The Banat subdialect is one of the several subdialects of the Romanian language

Romanian language

Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...

, specifically of the Daco-Romanian

Daco-Romanian

Daco-Romanian is the term used to identify the Romanian language in contexts where distinction needs to be made between the various Eastern Romance languages...

 dialect. Its geographic distribution extends over the Romanian Banat

Banat

The Banat is a geographical and historical region in Central Europe currently divided between three countries: the eastern part lies in western Romania , the western part in northeastern Serbia , and a small...

 and parts of the Serbian Banat.

The Banat subdialect is a member of the northern grouping of Romanian subdialects, along with the Moldavian subdialect

Moldavian subdialect of Romanian

The Moldavian subdialect is one of the several subdialects of the Romanian language...

 and the group of Transylvanian varieties

Transylvanian varieties of Romanian

The Transylvanian varieties of Romanian are a grouping of speech varieties of the Romanian language, specifically of the Daco-Romanian dialect...

. Features of the Banat subdialect are found in southern dialects of Romanian: Aromanian

Aromanian language

Aromanian , also known as Macedo-Romanian, Arumanian or Vlach is an Eastern Romance language spoken in Southeastern Europe...

, Megleno-Romanian

Megleno-Romanian language

Megleno-Romanian is a Romance language, similar to Aromanian and Romanian, or a dialect of the Romanian language...

, and Istro-Romanian

Istro-Romanian language

Istro-Romanian is an Eastern Romance language that is still spoken today in a few villages and hamlets in the peninsula of Istria, on the northern part of the Adriatic Sea, in what is now Croatia as well as in other countries around the world where the Istro-Romanian people settled after the two...

.

The Banat subdialect has been long classified separately from the Transylvanian varieties, but in early studies such as those by Mozes Gaster these were sometimes grouped together as a single variety. The Banat subdialect was considered separately by Heimann Tiktin, Gustav Weigand

Gustav Weigand

Gustav Weigand , was a German linguist and specialist in Balkan languages, especially Rumanian and Aromanian. He is known for his seminal contributions to the dialectology of the Romance languages of the Balkans and to the study of the relationships between the languages of the Balkan...

, Sextil Pușcariu (in his latter studies), Emil Petrovici

Emil Petrovici

Emil Petrovici was a Romanian linguist, who studied both Romanian and the Slavic languages. His studies included Romanian phonetics, phonology, and Romanian and Slavic dialectology....

, Romulus Todoran, Ion Coteanu, Alexandru Philippide, Iorgu Iordan

Iorgu Iordan

Iorgu Iordan was a Romanian linguist, philologist, diplomat, journalist, and left-wing agrarian, later communist, politician. The author of works on a large variety of topics, most of them dealing with issues of the Romanian language and Romance languages in general, he was elected a full member...

, and others.

Geographic distribution

The subdialect is spoken in south-western Romania, in the following counties

Counties of Romania

The 41 judeţe and the municipality of Bucharest comprise the official administrative divisions of Romania. They also represent the European Union' s NUTS-3 geocode statistical subdivision scheme of Romania.-Overview:...

: Caraș-Severin

Caras-Severin County

Caraș-Severin is a county of Romania, in the historical region of Banat and few villages in Transylvania, with the county seat at Reșița.-Demographics:The county is part of the Danube-Kris-Mureș-Tisza euroregion....

, Timiș

Timis County

Timiș , , Banat Bulgarian: ) is a county of western Romania, in the historical region Banat, with the county seat at Timișoara. It is the largest county in Romania in terms of land area....

, the southern part of Arad

Arad County

Arad is an administrative division of Romania roughly translated into county in the western part of the country on the border with Hungary, mostly in the region of Crişana and few villages in Banat. The administrative center of the county lies in the city of Arad...

, and the southern part of Hunedoara

Hunedoara County

Hunedoara is a county of Romania, in Transylvania, with its capital city at Deva.-Demographics:In 2002, it had a population of 485,712 and the population density was 69/km².*Romanians - 92%*Hungarians - 5%*Romas - 2%*Germans under 1%....

. It is also spoken in the Serbian Banat

Banat

The Banat is a geographical and historical region in Central Europe currently divided between three countries: the eastern part lies in western Romania , the western part in northeastern Serbia , and a small...

.

Transition areas

A transition area towards the Wallachian subdialect

Wallachian subdialect of Romanian

The Wallachian subdialect is one of the several subdialects of the Romanian language, specifically of the Daco-Romanian dialect. Its geographic distribution covers approximately the historical region of Wallachia, occupying the southern part of Romania, roughly between the Danube and the Southern...

 is found in the north-west of Oltenia

Oltenia

Oltenia is a historical province and geographical region of Romania, in western Wallachia. It is situated between the Danube, the Southern Carpathians and the Olt river ....

, in the counties of Gorj

Gorj County

Gorj is a county of Romania, in Oltenia, with its capital city at Târgu Jiu.- Demographics :In 2002, it had a population of 387,308 and its population density was 69/km².* Romanians – over 98%* Rromas, others.- Geography :...

 and Mehedinți

Mehedinti County

Mehedinţi is a county of Romania. It is mostly located in the historical province of Oltenia, with one municipality and three communes located in the Banat...

. Mixtures with the southern and central Transylvanian varieties

Transylvanian varieties of Romanian

The Transylvanian varieties of Romanian are a grouping of speech varieties of the Romanian language, specifically of the Daco-Romanian dialect...

 are found in north-eastern parts of Banat, where such a transition area is in the Hațeg Country

Hateg

Hațeg is a town in Hunedoara County, Romania with a population of 12,507. Three villages are administered by the town: Nălațvad, Silvașu de Jos and Silvașu de Sus.Țara Hațegului is the region around Hațeg town...

 and another one extends towards southern Crișana

Crisana

Crișana is a geographical and historical region divided today between Romania and Hungary, named after the Criș River and its three tributaries: the Crișul Alb, Crișul Negru and Crișul Repede....

.

Phonetic features

The Banat subdialect differs from the others by the following phonetic particularities:

• The unstressed mid vowels [e, ə, o] close to [i, ɨ, u], respectively: [pəˈpuk, pliˈkat, ɨnɡruˈpat] for standard papuc, plecat, îngropat.
• Dentals [t, d] become [t͡ʃʲ, d͡ʒʲ], respectively, and consonants [n, l, r] are palatalized when followed by [e, i, e̯a]: [d͡ʒʲimiˈnʲat͡sə, ˈfrunt͡ʃʲe, ˈbad͡ʒʲe, ˈvinʲe, ˈlʲemnʲe, ˈmarʲe] for dimineață, frunte, bade, vine, lemne, mare.
• Affricates [t͡ʃ, d͡ʒ] become the palatalized fricatives [ʃʲ, ʒʲ], respectively: [ʃʲas, ˈʃʲnə, ʃʲnʃʲ, ˈfuʒʲe, ˈʒʲnere, ˈsɨnʒʲe] for ceas, cină, cinci, fuge, ginere, sînge.
• In some varieties, the diphthong [o̯a] is realized as [wa]: [ˈswarje, ˈmwart͡ʃʲe] for soare, moarte. In other varieties [o̯a] becomes the monophthong [ɔ]: [ˈkɔʒə, ˈɔlə] for coajă, oală.
• The stressed vowel [e] becomes [jɛ] when followed by another [e] in the next syllable: [muˈjɛrje, ˈfjɛt͡ʃʲe, poˈvjɛstə, ˈvjɛrd͡ʒʲe, ˈpjɛʃt͡ʃʲe] for muiere, fete, poveste, verde, pește.
• After labials, [je] reduces to [e]: [ˈferje, ˈmerkurʲ, ˈpelje, pept] for fiere, miercuri, piele, piept.
• After the fricatives [s, z, ʃ, ʒ], affricates [t͡s, d͡z], and the sequence [st], [e] becomes [ə], [i] becomes [ɨ], and [e̯a] reduces to [a]: [ˈsarə, səmn, ˈsɨnɡur, d͡zər, d͡zɨd, pəˈʃɨm, ʃəd, ʒɨr, ʃɨ, koˈʒaskə, ɨnˈt͡sapə, sɨmˈt͡səsk, prəˈʒaskə, povjesˈtəsk, staɡ] for seară, semn, singur, zer, zid, pășim, șed, jir, și, cojească, înțeapă, simțesc, prăjească, povestesc, steag.
• Labials remain unchanged when followed by [e, i, e̯a]: [pept, ˈbibol, oˈbe̯alə, fer, ˈvermje, ˈmerkurʲ] for piept, bivol, obială, fier, vierme, miercuri.
• Etymologic [n] is preserved and palatalized, such as in Latin-origin words where [n] is followed by [e] or [i] in hiatus, words with inflection endings in [i], Slavic borrowings with the sequence [nj], as well as Hungarian borrowings with [nʲ]: [kunʲ, kəlˈkɨnʲ, kəpəˈtɨnʲ, tu rəˈmɨnʲ, ˈklanʲe, səˈkrinʲ] for cui, călcîi, căpătîi, tu rămîi (from Latin cuneus, calcaneum, capitaneum, tu remanēs), claie (from Slavic *klanja, cf. Serbian and Bulgarian kladnja), sicriu (from Hungarian szekrény). This phenomenon is distinct from the simple palatalization of [n] when followed by a front vowel, which is newer, even though the two phenomena can now appear in very similar contexts: [tu spunʲ] contains an etymological [nʲ], whereas [jel spunʲe] contains a more recently palatalized [n].
• The voiced affricate [d͡z] is preserved in words believed to be of substrate
  Eastern Romance substratum
  The Eastern Romance languages developed from the Proto-Romanian language, which in turn developed from the Vulgar Latin spoken in a region of the Balkans which has not yet been exactly determined, but is generally agreed to have been a region north of the Jireček Line.That there was...
  
   origin: [ˈbrɨnd͡zə, ˈbud͡zə, ɡruˈmad͡zə, mɨnd͡z] for brînză, buză, grumaz, mînz. It is also preserved in Latin-origin words that contain a [d] followed by a long [e] or [i], by an inflectional [i] or by [e] or [i] in hiatus: [ˈd͡zəʃʲe, aˈud͡z, ˈfrund͡zə] for zece, auzi, frunză (Latin: decem, audīs, frondea).
• The diphthong [ɨj] becomes the monophthong [ɨ]: [ˈkɨnʲe, ˈmɨnʲe, ˈpɨnʲe] for cîine, mîine, pîine.

Morphological features

• Feminine nouns
  Romanian nouns
  This article on Romanian nouns is related to the Romanian grammar and belongs to a series of articles on the Romanian language. It describes the morphology of the noun in this language, and includes details about its declension according to number, case, and application of the definite article, all...
  
   ending in -ă tend to form the plural in -i instead of -e: casă – căși ("house – houses", compare with standard casă – case). This may be explained, in the case of nouns with roots ending in a fricative or an affricate, by the fact that the plural ending -e would be realized as -ă (see the phonetic features above), which would produce a homonym
  Homonym
  In linguistics, a homonym is, in the strict sense, one of a group of words that often but not necessarily share the same spelling and the same pronunciation but have different meanings...
  
  y between singular and plural.
• Genitives and datives in nouns are often built analytically: piciorul de la scaun ("the chair's leg", compare with piciorul scaunului), dau apă la cal ("I give water to the horse", compare with dau apă calului).
• The possessive article is invariable: a meu, a mea, a mei, a mele ("mine", compare with standard al meu, a mea, ai mei, ale mele).
• The simple perfect of verbs
  Romanian verbs
  This article on Romanian verbs is related to the Romanian grammar and belongs to a series of articles on the Romanian language.Unlike English but similar to other Indo-European languages, verbs in Romanian are highly inflective. They conjugate according to mood, tense, voice, person and number....
  
   is actively used in all persons and numbers, a feature the Banat subdialect shares with the western areas of the Wallachian subdialect
  Wallachian subdialect of Romanian
  The Wallachian subdialect is one of the several subdialects of the Romanian language, specifically of the Daco-Romanian dialect. Its geographic distribution covers approximately the historical region of Wallachia, occupying the southern part of Romania, roughly between the Danube and the Southern...
  
  .
• The auxiliary verb used for the compound perfect in the 3rd person has the forms o and or: o mărs, or mărs ("he went, they went", compare with standard a mers, au mers).
• Infixes used in other subdialects for the indicative of some verbs
  Romanian verbs
  This article on Romanian verbs is related to the Romanian grammar and belongs to a series of articles on the Romanian language.Unlike English but similar to other Indo-European languages, verbs in Romanian are highly inflective. They conjugate according to mood, tense, voice, person and number....
  
   in the 1st and 4th conjugation groups are dropped: el lucră, ea înfloare ("he works, it blooms", compare with standard el lucrează, ea înflorește).
• In indicative forms of verbs of the 4th conjugation group, homonymy is found between the 1st person singular and the 3rd person plural: eu cobor, ei cobor ("I / they come down", compare with standard eu cobor, ei coboară).
• Periphrasis
  Periphrasis
  In linguistics, periphrasis is a device by which a grammatical category or grammatical relationship is expressed by a free morpheme , instead of being shown by inflection or derivation...
  
   is used to express the pluperfect: am fost avut, m-am fost dus, o fost mîncat ("I had had, I had gone, he had eaten", compare with standard avusesem, mă dusesem, mîncase).
• The negative plural imperative uses the long infinitive: nu fugireț, nu mîncareț ("don't run, don't eat", compare with standard nu fugiți, nu mîncați).
• The auxiliary fi used in the past subjunctive is variable: eu să fiu mîncat, tu să fii mîncat, el să fie mîncat ("that I / you / he ate", compare with standard eu să fi mîncat, tu să fi mîncat, el să fi mîncat).
• In some areas, the auxiliary verb used to construct the conditional is a vrea: eu vreaș face, tu vreai face, el vrea face ("I / you / he would do", compare with standard eu aș face, tu ai face, el ar face). Sometimes the v of the auxiliary is dropped: reaș, etc.
• In south-western areas, under the Serbian influence, signs of a verbal aspect are found, relying on the use of prefixes: a dogăta ("to finish completely", from a găta), a zăuita ("to forget completely", from a uita), a se proînsura ("to marry again", from a se însura).

Lexical particularities

• The demonstrative
  Demonstrative
  In linguistics, demonstratives are deictic words that indicate which entities a speaker refers to and distinguishes those entities from others...
  
   articles are: ăl, a, ăi, ale [ˈalʲe] (standard cel, cea, cei, cele).
• Specific indefinite pronoun
  Indefinite pronoun
  An indefinite pronoun is a pronoun that refers to one or more unspecified beings, objects, or places.-List of English indefinite pronouns:Note that many of these words can function as other parts of speech too, depending on context...
  
  s and adjectives are found: [ˈaltəʃʲe] ("something", standard ceva), [məˈkar ˈʃʲnʲe] ("anyone", standard oricine), tot natul ("each one", fiecare).
• Other specific words: șcătulă ("box", standard cutie), șnaidăr ("taylor", croitor), ai ("garlic", usturoi), farbă ("dye", vopsea), golumb ("pigeon", porumbel), cozeci ("measles", pojar), etc.

Sample

Banat subdialect: [ɨntɨmˈplare̯a o fost aˈʃa ‖ lã luˈvat d͡ʒʲe lant͡s ‖ jel mo pus ˈkapũ spiˈnare ʃo pleˈkat ku ˈminʲe d͡ʒʲm pəˈrjɛt͡ʃʲem pəˈrʲɛt͡ʃʲe ‖ jam pus ˈmɨnantruŋ kʷorn ˈʃajlaltənˈtralt kʷorn ʃɨ mo trɨnˈt͡ʃʲit ʒos]

Standard Romanian: Întîmplarea a fost așa: l-am luat de lanț. El mi-a pus capu-n spinare și-a plecat cu mine din perete în perete. I-am pus mîna într-un corn și cealaltă într-alt corn și m-a trîntit jos.

English translation: "It happened like this: I took it by the chain. It pushed its head into my back and drove me from a wall to another. I grabbed its horn with one hand and its other horn with another, and it knocked me down."

Subdivisions

The subdialect is further divided into several areas, based on finer distinctions in linguistic facts:

• south-western varieties, with particularities such as:

} becomes [ɛ]: [fɛˈkut, pɛˈmɨnt] for făcut, pămînt;
} becomes [v]: [luˈvat] for luat;

• • a verbal aspect appears: am dogătat, am zăuitat, s-a pronsurat (see morphological features above);
• eastern varieties;
• northern varieties, where [ɨ] becomes more frontal, between [ɨ] and [i], in words like [rɨd] (in varieties around Lugoj);
• north-eastern varieties, in the Hațeg Country
  Hateg
  Hațeg is a town in Hunedoara County, Romania with a population of 12,507. Three villages are administered by the town: Nălațvad, Silvașu de Jos and Silvașu de Sus.Țara Hațegului is the region around Hațeg town...
  
  .