Romanian lexis

The lexis of the Romanian language (or Daco-Romanian), a Romance language, has changed over the centuries as the language evolved from Vulgar Latin, to Common Romanian, to medieval, modern and contemporary Romanian. A large proportion (about 42%) of present-day Romanian lexis is not inherited from Latin and in some semantic areas loanwords far outnumber inherited ones making Romanian an example of a language with a high degree of lexical permeability.

Romanian has around 90 words from Thraco-Dacian.

abur, argea, baci, balaur, bală, balegă, baltă, barză, bască, bâlc, bâr, brad, brânză, brâu, brusture, buc, bucur, bunget, buză, căciulă, călbează, căpușă, cătun, ceafă, cioară, cioc, ciucă, ciuf, ciump, ciupi, ciut, coacăză, copac, copil, curpen, cursă, droaie, druete, fărâmă, fluier, gard, gata, ghimpe, ghionoaie, ghiuj, grapă, gresie, groapă, grumaz, grunz, gușă, jumătate, lete, leurdă, mal, mare, mazăre, măgar, măgură, mărar, mânz, moș, mugur, murg, mușcoi, năpârcă, noian, pârâu, pupăză, rață, rânză, sarbăd, scăpăra, scrum, sâmbure, spânz, strepede, strugure, strungă, șopârlă, știră, țap, țarc, țeapă, urdă, vatră, viezure, vizuină, zară, zgardă.

Romanian has inherited about 2000 Latin words through Vulgar Latin, sometimes referred to as Danubian Latin in this context, that form the essential part of the lexis and without them communication would not be possible. 500 of these words are found in all other Romance languages, and they include prepositions and conjunctions (ex: cu, de, pe, spre), numerals (ex: unu, doi, trei), pronouns (ex: eu, tu, noi, voi), adjectives, adverbs and verbs with multiple meanings (ex: bun, dulce, foarte, avea, veni). Complete phrases can be built using only inherited Latin words.

Of the remaining words some are common to Romanian and only one other Romance language, such as înțelege "to understand" also found in Romansh (Lat. intelligere), trece "to pass" found in Occitan (Lat. traicere), or sui "to climb up" found in Old Spanish (Lat. subire), and around 100 of these words are not found in any other Romance languages. Some examples of the latter are:

adăpost, ager, agest, apuca, armar, asuda, așterne, cântec, ceață, cerceta, creștin, dezmierda, feri, ferice, flămând, ierta, întâi, județ, lânced, lângoare, legăna, leșina, lingură, mărgea, negustor, oaie, ospăț, plăcintă, plăsa, plimba, purcede, puroi, putred, sănătoare (sunătoare), suoară (subsoară), treaptă, trepăda, urca, vânăt, vătăma, veșted, urî.

Of the words preserved in other Romance languages some have not only changed their shape, but also their meaning during their evolution from Latin to Romanian. Such are:

(see also Slavic influence on Romanian)