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Aromanian.A romance language on its own | ||
Tags: Romanian | Romance Languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| 1qaz2wsx Diglot Groupie Greece Joined 5373 days ago 98 posts - 124 votes  Speaks: Greek*, EnglishC1 Studies: Russian, Albanian | Message 1 of 12 07 April 2010 at 8:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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Some people consider aromanian a dialect of romanian.I don't think that is the case.The grammar has many differences and the vocabulary of aromanian is heavily influenced by greek (with which it has coexisted throughout most of its history), while romanian has slavic influences.Some scholars maintain that in fact romanian derived from aromanian and not the opposite since the romans first occupied the southern balkans and only two hundred years later did they reach Dacia.So it is logical that the latin language spread from the south to the north.
To my knowledge a romanian can easer understand aromanian because romanian has been developed significantly and has much more words.Aromanian is more archaic and it was and it still remains (in greece) a rural language of some isolated villages and the vocabulary is limited. Both languages probably are just descendants of balkan romance. What do you think about that? Edited by 1qaz2wsx on 08 April 2010 at 5:30am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6703 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 12 08 April 2010 at 2:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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The distinction between languages and dialects is blurred, - even if you limit yourself to considering intercomprehensibility (disregarding cultural and political factors).
In the case of Dacoromanian and Aromanian I would say that I can read the former without much effort, and I can also understand spoken Romanian and write and speak the language. I also know some Greek. In spite of this I have big problems with Aromanian, even when written. So I could sympathize with the idea that it is a language in its own right. I can't vouch for the ability of Romanians or Moldovans to understand it, and I would warn against just accepting any random native person's word for lack of comprehensibility - some persons are surprisingly bad at coping with slight variations in they way some language is spoken. However if even a Romanian who had learnt a number of other Romance languages and had a relaxed attitude to dialectal variations in general couldn't understand it, then it would be a strong indication. Other factors that could make people see something as a dialect are the existence of a dialect continuum, - there is as far as I know no 'bridge' in the case of Aromanian versus Dacoromanian. Or the use of a written form that belongs to another speech form, as in the case of non-Mandarin Chinese or Swiss German. Or simple terror from a government that strongly believes in linguistic unity. Each of these criteria have their own flaws. But I don't see that they are relevant for Aromanian so it doesn't matter. The opinion of the majority of the speakers would also be relevant, and to some extent the official view of the authorities should also be considered - although with the utmost skepticism. But ultimately the question may solve itself, as Aro-Megleno-and-Istroromanian follow in the footsteps of Dalmatian, which now is totally extinct. Edited by Iversen on 08 April 2010 at 2:25pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| ReachingOut Pentaglot Groupie Greece Joined 5237 days ago 57 posts - 81 votes Speaks: English*, German, GreekB2, French, Romanian Studies: Italian | Message 3 of 12 25 July 2010 at 7:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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From what I've seen and heard of this language both the grammar and vocabulary are more closely related to Romanian than Greek, and there is a problem of the lack of standardised writing. I have a collection of folk songs in Aromanian and some of them are very close to Romanian, and others almost completely incomphrehensible. I think that Greeks can't understand it, and when I asked some Romanians if they understand the lyrics of the songs, they said they could understand some but not all.
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| jordimuresan Tetraglot Newbie France jmuresan.free.fr Joined 4830 days ago 1 posts - 4 votes Speaks: Romanian*, CatalanB2, French, English | Message 4 of 12 06 September 2011 at 12:15am | IP Logged | ||
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I am a native Romanian speaker. I am fluent in French and Catalan and I understand without difficulties a literary or technical text in Portuguese, Spanish or Italian. Nevertheless, I have a hard time dealing with Aromanian, that I understand worst than any of the above (despite some intents to learn it via fora, dictionaries and some bilingual books of tales and poetry). Some phrases can be crystal clear for me, some others unintelligible. Grammar and syntax are very straightforward, but the pith of the matter is LEXIC which is very different for a bunch of essential words (even Swadesh ones, I might say). This is why I consider Romanian and Aromanian two distinct languages. In fact, medieval Romanian looked a lot much alike Aromanian (this is why the first is also partly incomprehensible to me...). Romanian received a third of its modern vocabulary from French, and that’s how it split away from Aromanian (and not the opposite). Thus, beyond any political issue, I would define the relation between Romanian and Aromanian as “two closely related but distinct neolatin languages” or at least “two roughly unintelligible dialects of the same idiom”.
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| MarcusOdim Groupie Brazil Joined 4847 days ago 91 posts - 142 votes | Message 5 of 12 06 September 2011 at 5:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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why does Iversen use such a fancy vocabulary?
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| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7156 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 6 of 12 06 September 2011 at 5:24pm | IP Logged | ||
Such as? His post is quite plain in my view. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| mandalore Newbie United States Joined 5460 days ago 4 posts - 6 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 7 of 12 08 September 2011 at 4:24am | IP Logged | ||
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It's not that he has fancy vocabulary but that he knows what he is talking about.
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| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5783 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 8 of 12 10 September 2011 at 3:14am | IP Logged | ||
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I don't necessarily agree with Iversen about the best way to learn things, but his level
of erudition in a number of language-related fields (and his ability to express it in a large number of languages at that!) is one of my personal inspirations. Edited by Random review on 10 September 2011 at 3:23am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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