Is Romanian Latin or Slavic?

Most people, when they hear about the Romanian language and want to find a point related to it, they automatically think of Latin languages.

It is a good start because many of us know words in Italian, French, or Spanish, and it is easy for us to recognize Romanian ones.

What few people know is that the Romanian language also has a Slavic imprint; Indeed, the Latin influence is much greater – almost 70%, and the Slavic is only 14%, but it should not be neglected.

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.

This influence was achieved through popular means (due to contacts with different peoples), but also through the culture, through the Slavonic language spoken by the Church.

By choosing to travel through time and follow the history of the Romanian language, we will find out that during the Slavic migrations many words were borrowed.

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 it was adopted by our people, many words of Slavic origin entered the Romanian language. 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.