Origin of the Romanians

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The Romanians (also sometimes referred to along with other Balkan Latin peoples as Vlachs) are a people speaking Romanian, a Romance language, and living in Central and Eastern Europe. The Origin of the Romanians has been for a long time disputed and there are two basic theories:

  1. Daco-Romanian continuity in Dacia and some adjacent regions.
  2. Migration of Romanic peoples from former Roman provinces south of the Danube in the Balkans (The Rösler Theory).

The exact region where the Romanian language and people formed is not only a scientific puzzle, but also a heated political controversy. 19th-century Hungarian historians largely supported the migration theory, which maintained that Transylvania was not inhabited by Romanians at the time of the Magyar conquests in central Europe during the 10th century. Most Romanian historians support the theory of Daco-Romanian continuity and maintain that Transylvania was continuously inhabited by the ancestors of Romanians. The debate was politically charged in the 19th-20th centuries because of territorial conflicts concerning Transylvania between Romania and Hungary.

More recently, as former axioms of ethnogenesis have shifted, the historian Walter Pohl noted that "centuries after the fall of the Balkan provinces, a pastoral Latin-Roman tradition served as the point of departure for a Valachian-Roman ethnogenesis. This kind of virtuality — ethnicity as hidden potential that comes to the fore under certain historical circumstances — is indicative of our new understanding of ethnic processes. In this light, the passionate discussion for or against Roman-Romanian continuity has been misled by a conception of ethnicity that is far too inflexible."[1]

Contents

[edit] Daco-Romanian continuity

Romanian continuity and migrations
Romanian continuity and migrations

After the Romans conquered Dacia in 106, a process of romanization of the Dacians took place. The Roman administration retreated from Dacia around 271, and according to this theory, the romanized Dacians stayed on, and have continuously lived in Dacia throughout the Dark Ages. Romanians are their descendants.

[edit] Arguments for

  • Extensive Roman colonization of Dacia.
  • The colonists came from different provinces of the Roman empire. They had no common language except for Vulgar Latin. In this multi-ethnic environment, Latin, being the only common language of communication, might have quickly become the dominant language. American history furnishes similar examples, with the overwhelming dominance of Standard English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese in different parts of the Americas, with insignificant dialectal differences.
  • Dacian toponyms were kept; examples are the names of some rivers (Samus - Someş, Marisia - Mureş, Porata - Prut) and the names of some cities (Petrodava - Piatra Neamţ, Abruttum - Abrud).
  • Some morpho-syntactic, lexical and phonetical regional differences within Romanian indicate that in certain regions of Romania the language preserved more Latin substance than in the rest of the country.[2] The boundaries of these linguistic areas coincide quite exactly with the borders of the ancient Roman province of Dacia, encompassing modern Transylvania, Banat and Oltenia.
The existence of a stronger Latin heritage in the territories of the ancient Roman Dacia is explained by the intense Romanisation of these territories, which formed core areas of Romanian. The uninterrupted and isolated existence of a Romanised population living there ensured a conservative transmission of this Latin heritage across generations. From these core areas Romanian spread over the Carpathians, meanwhile losing a little of its Latin substance. The general dissemination into Romanian of words of Magyar origin supports the theory of the Romanian diffusion from Transylvanian core areas across the Carpathians.
The Biertan Donarium (IVth century A. Chr.)
The Biertan Donarium (IVth century A. Chr.)
    • Many inscriptions in the Latin language: inscriptions on silver ring from Micia, ceramic objects from Porolissum, brick found at Gornea, inscription on bronze object found at Biertan (reading "EGO ZENOVIUS VOTUM POSUI").

[edit] Ancient and medieval sources

With the beginning of the 11th century, several contemporary sources mention the presence of Vlachs in Transylvania and the surrounding area, while a few other sources — though rather blunt in their nature — mention the Vlach presence in Transylvania as early as 8th century. These sources also mention the Vlach presence in Pannonia at the arrival of the Hungarians (Magyars), and Avars and they indicate that some of those Vlachs were pushed from Pannonia by the invading Hungarians and settled in Transylvania.

In 545, Procopius mentions "the trick played by an Ant (a Slav or Alan from present-day Moldavia) who is supposed to have passed himself off as a Byzantine General by speaking a form of Latin which he had learned in these regions."[3] An ancient letter from one Emmerich of Elwangen to Grimaldus, abbot of St. Gall, written about 860 mention Vlachs, under the name of Dacians, living north of Danube together with Germans, Sarmatians, and Alans;[4] and "the World Chronicle of 1277, referring to the ninth century," possibly mistakens these Dacians for Wallachians.[5] The World Chronicle of Jansen Enikel, written in Vienna in 1277, mentions Charlemagne going on a campaign in the east (around 8th century) and met with Wallachians.[6] At the time of Charlemagne, the Hungarians of Arpad have yet not arrived in Pannonia, and the chronicle, when mentioning the Hungarians, refers to the people inhabiting the future Hungary.

Nestor's Chronicle, (Kiev, 1097-1110), relating events from 862 to 1110, mentions Wallachians attacking and subduing the Slavs north of Danube and settling among them. In the chronicle of Simon of Keza (1282 to 1290), the Vlachs of Pannonia are mentioned as a settled population after the collapse of the Hunnish Empire.[7] The Anonymous Notary of King Béla II (1131-1141) or Béla III (1172-1196) also mention the presence of Vlachs in Pannonia and them mixing with Slavs, but retaining their language and culture.[8] The Descriptio Europæ Orientalis, which was written by a French monk in 1308, discovered in the Paris Library in 1913, mention ten Vlach kings that were defeated by the Hungarians of Arpad.[9] The Chronicon Pictum of Vienna, 1358, also mentions the Vlachs remaining in Pannonia after the invasion of Atilla's Huns[10] and both Chronicon Pictum of Vienna and Simon of Kéza note that "three thousand men of the Hunnish people remained in Pannonia ('in campun Csigla'), calling themselves Siculi (Zakuli), who upon the arrival of the Hungarians moved eastwards "cum Vlachis in montibus".[11] In 1236, the monk Ricardus mention seven Hungarian chiefs that while being in Pannonia, met a Vlach population[12] while Thomas of Spalato mentioned the same thing.[13] The poem of the Nibelungs, written between 1140 and 1160, mentions the wedding of Attila and the presence at it of Vlachs.[14] and Weltchronik (World Chronicle) by Rudolph von Ems, written around 1250, mentions Vlachs living in Pannonia.[15] The Armenian cartographer Chorenatsi writes in the 9th century of a "the country which is called Balak” (in reference to Blachs/Vlachs) North of the Danube. Persian Gardizi (end of 11th century) speaks about a Christian Latinate people situated between Russians, Bulgarians and Hungarians: "they are more numerous than the Hungarians". Byzantine writer Kinnamos writes of the Vlachs North of the Danube in 1167, saying “They arrived long ago as colonists from Italy.” “Gesta Henrici”, written by the cleric Godefirdus von Viterbium, who lived in the year 1120 A.D. In this section of the song, he mentions countries conquered by Rome, which includes “Blachina” (Blach, being a synonym to Vlach, meant Romanian). A runestone from the Njoshem cemetery in Gotland dating from the 11th century commemorates a merchant Rodfos who was traveling to Constantinople through “The land of the Vlachs” where he was killed. The geographic region in question is clearly North of the Danube. An early 13th century biography of St. Olaf of Norway, now preserved in the 14th century manuscript Flatejarbok, mentions Vlachs (Blokumenn) as being Sviatopolk’s allies (in the early 11th century).

[edit] Arguments against

  • The short time of Roman occupation, which lasted only about 165 years, not to mention the fact that in the last period the Roman occupation was only nominal (although the Roman culture might have influenced Dacian language and culture also before and after the Roman occupation).
  • Romans conquered less than 50% of the territories inhabited by Romanians (Transylvania, Banat, Oltenia and parts of Muntenia, southern Moldova, eastern Serbia and northern Bulgaria); besides, many Dacians lived in remote mountainous areas, with little contact with the main Roman colonies.
  • Dacia was not the only area to be Romanized. Many cities elsewhere in the Balkans were Romanized, serving as a focal-point for adoption of vulgar Latin by many disperate peoples[16]. It is less realistic that all the Eastern Romance peoples originated from one place- Dacia. Rather, many different peoples in the Balkans adopted Latin speech, generically referred to as Vlachs.
  • After the Roman withdrawal, a Dacian tribe (the Carpians, living in Moldavia) conquered the abandoned areas and imposed their language to reverse the Romanization process.
  • There are no written documents confirming that Romanic peoples lived in Dacia in the period between the Roman evacuation of Dacia and the 10th century.
  • There are no clear traces of Germanic influences in the Romanian language, and it is known that in the 5th and 6th centuries Dacia was inhabited by Germanic tribes[citation needed] (specifically, Ostrogoths and Gepids).
  • According to Eutropius (book IX, 15), Aurelian abandoned Dacia Traiana and reorganised a new Dacia Aureliana inside former Moesia Superior in 270-275, settling it with Romans brought from the former Dacia Traiana. In order to increase taxation, Caracalla decreed in 212 that all freemen throughout the Roman Empire become Roman Citizens.

[edit] Migration from the south

According to the 19th-century scholar Eduard Robert Rösler, a Romance population came from the south of the Danube in the Middle Ages and settled down in present-day Romania.

[edit] Arguments for

  • Shared Romanian and Albanian vocabulary. However, these words may be of Thracian or even Illyrian origin, part of the substratum (see also Origin of Albanians and List of Romanian words of possible Dacian origin).
  • There are Vlachs living south of the Danube and speaking dialects of the Romanian language: Aromanians, Megleno-Romanians and Istro-Romanians (in Bulgaria, Greece, Albania, the Republic of Macedonia, Serbia and Croatia) , as well as Romanians speaking sub-dialects of the Romanian language in these countries. There are mentionings of their presence in those areas since the early Middle Ages, especially in the archives of the Ottoman Empire.
  • Historical accounts such as Byzantine chronicler Kakaumenos, in his Strategion. He mentions the "Dacians and Bessi, who used to live near the Danube and Sava rivers.. in inaccessiblie and inhospitable places". From there they spread to out south to Macedonia, Epirus and Greece, and northwest to Romania[17]. In the Chronicle of the Priest of Duklja, the author portrays the Vlachs of Dalmatia simply as local, Romance-speaking inhabitants.
  • Romanian toponyms in Albania and Bulgaria. [18]
  • Vlach shepherds migrated northwards with their herds in search of better pastures (see Transhumance). For example, they moved along the Carpathian Mountains to present day Poland and to the Czech Republic.
  • Eutropius mentions Aurelian settled Moesia to the south of the Danube with Roman citizens brought from Dacia Traiana in 270-275.
  • There are far fewer Slavic words in Aromanian than Romanian. According to linguists, proto-Romanian split after the Slavonic settlement in the Balkan peninsula. This supports the theory that the major Slavonic influence on Romanian took place after the migration of Vlachs and their settlement in Slav-populated territories north of the Danube.

[edit] Arguments against

The Jireček Line divides the areas of the Balkans which were under Latin and Greek influences
The Jireček Line divides the areas of the Balkans which were under Latin and Greek influences
  • The few Greek loanwords for religious terms in Romanian entered via Vulgar Latin, not directly from Greek (ex: Ro. biserică <Latin *basilica <Greek basilike). Important religious terms in Romanian came directly from Latin, which suggests the Daco-Romanians were converted to Christianity in the Latin language. Later on, during the Middle Ages, Romanians used Old Church Slavonic as their liturgical language, so the Eastern Orthodox church organization was probably brought by Bulgarian Slavs. This seems to imply the presence of a Slavic buffer zone between Greeks and Romanians [19] [20].
  • Dacian toponyms and hydronyms were kept; examples are the names of some rivers (Samus - Someş, Marisia - Mureş, Porata - Prut) and the names of some cities (Petrodava - Piatra Neamţ, Abruttum - Abrud). It should be noted, however, that the preservation of toponyms only indicates continuous settlement, and not necessarily continuous settlement by the same people. E.g. both Slavic and Hungarian languages kept the Latin name of Danubia (Dunaj and Duna), none of them being of Latin descent. On the other hand, the two waves of settlers need to coexist for a significant amount of time in the same areas for toponyms to survive, which is precisely what's being argued against by this theory.
  • A 13th century Hungarian chronicle, Gesta Hungarorum, claims that when the Magyars arrived in Pannonia, the surrounding areas were inhabited by Vlachs (Romanians). However, this chronicle also claims that the Hungarian king, Ladislaus I (1077-1095) fought against Cumans, but Cumans didn't live there at the time, only from the 13th century. [21]
  • A chronicle by Venerable Nestor (1056 - 1136 AD) mentions Walachians (Romanians) fighting against Magyars north of the Danube in 898.[22]
  • No medieval chronicle mentions any large-scale migrations of Romanic peoples from the Balkans to Romania; contrary to a south to north movement, a chronicle indicates rather a north to south movement: according to Cecaumenos' Strategicon (1066), the Vlachs of Epirus and Thessalia came from north of the Danube and from along the Sava. [23]
  • Regional differences within the Romanian language indicate that in certain Romanian areas which coincide quite exactly with the ancient Roman province of Dacia, the language preserved more Latin substance than in the rest of the country[2]. It would be extremely hard to explain why Romanians supposedly coming from remote territories south of the Danube speak a more Latin Romanian language exactly within the boundaries of what used to be a Roman province 6-7 centuries before their alleged arrival to these areas, while in the Romanian spoken outside the Carpathian Basin those Latin elements were lost.
  • Morpho-syntactical, lexical and phonetical differences between Romanian and Aromanian are considerable, making mutual comprehension almost impossible. It is therefore extremely difficult to explain how two different Romance languages could appear and differentiate at the same time and in the same area, as implied by the immigration theory.
  • If the hypothesis of a single proto-Romanian language is assumed, then the split of the proto-Romanian into Aromanian and Romanian should have taken place some centuries before the 9th century, since linguists agree that the build up process of both Romanian and Aromanian was completed up to the 9th century. This implies that a northwards Vlach migration could not have been possible later than the 7-8th century and not, as some immigrationists claim, as early as the 11th century.
  • The name of the Danube in Romanian has a form which appears to be original (derived from a reconstructed *donaris) and not borrowed from other languages, which shows that the Romanians always lived somewhere near this river and not far south like some theories suggest.
  • The lack of Gothic words in Romanian is not evidence that a Daco-Roman populace never co-inhabited the region with the Goths. Comparatively, literary Italian has no words of Longobard (Lombard - a Germanic tribe that invaded Italy after the fall of the Western Roman Empire) origin, though the Lombards presided over Italy for centuries. However, the Lombaridan dialect of Italian contains Longobard words. There are also several words in Romanian of Germanic origin (lăutar etc.)

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Walter Pohl, "Conceptions of Ethnicity in Early Medieval Studies" Debating the Middle Ages: Issues and Readings, ed. Lester K. Little and Barbara H. Rosenwein, (Blackwell), 1998, pp 13-24) p. 18 (On-line text).
  2. ^ a b Some examples of a more pronounced Latin linguistic heritage in areas of the ancient Roman Dacia compared to remaining Romania from Atlas Lingvistic Român pe regiuni, vol. I – V, Editura Academiei:
    • Use of the typical Latin tense of simple past
    e.g. fui/fuşi/fu
    • Use of the typical Latin inverted interrogation form
    e.g. “dusu-te-ai ?” vs. “te-ai dus ?”
    • Existence of Latin words not used in the rest of Romania
    e.g. mâneca (Lat.manicare) – to wake up early in the morning
    mânea – (Lat. manere) – to stay overnight
    • Existence of Latin forms in contrast to Slavic forms of the same word
    e.g. snow: nea (Lat. nive) – zăpadă (Common Slavonic zapaditi)
    garlic: aiu (lat. alium) – usturoi (Rom. constr)
    slave: şerb (Lat. servus) – rob (CS robъ)
    sand: arină (Lat. arena) – nisip (Bg. dial. nasip)
    • Existence of lexical forms closer to Latin
    e.g. flour: fărină (Lat. farina) – făină
    • Existence of phonetical forms closer to Latin
    e.g. pronunciation of the Romanian diphthong “oa” like “o”, thus closer to the original Latin “o”, like in “mo(a)rte” (lat. mortis) (death), “so(a)rtă” (Lat. sortis) (fate)
  3. ^ A Documented Chronology of Roumanian History p. 22
  4. ^ The letter reads: "gentes innumeras... "Sunt his Germanique truces et Sarmata bellax-atque Getae nec non Bastarnae semina gentis-Dacorumque manus et Martia pectori Alani." A Documented Chronology of Roumanian History p. 26
  5. ^ A Documented Chronology of Roumanian History p. 27
  6. ^ The chronicle reads: "Dâ mit fuor der wîgant; Hin ze Ungern in daz land; Und begund si Kristen machen; Die Ungern unz in Walachen." A Documented Chronology of Roumanian History p. 39
  7. ^ The chronicle reads: ""Blakis, qui ipsorum fuerunt pastores et coloni, remanentes spone in Pannonia"; "Pannonia extitit decem annis sine rege, Sclavis tantummodo, Grecis, Teutonicis, Messianis, et Vlachis advenis remanentibus in eadem, qui vivente Ethela populari servicio ibi serviebant," A Documented Chronology of Roumanian History p. 23
  8. ^ The chronicle reads: "Rex Athila...de terro scithia descendens cum valida manu in terram Pannoniae venitm et fugatis Romanis regnum obninuit. "Quam terram (Pannoniam) habitabant Sclavi, Bulgarii et Blachii ac pastores Romanorum. Quia post mortem Athilae regis terram Pannoniae Romani dicebant pascua esse, eo quod greges eorum in terra Panoniae pascua Romanorum esse dicebatur, nam et modo Romani pascumtur de bonis Ungariae... "Et murtuo illo (Athila) preoccupassent Romani principes terram Pannoniae usque ad Danubium, ubi collocassent pastores suos." A Documented Chronology of Roumanian History p. 24
  9. ^ Descriptio Europæ Orientalis, Latin MS. no. 5515, published by Olgierd Górka in Cracow in 1916 reads: "Notandum [est hic] quod inter machedoniam, achayan et thessalonicam est quidam populus ualde magnus et spaciosus qui uocantur blazi, qui et olim fuerunt romanorum pastores, ac in vngaria[,] ubi erant pascua romanorum[,] propter nimiam terrae uiriditatem et fertilitatem olim morabantur. Sed tandem ab ungaris inde expulsi" (they had therefore remained in Pannonia after the departure of the Huns) "ac partes illas fugierunt; habundat enim caseis optimis, lacte et carnibus super omnes nationes..." And "Pannoni autem, qui inhabitant tunc Pannoniam, omnes erant pastores Romanorum, et habebant super se decem reges potentes in tota Moesia at Pannonia, deficiente autem imperio Romanorum egressi sunt Ungari de Chycia provincia...et pugnaverunt in campo magno." A Documented Chronology of Roumanian History pp. 24, 25
  10. ^ The chronicle reads: "...natali soli derelicto" (by the other races) "...Vlachis qui ipsorum coloni existere ac pastores remanentes sponte in Pannonia." A Documented Chronology of Roumanian History p. 25
  11. ^ Simon de Keza writes: "remanserant quoque de Hunis virorum tria milia...in campo Csiglae usque Arpad permanserunt, qui se ibi non Hunos sed Zaculos vocaverunt...insimulque Pannonia conquestrata...cum Blackis in montibus confinii sortem habuerunt." A Documented Chronology of Roumanian History p. 26
  12. ^ Ricardus writes: "...tendem venerunt in terram quae nunc Ungariam dicitur, tunc vero dicebatur pascua Romanorum. Quam inhabitandam pre terris ceteris elegerunt, subjectis sibi populis, qui tunc habitabant ibidem." A Documented Chronology of Roumanian History p. 29
  13. ^ Thomas writes: "Haec regio" (Pannonia) "dicitur antiquitus fuisse pascua Romanorum." A Documented Chronology of Roumanian History p. 30
  14. ^ The poem reads: "Der Herzoge Râmunc ûzer Vlachen lant, mit sieben hundert mannen kom er fûr si gerant." A Documented Chronology of Roumanian History p. 38
  15. ^ Rudolph writes: "Im vromdin sundir sprachin / Valwen" (Cumans) "und wilde Vlachin / jensit des Sneberges hant; Sint lant du si begant" A Documented Chronology of Roumanian History p. 38
  16. ^ The early Medieval Balkans. John Fine, Jr
  17. ^ Southeastern Europe in the Middle Ages 500-1250. Florin Curta
  18. ^ Mellish, Liz and Green, Nick Eliznik.org.uk: map of the Balkans: places with endings in "-eşti"
  19. ^ Jirecek, Konstantin. "The history of the Serbians" (Geschichte der Serben), Gotha, 1911
  20. ^ Iorga, Nicolae, "History of Romanian Church" (Istoria Bisericii Româneşti), Bucureşti, 1908 - Online text (in Romanian)
  21. ^ Anonymous, "Gesta Hungarorum"
  22. ^ Nestor of Kyiv, Chronicles of Venerable Nestor, translated by George Skoryk
  23. ^ Ghyka, Matila, "A Documented Chronology of Roumanian History", Oxford: B. H. Blackwell Ltd. 1941.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

[edit] External links

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Romanian language (articles)
Daco-Romanian Romanian varieties • Moldovan • Vlach
Linguistics Grammar (nouns, verbs, numbers) • Orthography • Alphabet (Ă, Â, Î, Ș, Ț) • Vocabulary (profanities) • Phonology • Exonyms
Historic evolution Dacian (words) → Romanization (Thraco-Roman) → Vulgar Latin (sound changes) → Proto-Romanian (substratum) → Eastern Romance (also Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian, Istro-Romanian)
Institutions Romanian Academy (Dicţionarul explicativ al limbii române) • Academy of Sciences of Moldova
Other Romanians (origin, Romanianization) • Etymology • Balkan sprachbund • History of the Moldovan language • Romanian Cyrillic alphabet
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