Megleno-Romanian language
Megleno-Romanian | |
---|---|
Meglenitic, Meglinitic, Moglenitic | |
vlăhește | |
Native to | Greece, North Macedonia, Romania, Turkey,[1] Serbia |
Ethnicity | Megleno-Romanians |
Native speakers | 5,000 (2002)[2] |
Indo-European
| |
Early forms | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | ruq |
Glottolog | megl1237 |
ELP | Megleno-Romanian |
Linguasphere | 51-AAD-bb |
Eastern Romance languages |
---|
Substratum Thraco-Roman culture |
Romanian |
|
Aromanian |
Megleno-Romanian |
Istro-Romanian |
Megleno-Romanian (known as vlăhește by its speakers, and Megleno-Romanian or Meglenitic and sometimes Moglenitic or Meglinitic by linguists) is an
Classification
Megleno-Romanian is a member of the family of Romance languages. More specifically, it is an Eastern Romance language, a language formed after the retreat of the Roman Empire from the Balkans. Due to the fact that it is spoken by very few people and because of its similarities with the Aromanian, modern Romanian and Istro-Romanian languages, some linguists consider it to be an intermediary between Romanian and Aromanian, often being considered either a dialect of Romanian, a dialect of Aromanian, or an independent language. It is closer to standard Romanian than the Aromanian language, suggesting that it split from Common Romanian later than Aromanian. Megleno-Romanian has been strongly influenced by the neighbouring South Slavic varieties.
Name
The term Megleno-Romanian has been used by linguists (mainly Romanians), who noticed the similarity to the
Geographical distribution
Megleno-Romanian is spoken in several villages in the
Phonology
Megleno-Romanian is not a standardised language and there are phonological differences across idioms.[10]
Consonants
Labial | Dental/ Alveolar |
Post- alveolar |
Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | m | n
|
ɲ | ||||
Stop
|
voiceless | p | t
|
c | k | ||
voiced | b | d
|
ɟ | ɡ | |||
Affricate
|
voiceless | t͡s | t͡ʃ | ||||
voiced | d͡z | d͡ʒ | |||||
Fricative
|
voiceless | f | s | ʃ | ç | (h) | |
voiced | v | z | ʒ | ||||
Trill | r
|
||||||
Approximant
|
lateral | l
|
ʎ | ||||
central | j | w |
Vowels
Front | Central | Back | |
---|---|---|---|
Close | i iː | u uː | |
Close-mid | e eː | ə | o oː |
Open-mid | ɛ | ɔ ɔː | |
Open | a aː |
Some particular phonetic characteristics of the Megleno-Romanian vowel system compared to other Eastern Romance languages are:[10]
- long vowels: ā, ē, ī, ǭ, ō, ū
- use of the open-mid back rounded vowel [ɔ] in some words which in Romanian would use [ə] and [ɨ], for example: pǫ́nză
- apheresis of [a] in initial position: aveam → veam ("we had"), aduc → duc ("I bring")
Vocabulary
Much of the vocabulary is of Latin origin and much of its phonetics and semantics is shared with Aromanian and Romanian: (n.b.: MR=Megleno-Romanian, DR=Daco-Romanian, i.e. Romanian)
- basilica > MR bisearică, DR biserică (church, originally "basilica")
- lumen > MR lumi, DR lume (world, originally "light")
- monumentum > MR murmint, DR mormânt (grave, originally "monument")
- strigis > MR strig, DR strig (I yell, originally "owl")
- draco > MR drac, DR drac (devil, originally "dragon")
Megleno-Romanian also contains some words that have cognates with
- MR brad; DR brad; cf. Alb. bredh (fir tree)
- MR monz; DR mânz; cf. Alb. mës (colt)
- MR bucuros; DR bucuros; (happy) cf. Alb bukur (beautiful)
There are also some words which are of Slavic origin and which can be found in all the Eastern Romance languages:
- MR stăpân; DR trup (body); cf. Sl. trupŭ
- MR stăpon; DR stăpân (master); cf. Old Slavic. stopanŭ, today's Bulgarian stopanin and Macedonian stopan
There are a number of
- Gr. prósfatos > MR proaspit; DR proaspăt (fresh)
- Gr. keramídi > MR chirămidă; DR cărămidă (brick)
- Gr. lemoni > MR limonă, via Bulg. limon (lemon); cf. DR lămâie
The most important influence on Megleno-Romanian was the
- Bulgarian (Slavic) drob > MR drob
- Bulgarian neviasta > MR niveastă (bride)
- Bulgarian gora > MR goră (forest)
See also
- Istro-Romanian language
- Substrate in Romanian
- Balkan sprachbund
- Origin of the Romanians
- Thraco-Roman
- Daco-Roman
- Romance languages
- Legacy of the Roman Empire
Notes
- ^ a b The internal classification of the Eastern Romance languages presented in Petrucci (1999) proposes a bipartite split into Northern and Southern branches, with the Southern branch splitting into Megleno-Romanian and Aromanian.[3] By contrast, the classification presented within Glottolog v4.8 proposes a bipartite split between Aromanian and Northern Romanian, the latter of which is further split into Istro-Romanian and Eastern Romanian, from which Daco-Romanian and Megleno-Romanian are hypothesized to have split from.[4]
References
- ^ a b Ethnologue entry
- ^ Megleno-Romanian at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ^ Petrucci 1999, p. 4.
- . Retrieved 2023-11-20.
- ^ Romanian language – Britannica Online Encyclopedia
- ISBN 978-606-16-0148-6.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link - ^ Nevaci, Manuela; Saramandu, Nicolae (2014). "Aspectul verbal în dialectul macedoromân" [Verbal aspect in the Megleno-Romanian dialect]. diacronia.ro. Retrieved 14 February 2024.
- ^ Kahl, Thede (December 2014). "Language preservation, identity loss: The Meglen Vlachs". Academia.edu. p. 40. Retrieved 14 February 2024.
- ^ Sorescu-Marinković, Annemarie; Maran, Mircea (December 2014). "Megleno-Romanians in Gudurica: Language and Identity". Academia.edu. Retrieved 14 February 2024.
- ^ a b Nevaci, Manuela; Saramandu, Nicolae (2014). "Le dialecte méglénoroumain. Une synthese" [The Megleno-Romanian dialect - a synthesis]. diacronia.ro (in French). Retrieved 14 February 2024.
- ^ Narumov, B. P. (2001). Мегленорумынский язык / Диалект. Романские языки. pp. 671–681.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ Atanasov, Petar (2002). Meglenoromâna astăzi. Bucharest: Romanian Academy.
Further reading
- Capidan, Theodor, Meglenoromânii
- vol. I: Istoria și graiul lor [Their history and speech], București, Cultura Națională, 1925;
- vol. II: Literatura populară la meglenoromâni [Popular literature of the Megleno-Romanians], București, Cultura Națională / Academia Română, Studii și Cercetări VII, 1928;
- vol. III: Dicționar meglenoromân [Megleno-Romanian dictionary], București, Cultura Națională / Academia Română, Studii și Cercetări XXV, 1935
- Petrucci, Peter R. (1999). Slavic Features in the History of Rumanian. München: LINCOM Europa. ISBN 38-9586-599-0.
External links
- Megleno-Romanii, by Dr. Emil Tarcovnicu (in Romanian)
- Megleno-Romanian Swadesh list of basic vocabulary words (from Wiktionary's Swadesh list appendix)
- Asterios Koukoudis, Studies on the Vlachs