Chapter 7: The Sounds of Romanian, by John Lynch
1. About the language
The language of Romanian is an indo- European language which could fall under the category of the “ Romance” language. The language is far from extinction with as many 23.6- 24 million speakers in the world. As well as being part of the Indo-European many of its syllabus and inscription come from Latin. Which makes sense because The country of Romania is located near Hungary, Serbia, and Moldova. With being surrounded by many different countries the dialects and languages move in and out of the area. With that in mind countries Moldova the language the language of Romanian has so much influence that the percentage of people that speak the language is extremely high almost, to the point of being an official language.
. This image shows the family tree of Romanian
2.The vowels
In Romanian there are more vowels than English, plus Romanian has dip and trip thongs which makes the language much more unique. There are seven vowels in the language including : / a/, / i /, / u /, / e/ , / o/ , / ɨ /, and / ə /. As well just like in other languages the vowels in Romanian are front, central, and back.
3.The Consonants
There are many allophone and phonemes in the Romanian language. as shown above. Many words in their IPA transciptions show how the placement of vowels and consonants effect the sounds and how their grammar is very specific. Saying a word with the smallest pronunciation changes the whole word. The language is full of voiced and voiceless consonants.
4. The Allophonic Alternation
mână / mɨnə/ ' hand' mină / minə/ ' minerâpă / rɨpə/ ' precepice' rupă /rupə/ ' breaks'
pâr /pɨr/ 'interj păr /pər/ ' hair'
par / par / ' pole'
Minimal pair of / ɨ /
In this group of words the / ɨ / and / ə/ would be considered allophones in this group. As well as both being unrounded vowels.
5. Syllables and syllable structure
In the case of / ɨ / and / ə/ and the group of words I had choosen using the formal of cvc,cv,cccvccc, or any other ways to combine consonants and vowels the the â--> / ɨ / and the ă---> / ə/ it would be6. Is Romanian An Endangered language?
No, Romanian is a big language and with that the la language is far from being endangered. According to ethnologue “ Romanian has over 1,000,000 speakers and is used beyond home and community”. Meaning besides the country it is manly spoken, the language is spoken outside the country. This area is surrounded by multiple countries and in many cases those other areas get influenced from a big language. So that’s why for example in Moldova, Romanian is apart of their culture and language that it could be considered an official language there.7.References
Renwick , M. (2012, May). vowels of Romania. Retrieved December 15, 2021, from https://ecommons.cornell.edu/bitstream/handle/1813/33364/Renwick_Margaret.pdf?sequence=2
Romanian (Limba Română). Romanian language, alphabet and pronunciation. (n.d.). Retrieved December 15, 2021, from https://omniglot.com/writing/romanian.htm
Shibboleth authentication request. (n.d.). Retrieved December 15, 2021, from https://www-ethnologue-com.libproxy.siue.edu/language/ron?ip_login_no_cache=%EEJ%86%21%89%F2b%87&cache
UCLA. (n.d.). Romanian. Retrieved December 15, 2021, from http://archive.phonetics.ucla.edu/Language/RON/ron.html
What it means to be phonetic or phonological ... - mpg.pure. (n.d.). Retrieved December 15, 2021, from https://pure.mpg.de/rest/items/item_527002_2/component/file_527001/content
Wikimedia Foundation. (2021, December 6). Romanian language. Wikipedia. Retrieved December 15, 2021, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_language