Is Romanian Latin or Slavic?

Many wonder, ‘Is Romanian a Slavic language?’ At this time, the language’s roots are primarily Latin, with some Slavic influences.

The Romanian language is often associated with Latin languages, as most people associate it with Latin-speaking regions.

Many people are familiar with words in Italian, French, or Spanish, making it easy to recognize Romanian ones.

What few people know is that the Romanian language also has a Slavic imprint. The Latin influence is significantly greater, accounting for nearly 70%, while the Slavic influence is only 14%.

What is the situation today? Are the Slavic influences still felt in everyday speech? Can we non-natives discover these accents?

Returning to statistics, 14% is not a very high percentage. But, according to linguists, the Slavic influence is the strongest of all.

The Church’s Slavonic language achieved influence through popular means and culture.

Traveling through Romanian language history reveals that Slavic migrations introduced numerous borrowed words.

Is Romanian a Slavic Language? Exploring Latin Dominance and Slavic Influences in Romanian’s Linguistic Roots

This is perfectly normal. When a group of people moves from one place to another, they will bring the native language, customs, traditions and will inevitably mix with the local ones.

The church is another factor that influenced the origin of the Romanian language. Most Orthodox countries – Russia, Bulgaria, etc. – used the Cyrillic alphabet.

After adopting the Romanian language, our people enriched it with many words of Slavic origin. The alphabet was widely used by the authorities in drafting official documents, but also by the Church.

Thus, although few, the words of Slavic origin that reside in our language are of major importance.

They are among the most used words (we offer as an example friend, pity, dear), they have seniority and, therefore, a very important role in the Romanian language.

Hoping that this short history and linguistics lesson answered your curiosities, we invite you to our Romanian language courses. We will help you discover this mysterious language and learn about it together.