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 American 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.
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, lebd 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; contiin < 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 Ceausescus 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 linguists, 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-limit) salesman (
comerciant).
Calques : autosuficient < engl. self-sufficient, aciune lichid <
engl. liquid share, companie scoic < engl. shell-company,
piee de capital < engl. capital-markets, reea de distribuie <
engl. distribution network.
Mass-media field (examples from newspapers):

 Brockerii au tranzactionat (Ziua de Cluj, 15 octombrie

2007, p. 5)
ncepe 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);
n 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 n 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 dont 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
dont 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 (videoclip), e-mail etc.
From the educational field: curriculum (even though its 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 sfrit fericit

weekend for sfrit de sptmn

penalty for lovitur de la 11 metri
live for n direct
summit for ntlnire la vrf 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 (alanger
from challenger,
golaveraj from goal-average) and through the German
pathway (incorrect spelling forms with ,, 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 stewardes, stewardese,
tenismen,
tenismene,
reporter

reportere
etc.
But there are some borrowings that didnt adapt from the
morphological point of view: some of them difficult to
adapt and other didnt adapt at all. Some special case is
when Romanian speakers dont recognise the English
plural forms (ending in s) and by adding the Romanian
endings are created pleonastic forms: ,,pungile de

snacksuri, ,,bestsellersuri romneti, ,,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 its 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:
naraiunea unui story
a face hen 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. Valentines 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 (ciung, plovr), the creation of
pleonastic constructions etc. But the English influence
mustnt be considered as a negative phenomenon as long
as the borrowings wont 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
n vorbire a acestor termeni corespunde unor necesiti
de expresie att culturale, ct isociale (apariia unor
realiti extralingvistice noi, determinat de fapte ce in
de progresul umanitii),ct i funcionale (necesitatea
existenei n limb a unor termeni care s desemneze
aceste realiti noidin viaa 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 pleonastic

NOTES:
1.Although in the last period, the influence of English
on Romanian was made
through American English, in this article it wont
be made any difference
between British and American English, all the
words borrowings mentioned in
article being used under the former name .
2. Coeriu,E.(1997)
Sincronie, diacronie i
istorie.Bucureti: Editura
Enciclopedic
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

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