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Greek Catholic (or Uniate) priests were the first Romanian intellectuals to make efforts to demonstrate the Latin origin of Romanian in Transylvania during the 18th century. [16] They developed a Latin-based alphabet to replace the Cyrillic writing system and promoted the use of Latin terms in place of words of Slavic origin. [16]
They decided to replace Slavic loanwords with terms of Latin origin, even trying to get rid of the Romanian word for "and" (și), wrongly attributing a Slavic origin to it. [48] They created portmanteau words, containing both Slavic and Latin roots, like răzbel from the Slavic loanword război and the Latin term bellum (both meaning war). [48]
Several theories, in great extent mutually exclusive, address the issue of the origin of the Romanians.The Romanian language descends from the Vulgar Latin dialects spoken in the Roman provinces north of the "Jireček Line" (a proposed notional line separating the predominantly Latin-speaking territories from the Greek-speaking lands in Southeastern Europe) in Late Antiquity.
Even Romanian words of Latin [note 8] or Slavic [note 9] origin seem to have been borrowed through Albanian mediation. Parallel changes in the meaning of a number of Latin words in the Albanian and the Romanian languages [note 10] can also be illustrated. [26] [34] A number of Albanian–Romanian calques [note 11] exist. [35]
Romanian revolutionaries of 1848 waving the tricolor flag. The name Romanian is derived from Latin romanus, meaning "Roman". [138] Under regular phonetical changes that are typical to the Romanian language, the name romanus over the centuries transformed into rumân. An older form of român was still in use in some regions.
Although the core religious vocabulary of the Romanian language originated from Latin, [201] many terms were adopted from the Slavic Orthodoxy, [202] showing a significant influence dating from the Bulgarian Empire (681–1396). [203]
About 89.3% of the people of Romania are ethnic Romanians (as per 2021 census), whose native language, Romanian, is an Eastern Romance language, descended from Latin (more specifically from Vulgar Latin) with some Slavic, French, Turkish, German, Hungarian, Greek and Italian borrowings.
"Romania" derives from the local name for Romanian (Romanian: român), which in turn derives from Latin romanus, meaning "Roman" or "of Rome". [11] This ethnonym for Romanians is first attested in the 16th century by Italian humanists travelling in Transylvania, Moldavia, and Wallachia.