Romanians
Encyclopedia
The Romanians are an ethnic group
native to Romania
, who speak Romanian
; they are the majority inhabitants of Romania.
The Romanian people are a nation
in the meaning of ethnos
(Romanian: etnie), defined by the sense of sharing a common Romanian culture, descent
, and having Romanian as mother tongue
, not by citizenship
or by being subjects to any particular country. The Romanian citizenship law legislated in March 1991 establishes the rights of second and third generation descendants of Romanian citizens to obtain a Romanian citizenship, if they speak fluent Romanian and are able to demonstrate sufficient knowledge in Romanian history and culture. 89.4 percent of Romania's people declared themselves as Romanians at the 2002 Romanian Census
.
In one interpretation of the census results in Moldova
, Moldovans
are counted as Romanians, which would mean that the latter form the majority in that country as well. Romanians are also an ethnic minority in several nearby countries.
, today's territory of Romania
was conquered by the Roman Empire
in 106, when Trajan
's army defeated the army of Dacia
's ruler Decebalus
(see Dacian Wars). The Roman administration
withdrew two centuries later, under the pressure of the Goths
and Carpi.
The Romanian people was formed by the Romanization of the Roman
Province of Dacia
. The Romanians are descended from local populations: Dacians
(Getae
, Thracians) and Roman legionnaires and colonists. In the course of the two wars with the Roman legions, between 101–102 AD and 105–106 AD respectively, the emperor Trajan
succeeded in defeating the Dacians and the greatest part of Dacia became a Roman province. The colonization with Roman or Romanized elements, the use of the Latin
language and the assimilation of Roman civilization as well as the intense development of urban centres led to the Romanization of part of the autochthonous population in Dacia. This process was probably concluded by the 10th century when the assimilation of the Slavs by the Daco-Romanians was completed.
Small genetic differences were reportedly
found among Southeastern European (Greece, Albania) populations and especially those of the Dniester
–Carpathian
(Romania, Moldova, Ukraine) region. Despite this low level of differentiation between them, tree reconstruction and principle component analyses allowed a distinction between Balkan–Carpathian (Romanians, Moldovans, Ukrainians, Macedonians and Gagauzes) and Balkan Mediterranean (Greeks, Albanians, Turks) population groups. The genetic affinities among Dniester–Carpathian and southeastern European populations do not reflect their linguistic relationships. According to the report, the results indicate that the ethnic and genetic differentiations occurred in these regions to a considerable extent independently of each other.
During the Middle Ages
Romanians were mostly known as Vlachs
, a blanket term ultimately of Germanic
origin, from the word Walha
, used by ancient Germanic peoples to refer to Romance
-speaking and Celtic neighbours. Besides the separation of some groups (Aromanians
, Megleno-Romanians
and Istro-Romanians
) during the Age of Migration, many Vlachs could be found all over the Balkans
, in Transylvania
, across Carpathian Mountains
as far north as Poland
and as far west as the regions of Moravia
(part of the modern Czech Republic
), some went as far east as Volhynia
of western Ukraine
, and the present-day Croatia
where the Morlachs
gradually disappeared, while the Catholic and Orthodox Vlachs took Croat and Serb national identity. The tribal migrations that followed – such as those of Slavs, Bulgars
(later Bulgarians
), Hungarians, and Tatars
– did not allow Romanians to develop any large centralized state, which was only achieved in the 13th century and especially in the 14th century, when the Danubian Principalities
of Moldavia
and Wallachia
emerged to fight the Ottoman Empire
.
The entire Balkan peninsula
was annexed by the Ottoman Empire, but Moldavia, Wallachia (extending to Dobruja and Bulgaria), and Transylvania
remained autonomous under Ottoman suzerainty
. The three principalities were united for several months in 1600 under the authority of Wallachian Prince Michael the Brave.
But there were two lands by the "Vlach" name - the other Wallachia, the Greek Duchy of Wallachia was in Central Greece
surrounded by the Pindus mountains where the Byzantine Empire
was, but outside the empire. It was located north of Athens in the 11th to 13th centuries, but they fell to the Ottoman Turks
by the 1400s.
Up until 1541, Transylvania was part of the Kingdom of Hungary
, later (due to the conquest of Hungary by the Ottoman Empire) was a self-governed Principality governed by the Hungarian nobility. In 1699 it became a part of the Habsburg lands
. By the 19th century, the Austrian Empire
was awarded by the Ottomans with the region of Bukovina
and, in 1812, the Russians occupied the eastern half of Moldavia, known as Bessarabia
.
In 1821 and 1848, two rebellions occurred, and both failed; but they had an important role in the spreading of the liberal ideology
. In 1859, Moldavia
and Wallachia
elected the same ruler – Alexander John Cuza
(who reigned as Domnitor
) and were thus unified de facto.
The newly founded Kingdom of Romania
—led by the Hohenzollern
prince Carol I
—fought a War of Independence against the Ottomans, and was recognized in 1878. Although allied with Austria-Hungary
, Romania
refused to go to enter World War I
on the side of the Central Powers
, because Romania was obliged to go to war only if Austria-Hungary was attacked. In 1916, Romania joined the war on the side of the Triple Entente
. As a result, at the end of the war, Transylvania, Bessarabia and Bukovina were awarded to Romania, resulting in Greater Romania
.
During World War II
, Romania lost territory in both east and west, as Northern Transylvania
became part of Hungary
through the Second Vienna Award
, while Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina were taken by the Soviets and included in the Moldavian SSR
and Ukrainian SSR
respectively. The eastern territory losses were facilitated by the Molotov-Ribbentrop German-Soviet non-aggression pact
.
The Soviet Union imposed a Communist government and King
Michael was forced to abdicate and leave for exile. Nicolae Ceauşescu
became the head of the Romanian Communist Party
in 1965 and his draconian rule of the 1980s was ended by the Romanian Revolution of 1989
.
The 1989 revolution brought to power the dissident former communist Ion Iliescu
. He remained in power until 1996, and then once more between 2000 and 2004. Emil Constantinescu
was president
from 1996 to 2000, and Traian Băsescu
started his mandate in 2004.
Romania joined NATO in 2004 and the European Union
in 2007.
, a Romance language, can be traced back to the Roman colonization of the region. The basic vocabulary is of Latin origin, although there are some substratum
words that are assumed to be of Dacian
origin. Of all the Romance languages, in some respects, Romanian is the most conservative language, having retained, for example, the inflected structure of Latin grammar. Romanian's closest relative among the major Romance languages is Italian, with which it shares a certain degree of asymmetric mutual intelligibility.
During the Middle Ages, Romanian was isolated from the other Romance languages, and borrowed words from the nearby Slavic languages
. Later on, it borrowed a number of words from Hungarian
and Turkish
. During the modern era, most neologisms were borrowed from French
and Italian
, though the language has increasingly begun to adopt English
borrowings.
The Moldovan language
, in its official form, is practically identical to Romanian, although there are some differences in colloquial speech. In the de-facto independent (but internationally unrecognized) region of Transnistria
, the official script used to write Moldovan is Cyrillic.
A 2005 Ethnologue
estimation puts the (worldwide) number of Romanian speakers at approximately 23.5 million. The 23.5 million, however, represent only speakers of Romanian
, not all of whom are necessarily ethnic Romanians. Also, this number does not include ethnic-Romanians who no longer speak the Romanian language.
s have the suffix -escu or (less commonly) -aşcu which corresponds to the Latin suffix -iscus and means "belonging to the people". For example, Petrescu used to be Petre's son. Similar suffixes such as -asco, -asgo, -esque, -ez, etc. are present in other Latin-derived languages.
Many Romanians in France changed this ending of their surnames to -esco, because the way it is pronounced in French better approximates the Romanian pronunciation of -escu. Other suffixes are -eanu (or -an, -anu), which indicates the geographical origin and -aru (or -oru), which indicates an occupation. -ei, usually preceded by A in front of a female name, is a Latin inherited female genitive, like in Amariei "of Maria", Aelenei "of Elena". This matrilineal-rooted surnames are common in the historical region of Moldavia.
The most common surnames are Popa ("the priest")—almost 200,000 Romanians have this surname—Popescu ("son of the priest") —almost 150,000 have this name— and Ionescu ("John's (Ion's) son").
.
of early 19th century.
Until the 19th century, the term Romanian denoted the speakers of the Daco-Romanian dialect of the Romanian language, thus being a much more distinct concept than that of Romania, the country of the Romanians. Prior to 1867, the (Daco-)Romanians were part of different statal entities: with the Moldavians and the Wallachians being split off and having shaped separate political identities, possessing states of their own, and with the rest of Romanians being part of other states. However, they retained their Romanian cultural and ethnic identity.
is sometimes used to refer to those who speak the standard Romanian language
and live in the territory of ancient Dacia
(today comprising mostly Romania and Moldova), although some Daco-Romanians can be found in the eastern part of Central Serbia (which was part of ancient Moesia
).
" is an exonym that was used by Slavs to refer to all Romanized natives of the Balkans. It holds its origin from ancient Germanic - being a cognate to "Welsh" and "Walloon" -, and perhaps even further back in time, from the Roman
name Volcae, which was originally a Celt
ic tribe. From the Slavs, it was passed on to other peoples, such as the Hungarians (Oláh) and Greeks
(Vlachoi). (see: Etymology of Vlach). Wallachia
, the Southern region of Romania, takes its name from the same source.
Nowadays, the term Vlach is more often used to refer to the Romanized populations of the Balkans who speak Daco-Romanian
, Aromanian
, Istro-Romanian
and Megleno-Romanian
. Istro-Romanian is the closest related language to the Daco-Romanian language which is the official language of the country.
, where they constitute a majority; Romanians also constitute a minority in the countries that neighbour Romania. Romanians can also be found in many countries, notably in Italy
, Spain
, the United States
, France
, Canada
, the UK, the Netherlands
, Austria
, Germany
, Switzerland
, Sweden
and Portugal
. With respect to geopolitical identity, many individuals of Romanian ethnicity in Moldova prefer to identify themselves as Moldovans
.
The contemporary total population of ethnic Romanians cannot be stated with any degree of certainty. A disparity can be observed between official sources (such as census
counts) where they exist, and estimates which come from non-official sources and interested groups. Several inhibiting factors (not unique to this particular case) contribute towards this uncertainty, which may include:
For example, the decennial U.S. Census of 2000 calculated (based on a statistical sampling of household data) that there were 367,310 respondents indicating Romanian ancestry (roughly 0.1% of the total population). The actual total recorded number of foreign-born Romanians was only 136,000 Migration Information Source However, some non-specialist organizations have produced estimates which are considerably higher: a 2002 study by the Romanian-American Network Inc. mentions an estimated figure of 1,200,000 for the number of Romanian-American
s. This estimate notes however that "...other immigrants of Romanian national minority groups have been included such as: Armenians, Germans, Gypsies, Hungarians, Jews, and Ukrainians". It also includes an unspecified allowance for second- and third-generation Romanians, and an indeterminate number living in Canada. An error range for the estimate is not provided. For the United States 2000 Census figures, almost 20% of the total population did not classify or report an ancestry, and the census is also subject to undercounting, an incomplete (67%) response rate, and sampling error in general.
, sciences and engineering
.
In the history of flight, Traian Vuia
and Aurel Vlaicu
built and flew some of the earliest successful aircraft, while Henri Coandă
discovered the Coandă effect
of fluidics. Victor Babeş
discovered more than 50 germs and a cure for a disease named after him, babesiosis
; biologist Nicolae Paulescu
discovered insulin
. Another biologist, Emil Palade, received the Nobel Prize for his contributions to cell biology
. George Constantinescu
created the theory of sonics
, while mathematician Ştefan Odobleja
is regarded as the ideological father behind cybernetics
- his work The Consonantist Psychology (Paris, 1938) was the main source of inspiration for N. Wiener's Cybernetics (Paris, 1948). Lazăr Edeleanu
was the first chemist to synthesize amphetamine
and also invented the modern method of refining
crude oil.
In the arts and culture, prominent figures were George Enescu
(music composer, violinist, professor of Sir Yehudi Menuhin
), Constantin Brâncuşi
(sculptor), Eugène Ionesco
(playwright), Mircea Eliade
(historian of religion and novelist), Emil Cioran
(essayist, Prix de l'Institut Francais for stylism) and Angela Gheorghiu
(soprano). More recently, filmmakers such as Cristi Puiu
and Cristian Mungiu have attracted international acclaim.
In sports, Romanians have excelled in a variety of fields, such as football (Gheorghe Hagi
), gymnastics (Nadia Comăneci
, Lavinia Miloşovici
etc.), tennis (Ilie Năstase
, Ion Ţiriac
), canoe racing (Ivan Patzaichin
) and handball (four times men's World Cup
winners).
Count Dracula
is a worldwide icon of Romania. This character was created by the Irish fiction writer Bram Stoker
, based on some stories spread in the late Middle Ages
by the frustrated German trademen of Kronstadt (Braṣov
) and on some Balkan folklore tales about the historic Romanian figure of Prince Vlad Ţepeş.
(a branch of Eastern Orthodoxy, or Eastern Orthodox Church, together with the Greek Orthodox and Russian Orthodox Churches, among others). According to the 2002 census, 94.0% of ethnic Romanians in Romania
identified themselves as Romanian Orthodox (in comparison to 86.8% of Romania's total population, including other ethnic groups). However, it must be noted that the actual rate of church attendance is significantly lower, and that many Romanians are only nominally believers. For example, according to a 2006 Eurobarometer
poll, only 23% of Romanians attend church once a week or more. A 2006 poll conducted by the Open Society Foundation found that only 33% of Romanians attended church once a month or more.
Romanian Catholics are present in Transylvania
, Bucharest
, and parts of Moldavia
, belonging to both the Romanian Greek-Catholic Catholic Church
and the Roman Catholic Church
. Smaller percentages are Protestant
, neo-Protestant
(2.8%), Jews, Muslims, atheist, pagan or agnostic (0,15%). Although generally tolerated by the Orthodox Church, the minority religious, spiritual and philosophical views and beliefs co-exist somewhat uneasily.
There are no official dates for the adoption of religions by the Romanians. Based on linguistic and archaeological findings, historians suggest that the Romanians' ancestors acquired polytheistic religions in the Roman era, later adopting Christianity, certainly by the 4th century CE when decreed by Emperor Constantine as the official religion of the Roman Empire. Like in all other Romance languages, the basic Romanian words related to Christianity are inherited from Latin, such as God
("Dumnezeu" < Domine Deus), church ("biserică" < basilica), cross
("cruce" < crux, -cis), angel ("înger" < angelus), saint (regional: "sân(t)" < sanctus), Christmas ("Crăciun" < creatio, -onis), Christian
("creştin" < christianus), Easter ("paşte" < paschae), sin ("păcat" < peccatum), to baptize ("a boteza" < batizare), priest ("preot" < presbiterum), to pray ("a ruga" < rogare), faith ( "credinţă" < credentia ) a.s.o.
After the Great Schism
, there existed a Catholic Bishopric of Cumania
(later, separate bishoprics in both Wallachia
and Moldavia
). However, this seems to be the exception, rather than the rule, as in both Wallachia
and Moldavia
the state religion was Eastern Orthodox. Until the 17th century, the official language of the liturgy was Old Church Slavonic
. Then, it gradually changed to Romanian.
In addition to the colours of the Romanian flag, each historical province of Romania has its own characteristic animal symbol:
The Coat of Arms of Romania
combines these together.
(Macedo
-Romanians), the Megleno-Romanians
, and the Istro-Romanians
. The Istro-Romanians are the closest ethnic group to the Romanians, and it is believed they left Maramureş
, Transylvania
about a thousand years ago and settled in Istria
, Croatia
. Numbering about 500 people still living in the original villages of Istria (while the majority left for other countries after World War II (mainly to Italy, United States, Canada, Germany, France, Sweden, Switzerland, and Australia), they speak the Istro-Romanian language
, the closest living relative of Romanian.
The Aromanians and the Megleno-Romanians are Romanic peoples who live south of the Danube, mainly in Greece
, Albania
and the Republic of Macedonia
, although some of them migrated to Romania in the 20th century. It is believed that they diverged from the Romanians in the 7th to 9th century, and currently speak the Aromanian language
and Megleno-Romanian language
, both of which are Eastern Romance languages, like Romanian, and are sometimes considered by traditional Romanian linguists to be dialects of Romanian.
Ethnic group
An ethnic group is a group of people whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage, often consisting of a common language, a common culture and/or an ideology that stresses common ancestry or endogamy...
native to Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
, who speak Romanian
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...
; they are the majority inhabitants of Romania.
The Romanian people are a nation
Nation
A nation may refer to a community of people who share a common language, culture, ethnicity, descent, and/or history. In this definition, a nation has no physical borders. However, it can also refer to people who share a common territory and government irrespective of their ethnic make-up...
in the meaning of ethnos
Ethnic group
An ethnic group is a group of people whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage, often consisting of a common language, a common culture and/or an ideology that stresses common ancestry or endogamy...
(Romanian: etnie), defined by the sense of sharing a common Romanian culture, descent
Cultural heritage
Cultural heritage is the legacy of physical artifacts and intangible attributes of a group or society that are inherited from past generations, maintained in the present and bestowed for the benefit of future generations...
, and having Romanian as mother tongue
First language
A first language is the language a person has learned from birth or within the critical period, or that a person speaks the best and so is often the basis for sociolinguistic identity...
, not by citizenship
Citizenship
Citizenship is the state of being a citizen of a particular social, political, national, or human resource community. Citizenship status, under social contract theory, carries with it both rights and responsibilities...
or by being subjects to any particular country. The Romanian citizenship law legislated in March 1991 establishes the rights of second and third generation descendants of Romanian citizens to obtain a Romanian citizenship, if they speak fluent Romanian and are able to demonstrate sufficient knowledge in Romanian history and culture. 89.4 percent of Romania's people declared themselves as Romanians at the 2002 Romanian Census
Demographic history of Romania
This article presents the demographic history of Romania through census results. See Demographics of Romania for a more detailed overview of the country's present-day demographics....
.
In one interpretation of the census results in Moldova
Moldova
Moldova , officially the Republic of Moldova is a landlocked state in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the West and Ukraine to the North, East and South. It declared itself an independent state with the same boundaries as the preceding Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1991, as part...
, Moldovans
Moldovans
Moldovans or Moldavians are the largest population group of Moldova...
are counted as Romanians, which would mean that the latter form the majority in that country as well. Romanians are also an ethnic minority in several nearby countries.
Ancient times
Inhabited by the ancient DaciansDacians
The Dacians were an Indo-European people, very close or part of the Thracians. Dacians were the ancient inhabitants of Dacia...
, today's territory of Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
was conquered by the Roman Empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
in 106, when Trajan
Trajan
Trajan , was Roman Emperor from 98 to 117 AD. Born into a non-patrician family in the province of Hispania Baetica, in Spain Trajan rose to prominence during the reign of emperor Domitian. Serving as a legatus legionis in Hispania Tarraconensis, in Spain, in 89 Trajan supported the emperor against...
's army defeated the army of Dacia
Dacia
In ancient geography, especially in Roman sources, Dacia was the land inhabited by the Dacians or Getae as they were known by the Greeks—the branch of the Thracians north of the Haemus range...
's ruler Decebalus
Decebalus
Decebalus or "The Brave" was a king of Dacia and is famous for fighting three wars and negotiating two interregnums of peace without being eliminated against the Roman Empire under two emperors...
(see Dacian Wars). The Roman administration
Roman Dacia
The Roman province of Dacia on the Balkans included the modern Romanian regions of Transylvania, Banat and Oltenia, and temporarily Muntenia and southern Moldova, but not the nearby regions of Moesia...
withdrew two centuries later, under the pressure of the Goths
Goths
The Goths were an East Germanic tribe of Scandinavian origin whose two branches, the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, played an important role in the fall of the Roman Empire and the emergence of Medieval Europe....
and Carpi.
The Romanian people was formed by the Romanization of the Roman
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
Province of Dacia
Dacia
In ancient geography, especially in Roman sources, Dacia was the land inhabited by the Dacians or Getae as they were known by the Greeks—the branch of the Thracians north of the Haemus range...
. The Romanians are descended from local populations: Dacians
Dacians
The Dacians were an Indo-European people, very close or part of the Thracians. Dacians were the ancient inhabitants of Dacia...
(Getae
Getae
The Getae was the name given by the Greeks to several Thracian tribes that occupied the regions south of the Lower Danube, in what is today northern Bulgaria, and north of the Lower Danube, in Romania...
, Thracians) and Roman legionnaires and colonists. In the course of the two wars with the Roman legions, between 101–102 AD and 105–106 AD respectively, the emperor Trajan
Trajan
Trajan , was Roman Emperor from 98 to 117 AD. Born into a non-patrician family in the province of Hispania Baetica, in Spain Trajan rose to prominence during the reign of emperor Domitian. Serving as a legatus legionis in Hispania Tarraconensis, in Spain, in 89 Trajan supported the emperor against...
succeeded in defeating the Dacians and the greatest part of Dacia became a Roman province. The colonization with Roman or Romanized elements, the use of the Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
language and the assimilation of Roman civilization as well as the intense development of urban centres led to the Romanization of part of the autochthonous population in Dacia. This process was probably concluded by the 10th century when the assimilation of the Slavs by the Daco-Romanians was completed.
Small genetic differences were reportedly
found among Southeastern European (Greece, Albania) populations and especially those of the Dniester
Dniester
The Dniester is a river in Eastern Europe. It runs through Ukraine and Moldova and separates most of Moldova's territory from the breakaway de facto state of Transnistria.-Names:...
–Carpathian
Carpathian
Carpathian may refer to:*Carpathian Mountains of Central and Eastern Europe*Carpathian Convention on sustainable development in that region*Carpathian Shepherd Dog, a Romanian sheep dog*Subcarpathian Voivodeship, an administrative division of Poland...
(Romania, Moldova, Ukraine) region. Despite this low level of differentiation between them, tree reconstruction and principle component analyses allowed a distinction between Balkan–Carpathian (Romanians, Moldovans, Ukrainians, Macedonians and Gagauzes) and Balkan Mediterranean (Greeks, Albanians, Turks) population groups. The genetic affinities among Dniester–Carpathian and southeastern European populations do not reflect their linguistic relationships. According to the report, the results indicate that the ethnic and genetic differentiations occurred in these regions to a considerable extent independently of each other.
Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
Romanians were mostly known as Vlachs
Vlachs
Vlach is a blanket term covering several modern Latin peoples descending from the Latinised population in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe. English variations on the name include: Walla, Wlachs, Wallachs, Vlahs, Olahs or Ulahs...
, a blanket term ultimately of Germanic
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...
origin, from the word Walha
Walha
Walhaz is a reconstructed Proto-Germanic word, meaning "foreigner", "stranger", "Roman", "Romance-speaker", or "Celtic-speaker". The adjective derived from this word can be found in , Old High German walhisk, meaning "Romance", in Old English welisċ, wælisċ, wilisċ, meaning "Romano-British" and in...
, used by ancient Germanic peoples to refer to Romance
Romance languages
The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...
-speaking and Celtic neighbours. Besides the separation of some groups (Aromanians
Aromanians
Aromanians are a Latin people native throughout the southern Balkans, especially in northern Greece, Albania, the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, and as an emigrant community in Serbia and Romania . An older term is Macedo-Romanians...
, Megleno-Romanians
Megleno-Romanians
The Megleno-Romanians or Meglen Vlachs or Moglenite Vlachs, are a small Eastern Romance people, currently inhabiting seven villages in the Moglena region spanning the Pella and Kilkis prefectures of Central Macedonia, Greece, and one village, Huma, across the border in the Republic of...
and Istro-Romanians
Istro-Romanians
Istro-Romanians / Istrorumeni are an ethnic group living in northeastern Istria, currently spanning over a small area of Croatia and a...
) during the Age of Migration, many Vlachs could be found all over the Balkans
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
, in Transylvania
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
, across Carpathian Mountains
Carpathian Mountains
The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians are a range of mountains forming an arc roughly long across Central and Eastern Europe, making them the second-longest mountain range in Europe...
as far north as Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
and as far west as the regions of Moravia
Moravia
Moravia is a historical region in Central Europe in the east of the Czech Republic, and one of the former Czech lands, together with Bohemia and Silesia. It takes its name from the Morava River which rises in the northwest of the region...
(part of the modern Czech Republic
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
), some went as far east as Volhynia
Volhynia
Volhynia, Volynia, or Volyn is a historic region in western Ukraine located between the rivers Prypiat and Southern Bug River, to the north of Galicia and Podolia; the region is named for the former city of Volyn or Velyn, said to have been located on the Southern Bug River, whose name may come...
of western Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
, and the present-day Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
where the Morlachs
Morlachs
Morlachs were a population of Vlachs. In another version their name comes from the slavic terms of "morski-Vlasi" or Sea Vlachs...
gradually disappeared, while the Catholic and Orthodox Vlachs took Croat and Serb national identity. The tribal migrations that followed – such as those of Slavs, Bulgars
Bulgars
The Bulgars were a semi-nomadic who flourished in the Pontic Steppe and the Volga basin in the 7th century.The Bulgars emerge after the collapse of the Hunnic Empire in the 5th century....
(later Bulgarians
Bulgarians
The Bulgarians are a South Slavic nation and ethnic group native to Bulgaria and neighbouring regions. Emigration has resulted in immigrant communities in a number of other countries.-History and ethnogenesis:...
), Hungarians, and Tatars
Tatars
Tatars are a Turkic speaking ethnic group , numbering roughly 7 million.The majority of Tatars live in the Russian Federation, with a population of around 5.5 million, about 2 million of which in the republic of Tatarstan.Significant minority populations are found in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan,...
– did not allow Romanians to develop any large centralized state, which was only achieved in the 13th century and especially in the 14th century, when the Danubian Principalities
Danubian Principalities
Danubian Principalities was a conventional name given to the Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, which emerged in the early 14th century. The term was coined in the Habsburg Monarchy after the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca in order to designate an area on the lower Danube with a common...
of Moldavia
Moldavia
Moldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...
and Wallachia
Wallachia
Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...
emerged to fight the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
.
The entire Balkan peninsula
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
was annexed by the Ottoman Empire, but Moldavia, Wallachia (extending to Dobruja and Bulgaria), and Transylvania
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
remained autonomous under Ottoman suzerainty
Suzerainty
Suzerainty occurs where a region or people is a tributary to a more powerful entity which controls its foreign affairs while allowing the tributary vassal state some limited domestic autonomy. The dominant entity in the suzerainty relationship, or the more powerful entity itself, is called a...
. The three principalities were united for several months in 1600 under the authority of Wallachian Prince Michael the Brave.
But there were two lands by the "Vlach" name - the other Wallachia, the Greek Duchy of Wallachia was in Central Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
surrounded by the Pindus mountains where the Byzantine Empire
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
was, but outside the empire. It was located north of Athens in the 11th to 13th centuries, but they fell to the Ottoman Turks
Ottoman Turks
The Ottoman Turks were the Turkish-speaking population of the Ottoman Empire who formed the base of the state's military and ruling classes. Reliable information about the early history of Ottoman Turks is scarce, but they take their Turkish name, Osmanlı , from the house of Osman I The Ottoman...
by the 1400s.
Up until 1541, Transylvania was part of the Kingdom of Hungary
Kingdom of Hungary
The Kingdom of Hungary comprised present-day Hungary, Slovakia and Croatia , Transylvania , Carpatho Ruthenia , Vojvodina , Burgenland , and other smaller territories surrounding present-day Hungary's borders...
, later (due to the conquest of Hungary by the Ottoman Empire) was a self-governed Principality governed by the Hungarian nobility. In 1699 it became a part of the Habsburg lands
Habsburg Monarchy
The Habsburg Monarchy covered the territories ruled by the junior Austrian branch of the House of Habsburg , and then by the successor House of Habsburg-Lorraine , between 1526 and 1867/1918. The Imperial capital was Vienna, except from 1583 to 1611, when it was moved to Prague...
. By the 19th century, the Austrian Empire
Austrian Empire
The Austrian Empire was a modern era successor empire, which was centered on what is today's Austria and which officially lasted from 1804 to 1867. It was followed by the Empire of Austria-Hungary, whose proclamation was a diplomatic move that elevated Hungary's status within the Austrian Empire...
was awarded by the Ottomans with the region of Bukovina
Bukovina
Bukovina is a historical region on the northern slopes of the northeastern Carpathian Mountains and the adjoining plains.-Name:The name Bukovina came into official use in 1775 with the region's annexation from the Principality of Moldavia to the possessions of the Habsburg Monarchy, which became...
and, in 1812, the Russians occupied the eastern half of Moldavia, known as Bessarabia
Bessarabia
Bessarabia is a historical term for the geographic region in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west....
.
Modern age
Liberalism and radicalism in Romania
This article gives an overview of Liberalism and Radicalism in Romania. It is limited to liberal parties with substantial support, mainly proved by having had a representation in parliament. The sign ⇒ denotes another party in this scheme...
. In 1859, Moldavia
Moldavia
Moldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...
and Wallachia
Wallachia
Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...
elected the same ruler – Alexander John Cuza
Alexander John Cuza
Alexander John Cuza was a Moldavian-born Romanian politician who ruled as the first Domnitor of the United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia between 1859 and 1866.-Early life:...
(who reigned as Domnitor
Domnitor
Domnitor was the official title of the ruler of the United Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia between 1859 and 1866....
) and were thus unified de facto.
The newly founded Kingdom of Romania
Kingdom of Romania
The Kingdom of Romania was the Romanian state based on a form of parliamentary monarchy between 13 March 1881 and 30 December 1947, specified by the first three Constitutions of Romania...
—led by the Hohenzollern
House of Hohenzollern
The House of Hohenzollern is a noble family and royal dynasty of electors, kings and emperors of Prussia, Germany and Romania. It originated in the area around the town of Hechingen in Swabia during the 11th century. They took their name from their ancestral home, the Burg Hohenzollern castle near...
prince Carol I
Carol I of Romania
Carol I , born Prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen was reigning prince and then King of Romania from 1866 to 1914. He was elected prince of Romania on 20 April 1866 following the overthrow of Alexandru Ioan Cuza by a palace coup...
—fought a War of Independence against the Ottomans, and was recognized in 1878. Although allied with Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
, Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
refused to go to enter World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
on the side of the Central Powers
Central Powers
The Central Powers were one of the two warring factions in World War I , composed of the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Bulgaria...
, because Romania was obliged to go to war only if Austria-Hungary was attacked. In 1916, Romania joined the war on the side of the Triple Entente
Triple Entente
The Triple Entente was the name given to the alliance among Britain, France and Russia after the signing of the Anglo-Russian Entente in 1907....
. As a result, at the end of the war, Transylvania, Bessarabia and Bukovina were awarded to Romania, resulting in Greater Romania
Greater Romania
The Greater Romania generally refers to the territory of Romania in the years between the First World War and the Second World War, the largest geographical extent of Romania up to that time and its largest peacetime extent ever ; more precisely, it refers to the territory of the Kingdom of...
.
During World War II
Romania during World War II
Following the outbreak of World War II on 1 September 1939, the Kingdom of Romania officially adopted a position of neutrality. However, the rapidly changing situation in Europe during 1940, as well as domestic political upheaval, undermined this stance. Fascist political forces such as the Iron...
, Romania lost territory in both east and west, as Northern Transylvania
Northern Transylvania
Northern Transylvania is a region of Transylvania, situated within the territory of Romania. The population is largely composed of both ethnic Romanians and Hungarians, and the region has been part of Romania since 1918 . During World War II, as a consequence of the territorial agreement known as...
became part of Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
through the Second Vienna Award
Second Vienna Award
The Second Vienna Award was the second of two Vienna Awards arbitrated by the Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Rendered on August 30, 1940, it re-assigned the territory of Northern Transylvania from Romania to Hungary.-Prelude and historical background :After the World War I, the multi-ethnic...
, while Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina were taken by the Soviets and included in the Moldavian SSR
Moldavian SSR
The Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic , commonly abbreviated to Moldavian SSR or MSSR, was one of the 15 republics of the Soviet Union...
and Ukrainian SSR
Ukrainian SSR
The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic or in short, the Ukrainian SSR was a sovereign Soviet Socialist state and one of the fifteen constituent republics of the Soviet Union lasting from its inception in 1922 to the breakup in 1991...
respectively. The eastern territory losses were facilitated by the Molotov-Ribbentrop German-Soviet non-aggression pact
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, named after the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, was an agreement officially titled the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union and signed in Moscow in the late hours of 23 August 1939...
.
The Soviet Union imposed a Communist government and King
King of Romania
King of the Romanians , rather than King of Romania , was the official title of the ruler of the Kingdom of Romania from 1881 until 1947, when Romania was proclaimed a republic....
Michael was forced to abdicate and leave for exile. Nicolae Ceauşescu
Nicolae Ceausescu
Nicolae Ceaușescu was a Romanian Communist politician. He was General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and as such was the country's second and last Communist leader...
became the head of the Romanian Communist Party
Romanian Communist Party
The Romanian Communist Party was a communist political party in Romania. Successor to the Bolshevik wing of the Socialist Party of Romania, it gave ideological endorsement to communist revolution and the disestablishment of Greater Romania. The PCR was a minor and illegal grouping for much of the...
in 1965 and his draconian rule of the 1980s was ended by the Romanian Revolution of 1989
Romanian Revolution of 1989
The Romanian Revolution of 1989 was a series of riots and clashes in December 1989. These were part of the Revolutions of 1989 that occurred in several Warsaw Pact countries...
.
The 1989 revolution brought to power the dissident former communist Ion Iliescu
Ion Iliescu
Ion Iliescu served as President of Romania from 1990 until 1996, and from 2000 until 2004. From 1996 to 2000 and from 2004 until his retirement in 2008, Iliescu was a Senator for the Social Democratic Party , whose honorary president he remains....
. He remained in power until 1996, and then once more between 2000 and 2004. Emil Constantinescu
Emil Constantinescu
Emil Constantinescu was President of Romania from 1996 to 2000.He graduated from the law school of the University of Bucharest, and subsequently started a career as a geologist...
was president
President of Romania
The President of Romania is the head of state of Romania. The President is directly elected by a two-round system for a five-year term . An individual may serve two terms...
from 1996 to 2000, and Traian Băsescu
Traian Basescu
Traian Băsescu is the current President of Romania. After serving as the mayor of Bucharest from June 2000 until December 2004, he was elected president in the Romanian Presidential Elections of 2004 and inaugurated on December 20, 2004...
started his mandate in 2004.
Romania joined NATO in 2004 and the European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
in 2007.
Language
The origins of Romanian languageRomanian 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...
, a Romance language, can be traced back to the Roman colonization of the region. The basic vocabulary is of Latin origin, although there are some substratum
Substratum
In linguistics, a stratum or strate is a language that influences, or is influenced by another through contact. A substratum is a language which has lower power or prestige than another, while a superstratum is the language that has higher power or prestige. Both substratum and superstratum...
words that are assumed to be of Dacian
Dacian language
The extinct Dacian language may have developed from proto-Indo-European in the Carpathian region around 2,500 BC and probably died out by AD 600. In the 1st century AD, it was the predominant language of the ancient regions of Dacia and Moesia and, possibly, of some surrounding regions.It belonged...
origin. Of all the Romance languages, in some respects, Romanian is the most conservative language, having retained, for example, the inflected structure of Latin grammar. Romanian's closest relative among the major Romance languages is Italian, with which it shares a certain degree of asymmetric mutual intelligibility.
During the Middle Ages, Romanian was isolated from the other Romance languages, and borrowed words from the nearby Slavic languages
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...
. Later on, it borrowed a number of words from Hungarian
Hungarian language
Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
and Turkish
Turkish language
Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
. During the modern era, most neologisms were borrowed from French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
and Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, though the language has increasingly begun to adopt English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
borrowings.
The Moldovan language
Moldovan language
Moldovan is one of the names of the Romanian language as spoken in the Republic of Moldova, where it is official. The spoken language of Moldova is closer to the dialects of Romanian spoken in northeastern Romania, and the two countries share the same literary standard...
, in its official form, is practically identical to Romanian, although there are some differences in colloquial speech. In the de-facto independent (but internationally unrecognized) region of Transnistria
Transnistria
Transnistria is a breakaway territory located mostly on a strip of land between the Dniester River and the eastern Moldovan border to Ukraine...
, the official script used to write Moldovan is Cyrillic.
A 2005 Ethnologue
Ethnologue
Ethnologue: Languages of the World is a web and print publication of SIL International , a Christian linguistic service organization, which studies lesser-known languages, to provide the speakers with Bibles in their native language and support their efforts in language development.The Ethnologue...
estimation puts the (worldwide) number of Romanian speakers at approximately 23.5 million. The 23.5 million, however, represent only speakers of Romanian
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...
, not all of whom are necessarily ethnic Romanians. Also, this number does not include ethnic-Romanians who no longer speak the Romanian language.
Surnames
Many Romanian surnameSurname
A surname is a name added to a given name and is part of a personal name. In many cases, a surname is a family name. Many dictionaries define "surname" as a synonym of "family name"...
s have the suffix -escu or (less commonly) -aşcu which corresponds to the Latin suffix -iscus and means "belonging to the people". For example, Petrescu used to be Petre's son. Similar suffixes such as -asco, -asgo, -esque, -ez, etc. are present in other Latin-derived languages.
Many Romanians in France changed this ending of their surnames to -esco, because the way it is pronounced in French better approximates the Romanian pronunciation of -escu. Other suffixes are -eanu (or -an, -anu), which indicates the geographical origin and -aru (or -oru), which indicates an occupation. -ei, usually preceded by A in front of a female name, is a Latin inherited female genitive, like in Amariei "of Maria", Aelenei "of Elena". This matrilineal-rooted surnames are common in the historical region of Moldavia.
The most common surnames are Popa ("the priest")—almost 200,000 Romanians have this surname—Popescu ("son of the priest") —almost 150,000 have this name— and Ionescu ("John's (Ion's) son").
Names for Romanians
In English, Romanians are usually called Romanians, Rumanians, or Roumanians except in some historical texts, where they are called Roumans or VlachsVlachs
Vlach is a blanket term covering several modern Latin peoples descending from the Latinised population in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe. English variations on the name include: Walla, Wlachs, Wallachs, Vlahs, Olahs or Ulahs...
.
Etymology of the name Romanian (român)
The name "Romanian" is derived from Latin "Romanus". Under regular phonetical changes that are typical to the Romanian languages, the name was transformed in "rumân" ruˈmɨn. An older form of "român" was still in use in some regions. Socio-linguistic evolutions in the late 18th century led to a gradual preponderance of the "român" spelling form, which was then generalized during the National awakening of RomaniaNational awakening of Romania
During the period of Austro-Hungarian rule in Transylvania and Ottoman suzerainty over Wallachia and Moldavia, most Romanians were treated as second-class citizens in their country...
of early 19th century.
Until the 19th century, the term Romanian denoted the speakers of the Daco-Romanian dialect of the Romanian language, thus being a much more distinct concept than that of Romania, the country of the Romanians. Prior to 1867, the (Daco-)Romanians were part of different statal entities: with the Moldavians and the Wallachians being split off and having shaped separate political identities, possessing states of their own, and with the rest of Romanians being part of other states. However, they retained their Romanian cultural and ethnic identity.
Daco-Romanian
To distinguish Romanians from the other Romanic peoples of the Balkans (Aromanians, Megleno-Romanians, and Istro-Romanians), the term Daco-RomanianDaco-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...
is sometimes used to refer to those who speak the standard 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...
and live in the territory of ancient Dacia
Dacia
In ancient geography, especially in Roman sources, Dacia was the land inhabited by the Dacians or Getae as they were known by the Greeks—the branch of the Thracians north of the Haemus range...
(today comprising mostly Romania and Moldova), although some Daco-Romanians can be found in the eastern part of Central Serbia (which was part of ancient Moesia
Moesia
Moesia was an ancient region and later Roman province situated in the Balkans, along the south bank of the Danube River. It included territories of modern-day Southern Serbia , Northern Republic of Macedonia, Northern Bulgaria, Romanian Dobrudja, Southern Moldova, and Budjak .-History:In ancient...
).
Etymology of the term Vlach
The name of "VlachsVlachs
Vlach is a blanket term covering several modern Latin peoples descending from the Latinised population in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe. English variations on the name include: Walla, Wlachs, Wallachs, Vlahs, Olahs or Ulahs...
" is an exonym that was used by Slavs to refer to all Romanized natives of the Balkans. It holds its origin from ancient Germanic - being a cognate to "Welsh" and "Walloon" -, and perhaps even further back in time, from the Roman
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
name Volcae, which was originally a Celt
Celt
The Celts were a diverse group of tribal societies in Iron Age and Roman-era Europe who spoke Celtic languages.The earliest archaeological culture commonly accepted as Celtic, or rather Proto-Celtic, was the central European Hallstatt culture , named for the rich grave finds in Hallstatt, Austria....
ic tribe. From the Slavs, it was passed on to other peoples, such as the Hungarians (Oláh) and Greeks
Greeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
(Vlachoi). (see: Etymology of Vlach). Wallachia
Wallachia
Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...
, the Southern region of Romania, takes its name from the same source.
Nowadays, the term Vlach is more often used to refer to the Romanized populations of the Balkans who speak Daco-Romanian
Vlach language (Serbia)
Vlach / Romanian are the terms used to designate the Romanian varieties spoken by the Vlachs of eastern Serbia.-Status:...
, Aromanian
Aromanian language
Aromanian , also known as Macedo-Romanian, Arumanian or Vlach is an Eastern Romance language spoken in Southeastern Europe...
, 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...
and Megleno-Romanian
Megleno-Romanian language
Megleno-Romanian is a Romance language, similar to Aromanian and Romanian, or a dialect of the Romanian language...
. Istro-Romanian is the closest related language to the Daco-Romanian language which is the official language of the country.
Anthroponyms
These are family names that have been derived from either Vlach or Romanian. Most of these names have been given when a Romanian settled in a non-Romanian region. Examples: Oláh (37,147 Hungarians have this name), Vlach, Vlahuta, Vlasa, Vlasi, Vlašic, Vlasceanu, Vlachopoulos, Voloh, Bolog/Balogh, Volyh, Vlack, Flack and Vlax.Romanians outside Romania
Most Romanians live in RomaniaRomania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
, where they constitute a majority; Romanians also constitute a minority in the countries that neighbour Romania. Romanians can also be found in many countries, notably in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, the UK, the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
, Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
and Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
. With respect to geopolitical identity, many individuals of Romanian ethnicity in Moldova prefer to identify themselves as Moldovans
Moldovans
Moldovans or Moldavians are the largest population group of Moldova...
.
Census
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...
counts) where they exist, and estimates which come from non-official sources and interested groups. Several inhibiting factors (not unique to this particular case) contribute towards this uncertainty, which may include:
- A degree of overlap may exist or be shared between Romanian and other ethnic identities in certain situations, and census or survey respondents may elect to identify with one particular ancestry but not another, or instead identify with multiple ancestries;
- Counts and estimates may inconsistently distinguish between Romanian nationality and Romanian ethnicity (i.e. not all Romanian nationals identify with Romanian ethnicity, and vice versa);
- The measurements and methodologies employed by governments to enumerate and describe the ethnicity and ancestry of their citizens vary from country to country. Thus the census definition of "Romanian" might variously mean Romanian-born, of Romanian parentage, or also include other ethnic identities as Romanian which otherwise are identified separately in other contexts;
- The number of ethnic Romanians who live and work abroad is not precisely known, particularly so where their presence in the host country may be considered "illegal". In addition, where estimates for these populations have been made there is some risk of likely "double counting"— that is, Romanian persons abroad who have retained (or have not formally relinquished) their original citizenship may possibly figure in the counts or estimates of both the "home" and "host" countries.
For example, the decennial U.S. Census of 2000 calculated (based on a statistical sampling of household data) that there were 367,310 respondents indicating Romanian ancestry (roughly 0.1% of the total population). The actual total recorded number of foreign-born Romanians was only 136,000 Migration Information Source However, some non-specialist organizations have produced estimates which are considerably higher: a 2002 study by the Romanian-American Network Inc. mentions an estimated figure of 1,200,000 for the number of Romanian-American
Romanian-American
A Romanian American is a citizen of the United States who has significant Romanian heritage. For the 2000 US Census, 367,310 Americans indicated Romanian as their first ancestry, while 462,526 persons declared to have Romanian ancestry...
s. This estimate notes however that "...other immigrants of Romanian national minority groups have been included such as: Armenians, Germans, Gypsies, Hungarians, Jews, and Ukrainians". It also includes an unspecified allowance for second- and third-generation Romanians, and an indeterminate number living in Canada. An error range for the estimate is not provided. For the United States 2000 Census figures, almost 20% of the total population did not classify or report an ancestry, and the census is also subject to undercounting, an incomplete (67%) response rate, and sampling error in general.
Contributions
Romanians have played a major role in the artsARts
aRts, which stands for analog Real time synthesizer, is an audio framework that is no longer under development. It is best known for previously being used in KDE to simulate an analog synthesizer....
, sciences and engineering
Engineering
Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...
.
In the history of flight, Traian Vuia
Traian Vuia
Traian Vuia was a Romanian inventor and aviation pioneer who designed, builtand flew an early aircraft. His first flight traveled about 12 m at Montesson, France on March 18, 1906...
and Aurel Vlaicu
Aurel Vlaicu
Aurel Vlaicu was a Romanian engineer, inventor, airplane constructor and early pilot.-Biography:Aurel Vlaicu was born in Binţinţi , Geoagiu, Transylvania. He attended Calvinist High School in Orăştie and took his Baccalaureate in Sibiu in 1902...
built and flew some of the earliest successful aircraft, while Henri Coandă
Henri Coanda
Henri Marie Coandă was a Romanian inventor, aerodynamics pioneer and builder of an experimental aircraft, the Coandă-1910 described by Coandă in the mid-1950s as the world's first jet, a controversial claim disputed by some and supported by others...
discovered the Coandă effect
Coanda effect
The Coandă effect is the tendency of a fluid jet to be attracted to a nearby surface. The principle was named after Romanian aerodynamics pioneer Henri Coandă, who was the first to recognize the practical application of the phenomenon in aircraft development....
of fluidics. Victor Babeş
Victor Babes
Victor Babeș was a Romanian physician, biologist, and one of the earliest bacteriologists. He made early and significant contributions to the study of rabies, leprosy, diphtheria, tuberculosis, and other infectious diseases....
discovered more than 50 germs and a cure for a disease named after him, babesiosis
Babesiosis
Babesiosis is a malaria-like parasitic disease caused by infection with Babesia, a genus of protozoal piroplasms. After trypanosomes, Babesia are thought to be the second most common blood parasites of mammals and they can have a major impact on health of domestic animals in areas without severe...
; biologist Nicolae Paulescu
Nicolae Paulescu
Nicolae Paulescu was a Romanian physiologist, professor of medicine, the discoverer of insulin . The "pancreine" was a crude extract of bovine pancreas in salted water, after which some impurites were removed with hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxide.-Early life and activities:Born in Bucharest,...
discovered insulin
Insulin
Insulin is a hormone central to regulating carbohydrate and fat metabolism in the body. Insulin causes cells in the liver, muscle, and fat tissue to take up glucose from the blood, storing it as glycogen in the liver and muscle....
. Another biologist, Emil Palade, received the Nobel Prize for his contributions to cell biology
Cell biology
Cell biology is a scientific discipline that studies cells – their physiological properties, their structure, the organelles they contain, interactions with their environment, their life cycle, division and death. This is done both on a microscopic and molecular level...
. George Constantinescu
George Constantinescu
George Constantinescu was a Romanian scientist, engineer and inventor. During his career, he registered over 130 inventions. He is the creator of the theory of sonics, a new branch of continuum mechanics, in which he described the transmission of mechanical energy through vibrations.Born in...
created the theory of sonics
Theory of sonics
The theory of sonics is a branch of continuum mechanics which describes the transmission of mechanical energy through vibrations. The birth of the theory of sonics can be considered the publication of the book A treatise on transmission of power by vibrations in 1918 by the Romanian scientist Gogu...
, while mathematician Ştefan Odobleja
Stefan Odobleja
Ştefan Odobleja was a Romanian scientist, one of the precursors of cybernetics. His major work, Psychologie consonantiste, first published in 1938 and 1939, in Paris, had established many of the major themes of cybernetics regarding cybernetics and systems thinking ten years before the work of...
is regarded as the ideological father behind cybernetics
Cybernetics
Cybernetics is the interdisciplinary study of the structure of regulatory systems. Cybernetics is closely related to information theory, control theory and systems theory, at least in its first-order form...
- his work The Consonantist Psychology (Paris, 1938) was the main source of inspiration for N. Wiener's Cybernetics (Paris, 1948). Lazăr Edeleanu
Lazar Edeleanu
Lazăr Edeleanu was a Romanian chemist of Jewish origin.He was the first chemist to synthesize amphetamine at the University of Berlin and the inventor of the modern method of refining crude oil.- His childhood and studies:...
was the first chemist to synthesize amphetamine
Amphetamine
Amphetamine or amfetamine is a psychostimulant drug of the phenethylamine class which produces increased wakefulness and focus in association with decreased fatigue and appetite.Brand names of medications that contain, or metabolize into, amphetamine include Adderall, Dexedrine, Dextrostat,...
and also invented the modern method of refining
Oil refinery
An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial process plant where crude oil is processed and refined into more useful petroleum products, such as gasoline, diesel fuel, asphalt base, heating oil, kerosene, and liquefied petroleum gas...
crude oil.
In the arts and culture, prominent figures were George Enescu
George Enescu
George Enescu was a Romanian composer, violinist, pianist, conductor and teacher.-Biography:Enescu was born in the village of Liveni , Dorohoi County at the time, today Botoşani County. He showed musical talent from early in his childhood. A child prodigy, Enescu created his first musical...
(music composer, violinist, professor of Sir Yehudi Menuhin
Yehudi Menuhin
Yehudi Menuhin, Baron Menuhin, OM, KBE was a Russian Jewish American violinist and conductor who spent most of his performing career in the United Kingdom. He was born to Russian Jewish parents in the United States, but became a citizen of Switzerland in 1970, and of the United Kingdom in 1985...
), Constantin Brâncuşi
Constantin Brancusi
Constantin Brâncuşi was a Romanian-born sculptor who made his career in France. As a child he displayed an aptitude for carving wooden farm tools. Formal studies took him first to Bucharest, then to Munich, then to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris...
(sculptor), Eugène Ionesco
Eugène Ionesco
Eugène Ionesco was a Romanian and French playwright and dramatist, and one of the foremost playwrights of the Theatre of the Absurd...
(playwright), Mircea Eliade
Mircea Eliade
Mircea Eliade was a Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago. He was a leading interpreter of religious experience, who established paradigms in religious studies that persist to this day...
(historian of religion and novelist), Emil Cioran
Emil Cioran
-Early life:Emil M. Cioran was born in Răşinari, Sibiu County, which was part of Austria-Hungary at the time. His father, Emilian Cioran, was a Romanian Orthodox priest, while his mother, Elvira Cioran , was originally from Veneţia de Jos, a commune near Făgăraş.After studying humanities at the...
(essayist, Prix de l'Institut Francais for stylism) and Angela Gheorghiu
Angela Gheorghiu
Angela Gheorghiu is a Romanian soprano opera singer. Since her professional debut in 1990, she has sung as soprano leading roles at New York's Metropolitan Opera, Covent Garden's Royal Opera House, the Vienna State Opera, Milan's La Scala, and many other opera houses in Europe and the United States...
(soprano). More recently, filmmakers such as Cristi Puiu
Cristi Puiu
Cristi Puiu is a Romanian film director and screenwriter.Puiu's first interest in art was painting and in 1992, he was admitted as a student at the Painting Department of Ecole Superieure d'Arts Visuels in Geneva. After the first year he switched to film studies at the same school and graduated in...
and Cristian Mungiu have attracted international acclaim.
In sports, Romanians have excelled in a variety of fields, such as football (Gheorghe Hagi
Gheorghe Hagi
Gheorghe Hagi is a former Romanian footballer. He was famous for his passing, close control, long shots and was regarded as one of the best attacking midfielders in Europe during the 1980s and 1990s and is considered the greatest Romanian footballer of all time...
), gymnastics (Nadia Comăneci
Nadia Comaneci
Nadia Elena Comăneci is a Romanian gymnast, winner of three Olympic gold medals at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and the first female gymnast ever to be awarded a perfect score of 10 in an Olympic gymnastic event. She is also the winner of two gold medals at the 1980 Summer...
, Lavinia Miloşovici
Lavinia Milosovici
Lavinia Corina Miloşovici is a Romanian Olympic gymnast. An exceptionally successful athlete on the international competition circuit, Miloşovici, also known as "Milo" in the gymnastics community, is considered to be one of Romania's top gymnasts of the 1990s and one of the most prolific female...
etc.), tennis (Ilie Năstase
Ilie Nastase
Ilie Nastase is a Romanian former professional tennis player, one of the world's top players of the 1970s. Năstase was the World No. 1 tennis player between 1973 and 1974 . He is one of the five players in history to win more than 100 ATP professional titles . He was inducted into the...
, Ion Ţiriac
Ion Tiriac
Ion Țiriac is a Romanian former tennis player and businessman. He is also the current owner of the Mutua Madrileña Madrid Open.-Sports career:...
), canoe racing (Ivan Patzaichin
Ivan Patzaichin
Ivan Patzaichin is a Romanian sprint canoer who competed from the late 1960s to the mid 1980s. Competing in five Summer Olympics, he won seven medals, more than any other competitor in the history of the Canadian canoeing events...
) and handball (four times men's World Cup
World Men's Handball Championship
The World Championship in team handball for men has been organized by the International Handball Federation since 1938.- History :In 1938, the first indoor handball world championship was played in the Deutschlandhalle in Berlin, Germany on 5 February and 6 February...
winners).
Count Dracula
Count Dracula
Count Dracula is a fictional character, the titular antagonist of Bram Stoker's 1897 Gothic horror novel Dracula and archetypal vampire. Some aspects of his character have been inspired by the 15th century Romanian general and Wallachian Prince Vlad III the Impaler...
is a worldwide icon of Romania. This character was created by the Irish fiction writer Bram Stoker
Bram Stoker
Abraham "Bram" Stoker was an Irish novelist and short story writer, best known today for his 1897 Gothic novel Dracula...
, based on some stories spread in the late Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
by the frustrated German trademen of Kronstadt (Braṣov
Brasov
Brașov is a city in Romania and the capital of Brașov County.According to the last Romanian census, from 2002, there were 284,596 people living within the city of Brașov, making it the 8th most populated city in Romania....
) and on some Balkan folklore tales about the historic Romanian figure of Prince Vlad Ţepeş.
Religion
Ninety-eight percent of Romanians consider themselves religious. The vast majority are Eastern Orthodox Christians, belonging to the Romanian Orthodox ChurchRomanian Orthodox Church
The Romanian Orthodox Church is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox church. It is in full communion with other Eastern Orthodox churches, and is ranked seventh in order of precedence. The Primate of the church has the title of Patriarch...
(a branch of Eastern Orthodoxy, or Eastern Orthodox Church, together with the Greek Orthodox and Russian Orthodox Churches, among others). According to the 2002 census, 94.0% of ethnic Romanians in Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
identified themselves as Romanian Orthodox (in comparison to 86.8% of Romania's total population, including other ethnic groups). However, it must be noted that the actual rate of church attendance is significantly lower, and that many Romanians are only nominally believers. For example, according to a 2006 Eurobarometer
Eurobarometer
Eurobarometer is a series of surveys regularly performed on behalf of the European Commission since 1973. It produces reports of public opinion of certain issues relating to the European Union across the member states...
poll, only 23% of Romanians attend church once a week or more. A 2006 poll conducted by the Open Society Foundation found that only 33% of Romanians attended church once a month or more.
Romanian Catholics are present in Transylvania
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
, Bucharest
Bucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....
, and parts of Moldavia
Moldavia
Moldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...
, belonging to both the Romanian Greek-Catholic Catholic Church
Romanian Church United with Rome, Greek-Catholic
The Romanian Church United with Rome, Greek-Catholic is an Eastern Catholic Church which is in full union with the Roman Catholic Church. It is ranked as a Major Archiepiscopal Church and uses the Byzantine liturgical rite in the Romanian language....
and the Roman Catholic Church
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
. Smaller percentages are Protestant
Protestantism
Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...
, neo-Protestant
Protestantism
Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...
(2.8%), Jews, Muslims, atheist, pagan or agnostic (0,15%). Although generally tolerated by the Orthodox Church, the minority religious, spiritual and philosophical views and beliefs co-exist somewhat uneasily.
There are no official dates for the adoption of religions by the Romanians. Based on linguistic and archaeological findings, historians suggest that the Romanians' ancestors acquired polytheistic religions in the Roman era, later adopting Christianity, certainly by the 4th century CE when decreed by Emperor Constantine as the official religion of the Roman Empire. Like in all other Romance languages, the basic Romanian words related to Christianity are inherited from Latin, such as God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
("Dumnezeu" < Domine Deus), church ("biserică" < basilica), cross
Cross
A cross is a geometrical figure consisting of two lines or bars perpendicular to each other, dividing one or two of the lines in half. The lines usually run vertically and horizontally; if they run obliquely, the design is technically termed a saltire, although the arms of a saltire need not meet...
("cruce" < crux, -cis), angel ("înger" < angelus), saint (regional: "sân(t)" < sanctus), Christmas ("Crăciun" < creatio, -onis), Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
("creştin" < christianus), Easter ("paşte" < paschae), sin ("păcat" < peccatum), to baptize ("a boteza" < batizare), priest ("preot" < presbiterum), to pray ("a ruga" < rogare), faith ( "credinţă" < credentia ) a.s.o.
After the Great Schism
East–West Schism
The East–West Schism of 1054, sometimes known as the Great Schism, formally divided the State church of the Roman Empire into Eastern and Western branches, which later became known as the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church, respectively...
, there existed a Catholic Bishopric of Cumania
Cumania
Cumania is a name formerly used to designate several distinct lands in Eastern Europe inhabited by and under the military dominance of the Cumans, a nomadic tribe who, with the Kipchaks, created a confederation. The Cumans were also known as the Polovtsians, or Folban...
(later, separate bishoprics in both Wallachia
Wallachia
Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...
and Moldavia
Moldavia
Moldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...
). However, this seems to be the exception, rather than the rule, as in both Wallachia
Wallachia
Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...
and Moldavia
Moldavia
Moldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...
the state religion was Eastern Orthodox. Until the 17th century, the official language of the liturgy was Old Church Slavonic
Old Church Slavonic
Old Church Slavonic or Old Church Slavic was the first literary Slavic language, first developed by the 9th century Byzantine Greek missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius who were credited with standardizing the language and using it for translating the Bible and other Ancient Greek...
. Then, it gradually changed to Romanian.
Symbols
- BanatBanatThe 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...
: TrajanTrajanTrajan , was Roman Emperor from 98 to 117 AD. Born into a non-patrician family in the province of Hispania Baetica, in Spain Trajan rose to prominence during the reign of emperor Domitian. Serving as a legatus legionis in Hispania Tarraconensis, in Spain, in 89 Trajan supported the emperor against...
's bridge - Dobrogea: DolphinDolphinDolphins are marine mammals that are closely related to whales and porpoises. There are almost forty species of dolphin in 17 genera. They vary in size from and , up to and . They are found worldwide, mostly in the shallower seas of the continental shelves, and are carnivores, mostly eating...
- MoldaviaMoldaviaMoldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...
: AurochsAurochsThe aurochs , the ancestor of domestic cattle, were a type of large wild cattle which inhabited Europe, Asia and North Africa, but is now extinct; it survived in Europe until 1627....
/WisentWisentThe wisent , Bison bonasus, also known as the European bison or European wood bison, is a species of Eurasian bison. It is the heaviest surviving land animal in Europe; a typical wisent is about long, not counting a tail of long, and tall. Weight typically can range from , with an occasional big... - OlteniaOlteniaOltenia 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 ....
: LionLionThe lion is one of the four big cats in the genus Panthera, and a member of the family Felidae. With some males exceeding 250 kg in weight, it is the second-largest living cat after the tiger... - TransylvaniaTransylvaniaTransylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
: Black eagleBlack EagleThe Black Eagle is a bird of prey. Like all eagles, it is in the family Accipitridae, and is the only member of the genus Ictinaetus. They soar over forests in the hilly regions of tropical Asia and hunt mammals and birds, particularly at their nests...
or TurulTurulThe Turul is the most important bird in the origin myth of the Magyars .It is a divine messenger, and perches on top of the tree of life along with the other spirits of unborn children in the form of birds... - WallachiaWallachiaWallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...
: EagleEagleEagles are members of the bird family Accipitridae, and belong to several genera which are not necessarily closely related to each other. Most of the more than 60 species occur in Eurasia and Africa. Outside this area, just two species can be found in the United States and Canada, nine more in...
The Coat of Arms of Romania
Coat of arms of Romania
The coat of arms of Romania was adopted in the Romanian Parliament on 10 September 1992 as a representative coat of arms for Romania. It is based on the Lesser Coat of Arms of the Kingdom of Romania , redesigned by Victor Dima. As a central element it shows a golden aquila holding a cross in its...
combines these together.
Relationship to other ethnic groups
The closest ethnic groups to the Romanians are the other Romanic peoples of Southeastern Europe: the AromaniansAromanians
Aromanians are a Latin people native throughout the southern Balkans, especially in northern Greece, Albania, the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, and as an emigrant community in Serbia and Romania . An older term is Macedo-Romanians...
(Macedo
Macedonia (region)
Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of the Balkan peninsula in southeastern Europe. Its boundaries have changed considerably over time, but nowadays the region is considered to include parts of five Balkan countries: Greece, the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania, Serbia, as...
-Romanians), the Megleno-Romanians
Megleno-Romanians
The Megleno-Romanians or Meglen Vlachs or Moglenite Vlachs, are a small Eastern Romance people, currently inhabiting seven villages in the Moglena region spanning the Pella and Kilkis prefectures of Central Macedonia, Greece, and one village, Huma, across the border in the Republic of...
, and the Istro-Romanians
Istro-Romanians
Istro-Romanians / Istrorumeni are an ethnic group living in northeastern Istria, currently spanning over a small area of Croatia and a...
. The Istro-Romanians are the closest ethnic group to the Romanians, and it is believed they left Maramureş
Maramures
Maramureș may refer to the following:*Maramureș, a geographical, historical, and ethno-cultural region in present-day Romania and Ukraine, that occupies the Maramureș Depression and Maramureș Mountains, a mountain range in North East Carpathians...
, Transylvania
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
about a thousand years ago and settled in Istria
Istria
Istria , formerly Histria , is the largest peninsula in the Adriatic Sea. The peninsula is located at the head of the Adriatic between the Gulf of Trieste and the Bay of Kvarner...
, Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
. Numbering about 500 people still living in the original villages of Istria (while the majority left for other countries after World War II (mainly to Italy, United States, Canada, Germany, France, Sweden, Switzerland, and Australia), they speak the Istro-Romanian language
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 closest living relative of Romanian.
The Aromanians and the Megleno-Romanians are Romanic peoples who live south of the Danube, mainly in Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
, Albania
Albania
Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...
and the Republic of Macedonia
Republic of Macedonia
Macedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country located in the central Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...
, although some of them migrated to Romania in the 20th century. It is believed that they diverged from the Romanians in the 7th to 9th century, and currently speak the Aromanian language
Aromanian language
Aromanian , also known as Macedo-Romanian, Arumanian or Vlach is an Eastern Romance language spoken in Southeastern Europe...
and Megleno-Romanian language
Megleno-Romanian language
Megleno-Romanian is a Romance language, similar to Aromanian and Romanian, or a dialect of the Romanian language...
, both of which are Eastern Romance languages, like Romanian, and are sometimes considered by traditional Romanian linguists to be dialects of Romanian.
See also
- BrodniciBrodniciThe Brodnici were a 13th-century people whose ethnicity is uncertain, as various authors suggest they were Slavic, mixed Romanian-Jassic, Romanian-Slavic, or Turkic-Slavic population, probably vassals of Galicia for a period. Brodnici did not leave any provable material or written traces, which...
- Romanians of SerbiaRomanians of SerbiaRomanians are a recognised national minority in Serbia. The total number of declared Romanians in the 2002 Serbian census was 34,576, while 40,054 people declared themselves Vlachs; there are differing views among some of the Vlachs over they should be regarded as Romanians or as members of a...
- Moravian WallachiaMoravian WallachiaMoravian Wallachia is a mountainous region located in the easternmost part of Moravia, Czech Republic, near the Slovakian border. The name Wallachia was formerly applied to all the highlands of Moravia and neighboring Silesia, although in the nineteenth century a smaller area came to be defined...
- Romanian diasporaRomanian diasporaThe Romanian diaspora is the ethnically Romanian population outside Romania and Moldova. The concept does not usually include the ethnic Romanians who live as natives in the states surrounding Romania, chiefly those Romanians who live in Ukraine and Serbia. The diaspora does include the people of...
- Culture of RomaniaCulture of RomaniaRomania has a unique culture, which is the product of its geography and of its distinct historical evolution. Like Romanians themselves, it is defined as the meeting point of three regions: Central Europe, Eastern Europe, and the Balkans, but cannot be truly included in any of them...
- Romanian cuisineRomanian cuisineRomanian cuisine is a diverse blend of different dishes from several traditions with which it has come into contact, but it also maintains its own character...
- Music of RomaniaMusic of RomaniaRomania is a European country with a multicultural music environment which includes active ethnic music scenes. Romania also has thriving scenes in the fields of pop music, hip hop, heavy metal and rock and roll...
