Romanian language

Romanian (limba român? IPA {{IPA|/'limba ro'm?n?/}}), the official language of Romania, is an Eastern Romance language. It is spoken natively by about 27 million people, most of them in Romania, Moldova and Vojvodina. While the official form of Moldovan is nearly identical to the official form of Romanian, the colloquial speech of Chi?inau and its suburbs has more differences. Two out of three Moldovans consider themselves to be speakers of Romanian rather than Moldovan.

Sounds

Main article: Romanian phonology

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Romanian has seven vowels: {{IPA|/a/}}, {{IPA|/e/}}, {{IPA|/i/}}, {{IPA|/o/}}, {{IPA|/u/}}, {{IPA|/?/}}, and {{IPA|/ɨ/}}. Additionally, vowel {{IPA|/ø/}} may appear in some words.

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In final positions after consonants (rarely inside words) a short non-syllabic {{IPA|/i/}} can occur, which is marked in IPA by {{IPA|/?/}} and is produced as a palatalization of the preceding consonant. A similar sound, the voiceless ending u, existed in old Romanian but has disappeared from the standard language.

Related Topics:
IPA - Palatalization

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There are also four semivowels and twenty consonants.

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Diphthongs

Descending diphthongs: ai, au, ei, eu, ii, iu, oi, ou, ui, ?i, ?u, îi, îu.

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Ascending diphthongs: ea, eo, ia, ie, io, iu, oa, ua, u?.

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Triphthongs

Pattern S-V-S (main vowel between two semivowels): eai, eau, iai, iau, iei, ieu, ioi, iou, oai.

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Pattern S-S-V (two-semivowel glide before the main vowel): eoa, ioa.

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Phonetic changes

Due to its isolation from the other Romance languages, the phonetic evolution of Romanian was quite different, but does share a few changes with Italian, such as > (Lat. clarus > Rom. chiar, Ital. chiaro) and also a few with Dalmatian, such as > (Lat. cognatus > Rom. cumnat, Dalm. comnut).

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Among the notable phonetic changes are:

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• diphthongization of e, i, o
• : Lat. cera > Rom. cear? (wax)
• : Lat. sole > Rom. soare (sun)
• iotacism ?
• : Lat. herba > Rom. iarb? (grass, herb)
• velar , ? labial , ,
• : Lat. octo > Rom. opt (eight)
• : Lat. lingua > Rom. limb? (tongue, language)
• : Lat. signum > Rom. semn (sign)
• : Lat. coxa > Rom. coaps? (thigh)
• rotacism ?
• : Lat. caelum > Rom. cer (sky)
• dentals and palatalized to / and when before or
• : Lat. deus > Rom. zeu (god)
• : Lat. tenem > Rom. ?ine (hold)

Romanian is the only widely-spoken contemporary Romance language that retains the original phoneme {{IPA|/h/}}. (The Norman language also retains phoneme {{IPA|/h/}}. In many dialects of Spanish, particularly in the Americas, is pronounced as {{IPA|}}, but this appears not to be a matter of "retention": the original Castilian phoneme is {{IPA|/x/}}. In some dialects of Portuguese, depending on the surrounding phonemes, is pronounced as {{IPA|}}, but likewise, the original phoneme appears to have been . In these dialects, arguably corresponds to two phonemes, one for , and one for .)

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