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The Influence of English on Romanian

Abstract

We all know that the vocabulary of any language is enriched through different
borrowings. In nowadays in Romanian there are many English words that are used in
speaking and writing. The large number of newly created terms in Romanian after
English language, through derivative affixes and elements of composition, reveals the
increased capacity of the Romanian language in forming new words. -deal with the
subject of the avalanche of British and American¹ borrowings from an up-to-date
point of view regarding the Romanian vocabulary. The paper also underlines the
importance of these borrowings and renders different norms (phonetic, orthographic,
morphologic etc.) of the adaptation of English elements into Romanian language.

The language is made through transformation and ,,dies’’ when it stops changing.²

The influence of English language on the Romanian language and on other European
languages started increase in the 20th century. This process was made through the massive
retrieval of lexical elements and also by assigning the meaning of the English borrowings to
the Romanian words. The Anglicisation in Romania took place due to the technological
development, to the current socio-political conditions and also because of the economic and
financial enlargements with the western world. The Romanian language has drastically
changed from a well-known wooden language before the communist times to a dynamic,
fresh and new language. Given also the integration into NATO and the recent integration of
Romania in the European Union, the Romanian language is under the influence of English
more than ever, thanks to the increasing number of commercial, business and professional
connections established between Romania and the international community and due to a
large number of foreign investors who decided to set up their business here.
The geographical position of Romania and each historical period have resulted very
significant in the linguistic evolution of the Romanian language, each period having its own
borrowings from different languages: Slavonic(10% of the words in modern Romanian are
Slavic - e.g. da for yes, a iubi for to love, bogat for rich, lebădă for swan ) Turkish (cafea for
coffee, papuc for slipper), Hungarian and Greek influence (nostim for funny, politicos for
polite, prosop for towel, anapoda for tupsy-turvy) to which major French influence (i.e. 38%
of the number of words in Romanian are of French or Italian origin) can be added in the
nineteenth and early twentieth century (birou < bureau for ‘desk’; creion < crayon for
‘pencil’; conştiinţă < conn aissance for ‘conscious’; (it.) secol for ‘century’, lege for ‘law’,
a.s.o) and, in the present day, the influence of English. English is now by far the most used
language by especially the younger generation, while French remained the language of our
grandparents spoken in the mid 1930s when Bucharest was called little Paris due to a strong
influence of French on our culture.
We have to admit and, at the same time, to acknowledge the fact that we are no longer
living in an elegant society with elegant behaviour and elegant manners for a long time.
Before 1989, during the Ceausescu’s totalitarianism - well-known in our history as the ‘gold
epoch’ - we have preserved the French language in our schools just to remind us of the
bygone period of prosperity and welfare and to oppose the Russian language which was seen
as the communist instrument of oppression. Each and every kid in the Romanian Educational
system was obliged to learn Russian but, fortunately, there was the ‘healing’ option of
studying French against the Slavic influence, and relying on our Latin origins, despite the
fact that our geographical universe is Eastern Europe and not Western as many may consider.
Without any doubt, French had had an enormous influence over the Romanian
culture, because it had succeeded in acquiring the status of a lingua franca after the Great
French Revolution and it had permeated all domains of activity, especially literature and
culture all over Europe. However, we should not forget that the exaggerated use of French
neologisms had been mocked at by our greatest playwright I. L. Caragiale in his plays and
many other Romanian scholars. Meanwhile, English has stood back like a volcano which
eagerly waits for its time to come. And the time of English has indeed come with the ‘1989’
Revolution, and French was replaced by a new and fresh language-English language.
Therefore, it is natural to think that Romanian is facing a rapidly changing linguistic facet
and turns to English in the 3 rd Millennium, which is in the privileged position of a lingua
franca, because the British and the Americans shake hands to deliver an efficient
communication system about capitalism to a mass international audience, especially to the
former communist countries, by means of two major international and economic concepts:
the concept of globalization that has much to do with the World Bank, the International
Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization, on the one hand, and the Internet on the
other. Changes have been felt on the Labour Market due to the development of economy, too.
Romanians are facing the reality of new jobs and new position in the European context. New
jobs names have crossed the Romanian borders and few of them found new equivalents in
our language. We are dealing now with salesman (agent de vanzari), sales manager,
assistant manager (secretara), trainer, senior recruiter, agentmarketing, PR coordinator, HR
manager (director resurse umane), brand manager, key account (responsabil de conturi
importante), and so many others.

1. The most important fields influenced by the English vocabulary

In the studies of some linguists³, the most important fields on which English had a
massive contribution are the following: economic field, business field, political field,
technical field (especially in the IT language), medical field, mass-media field, sports field,
etc.
Economic and business fields:
Dealer,broker (intermediar), target market (piata tinta), billing (facturare), board (consiliu de
conducere), overdraft ( descoperire de cont), deadline( termen-limită) salesman (
comerciant).
Calques : autosuficient < engl. self-sufficient, acţiune lichidă < engl. liquid share, companie
scoică < engl. shell-company, pieţe de capital < engl. capital-markets, reţea de distribuţie <
engl. distribution network.

Political field:
Commonwealth, Downing Street, Pentagon, Amnesty International, Greenpeace, NATO,
FBI, CIA;(cu referent politic sau consacrate în comunicarea politică): agreement, Big
Brother, board, boss, briefing, congressman, establishment, exit poll, gentelman’s
agreement, grey area, impeachement, leadership, lider, lobby, mcdonaldizare, miting,
political correctness, road map, shadow government, soft money, speaker, speech, staff,
summit, yankeu.
Calques : semantice: agrea (engl. agree) „a fi de acord”; cârtiţă (engl. mole) „spion infiltrat”;
determinat (engl. determined) „hotărât”; domestic (engl. domestic) „intern, propriu unui stat”;
imagine (engl. image) „percepţie publică”; provocare (engl. challenge) „dificultate de
învins”; uliu (engl. hawk) „personalitate oficială cu spirit belicos”;
frazeologice: axa răului (engl. axis of evil); Carte Albă (engl. White Paper); câine
de pază (engl. watchdog); corectitudine politică (engl. political correctness); clasă de mijloc
(engl. middle class); cortină de fier (engl. iron curtain); discriminare pozitivă (engl. positive
discrimination); foaie de parcurs (engl. road map); foc prietenesc (engl. friendly fire);
Fratele cel Mare (engl. Big Brother); gulere albe (engl. white collars); guvern din umbră
(engl. shadow government / cabinet); lider de opinie (engl. opinion leader); ONG (după engl.
NGO) „organizaţie non-guvernamentală”; pierderi colaterale (engl. colateral damages);
primă doamnă (engl. first lady), principiul dominoului (engl. domino effect); război rece
(engl. cold war); state-tâlhar (engl. rogue states); Unchiul Sam (engl. Uncle Sam).

Technical field:
atachment (<engl attachment) add-in (<engl add-in),bit (<engl bit, F, It.) mică,browser
(<engl browser), computer (< engl computer) „,download (<engl download), device (<engl
device),desktop (<engl desktop,driver (<engl driver), e-mail (<engl e-mail), ,laptop (<engl
laptop) ,link (<engl link), mailer (<engl mailer) ,modem (<engl modem), mouse (< engl
mouse), server (<engl server) „calculator central în reţea” ,site (<engl site) „locaţie” ,update
(<engl update) a accesa (<engl to access),a boot-a (<engl to boot), a chatui (<engl to chat),a
clicka/clica (<engl to click), ,a computeriza (<engl to computerize),formata (<engl to
format),a heckări (<engl to hack), , a lista (<engl to list),a loga (<engl to log) „a accesa un
sistem” ,a printa (<engl to print), a procesa (<engl to process) „a prelucra”, a reseta (<engl
to reset).

Medical field:

sept interatrial (engl. interatrial septum); valvă aortică (engl. aortic valve);
circulaţia coronariană (engl coronary circulation) ,malformaţii congenitale
ale inimii (engl. congenital anomaly of heart), imagine de medicină
nucleară (engl. nuclear medicineimaging), abazie < engl. abasia; acardie <
engl., acardia; amebom < engl. amoeboma; bradilalie < engl. bradylalia;
cafeină < engl. Caffeine, corpuscul, discuri (Discuri Merkel), frotiu, metode,
(metoda Sorensen), piramidă (piramida lui Malphighi), reactivi (reactivi
Edman),simptom/sindrom, strangulaţii (strangulaţii Ranvier), şanţ (şanţul
lui Rolando), glande bulbouretrale (engl. bulbourethral glands), sonogramă
transabdominală (engl. Transabdominal sonogram), terapie cognitivă (engl.
cognitive therapy),terapie de comportare (eng. Behavioural therapy), grefă
de os (eng. Bone grafting).

Mass-media field (examples from newspapers):


• „Brockerii au tranzactionat” (Ziua de Cluj, 15 octombrie 2007, p. 5)
• „Începe greul la CM feminin de handbal” (Pro Sport,6 decembrie 2007, p. 1);
• „Baschetbalistii clujeni vor juca” (Cluj Expres, 27noiembrie 2007, p. 11);
• „prima generatie de marketing” (Adevarul financiar,12 octombrie 2007, p. 7);
• „puzzel-ul creste puterea de concentrare”(www.ceseimntampladoctore.ro. 14.12.2007,
ora 10:08).
• „din fata supermarketului Billa” (Ziua de Cluj, 15octombrie 2007, p. 5);
• „în weekenduri se face coada” (Adevarul financiar, 12octombrie 2007, p. 28);
• „are un viciu deloc ieftin: shoppingul” (Clujeanul 15-21 octombrie 2007, p. 4);
• „Un bussiness în faza incipienta” (Cancan, 6 decembrie,p. 2).

Sports field:
Snow-board (<engl snow-board),skateboard (<engl skateboard), derby(<engl derby),
hands (<engl hands), corner, (<engl corner), out (<engl out), sky (<engl sky)

2. Types of borrowings

Sextil Puscariu divides the borrowings in two categories : necessary


borrowings and of luxury 4 ( these terms are also used by Gligor Gruita and Adriana
Stoichitoiu-Ichim).
The necessary borrowings are those words or idiomatic units that don’t have a
correspondent in Romanian. In this sense these anglicisms have the advantage of the
precision and of the international use.
2.1 The necessary borrowings can be of two types: denotative and connotative.
The denotative borrowings don’t have equivalents in Romanian because they denote
recent realities that appeared in different fields. To exemplify some denotative
borrowings, there can be mentioned:
From sports field : fotbal (fotbalist), baschet (baschetbalist), rugby (rugbist), schi, meci,
volei, karate, cros, skateboardetc.

From technical field : lap-top, site, walkman, pager, hard, soft, hardware, software)etc.

From the mass-media field: computer, web, clip (video-clip), e-mail etc.

From the educational field: curriculum (even though it’s a Latin term, we have borrowed
it from English), grant, master etc.

From gastronomical field: fast-food, ketchup, hamburger, hot-dog, chips etc.

The other type of necessary borrowings, the connotative ones, double a pre-existing 5
Romanian word, and this serves at the amplification of some stylistic meanings. Some
examples in this case can be:
party for petrecere
happy-end for sfârşit fericit
weekend for sfârşit de săptămână
penalty for lovitură de la 11 metri
live for în direct
summit for întâlnire la vârf etc.

2.2 The luxury borrowings are unnecessary borrowings that involve the
tendency of some social categories to individualise themselves linguistically in this
way. This fact is considered to be an act of snobbism. Here are some examples in this
sense:

Terms from the economic field: Advertisig – publicitate, agreement – acord financiar,
economic, showroom – magazin de expozitie.
Terms from mass-media: briefing – conferinta de presa, key – speaker – vorbitor
principal.
Terms from the educational field: training –pregatire, instruire, item – intrebare, punct
dintr-un test, visitig professor – profesor oaspete.
Terms from the artistic field: band – orchestra, formatie muzicala, evergreen – slagar,
performance – spectacol, teleplay – piesa de teatru la TV.
Terms from the high-life: fashion – moda, make-up – farduri, modeling – meseria de
manechin.

3. Adaptability
3.1 The phonetic adaptation depends on several factors: the moment when the
word enters in the language, the linguistic proficiency of the speakers (the fact that the
know or not the English language) etc.
The international character of the denotative English words motivates their use in the
originating form. There is a probability that these words will never adapt because of
their international character: lobby, hobby, thriller, brandy, ketchup, western etc.
Another factor which must be taken into account is the pathway on which words came
into Romanian. There are English borrowings that entered in the language through the
French pathway (şalanger from challenger, golaveraj from goal-average) and
through the German pathway (incorrect spelling forms with ,,ş’’ for start, sprint,
strand).
A kind of linguistic snobbism in the fact that there are some borrowings that entered a
long time ago in the language and that are adapted phonetic and graphic into
Romanian but are frequently used according to their etymology: interview
(for interviu), clown (for clovn), leader (for lider) etc.
3.2 The morphological adaptation is in advance in comparison with the
phonetic one. In what concerns the gender of the nouns, the majority of the inanimate
nouns, in Romanian, are transferred to neuter gender: star – staruri, cocteil –
cocteiluri, weekend – weekenduri, trening – treninguri, meci – meciuri etc.
The masculine and feminine borrowings are fewer but not of less interest:
masculine – lider, lideri, suporter, supporter, clovn, clovn, dealer, dealeri etc.
feminine – stewardesă, stewardese, tenismenă, tenismene, reporteră – reportere etc.
But there are some borrowings that didn’t adapt from the morphological point of
view: some of them difficult to adapt and other didn’t adapt at all. Some special case
is when Romanian speakers don’t recognise the English plural forms (ending in –s)
and by adding the Romanian endings are created pleonastic forms: ,,pungile de
snacksuri”, ,,bestsellersuri româneşti”, ,,un pachet de sticksuri” etc.
The borrowed verbs from English are fewer than the nouns but their morphological
adaptation is compulsory (in the first conjugation with the suffix –ez at the first person
of present –indicative): a dribla, a accesa, a procesa, a sponsoriza, a implementa, a
scana,etc.
3.3 The lexical and semantic adaptation it’s done through a synonym or
through equivalent Romanian expression. Taking into account the amplification of
sense we can give the following examples: the term blugi ,taken from blue-jeans,
extended its meaning to the specific material, the term top extended its meaning from
music to all the fields, now meaning clasament etc.
In the figurative senses are frequently used with pejorative connotations: killer,,,
puzzle politic”, ,,joker electoral” etc.
4. Pleonastic constructions
Not recognising the meaning of some English borrowings, the rush or the
absent-mindedness are the reason for the appearance of pleonastic constructions. The
lexical pleonastic constructions are not admitted:
naraţiunea unui story
a face henţ cu mana
bani cash
hobby preferat
bord de conducere

Conclusions

The first conclusion to be drawn is favourable to the persistence of these non-


lexicalised concepts in our mother-tongue for several good reasons:

One would be that the native user of Romanian has started to get so much information
about a more and more complex world by the sophisticated means of the 3 rd
Millennium.

Secondly, the Romanian language is dynamic and, more than ever, it is now ‘on the
go’ due to the opening of the European borders, and naturally behaves like a ‘sponge’
that immediately absorbs the necessary ‘linguistic fluid’ because it is highly motivated
by the freedom of expression of the young generations who welcome and appreciate
not only the new words and expressions in their mother-tongue, but also diversity in
culture, like the celebration of St. Valentine’s Day tremendously advertised through
the mass-media channels.

This leads to a third conclusion that the concept of multiculturalism represents another
reason for our language and education to change, since unfamiliar holidays and their
symbols try to impose on our beautiful and genuine festivals and religious holidays.

Last but not least, the enrichment of culture, language and education through Western
European standards blended with the American patterns of thinking and behaving
globally make Romania feel more European than ever. The major problem with the
Eastern communist block was that authoritarianism has limited and reduced
everything (customs, traditions, precious humane feelings) so that those countries
have never really possessed anything.

The English borrowings are a reality and the attitude of the speakers and of the
specialists must be a rational one by measuring the advantages and also the
disadvantages. The latter ones are not numerous but they exist and can be mentioned:
the uncertainty of adaptation, the creation of unlettered forms (ciungă, plovăr), the
creation of pleonastic constructions etc. But the English influence mustn’t be
considered as a negative phenomenon as long as the borrowings won’t be used in an
exaggerated way.
Rezumat
In introducerea acestui articol sunt prezentati cativa factori care au facilitat
influenta limbii engleze asupra limbii romane cat si influentele straine care s-au
manifestat de-a lungul timpului in limba noastra. In prima parte sunt expuse domeniile
cu cele mai multe imprumuturi din engleza, acest lucru evidentiind faptul ca adoptarea
în vorbire a acestor termeni corespunde unor necesităţi de expresie atât culturale, cât
şisociale (apariţia unor realităţi extralingvistice noi, determinată de fapte ce ţin de
progresul umanităţii),cât şi funcţionale (necesitatea existenţei în limbă a unor termeni
care să desemneze aceste realităţi noidin viaţa oamenilor).Un punct deasemenea
important este si capacitatea de adaptare a cuvintelor imprumutate tinand cont de
diferitele norme fonetice, morfologice si lexicale. In elaborarea acestui articol am
tinut cont si de existenta aspectelor negative care tin de folosirea corecta a acestor
imprumuturi astfel incat am enumerat cateva constructii pleonastice.

NOTES:
1.Although in the last period, the influence of English on Romanian was made
through American English, in this article it won’t be made any difference
between British and American English, all the words borrowings mentioned in
article being used under the former name .
2. Coşeriu,E.(1997) Sincronie, diacronie şi istorie.Bucureşti: Editura
Enciclopedică
3.Manolescu,Z(1999)The English Element in Contemporary Romanian.
Bucuresti: Conspress
4. Puscariu, S.(1976) Limba romana I.Privire generala.Bucuresti: Editura Minerva

5. Gruita,G.(2002) Tendinte in evolutia limbii romane.Cluj-Napoca: U.B.B

Bibliography:

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5. Gruita,G.(2002) Tendinte in evolutia limbii romane.Cluj-Napoca: U.B.B
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