-
based language that we might call proto-Romanian to completely replace the substrate
language(s), though this may have been a gradual and prolonged process (see Section
3.1. below).
Subsequently, various peoples invaded the area, generally moving in from
the northeast and east. Whilst some invading tribes, e.g. the Huns, left few cultural
and linguistic traces, other populations settled amongst the early Romanian speakers,
notably Magyars (from the 9thcentury) and Slavs in several waves of migration (6th-
11th century), providing ideal conditions for long-term linguistic contact. There is an
ongoing debate as to whether ethnic Romanians have been living in areas north of the
Danube, particularly in Transylvania, continuously since Roman times, or whether
they were pushed back by a large Hungarian population, eventually returning to those
areas at a later stage. As this debate is primarily politically motivated and linked to
territorial claims, it will not be entered into here; in any case, the linguistic evidence
suggests a considerable degree of cultural contact, typical of a situation of
cohabitation over an extended time period.
Other linguistically relevant historical events include the arrival of German
settlers in Transylvania in the 12th and 13th centuries, encouraged by the Hungarian
rulers, and the imposition of Ottoman suzerainty from the 16th century, bringing the
population into increased cultural, administrative and trade-based contact with other
areas of the Ottoman empire, particularly modern-day Turkey, Bulgaria, and Greece.

2. Sources of data
The source of the lexical data, i.e. the Romanian words corresponding to the meanings
contained in the Loanword Typology Database, was either the authors personal
knowledge or standard bilingual dictionaries (Isbescu, 1995; Savin et al., 1997;
Levichi & Banta, 1992), complemented by the Romanian Academys monolingual
dictionary (Coteanu et al., 1998) and a dictionary of synonyms (Seche & Seche,
2002); the latter were used to identify any existing synonyms and to determine the
degree of semantic overlap between near and partial synonyms.
The two main sources of the etymological information that appears in the
database are (a) the Romanian Academys Dicionarul explicativ al limbii romne
(Coteanu et al., 1998), which provides the source language and etymon, where
known, for each entry, but does not supply any additional etymological explanation or
discussion, and (b) Cioranescus (1966) etymological dictionary of Romanian, which
contains very detailed etymologies but has a limited number of entries. Where neither
of these default sources provided a fully satisfactory etymology, it was either
complemented with suggestions by time-honoured Romanian philologists (Pucariu,
1997 (1943); Philippide, 1894; Hadeu, 1877, 1879, 1883), or more specific studies
dealing specifically with the etymology of loanwords from individual source
languages were consulted. Among these, Wendt (1960) examines loans from Turkish,
Miklosich (1860, 1862-65) investigates the incorporation of Slavic elements into
Romanian, Conev (1921) looks at contact between Bulgarian and Romanian, Murnu
(1894) and Diculescu (1924-26) investigate Greek elements in Romanian, whilst
Cihac (1879) and McClure (1976) examine the loans from various source languages.
Information regarding the exact word form of the source word was frequently taken
from dictionaries of the respective languages, e.g. Newmark (1998) and Fiedler &
Klosi (1997) for Albanian, Gruji (1998) for Serbian, and Steuerwald (1972) for
Turkish. Information regarding the earliest known source word was obtained from
etymological dictionaries of various languages, e.g. Corominas (1961) for loanwords
shared with Spanish and Grebe (1963) for loanwords with German cognates.

3. Contact Situations
For the present analysis of loanwords in Romanian, the focus lies on words borrowed
into the language after Latin began to be used in the area where Romanian is spoken
today. Whilst it is neither possible nor sensible to define an exact point in time at
which Latin became Romanian, it can be ruled out that a Latin-based Romanian
language existed before Latin began to be used in the territory. Thus, Latin loanwords
such as Germanic hemidi mantel, shirt, which entered Latin, via Celtic, as camisia
shirt, alb and was passed on, like any native item, to its Romance daughter
languages (Spanish camisa shirt, French chemise shirt, Romanian cma shirt),
are certainly borrowed, but into Latin, not into Romanian. As the aim of this chapter
is to examine the impact of borrowing on the lexical structure of Romanian and to
compare and contrast these developments with other languages (including Romance
sister languages of Romanian), the following survey examining contact situations that
have left their traces in the Romanian lexicon will begin around the time when a
specifically Dacian or Romanian regional variety of Popular Latin began to develop,
namely in the second century AD, after the Roman conquest of the area.

3.1. Contact with Thraco-Dacian substrate languages and/or Albanian

Little is known about the Thraco-Dacian substrate spoken in the area before the shift
to Latin, but it is generally assumed that it was an Indo-European language closely
related to Albanian, perhaps even the direct ancestor of modern Albanian (du Nay,
1996: 72). Whilst this Thraco-Dacian substrate disappeared with the adoption of
Latin, it must be assumed that contact with closely related languages, perhaps
varieties of Albanian, continued for several centuries. In addition to peasants in
remote areas, who were not immediately affected by the Roman occupation and
probably took longer to shift to Latin, a certain degree of population movement and
mixture between Latinised and non-Latinised areas must be assumed, particularly due
to the fact that semi-nomadic herdsmen roamed large areas of the Balkan Peninsula,
thereby acting as a continuous source of contact with the Thraco-Dacian/Albanian
languages. In most cases, our lack of precise knowledge of these languages makes it
impossible to determine whether Romanian words with cognate counterparts in
Albanian were borrowed directly from the substrate languages, or from Albanian at a
later stage (Rosetti, 1986: 223).
The nature of the contact between Latin and the local substrate language can
be assumed to have proceeded along similar lines as in many other areas that were
incorporated into the Roman Empire. After conquering and occupying the territory
militarily, Roman administrative structures were implemented and former Roman
soldiers from across the Empire were given land on which to settle. For the existing
inhabitants of the area, who received the status of Roman citizens, it was useful or
even necessary to learn and speak Latin to participate and be successful in this new
society; there was little resistance to adopting Latin, as it had more prestige than the
substrate language and was associated with wealth and progress. This resulted in a
rapid language shift to Latin, despite the relatively brief period of Roman rule (106
AD to 271 AD); the number of lexical and morpho-syntactic elements retained from
the substrate (i.e. borrowed into the regional variety of Latin) is comparatively small1,
despite some ongoing contact with languages closely related to the original substrate,
such as Albanian.
The relationship between the Latin superstrate and the local substrate
languages was initially one defined by the political and cultural dominance of the
Romans. After the Romans withdrawal from the province, however, it can be
assumed that the contact situation gradually changed to one of cohabitation, in which
speakers of early Romanian and speakers of Thraco-Dacian/Albanian lived in close
vicinity of each other and communicated on a regular basis about everyday matters
regarding their pastoral activity and the natural environment.

3.2. Contact with Slavic languages.

3.2.1. The first contact with Slavic under the Avars

Between the 6th and the 8th century, the Avars occupied the area north of the Danube
and ruled an area roughly coinciding with modern-day Transylvania. While their
leaders were aristocrats of Turkic origin, the Avars were, in fact, a multi-ethnic group;
the majority of the population that moved into Romanian-speaking territory were of
Slavic extraction. As these Slavs did not belong to the ruling class under the Avars,
their language is unlikely to have had superstrate status. The contact situation can be
assumed to have been one of cohabitation and regular interaction between Romanians
and Slavs, without a great degree of cultural dominance of either of the two.

3.2.2. Contact with South Slavic

There must have been intense contact with South Slavic well before the 9th century,
during the common Romanian period, i.e. before Daco-Romanian, Arumanian and
Megleno-Romanian separated. The evidence for this early contact with South Slavic
is the presence of the same loanwords in all three languages and the fact that certain
sound changes that had taken place in South Slavic by the end of the 9th century are
not reflected in the corresponding Romanian loanwords (du Nay, 1996: 100). After
the influx of Slavs into the Balkan Peninsula, the contact situation was initially one of
population mix of Romanian and South Slavic speakers, probably in approximately
equal proportions. The large number of lexical items and morpho-syntactic structures
shared by Romanian and Bulgarian/Macedonian to the present day indicates that there
was a high degree of bilingualism in this mixed population in the entire area.
Complementing this adstrate situation, the standardization and exclusive use
of Old Church Slavonic for religious purposes from the 9th to the 17th century gave
South Slavic the status of a cultural superstrate language, particularly in areas related
to religious beliefs and practices.

3.2.3. Later contact with Slavic languages

In addition to the comparatively early South Slavic influence, there was more
localised contact between Romanian and individual Slavic languages at later dates.
There is evidence of contact between Romanian and Ukrainian that must have taken
place after the 12th century (as shown by the fact that borrowing took place after a
Ukrainian [h]>[g] change, dated around the 12th century, cf. Mihil 1973: 46) in the
north, of contact with Serbian since the 15th century in the east, as well as continuing
1
A number of morpho-syntactic elements are shared by several languages belonging to the Balkan
Sprachbund, some of which may be rooted in structures that were present in the common substrate
language(s) (see Section 6).
contact with Bulgarian in the south. These regionally limited contact situations were
characterised by interaction, in most domains of everyday life, between the Slavic and
the Romanian populations in the respective areas.

3.3. Contact with Greek

Contact between Romanian and (Byzantine) Greek was both direct and indirect. From
before the Byzantine period until approximately the 10th century, Balkan Romance, as
well as South Slavic, were spoken in an area that bordered on northern Greece; in the
south of this area, the presence of a considerable Greek population led to a trilingual
contact situation. Cohabitation and everyday interaction between all three population
groups were common. Even after Daco-Romanian was physically separated from the
Greek-speaking area, contact between Romanian and Greek continued, especially in
the areas of trade and commerce. To what extent this contact was mediated by the
Slavic population that separated the two cannot be precisely determined; the presence
of numerous Greek loans in Romanian, Bulgarian and other Balkan languages shows
that these words were widely borrowed throughout the region.
From the 15th century onwards, contact between Greek and Romanian
speakers, primarily through commercial activity, continued within the expanding
Ottoman Empire.

3.4. Contact with Hungarian

From the late 9th century, the Magyars began to settle in areas north of the Carpathian
Mountains; to the present day, a large number of ethnic Hungarians live in certain
areas of Transylvania. In contrast to the contact situations described above,
Romanians and Hungarians did not mix to the same extent, maintaining separate
ethnic and linguistic identities. An important factor in this process was the fact that
they tended to live in separate villages; as a result, contact was largely limited to trade
and othe occasional encounters. Even when Hungarian increasingly turned into a
superstrate language after Transylvania became incorporated into the Austro-
Hungarian Empire from the 18th century onwards, the Romanian population was
largely excluded from official matters; contact with Hungarian thus remained
comparatively limited.

3.5. Contact with German

Having been granted special privileges, German settlers founded towns and villages in
Transylvania in the 12th and 13th centuries. In the 17th and 18th centuries, more
German settlements were founded in the Banat area in the east of Romania. Contact
with the Romanian population was similar to that between Romanians and
Hungarians, as the German settlers preserved their separate cultural and linguistic
identity. Contact was generally limited to commercial interaction.
A separate contact situation, beginning in the second half of the 19th century,
arose due to an increasing orientation towards Western European culture and lifestyle.
Though the primary cultural model was France, Germany also served as a model. The
upper classes travelled to Germany and visited German universities, German literature
was read in intellectual circles, and certain novel products and concepts came to
Romania from or via Germany.

3.6. Contact with Turkish

3.6.1. Trade
Turkish traders settled along the Black Sea coast from the late 15th century onwards.
Being a relatively small group of the population, the overall impact of this contact
was largely limited to commercial transactions.

3.6.2. The Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman rule in the Balkans brought about a contact situation in which Turkish
acquired considerable importance as a language used in the military and
administrative domains. Whilst Romanian-speaking areas retained a certain degree of
independence under Ottoman suzerainty between the 16th and 18th centuries, many
Turkish products and cultural practices found their way into Romania. Furthermore,
Romanians were recruited to fight in the Ottoman armies, which led to a high degree
of contact in the military domain.

3.7. Contact with languages serving as a cultural model

Like in many European cultures, Latin, and by extension Italian, was viewed as an
educated linguistic model. In Romanian, this trend surfaces as early as the 17th
century, exemplified by the borrowing of Italian popolo > Romanian popor people,
population, as an alternative to neam, borrowed from Hungarian.
The cultural importance of Latin, Italian, to some extent German, but most
of all French, especially during the second half of the 19th and the first half of the 20th
century, led to a contact situation between Romanian and predominantly written
French, Italian, Classical Latin etc. Whilst wealthier sections of the Romanian
population did travel to France, Italy and Germany for the purpose of business,
holiday and education, others merely had indirect contact, through literature and
education. It is worth pointing out that the vast majority of the population had very
little formal education and did not speak French; nevertheless, large numbers of
French, Italian and learned Latin loanwords entered the language and permeated
through all sections of society.

4. Number and types of loanwords

Of the words contained in the Loanword Typology database for Romanian, 42% are
loanwords. Whilst this implies that the majority of the Romanian lexicon is inherited
from Latin, it also shows that Romanian has incorporated an exceptionally large
amount of lexical material from other languages.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the largest number of loanwords is found in the
semantic field modern world, where 70.5% of words are borrowed. 65% of these
loanwords come from French, either fully or partially. (For a discussion of the
concept of partial borrowing from French, see Section 4.1. below.) Due to the strong
cultural orientation towards France in the 19th and 20th centuries (see Section 3.7.), the
reason for this intense borrowing from French can be linked, at least in part, to the
fact that many of the new inventions and concepts belonging to this semantic field
were introduced to Romanian speakers through France and the French language. This
is also the background for the only borrowed item in the category function words: a
deveni to become, an alternative to the synonymous periphrastic a se face (literally
to make oneself was borrowed from French devenir as a term linked primarily to
modern philosophy, which Romanians came into contact with through French.
On the other hand, loans from the Slavic languages are hardly relevant in the
category modern world, despite accounting for a significant proportion of the
borrowed lexical stock in general. Items in this category, it may be assumed, were not
normally introduced to Romanian speakers via the populations of neighbouring
countries during the period in which most of the modern world meanings emerged
and gained significance. In this semantic field, the largest amount of loans from a
Slavic language come from Russian, largely due to Russia serving as a model in the
area of administration. Thus pota post, mail and poliie police are borrowed from
Russian.
In the category religion and beliefs, there is also a large proportion of
loanwords, almost 60%. Half of these are borrowed from early South Slavic,
Bulgarian or Greek, i.e. the languages through which Romania was in touch with the
Orthodox Church. The use of Old Church Slavonic as the language of religion for
many centuries explains the large number of Slavic loans; it is likely that words
belonging to other semantic fields also entered the language via this religious use of
Slavic, for instance dragoste love and prieten friend.
Another semantic field with an exceptionally large proportion of loans,
67.7%, is social and political relations. This is not entirely unexpected, as new social
and political structures are often influenced by, or imported from, populations with a
different socio-political system when a contact situation arises. Even subtle
differences between the old concepts and the newly imported or adapted ones are
likely to be reflected lexically, as the affected speakers are acutely aware of the
differences affecting their daily lives. Most loanwords in the category social and
political relations, i.e. 35% of the borrowed items or around a quarter of all words in
this category, come from Slavic languages, which had the most profound impact on
Romanian society over the centuries. These words include rather fundamental
concepts such as a porunci to order, to command as well as stpn master and rob
slave, which suggest that contact with the Slavs brought changes to this aspect of
society with it; the influence of the use of Old Church Slavonic in religious contexts is
also likely to have contributed to the adoption of these words. Another case showing
how differences that came with a new administrative and political system are reflected
by lexical replacement is grani border, frontier, also borrowed from Slavic, which
may be assumed to have come into use with a new type of frontier established under
the influence of a Slavic administrative system.
An example of a distinction between similar meanings being made by
means of adopting a loanword is the near-synonymous word pair for village, in
which ctun, cognate with Abanian katund, is probably a loan from the pre-Latin
substrate and refers to a hamlet without any formal administrative structure of its own,
a type of settlement that may be assumed to have existed before Roman occupation.
The inherited Romance word for village, sat, derived from Latin fossatum, on the
other hand, refers to a somewhat larger village which, according to the meaning of
fossatum, was originally typically fortified in some way. Furthermore, the much later
borrowing of ora town, city from Hungarian vros suggests that urbanisation in the
present-day sense came to Romanian primarily through contact with Hungarian
speakers.
Apart from function words, the semantic fields with the lowest percentage
of loanwords are sense perception (13.9%) and quantity (17.7%). In both of these
categories, the majority of borrowed items comes from Slavic; the proportion of loans
from Slavic in almost all semantic fields will be further discussed in Section 4.2.
below.
All in all, it is significant to observe that borrowing into Romanian has
occurred across the entire lexicon; the average of close to 42% across all semantic
fields is not distorted by exceptionally large numbers of loans in particular semantic
areas. This is confirmed by the fact that the median percentage of loanwords across all
categories is approximately 45%, indicating that a high proportion of borrowed items
is found across most of the semantic fields distinguished in the loanword database.
Sorted by word class, Romanian loanwords conform to the common pattern
that nouns appear to be most easily borrowed. Just over 50% of the nouns in the
database entry are loans, whilst verbs and adjectives have an almost equal loanword
quota of 32%. As adjectives and adverbs are generally not morphologically
distinguished in Romanian, the proportion of borrowed adverbs must be assumed to
be approximately equivalent to that of borrowed adjectives.

4.1. Educated loanwords

The largest number of loanwords comes from French. 11.8% of the Romanian words
in the database are unambiguously borrowed from French, and this number rises to
15.5% if all loanwords that have French as a partial or possible source are added. A
word can be considered to be partially borrowed from French if its form in
Romanian does not allow us to determine unambiguously whether it is borrowed from
French or from one of the other languages that served as cultural models at the same
time. An example of a word borrowed from French and Latin is Romanian
conspiraie plot, conspiracy, which is morphologically integrated in such a way that
it is not evident whether it is borrowed from Latin conspiratio or French conspiration;
both of these would change to conspiraie according to the normal rules of loanword
integration. In such cases, it is quite possible that the Romanians who had knowledge
of both the possible source languages began to use the word in Romanian without
consciously deciding from which of the two languages they had borrowed the word.
Similarly, Romanian banc bank might be borrowed from Italian banca and French
banque, and Romanian ren reindeer might be borrowed from German Ren and
French renne.
If we further add learned Latin and Italian loanwords to the French ones,
then the total proportion of items borrowed from languages serving as cultural models
is 19.2%, i.e. approximately one in five.2 Such a high proportion of educated loans
requires some explanation. Whilst it is normal for a speech community to borrow
terms for newly introduced objects or concepts, Romanian has gone far beyond this
level, borrowing heavily from French to create synonyms of words already present in
the language. Thus Romanian surs spring from French source is synonymous with
izvor, borrowed from Slavic izvor, and with fntn (now archaic in this meaning),
the word inherited from Latin. Similarly, Romanian litoral coast has been borrowed
from French littoral despite the existence of the synonyms coast and rm, inherited
from Latin costa and termen, as well as Romanian mal from Albanian/substrate malj.
In such cases, it is relevant to determine whether the newly borrowed item is merely a
marginal, rarely used or stylistically restricted alternative, or whether it is frequently
used and in real competition with the synonyms that it is predated by. However, the
reality is not always quite as black and white. In the case of coast, for example, mal
is used 50% more than litoral, but litoral still occurs twice as frequently as coast;
rm is only found in just over 1% of all cases. This means that the most recently
added synonym, the loanword from French, has established itself as a serious
competitor.
In some cases, two cognate words have been borrowed into Romanian from
more than one of these languages. For example, jaluzie jealousy, borrowed from
2
Some loanwords from German could also be included in this class, but it is not always clear whether a
word was borrowed from German as a language representing a cultural model or through to contact
with the German minority in Romania.
French jalousie, has been borrowed in addition to the more commonly used gelozie,
from Italian gelosia; there is also a synonym borrowed from Greek, zulie. All of these
are winning the competition with the inherited terms temere or temut, which covers a
somewhat wider emotional area including fear as well as jealousy.
Loans from French, Latin, Italian, and to some extent from German are
found in all semantic fields covered by the loanword database; however, there are
considerable differences in the proportion of words from this source. Whilst both the
mean and the median of the number of loans in the different semantic fields are just
above 20%, indicating that there is no significant imbalance caused by individual
semantic categories, the percentage of loanwords from these languages ranges from a
mere 3.4% (sense perception) to 58% (modern world). For the latter category, it
has already been mentioned above that most of the meanings it contains did not exist
prior to their introduction via the cultures corresponding to the respective donor
languages. A similar explanation can be given for the category animals with 22.1%
of primarily French loanwords, which contains a considerable number of animals that
are not indigenous to the Romanian-speaking territory and for which the terms were
therefore borrowed when Romanian speakers first became aware of their existence via
French; examples are cmil camel, elefant elephant or cangur kangaroo.
With a total of 26.9% of loanwords from these source languages, the semantic
field clothing and grooming is also strongly affected. In this category, Romanian has
borrowed from virtually all contact languages over the centuries, incorporating
corresponding words for new types of clothing items introduced by or through the
respective population or culture. A considerable number of words from French and
Italian have been added as (near) synonyms or hyponyms to existing ones, reflecting
an orientation towards emulating western European fashion including the use of the
corresponding vocabulary. For instance, beret and basc have been borrowed from
French to denote specific types of cap, complementing the existing apc (borrowed
from Bulgarian apka) and cciul (cognate with Albanian ksul), both of which also
refer to caps. Similarly, gheat boot was borrowed from Italian ghetta, joining the
default word for boot, cism (borrowed from Hungarian csizma) and ciubot
(borrowed from Ukrainian oboty).
Similarly, in the areas cognition and emotion and values, with 26.4% and
29.1% of words borrowed from languages serving as cultural models, many of the
loans are synonyms of existing words, incorporated into Romanian due to the fashion
and prestige associated with the use of educated loans. Terms from these languages
associated with the areas law and hunting and warfare (35.1% and 27.2%
respectively), on the other hand, were borrowed together with the new objects and
concepts they denoted, due to fundamental changes to the legal system in post-
Ottoman Romania and significant advances in military technology and strategy,
respectively.
At the other end of the scale, the semantic fields sense perception (3.4%),
quantity (6.3%), the house (6.8%), food and drink (7.3%), and kinship (7.9%)
have incorporated far fewer loans from languages representing cultural models during
the past two centuries. Whilst sense perception and quantity appear to be generally
more resistant to borrowing pressure, with only 13.9% and 17.7% of words in the
respective categories identifiable as loans from any external source, the number of
items borrowed from other source languages in the fields kinship and food and
drink indicates that these semantic categories were specifically more resistant to
borrowing from western European languages serving as cultural models.
4.2. Loanwords from Slavic
The second most significant source of loanwords in Romanian are the Slavic
languages, due to prolonged, close contact between Romanians and the Slavic peoples
that moved into the area. Within the loanword database, 8.5% of all words are
borrowed from (South) Slavic with no particular regional provenance, 5.3% from
Bulgarian and/or Serbian, 0.6% from Ukrainian, and a few isolated items from
Russian and Polish. The total percentage of loanwords from Slavic sources is 14.6%,
approximately one seventh of the words in the database.
It has already been mentioned above that a considerable proportion of Slavic
loans entered Romanian through the use of Old Church Slavonic as the language of
religion, particularly in the semantic field religion and belief (25%), but also in the
category social and political relations. It is not always easy to decide whether a
loanword was borrowed from Slavic primarily via the religious domain or due to the
general prolonged and close contact between the two languages due to cohabitation
during several centuries. In the category emotions and values, for instance, 16.8%
are borrowed from South Slavic including Bulgarian; it is likely that the borrowing of
words such as mil pity from Slavic mil is due to its use in everyday conversation
as well as specifically religious contexts.
Other semantic fields that show a significant number of loans from Slavic are
speech and language (16.5%), basic actions and technology (13.9%), time
(12.3%), the physical world (12.3%), possession (12.1%), motion (11%), the
house (10%), and warfare and hunting(9.6%).
Loanwords from Slavic have, in many cases, replaced inherited words even
where their meanings have been continually present since Roman times; for instance,
nisip sand is borrowed from Bulgarian nasip, zpad and omt (both snow) from
Slavic zapad and omet, all but replacing the respective inherited synonyms arin
and nea, which are nowadays restricted to regional and poetic use. In a similar way,
izvor spring from Slavic izvor has ousted the inherited fntn in this meaning;
under the influence of Italian, French and German, fntn has nowadays shifted its
meaning to fountain.
In other cases, loans from Slavic have filled lexical gaps; the most visible
example is da yes, a notion that could not be rendered by any single word in Latin.
In numerous instances, however, Slavic loanwords co-exist with synonymous
inherited words; in many cases, there is little or no discernible difference in meaning
or in usage frequency. Borrowing of an exact syonym from Slavic can eventually lead
to semantic differentiation; inherited timp and borrowed vreme (from Slavic vrmen),
synonyms referring to both time and weather, for instance, show an incipient
semantic split, with vreme increasingly becoming the more common choice for
weather.
On the other hand, a number of Slavic loanwords have fallen victim to a
strong re-latinisation process since the 19th century. Thus, the Slavic loanword cern
black has disappeared from modern usage, ousted by the inherited synonym negru.
A different development can be observed with the pair german (a 19th century
learned loan from Latin) and neam from Slavic nmici (both German), which are
used virtually synonymously in everyday conversation, though some speakers feel it
is inappropriate to call a German neam to his face, even though it is not generally
perceived as a disrespectful term. This example shows that synonym pairs created by
borrowing can come to contain complex and unpredictable semantic and socio-
pragmatic nuances that go beyond their lexical meaning.
 In antonym pairs with one element borrowed from Slavic, there is an
intriguing tendency for the Slavic word to be the one with more positive connotations.
Examples are to love vs. to hate (a iubi from Slavic ljubiti vs. inherited a ur),
friend vs. enemy (prieten borrowed from Slavic prijatel vs. duman borrowed
from Turkish dman), and yes vs. no (da borrowed from Slavic vs. inherited nu).

4.3. Loanwords from Turkish

3% of the words in the Loanword Typology database for Romanian are borrowed
from Turkish. Whilst these loanwords account for a far smaller proportion of
Romanian vocabulary than those discussed in the previous sections, it is still a
considerable amount of the lexical stock. It is perhaps noteworthy that not a single
Romanian verb in the database is borrowed from Turkish. By far the largest impact
can be observed in the lexical field the house, with 10% of the vocabulary in this
category borrowed from Turkish. The majority of these loanwords can be attributed to
innovations and improvements in construction, furniture, tools etc., as well as
fashions, introduced from the Ottoman Empire. Some examples are chirpici adobe
from Turkish kerpi, chioc garden house from Turkish kk, geam window from
Turkish cam, sob stove from Turkish soba, hogeag chimney from Turkish ocak.
Many of these words were widely borrowed throughout the Balkan areas of the
Ottoman Empire and have cognate loanforms in neighbouring languages; Turkish
cam, for example, has also been borrowed into Greek as , into Albanian am and
Bulgarian dam.
Other semantic fields with a relative large proportion of loans from Turkish
are agriculture and vegetation (4.7%), food and drink (4.6%), and clothing and
grooming (4.5%). In a way similar to the previous examples of words borrowed from
Turkish, these loans are typically linked to the introduction of the corresponding
objects as a result of Turkish influence through the close political and commercial
links with the Ottoman empire.
In some cases, Turkish loanwords are synonymous with inherited items,
with no discernible semantic difference; one of the more visible examples due to its
central nature as part of Romanian rural culture is cioban shepherd from Turkish
oban, a synonym of the inherited word pastor.
There are also some intriguing antonym pairs in which the Turkish loanword
tends to be the element with more negative connotations. Examples are clean vs.
dirty (inherited curat vs. murdar borrowed from Turkish) and friend vs. enemy
(prieten borrowed from Slavic prijatel vs. duman borrowed from Turkish dman).

4.4. Loanwords from other source languages

1.7% of the words in the database are borrowed from Greek, with the highest
proportion in the semantic fields clothing and grooming (6.2%), modern world
(5.8%), the house (5.7%), and religion and belief (4.6%). Many of the loans from
Greek entered the language in a way similar to the Turkish loans, due to contact and
trade between Greeks and Romanians within the Ottoman area of influence; religious
terminology can be attributed to the shared Orthodox Christian background.
A similar percentage, 1.6%, is borrowed from Hungarian. The largest
number of loans, in the category social and political relations (6.5%) can be
attributed to the fact that Transylvania, a large section of the Romanian-speaking
territory, was under Hungarian influence or rule between the 11th and the 20th century,
and as a result, social relations were influenced by Hungarian concepts. Even
relatively fundamental social concepts such as gazd host from Hungarian gazda
and a se ntlni to meet from Hungarian talni were incorporated into the common
Romanian vocabulary and are not limited to the territories that were under Hungarian
influence. Other lexical fields with a relatively high proportion of Hungarian
loanwords are clothing and grooming (4.5%), speech and language (4.5%), and
the house (4.3%). In all these semantic categories, new words were introduced
together with the corresponding culturally specific objects and concepts from
Hungarian. Hungarian loanwords also fill genuine lexical gaps; in Romanian, there is
normally no distinction made between leg and foot, both of them rendered by
picior. To make specific reference to foot without the leg, the word lab, borrowed
from Hungarian lb, us used.
Loanwords from Albanian or closely related pre-Latin substrate languages
account for only 1% of the vocabulary in the database. Only a limited number of
semantic categories contain loans from this source: the physical world (4.8%),
kinship (3.2%), agriculture and vegetation (2.8%), animals (2.7%), social and
political relations (1.6%), the house (1.4%), the body (1.2%), and clothing and
grooming (1.1%). Virtually all loanwords from Albanian/substrate fall into the areas
of family, farming, and basic living. The fact that these words survived the process of
language shift to Latin indicates that terms and concepts belonging to these areas of
life were so deeply rooted in the culture that they continued to be used during and
even after the shift to Latin.

5. Integration of loanwords

5.1. Phonological integration

Generally, the majority of loanwords are not subject to a great deal of phonological
change, largely due to the relative large phonological inventory and tolerant
phonotactics of Romanian. It is likely that this phonological tolerance is itself, at least
in part, due to the continual influx of borrowed words from various source languages.
A number of phonological features of Romanian may have emerged as a result of
contact and large-scale borrowing; the central vowel //, for instance, may have
entered Romanian from Slavic (Hall, 1974: 73), though this claim is disputed by
Petrucci (1999: 60-69).
Certain voiced word-initial consonant clusters such as /zdr-/ are also likely
to have developed due to borrowing from Slavic, as they regularly occur in loanwords
from Slavic beginning with /sdr-/.

a zdrobi to anihilate < Slavic sdrobiti

zdravn strong, healthy < Slavic sdravin
zdrean rag < Slavic sdran

The phonological development leading to the creation of this cluster is not limited to
Romanian; cognate forms such as Serbian zdravo healthy show that this is a more
wide-spread, regional process. However, the occurrance of the same initial consonant
cluster in Romanian words with unkown origin may be an extension of this
phonological sequence beyond the originally borrowed items, indicating that the
cluster has become a fully integrated part of the language.

a zdruncina to shake < source unknown

a zdrngni to tinkle, jingle < source unknown
Some vowel distinctions in the source languages that do not exist in Romanian have
led to a change in vowel quality (and quantity where applicable) in the borrowed
Romanian word. For instance, in ora town from Hungarian vros [va:o], the
quantity distinction is not preserved3, and in duman enemy from Turkish dman,
the Turkish close front rounded vowel /y/ is replaced by a close back rounded vowel
/u/. Similarly, the close-mid front rounded vowel [] has been replaced by the close-
mid back rounded vowel [o] in chioc garden house from Turkish kk, but a trace
of the original vowel is preserved in the fact that the preceding /k/ is followed by a
palatal glide, which is a regular development affecting the sequence /k/ + close-mid
front vowel. On the other hand, the more recently borrowed foen [fn] hairdryer
(from German Fhn) preserves the original vowel almost unchanged, thereby
effectively adding a new vowel phoneme to the Romanian inventory.
Some phonological patterns are perceived to be typical of loanwords from a
particular donor language. A example of this are nouns ending.in -ea when indefinite
and in -eaua when definite, which are perceived by most Romanians to be of Turkish
origin. In many cases, this is accurate.

perdea, perdeaua (the) curtain < Turkish perde

merdenea,.merdeneaua (the) filled.puff pastry < Turkish merdan

However, this pattern is, in fact, indigenous, as shown in the inherited word for star.

stea, steaua star < Lat. stella

5.2. Morphological integration

Almost all loanwords are morphologically fully integrated; most verbs borrowed from
Slavic are incorporated into the conjugation of infinitives ending in /-i/, due to the
similarity to the original ending in /-iti/. Verbs from other Romance languages and
learned Latin borrowings are generally integrated into the conjugations corresponding
to those the respective nouns belong to in their source languages.
However, a set of borrowed verbs ending in /-r/ in Romanian, most of them
of Slavic origin, have developed a modified paradigm that can be analysed as a newly
created conjugation (Schulte, 2005).
Nouns and adjectives are also generally fully integrated, following one of
the various declension patterns available. The original gender of nouns is generally
retained, and inanimate objects that do not have a gender in their source language
usually receive neuter gender and morphology, which implies masculine agreement
in the singular and feminine agreement in the plural. Examples are gref grapefruit
from English grapefruit and pix ballpoint pen, probably borrowed via English from
the brand name Bic, with the respective plural forms grefuri/grefe and pixuri requiring
feminine agreement. The reanalysis of borrowed plurals ending in /-s/ as singular
forms and the subsequent addition of the plural morpheme /-uri/ is commonly found,
especially with loans from English, as in cips (sg.) from English (potato) chips, with
the plural cipsuri.
As will be briefly discussed in Section 6, Romanian has borrowed a large
number of South Slavic affixes, many of which appear on loanwords from South
Slavic but have become productive affixes in Romanian. As a result, the presence of

3
Whether the metathesis of the two vowels is linked to the original difference in quantity is unclear.
originally Slavic derivational morphology on loanwords does not set them apart from
other Romanian words.

6. Grammatical borrowing
As a member of the well-known Balkan convergence area, Romanian has developed a
considerable number of morphological and syntactic structures in parallel with the
other member languages of the Balkan Sprachbund. For some of the features shared
among these languages, it is impossible to determine in which direction they were
borrowed, or whether they are simply the result of joint development. These include
postposition/suffixation of the definite article, a case system in which the genitive and
the dative have merged, an analytic comparative, the formation of the numerals eleven
to nineteen with a preposition meaning on or over, following the pattern one-
over-ten, two-over-ten etc., formation of an analytic future tense with a verb
originally meaning to want, and the use of an empty imperative verb (Greek ide,
Turkish haydi, Bulgarian/Romanian haide), used to encourage the addressee to go
ahead with an unspecified but pragmatically obvious action; in Bulgarian and
Romanian, haide can receive morphological person inflection (Romanian haidem
(1PL) and haidei (2PL).
For other features shared by the Balkan languages, a specific source
language can be pinpointed. For instance the widespread tendency to use finite
subordinate clauses instead of infinitival clauses even in cases of subject coreference
is generally attributed to the merger of the infinitive and subjunctive in Greek,
subsequently spreading across the Balkan Peninsula.
Other features of Romanian morpho-syntax can be attributed directly to
specific source languages. The use of an obligatory attribute agreement marker is a
feature of Albanian, and presumably of pre-Latin substrate languages in Romania,
that has been borrowed into Romanian, albeit with greater restrictions on its usage.
Among the morphological features clearly borrowed from South Slavic are
the use of a vocative in /-o/ for feminine nouns ending in /-a/ in their nominative
form, the loss of the final syllable of the infinitive, and a large set of derivational
morphemes directly borrowed from South Slavic (du Nay, 1996: 102-108).
Finally, in more recent times, an increased use of the infinitive since the
second half of the 19th century may, at least in part, be attributable to the strong
influence of French (Close, 1974: 227). However, this is not a complete innovation;
the French model is likely to have acted as a reinforcement of an incipient resurgance
of the infinitive in certain constructions, especially in prepositional adverbial clauses
(Schulte, 2007: 308-316).

7. Conclusion
Having borrowed from a considerable number of languages over the centuries,
Romanian can serve as an example of a language with a high degree of lexical
permeability. Borrowing has taken place in a number of very distinct types of contact
situations, ranging from cohabitation and population mix on the one end of the scale
(e.g. South Slavic) to predominantly indirect contact (e.g. French). Despite the
fundamentally different nature of these contact situations, both have provided a large
amount of morphologically and phonologically fully integrated lexical material.
Whilst the differences between contact situation types affect the number of
loanwords from particular languages in certain semantic categories, borrowed items
are found in all areas of the lexicon. Loanwords are not only used for objects and
concepts for which there was no indigenous word, but have also been introduced as
synonyms for existing words; in some cases this has led to the creation of multiple
synonyms from a number of different donor languages. Borrowed synonyms often
coexist with little or no discernible meaning difference, though their availability is
sometimes exploited to make subtle semantic or pragmatic distinctions. Some
loanwords are typically associated with a particular register, but generally even words
from high-status source languages are used in colloquial speech, which shows that
they have been fully integrated into the language.
The continuous addition of lexical material from various source languages
over the centuries means that a large proportion of the vocabulary of present-day
Romanian is not inherited from Latin; in some semantic areas loanwords far
outnumber inherited ones. Even relatively basic words denoting continually present
meanings, such as features of the natural environment, are frequently borrowed.
Whilst it might therefore be argued that Romanian is a language with a hybrid
vocabulary, the large number of words borrowed from other Romance languages over
the last two centuries nevertheless gives its lexicon a distinctly Romance appearance.

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Loanword appendix

Words borrowed from Thraco-Dacian or Albanian

mgur the mountain or hill
mal the shore
pru the river or stream
mlac the swamp
abur the fog
the steam
scrum the ash
copil the child(1)
the child(2)
mo the grandfather
the old man
moa the grandmother
the old woman
ap the he-goat
mnz the foal or colt
cpu the tick
oprl the lizard
cioc the beak
ceaf the nape of the neck
groap the grave
cciul the hat or cap
vatr the fireplace
gard the fence
copac the tree
brad the fir
ctun the village

Words borrowed from (South) Slavic

praf the dust
prpastie the cliff or precipice
ostrov the island
val the wave
izvor the spring or well
smrc the swamp
mlatin the swamp
stnc the stone or rock
vijelie the storm
vzduh the air
pcl the fog
zpad the snow
omt the snow
vreme the weather
the time
jar the embers
jratic the embers
flcu the young man
nevast the wife
maic the mother
bab the grandmother
the old woman
odrasle the descendants
izlaz the pasture
coco the cock/rooster
scoic the shell
cmil the camel
prepeli the quail
veveri the squirrel
bivol the buffalo
trup the body
obraz the face
the cheek
a clipi to blink
glezn the ankle
pizd the vagina
the vulva
a se trezi to wake up
a omor to kill
strv the carcass
ran the wound or sore
leac the medicine
otrav the poison
gol naked
empty
a nbui to choke
a prji to roast or fry
clete the tongs
mslin the olive
ulei the oil
psl the felt
mantie the cloak
podoab the ornament or adornment
perie the brush
brici the razor
colib the hut
ograd the yard or court
stlp the doorpost
the post or pole
zvor the latch or door-bolt
grind the beam
brn the beam
tabr the camp
hrle the spade
lopat the shovel
a sdi to sow
a cosi to mow
coas the sickle or scythe
ovz the oats
orez the rice
a munci the work
a ncovoia to bend
a lovi to strike or hit or beat
to kick
a (d)obor to cut down
topor the axe/ax
tesl the adze
a tr to pull
a tescui to squeeze
a cldi to build
a zidi to build
clei the glue
covaci the blacksmith
nicoval the anvil
cositor the tin or tinplate
sticl the glass
the bottle
plas the netbag
dalt the chisel
a (r)suci to turn
to twist
a tvli to roll
a clti(na) to shake
a stropi to splash
a se tr to crawl
a se zgrci to crouch
a se chirci to crouch
a cobor to go down
a pogor to go down
osie the axle
crm the rudder
corabie the sail
a primi to get
a rni to injure
a gsi to find
bogat rich
a plti to pay
a tocmi to hire
trg the market
scump expensive
vrf the top
pisc the top
rnd the line
sut a hundred
ceat the crowd
rzle alone
pribeag alone
vrst the age
iute fast
a porni to begin
a sfri to finish
a isprvi to finish
a (se) opri to cease
gata ready
zori the dawn
smbt Saturday
a mirosi to smell(1)
to smell(2)
a privi to look
a pipi to feel
noroc the good luck
a iubi to love
jale the grief
jelanie the grief
mil the pity
milostenie the pity
mndru proud
a (n)drzni to dare
viteaz brave
drz brave
primejdie the danger
a voi to want
vin the fault
lacom greedy
a ghici to guess
tmp(it) stupid
prost stupid
a preda to teach
ucenic the pupil
nevoie the need or necessity
glas the voice
a op(o)ti to whisper
a ipa to shriek
a rcni to shriek
a mrturisi to admit
a opri to forbid
a dojeni to scold
a ocr to scold
a se fli to boast
a citi to read
trmbi the horn or trumpet
toiag the walking stick
stpn the master
rob the slave
slug the servant
a porunci to command or order
prieten the friend
vrjma the enemy
a pofti to invite
a poticni to prevent
datin the custom
sfad the quarrel
curv the prostitute
rzboi the war or battle
bt the club
pratie the sling
suli the spear
straj the guard
nvod the fishnet
vinovat guilty
temni the prison
sfnt holy
a propovdui to preach
a blagoslovi to bless
a posti to fast
iad the hell
gheen the hell
demon the demon
idol the idol
vraj the magic
duh the ghost

Words borrowed from Bulgarian

noroi the mud
mocirl the mud
the swamp
nisip the sand
deal the mountain or hill
peter the cave
grl the river or stream
vrtej the whirpool
jeg the embers
mldee the descendants
mateh the stepfather
mateh the stepmother
rude the relatives
jivin the animal
grajd the stable or stall
gsc the goose
btlan the heron
liliac the bat
pianjen the spider
pleoap the eyelid
clon the beak
a ndui to perspire
a zmisli to beget
a tri to be alive
bolnav sick/ill
a se odihni to rest
pleuv bald
blid the dish
the bowl
castron the dish
the bowl
can the cup
ceac the cup
smochin() the fig
piper the pepper
haine the clothing or clothes
blan the fur
a vopsi to dye
to paint
apc the hat or cap
crp the handkerchief or rag
cosi the plait/braid
odaie the room
prag the door or gate
cmin the fireplace
raft the shelf
grebl the rake
creang the branch
crac the branch
mzg the sap
ciuperc the mushroom
lan the chain
a jupui to skin
rogojin the mat
sanie the sledge/sled
plut the raft
vsl the oar
a pstra to keep
stnjen the fathom
a (se) grbi to hurry
a zmbi to smile
grij the anxiety
obicei the custom
glceav the quarrel
sabie the sword
nad the bait
mecet the mosque
cutie the tin/can

Words borrowed from Bulgarian or Serbian

srman the orphan
poor
dobitoace the livestock
voinic strong
healthy
slab weak
hran the food
ibric the kettle
tigaie the pan
mied the mead
rzboi (de esut) the loom
rochie the (woman's) dress
hain the coat
zid the wall
co the chimney
the basket
fclie the lamp or torch
copaie the trough
gospodar the farmer
ogor the field
grdin the garden
brazd the furrow
a rsdi to plant
coaj the bark
tigv the gourd
ciocan the hammer
a ciopli to carve
drum the path
pod the bridge
srac poor
leaf the wages
ieftin cheap
col the corner
ceas the hour
the clock
a ciupi to pinch
dascl the teacher
coal the school
da yes
hrtie the paper
grani the boundary

Words borrowed from Serbian

nbui to extinguish
suhat the pasture
stup the beehive
boal the disease
trndav lazy
bumbac the cotton
pern the pillow
bolt the arch
stejar the oak
duhan the tobacco
ciot the tree stump
zgomot the sound or noise
vr the fish trap
Words borrowed from Ukrainian
nmol the mud
buhai the bull
pajur the eagle
manta the cloak
ciubot the boot
ivr the latch or door-bolt
horn the chimney
lan the field
a bort(el)i to bore
covali the blacksmith
covor the rug
ru the peg
bort the hole
hd ugly
slut ugly

Words borrowed from Polish

pavz the shield

Words borrowed from Russian

ceainic the kettle
brag the fermented drink
batat the sweet potato
goarn the horn or trumpet
armie the army
poliie the police
pot the post/mail
ceai the tea

Words borrowed from Greek (all periods)

furtun the storm
a the aunt
the mother's sister
the father's sister
papagal the parrot
cucuvea the owl
carid the prawns or shrimp
spate the back
spat the shoulderblade
plmn the lung
splin the spleen
mitr the womb
strachin the dish
the bowl
fasole the bean
zahr the sugar
fust the skirt
buzunar the pocket
scul the jewel
the tool
prosop the towel
alifie the ointment
spun the soap

cort the tent

crivat the bed
crmid the brick
a argsi to tan
a sosi to arrive
catarg the mast
moned the coin
zulie the envy or jealousy
fric the fear
scop the intention
martor the witness
biseric the church
farmec the magic
saltea the mattress
cofeturi the candy/sweets
zaharikale the candy/sweets
calendar the calendar

Words borrowed from Hungarian

ima the pasture
uliu the hawk
chip the face
lab the foot
beteag sick/ill
beteug the disease
a tmdui to cure
guler the collar
cizm the boot
bumb the button
irag the necklace
a locui to live
sob(2) the room
lact the lock
the padlock
hold the field
pip the pipe
bard the axe/ax
ferstru the saw
firiz the saw
ilu the anvil
a se ciuc(ul)i to crouch
mereu always
el the intention
a bnui to suspect
fel the manner
tgdui to deny
fgdui to promise
dob the drum
ora the town
neam the people
gazd the host
a se ntlni to meet
puc the gun
sudalm the oath
hoit (from dialectal Hung.) the corpse, the carcass

Words borrowed from Tatar

arcan the lasso

Words borrowed from Turkish

talaz the wave
chibrit the match
mangal the charcoal
duduie the young woman
cioban the herdsman
catr the mule
calcan the stingray
le the corpse
the carcass
chel bald
farfurie the plate
mezel the sausage
ciorb the soup
zarzavaturi the vegetables
cacaval the cheese
ciorap the sock or stocking
giuvaier the jewel
colan the necklace
basma the handkerchief or rag
chioc the garden-house
geam the window
duumea the floor
sob(1) the stove
hogeag the chimney
covata the trough
chirpici the adobe
cazma the spade
arman the threshing-floor
tutun the tobacco
lulea the pipe
dovleak the pumpkin or squash
dulgher the carpenter
boia the paint
liman the port
buluc the crowd
murdar dirty
duman the enemy
musafir the guest
baltag the battle-axe
capcan the trap
geamie the mosque

Words borrowed from German

biber the beaver
doctor the physician
medicin the medicine
bere the beer
stof the cloth
sacou the coat
pantof the shoe
lamp the lamp or torch
an the ditch
palm the palm tree
bambus the bamboo
treang the rope
defect broken
padel the paddle
obiect the thing
vest the west
cvadrat the square
motiv the cause
turn the tower
spital the hospital
veceu the toilet
urub the screw
plastic the plastic
igar the cigarette
igaret the cigarette

Words borrowed from French and/or German

ren the reindeer/caribou
corp the body
cadavru the corpse
the carcass
orient the east
nord the north
linie the line
real true
idee the idea
religie the religion
paradis the heaven
fee the fairy or elf
radio the radio
telefon the telephone
automobil the car
main the car
the machine
tablet the pill or tablet
adres the address
closet the toilet
bomb the bomb
film the film/movie

Words borrowed from French

sol the soil
colin the mountain or hill
falez the cliff or precipice
abis the cliff or precipice
continent the mainland
litoral the shore
calm calm
ocean the ocean
golf the bay
recif the reef
cap (2) the cape
maree the tide
turbion the whirpool
surs the spring or well
cascad the waterfall
cataract the waterfall
savan the savanna
seism the earthquake
obscuritate the darkness
flam the flame
a incendia to light
persoan the person
masculin male(1)
male(2)
feminin female(1)
female(2)
bebe the baby
divor the divorce
tanti the aunt
the mother's sister
the father's sister
descendeni the descendants
animal the animal
animale the livestock
bovine the cattle
cormoran the cormorant
oposum the opossum
branhie the gill
cochilie the shell
rechin the shark
balen the whale
elefant the elephant
insect the insect
miriapod the centipede
scorpion the scorpion
crevet the prawns or shrimp
termit the termites
coiot the coyote
elan the elk/moose
cangur the kangaroo
jaguar the jaguar
cameleon the chameleon
crocodil the crocodile or alligator
aligator the crocodile or alligator
tapir the tapir
arter the vein or artery
ven the vein or artery
coloan vertebral the spine
figur the face
mandibul the jaw
maxilar the jaw
lob the earlobe
cerumen the earwax
molar the molar tooth
omoplat the shoulderblade
axil the armpit
mamel the nipple or teat
ombilic the navel
stomac the stomach
intestin the intestines or guts
viscere the intestines or guts
talie the waist
ligament the sinew or tendon
tendon the sinew or tendon
testicul the testicles
penis the penis
vagin the vagina
a respira to breathe
a transpira to perspire
a voma to vomit
a saliva to dribble
a defeca to shit
gravid pregnant
a deceda to die
a sucomba to die
a expira to die
a nhuma to bury
sepultur the grave
viguros strong
temperatur the fever
maladie the disease
afeciune the disease
leziune the wound or sore
echimoz the bruise
contuziune the bruise
tumefacie the swelling
medicament the medicine
a se repauza to rest
indolent lazy
putrid rotten
bol the bowl
sucup the saucer
dineu the supper
sup the soup
buchet the bunch
hidromel the mead
fetru the felt
pelerin the cloak
poncho the poncho
jup the skirt
panatalon(i) the trousers
oset the sock or stocking
beret the hat or cap
basc the hat or cap
centura the belt
voal the veil
bijuterie the jewel
colier the necklace
diadem the headband or headdress
tatuaj the tattoo
batist the handkerchief or rag
pomad the ointment
oon the snowshoe
pavilion the garden-house
cupol the arch
hamac the hammock
rigol the ditch
lasou the lasso
recolt the harvest
cereal the grain
plant the plant
a planta to plant
foaie the leaf
sev the sap
suc the sap
palmier the palm tree
banan the banana
banian the banyan
ignam the yam
manioc the cassava/manioc
con the cone
a curba to bend
a boxa to pound
a friciona to rub
a presa to press
a construi to build
a forja to forge
argil the clay
carpet the rug
mochet the rug
evantai the fan
a sculpta to carve
a grava to carve
bumerang the boomerang
a deplasa to move
a plonja to dive
derapa to slide or slip
a dansa to dance
osea the road
ax() the axle
canoe the canoe
port the port
a debarca to land
a poseda to own
a leza to injure
avar stingy
a angaja to hire
magazin the shop/store
resturi the remains
a recolta to gather
a detaa to separate
a repartiza to divide
bordur the edge
est the east
sud the south
plat flat
glob the ball
similar similar
zero zero
debut the beginning
torid hot
ans the good luck
ghinion the bad luck
a regreta to regret or be sorry
compasiune the pity
jaluzie the envy or jealousy
curajos brave
fidel faithful
veridic true
fraud the deceit
corect right(2)
just right(2)
repro the blame
hidos ugly
avid greedy
stupid stupid
idiot stupid
a se instrui to study
elev the pupil
profesor the teacher
secret secret
a suspecta to suspect
facil easy
dificil difficult
manier the manner
discurs the speech
a refuza to refuse
stilou the pen
poet the poet
trompet the horn or trumpet
clan the clan
ef the chieftain
a guverna to rule or govern
aristocrat the noble
servitor the servant
a comanda to command or order
a ordona to command or order
amfitrion the host
tradiie the custom
complot the plot
armur the armour
casc the helmet
fortrea the fortress
atac the attack
prizonier the captive or prisoner
gardian the guard
ambuscad the ambush
a rata to miss
reclamant the plaintiff
a condamna to condemn
a achita to acquit
amend the fine
asasinat the murder
crim the murder
the crime
viol the rape
moschee the mosque
magie the magic
fantom the ghost
televiziune the television
biciclet the bicycle
motociclet the motorcycle
autovehicul the car
autobuz the bus
tren the train
avion the airplane
baterie the battery
a frna to brake
petrol the petroleum
infirmier the nurse
ministru the minister
timbru the postage stamp
robinet the tap/faucet
chiuvet the sink
toalet the toilet
bomboane the candy/sweets
atelier the workshop
a deveni to become

Words borrowed from French and/or Latin

vapori the steam
familie the family
castor the beaver
abdomen the belly
vulv the vulva
a cultiva to cultivate
sculptor the sculptor
statuie the statue
a agita to shake
a ruina to destroy
impozit the tax
salariu the wages
convenabil cheap
a separa to separate
centru the middle
occident the west
plan flat
sfer the ball
imediat immediately
a dura to last
a termina to finish
auror the dawn

culoare the colour/color

furie the anger
temerar brave
a imita to imitate
noiune the idea
dement mad
obscur obscure
clandestin secret
a explica to explain
intenie the intention
cauz the cause
a murmura to mumble
a prohibi to forbid
a anuna to announce
patrie the native country
a invita to invite
conspiraie the plot
conjuraie the plot
armatur the armour
a capitula to surrender
captiv the captive or prisoner
captur the booty
tribunal the court
sentin the judgment
a acuza to accuse
a inculpa to accuse
inocent innocent
adulter the adultery
motor the motor
infraciune the crime

Words borrowed from French and/or Italian

grot the cave
a modela to mould/mold
a naviga to sail
nav the ship
vapor the ship
doliu the grief
banc the bank (financial institution)
muzic the music

Words borrowed from Italian

lagun the lagoon
mascul male(1)
male(2)
acvil the eagle
tucan the toucan
delfin the porpoise or dolphin
police the thumb
febr the fever
cicatrice the scar
medic the physician
nud naked
gheat the boot
plrie the hat or cap
nasture the button
camer the room
staniu the tin or tinplate
strad the road
the street
furchet the outrigger
ancor the anchor
a restitui to give back
a salva to rescue
a distruge to destroy
comerciant the merchant
pia the market
fine the end(2)
gelozie the envy or jealousy
pericol the danger
a spera to hope
elogiu the praise
a studia to study
mod the manner
flaut the flute
armat the army
lance the spear
spad the sword
sperjur the perjury

Words borrowed from Italian and/or Latin

fals wrong
a respinge to refuse
popor the people
amic the friend

Words borrowed from Latin

asin the donkey
leu the lion
craniu the skull
scapul the shoulderblade
clavicul the collarbone
policar the thumb
uter the womb
a vomita to vomit
a sufoca to choke
ornament the ornament or adornment
ramificare the forked branch
a disloca to move
a conduce to lead
to drive
a (e)libera to let go
profund deep
a modifica to change
suficient enough
ultim last
or the hour
invidie the envy or jealousy
culp the fault
clar clear
trda to betray
necesitate the need or necessity
voce the voice
a nega to deny
a promite to promise
sclav the slave
a elibera to liberate
a permite to permit
inimic the enemy
victorie the victory
templu the temple
sacrificiu the sacrifice
a adora to worship
a predica to preach
infern the hell
circumciziune the circumcision
ochelari the spectacles/glasses
delict the crime

Words borrowed from English

pix the pen

Loanwords without precisely identifiable source language

bordei the hut unknown
ra the duck unknown