I watched a documentary which basically claims that modern-day Romanians are not the descendants of Rome, but that the Romans and the Romanians share a common ancestor with the same language. One of their stronger arguments is that it's impossible for the Romanian language to become so latinized in the 150 years or so in which Rome occupied a small part of Romania (I think they said about 16%), because in other places where they occupied a much greater region (such as Egypt) the languages only show traces of Latin. What do you think, is this a good theory? There is also a part 2 in which they also show genetic evidence among other things, but I was not able to find a translated version of it. If you would like more detailed information from part 2, please let me know. Thanks.
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7This is a frequent "meme" when you speak to Romanians, who esp. in the early years after 1989 and for understandable reasons tended to emphasize differences between their home country and other (Slavic) countries in the former "Eastern Block". – Drux Jun 21 '13 at 08:06
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@Drux I don't know if this is such an attempt, because to me it seems that a claim to Latin affinity would alienate Romania a lot from its Slavic neighbors, but this is video is trying to to rebuttal this claim. And you said for "understandable reasons", but I'm not exactly clear on the reasons, is it that Romania considers its Slavic neighbors relatives of the oppressor Russians? – Ovi Jun 21 '13 at 08:14
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I haven't watched the video yet (hence I was posting a comment, not an answer), but I agree that there is perhaps a kernel of truth in such an attempt (even if the entire truth may be different). What I meant by "understandable reasons" is that (also) people from Romania tried to put Communist times behind them e.g. by stressing parts of their history/inheritance not related to that period/culture: I've witnessed it e.g. in discussion with a Romanian Ph.D. student in Switzerland in circa 1994. – Drux Jun 21 '13 at 08:20
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@Drux Ok well I'm looking forward to your answer :) (if you have time to watch the video of course) – Ovi Jun 21 '13 at 08:22
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@Ovi The time needed to influence the language of a population depends on a number of factors, including e.g. the number of colonists sent and the presence (and prestige) of a local writing. Just my 2 cents. – astabada Jun 21 '13 at 11:19
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4I would think a major strike against the theory is that nowhere in the description of the various Dacian wars is it mentioned that these fellows speak Latin. The place names and names of the Dacian leaders also don't seem that Latin. – Oldcat Nov 07 '13 at 18:31
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Depending on how you defined it, Wallachia represented perhaps 16% of the land area, but a much greater proportion of the population of "Romania," and the latter counts for a lot more. – Tom Au Nov 15 '13 at 17:51
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8I don't think there is any serious dispute that the Romanian language is a romance (latin-based) language. How a region that was only partly and briefly dominated by Rome could end up speaking a romance language even though its neighbors did not is an interesting question but whether it could is a moot question. It just did so trying to show it didn't based on some non-linguistic evidence is a non-starter. OTOH, “descendants of the Romans” sounds more like vague propaganda than a serious historical claim to me so I am not sure it can be reasonably evaluated one way or the other. – Relaxed Oct 06 '14 at 08:38
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3 points against the "Romanians are the same as the Romans" and "Romanians are the same as the Dacians" theory: 1. Orthodox rather than Roman Catholic religion. 2. No mention of them between the 3rd and 10th-11th centuries. 3. A lot of Slavic words in the language. Nation states as we understand them now were not existing back then, it's impossible to say that certain people are the ancestors of certain current nation, especially if there is a huge time gap of many centuries, in the middle of the Migration Period when a lot of different people were mixing around all the time. – vsz Dec 03 '14 at 19:54
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1Deriving an ethical group's history purely from language is a very naive approach. Especially in a case where the ethnic group has a strong political need to prove superiority and ancient root in the region. Also, the Romans themselves were not an ethnic group around.. – Greg Mar 27 '16 at 11:45
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Related: Latin Influences in Romania – Astor Florida Jan 07 '17 at 02:49
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WRT the non-Latinization of the Egyptian language, wouldn't most of the influence of Latin (and Greek, and the original Egyptian tongue) have been eradicated by the Islamic conquests and consequent adoption of Arabic? – jamesqf Apr 07 '17 at 23:39
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@jamesqf Romania didn't exist as an independent till late XIXth century neither (and large part joined only after WWI) – Greg Apr 08 '17 at 07:40
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@Greg: I admit to knowing little of the history of Romania, but did the past rulers of the territories that comprise the modern country really care what language their subjects spoke? (You might compare modern English growing out of the eventual fusion of Latin-rooted Norman French and the Anglo-Saxon of the peasantry.) All I'm saying is that the comparison with Egypt (and the rest of Roman-ruled North Africa) would seem to fail because the Islamic conquest replaced everything with Arabic. – jamesqf Apr 08 '17 at 16:47
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@jamesqf I guess it is debatable if Arabs cared about it either. Or the Romans... Note that no one others in the Central/Eastern European or Balkan region picked up Latin, and many ethnic groups lost or lost their original language (picked up German, Slavic, Hungarian etc). Only other people who speak (spoke) Latin-like language in the region were the Dalmatian and similar dialects spoken in Adrian coastal towns. Thosemostly died out around 500 years ago, in spite of their relative isolation and much stronger ties with Rome and latter Venice. – Greg Apr 08 '17 at 17:17
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@jamesqf Just an interesting presentation: http://www.eva.mpg.de/fileadmin/content_files/linguistics/conferences/2014-WS-gram-hybrid/Zakrzewska_presentation.pdf In short: the main influence on Egypt language was the Greek from 332BC, Latin was in very limited use even during the Roman Empire. Egyptian (Coptic) survived till about 11th as a living language, now it is only liturgical. – Greg Apr 08 '17 at 17:35
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This Q is really hard to evaluate, as the actual documentary is not named or linked to. It seems indeed that many answers here read something into the question I fail to see here. Please [edit] with more details an the theory and the documentary. – LаngLаngС Jun 14 '19 at 18:17
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1Possible duplicate of In the "Immigrationist theory" of Romanians (Vlachs), how did they became the vast majority in Transylvania? – cipricus Jun 15 '19 at 16:23
8 Answers
I'm not a linguist so I can't comment on whether 150 years are enough or not to thoroughly Latinize a language. However, I think I can point out that the analogy with Egypt is deeply flawed.
When the Romans conquered Egypt from the Ptolemaic dynasty they took over a country that had roughly speaking two distinct populations: a "Greek" elite and semi-elite that was already Hellenized and spoke Greek and a native Egyptian population which spoke its own language and took no part in the political, cultural, administrative or financial affairs of their masters (except for the priests, but they were a thin layer which was probably as distant from the plain native folks as the foreign overlords).
With the advent or Roman rule nothing much changed for the Egyptian native peasant - he kept tilling his land, paying his taxes and had as little need or incentive to learn the language of his masters as before. Therefore, small wonder that his own language bears few traces of theirs.
Why was the linguistic situation different in other modern-day-Romance countries which the Romans conquered (such as France or Spain)? I think it's because in these countries the mass of native population had willy-nilly constant contact with the Romans and adopted eventually their language. A new elite grew up through trade and services to the Romans which associated itself with Latin. On the other hand, in Egypt there were no conditions for the rise of such an elite because there was little internal trade and the Romans did not settle the hinterland densely or required the direct services of the natives, having the "Greek" segment of the population at their beck and call.
So, to sum up, the comparison of Romania to Egypt is not a valid one.
P.S. There was a third major part of the Egyptian population at the time: the Jews. But for the purposes of this discussion this is not crucial so I left this fact out to keep matters simple.
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what about the question the OP asks in the title? have you guessed what theory is that? is it plausible? – cipricus Jun 14 '19 at 16:43
Those backing the idea that Romanians are the descentants of Romance language speakers who arrived in the territory of modern day Romania during the Middle Ages are mainly Hungarian historians and this has to do with the dispute over who settled first in Transylvania. This theory is however contradicted by Hungarians' own 'national chronicle', Anonymous's Gesta Hungarorum, which lists the Vlachs as well as 'the shepards of the Romans' among the peoples encountered by the Hungarian tribes when arriving in the area. Interesting is that, while Hungarians do agree with some other stuff that their chroncler wrote, they regard this part as pure fiction'.
I dont't see no violence in this dispute, though...
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From my prospective the outlined 2 possibilities may be considered not only opposed, but may also be seen as complementary to each other. We have a similar situation with the Russian language which is a synthesis of "Danubian" Slavic language and "Novgorod" Slavic language, the later is a more archaic version of Slavic. What if there were a series of migration waves of Latin-speaking population? The written sources mention at least 2: (i) after the Roman conquest of Dacia and (ii) the migration of Italic colons to Dalmatia and further to Balkans under emperor Diocletian.
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I had read in a book that, when Avars and Slaves tribes that arrived north of the Danube river, where today Romania is situated in the VII century, after they raided several Romanised cities in the Balkans they took by themselves a large number of people to use them as ransom tools against the Byzantine empire. Sometimes they killed them, as a chronicle mentioned it "where around 20 thousand peoples where killed after the Byzantine emperor refused to pay them the amount of money they required to him", but sometimes the Romanised population where taken north of river Danube.
In the cases when ransom wasn't paid they left them free to live in this area, because those tribes didnt needed slaves to work in their fields. In this way we had on one side, deserted and depopulated cities south of the Danube and in the north, we had a large number of Romanised peoples who were living tax free and undisturbed by the slavic raids.
There this Romanised population started a new life that resembled these tribes, which explains some slavic words in their vocabulary. After the Seventh Century, Avars and Slaves moved into the warmer and more developed countries in the south while the Romanised population remained there and combined with the romanised population from Rome which started the nucleus of the Romanian Nation.
This hypothesis explains also why all the Romaniana are situated in the north of Danube. From this time, the differences between the two dialects of Romanian Language started to develop. North of Danube, contact with the Greek culture were less developed, while the Romanised population that remained in the south was within the empire territory or near them and had more cultural diffusion, especially Greek words in their vocabulary. (p.s. this is only a personal opinion) M.S
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3You should include references for the works mentioned in the first paragraph. – KillingTime Mar 20 '18 at 21:39
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Do you think the OP asks about Romanian language and people's origin? It seems only to ask about the plausibility of an obscure theory. – cipricus Jun 14 '19 at 16:35
The territory of the Republic of Moldova is for more than 200 years under strong Russian influence - political, economical, cultural, linguistic etc. But up till now there is no sign of assimilation of the indigenous Romanian-speaking population. If compared with the antiquity over the last 200 years there were much more "channels" for promoting the assimilation policy but the result is well known - the local population preserved its ethnic and linguistic identity. For this reason it is hard to believe that only 160 years of Roman presence in 16% of Dacian territory could lead to the latinization of the local population. From the other hand when speaking about partial Russification over the last 200 years we must distinguish two separate phenomena - the increased percentage of Russian native-speakers in the region and the "contamination" of the Romanian language of indigenous population. The local Romanian-speaking population borrowed a lot of Russian words which are used in daily communication, but the structure of the language did not change at all. The Russified Romanian language in Moldova is a Romanian language with plenty of Russian loan words but with intact grammar. The same phenomenon can be seen in Ukrainian villages in Moldova which are surrounded by Romanian villages. Sometimes they speak an Ukrainian language with so many Romanian insertions which is understood only by the members of that small community. The point is that for changing the language spoken in a region it is not enough to teach them another language. In the best(or worst) case they will borrow more or less words from the new language and will use them in their traditional language.
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1I am not very knowledgeable about that region, but I feel like Moldava didn't get russified (too much) only because there was active resistance to keep Romanian language/culture. On the other hand (again correct me if I'm wrong) Bessarbia in modern-day Ukraine has been quickly Russified when it was Romanian, 1st by the Tsarist government by colonisation and then by the soviet government which deported people, etc... – Bregalad Apr 11 '16 at 15:46
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7On the other hand, France has been quickly romanized even though there was an advanced Celtic civilisation there - the only remaining Celtic area was/is in Brittany. If France could be latinized that way I don't see why Romania couldn't (this is no proof that this is what happened - just a counter-argument). – Bregalad Apr 11 '16 at 15:48
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In ancient times assimilation was much weaker: national identity were rarely pushed in empires. – Greg Apr 08 '17 at 07:42
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The question is if really there was a Dacian unified language when there was no bureaucratic state and thus no written records. Like in Africa and other regions with English and French, Latin might have been quickly adopted also as lingua franca by peoples that lacked previously a common language. – cipricus Sep 09 '21 at 07:09
The question is to what degree the romance language speaking ancestors of the Modern Romanians in Transylvania, Moldavia, and Wallachia were descended from ancient Romanized Dacians and Roman colonists, and to what degree they were descended from Romance language speakers who arrived in the 3 Romanian regions from elsewhere sometime (probably over centuries) during the Middle Ages.
Those 2 possibilities are at the extreme and opposite ends of the spectrum of possible origins for the Romanians, and from what I have read Romania is deep enough into southeastern Europe that the supporters and defenders of those 2 extreme positions are often very violent supporters of their views.
So it is possible that some other persons who might answer later may shed more heat than light on the question due to their strong ethnic identification with one or the other extreme view.
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The problem whether Romanian language was created in Dacia or not is justified, but the question above is asking something very different, namely about a romantic-nationalistic story posing as "theory". – cipricus Jun 14 '19 at 10:19
I'm late to the party, but for what is worth, here are my 2 cents. Keep in mind that I am not a historian, just a logical individual with limited knowledge of history (even of my own people's history, I am Romanian, ethnically). DNA analysis should settle any questions, this is science, not open for debate. You can establish historical migration patterns, as well as deep time ethnical/racial roots , based on DNA analysis (that's a fact). I am not aware of any serious study in this direction, but that can definitely answer your/our question. I also want to point out that the Rosia Montana gold mine is one of the largest gold reserves in Europe (if not the largest, present day ), and it was at some point in time a Roman gold mine (after the conquest of Dacia). The Empire was interested in this resource. It is interesting to take into consideration the notion of "gold rush". For reference/comparison, see the impact of massive migration , related to the Californian gold rush (as a well documented "measuring stick" of the phenomenon). In other words, this might explain the special circumstances related to the the Latin origins in that part of the world. It was more than just the Roman legionaries that stationed there for almost 200 years.
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10" this is science, not open for debate" - proper science is always open to informed debate. – Steve Bird Jun 10 '19 at 09:18
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You are correct @SteveBird (thank you for the feedback) , that's the main difference between science and religion (for example), but once the scientific conclusions are laid on the table, any counter arguments are irrelevant. – Cristian Dumitrescu Jun 10 '19 at 09:35
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It is exceedingly difficult to detect signals in DNA analysis when you have as much noise as European migrations in the last centuries will cause. Also, I am not sure what you propose to look for in your DNA analysis. Whether Italians and Romanians are related? Whether Romanians and ancient Romans are related? (Sure they are. Thanks to various migrations, all Europeans are.) Whether present day Romanians are more closely related to ancient Romans than Bulgarians, Hungarians, etc.? (Probably not as there was quite a bit of admixture in the Balkans too. But conceivably you could test that.) – 0range Jun 10 '19 at 14:26
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Of course all Europeans are related. All humans on Earth are related, to a certain extent, but science can answer more precise question. I am not proposing anything in particular, I hope they all live like brothers and sisters in the Balkans. All I am saying is that science can answer these questions, in a way that is independent of propaganda and political agendas. That part of the world has always been the scene of proxy wars (including propaganda) coming from the great empires that surrounded them. – Cristian Dumitrescu Jun 10 '19 at 16:40
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Based on DNA studies all Europeans are most related to their neighbors. This doesn't answer the question at all. – cipricus Jun 13 '19 at 19:06
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Thank you for your comment @cipricus. Your first statement in your comment is generally correct, your last statement is completely flawed. You don't seem to be familiar with statistics, genetics, and pattern recognition algorithms. This is the history section , not applied science, so I will stop here. – Cristian Dumitrescu Jun 14 '19 at 06:39
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What I meant is: the fact all Europeans are related to their neighbors is destroying nationalistic illusions in general about racial differences between neighbors (who normally were/are long-time rivals), but the question above is about something much worse than that, something that cannot qualify as a "theory", not even as a nationalist myth. Such a messy thing can only be rejected, not clarified, nor answered. Using DNA research against delirious dreams is like using rockets to kill flies, and even trying to "answer" something like that gives it too much credit. – cipricus Jun 14 '19 at 10:05
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Also, your comment involves a confusion between DNA-research scientific competence and the capacity of judging whether a fact (in this case about genealogy of human population) is or not significant for explaining historical and cultural phenomena. But again, all this goes far beyond the merits of this question. – cipricus Jun 14 '19 at 10:11
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Personally, I am all for a United and coherent Europe, specially in the Balkans. I consider this a legitimate question. I don't think the question has anything to do with nationalism. It has a lot to do with our natural desire to know the truth about our ancestral roots, to know where we come from. – Cristian Dumitrescu Jun 14 '19 at 15:32
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I only now realize people answering here have very predictably not identified the "theory" the OP talks about asking if it is plausible. That is only normal, given that "theory" is hardly mentioned by the OP,. But the title clearly refers to it. Please see my answer on what I guess that is. - Have you guessed what theory is that? is it plausible? --That is the OP question, and answering other possible questions should be useless: but the OP marked as definitive an answer that hardly has any relation to the title of the question! So... :)) – cipricus Jun 14 '19 at 16:51
The origins of Romania is debated generally by Hungarian and Austrian nationalists who wanted to justify why they conquered other nations in the past. The Latin was lingua franca for Dacians, a language of a superior culture and this is why it replaced the multiple Dacian idioms. Even in modern times, there are countries that lost their native language after 50 years under colonial Europeans.(example: Philipines). The immigration theory has no reason. The movement of about a million of dwellers is not observed by chronicles. In the same time, there are data of the presence of Vlachs/Romanians in Transilvania (Gelou) and Banat (under Glad)in Hungarian and Slavic chronicles. According to historian Spinei, there is a battle of Vlachs/Romanians involved in civil wars of Kiev around 1017. Also a Russian chronicle commented a battle of Vlachs/Romanians allied with Pechenegs against Solomon, king of Hungarians in 1068 at Chiraleș in Transilvania: Русскій хронографъ, 2, Хронографъ Западно-Русской редакціи, în PSRL, XXII, 2, Petrograd, 1914, pag. 241.
The problem whether Romanian language was created in Dacia or not is not justified. Only beginners in history or persons who red Hungarian or Austrian propagandistic historical works try to accept not documented theories.
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3This is a somewhat confused (or possibly just confusing) answer, which tries to cram too many ideas into too few words. It needs expansion and citations. You should also avoid phrases such as "language of a superior culture" which is guaranteed to raise hackles. – Steve Bird Dec 18 '21 at 14:00