Postby Guest » 2005-03-10, 11:01
I beg to differ!
There are huge differences between Romanian dialects; in fact, they are not even mutually understandable! The thing that me and the above Guest poster are not talking about the same "dialects".
There are four main Romanian dialects, or rather idiolects:
1. Daco-Romanian
2. Aromanian or Macedo-Romanian
3. Megleno-Romanian
4. Istro-Romanian
1. Daco-Romanian is standard Romanian. It is spoken in Romania, the Republic of Moldova, the Bukovina region in Ukraine, the Timok Valley and in Vojvodina in Serbia and, of course in all the great cities of the Western World, where there are usually sizeable Romanian communities. Daco-Romanian has some regional variations (graiuri), which can be understood by all speakers of Romanian, but which have different accents and slightly different vocabularies:
a. Graiul muntenesc, spoken in Muntenia(Wallachia). It is the standard way of pronounciation and it is considered to have the standard vocabulary. Some peculiarities have emerged, though, throught the years. For instance, when speaking fast, the preposition pe(on) is pronounced pă.
b. Graiul moldovenesc, spoken in Moldavia and the Republic of Moldova. In Moldova, p is pronounced as k – piatră(stone, rock) becomes kiatră, č becomes ş – „ce faci?”(how`re you doing?) is pronounced „şe faşi”, final ă becomes î – „mămică!” (mother!) becomes „mămicî”. There are also some peculiar regionalisms, especially, but not only, of slavic origin: curechi for varză (cabbage), păpuşoi for porumb(corn), barabulă for cartof(potato);
c. Graiul ardelean, spoken in Ardeal. It also has a different pronounciation, mostly accents vary. Also, there are many loan-words of Hungarian, German or Slavic origin, such as tău for lac (lake), cucuruz for porumb(corn) etc.
d. Graiul bănăţean, spoken in Banat and Vojvodina. The most blatant peculiarity is the fact that t becomes č: frate is pronounced frace, minte is pronounced mince, frunte is pronounced frunce. Also, the oa diphtong is often contracted to the o sound: oală is pronounced olă; also there are peculiar verbal forms for the perfect compus time – „I’ve seen” is pronounce „Eu om văzut”, instead of „Eu am văzut”; there are also some regionalisms, but not so many as in other regions.
e. Graiul oltenesc, spoken in Oltenia (Below the Carpathians, left from the Argeş river). Pronounciation is the same as in Muntenia, but the perfect simplu time is used instead of perfect compus. These times have practically the same semantic value, Oltenia being the only place where perfectul simplu is used. I.e. instead of “Noi am fost la restaurant” – “Noi fuserăm la restaurant”. This time is genuinely peculiar for all other Romanian speakers who only learn about it in school.
It should be understood that these regional variations are within a continuum and are divided like this for the sake of making distinctions. The linguistic map of Romania is much more complex and the fault lines are hard to identify. Also, the grai`s have themselves variations, so this is not a definitive classification.
2. Aromanian, spoken in Greece, Albania, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Serbia. It is hardly understandable by Romanians, because there are lots of differences. For instance, here is a poem in Aromanian, about which I can only guess what it means:
Floare galbinioara
dimand-a tutuloru
dimand-a feateloru
se vina se-ni me alumba
dumineca dimineata
si luni de catre seara
cu roaua se-ni-mi aduna
s-pre avra se-ni-mi poarta
pre iapa nifetata,
pre feata nemartata,
pre gione neinsuratu
s-pre cale necalcata.
3. Megleno-romanian, spoken in the Meglen Mountains area in Bulgaria. It is considered the closest dialect to Daco-Romanian. While Aromanian and Istro-Romanian are sometimes considered independent languages, Megleno-Romanian is almost always considered a dialect or Romanian.
4. Istro-Romanian, spoken by 1000 to 5000 speakers in the Istrian Peninsula, in Croatia. Actually its speakers live only in two villages Žejane (Jeiăn) and Šušnevica (Şiuşnieviţa). This idiom is most likely to be considered an independent language, although there are many clues that point to a common Romanian origin. Rhotacism (the transformation of intervocalic n in r) is a particular mark of this language: făină (flour) becomes farină in IR, albină is albire etc. Also, the vocabulary of Istro-Romanian is very different from Daco-Romanian, with many Italian, German and Croatian influences. For instance, IR has the verb “a fruştuca”, which is clearly the equivalent for the german frühstucken; the IR word for forest is not pădure or codru, but boşche (from Italian bosco) and bell is zvon in IR, and not clopot like in Daco-Romanian.
There are many hypotheses about the origins of these idioms, but this is another discussion. Many people in Romania, wrongly mistake the graiuri for dialects, which clearly they are not.
(other than da wich I know is yes).
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