Romanian(s) everywhere!
Feb 23rd, 2007 by Oana
I have yet to meet a single other Romanian in Edinburgh, and it seems that Romania’s entry into the EU on January 1st has not resulted in the much-feared invasion of the UK by low wage workers that was predicted in the months leading up to it. So I was quite taken aback to hear Romanian spoken so much in Dublin when we were there, on our way to Croatia! First on the bus from the airport into town, a mom with a baby and a toddler; then an older woman and her daughter on Grafton St in Dublin; then a guy and a girl back at the airport when we spent the night. Very odd, but perhaps explained by Ireland’s more relaxed immigration policies and booming economy.
The surprise continued in Croatia, albeit a little diminished. First, I saw a Dacia! It was locally registered too. I had no idea anyone paid real money for and drove those with a straight face outside of Romania.
I didn’t hear any Romanian spoken, but was struck at how many words I recognized. Despite being geographically close, Croatian and Romanian don’t share the same roots, with Croatian being a South Slavic language and Romanian a Romance one. But I guess words, like people, do cross borders, and I suspect that some of the words came from Turkish, the language of the Ottoman Empire which occupied both countries at some point. Words I recognized include: cizme (boots), ucenic (student), ulita (street), slobod (free), cutie (box), aparat (machine), slujba (job), izvor (spring), and masline (olives).
Ian’s Romanian lessons have lagged a bit, but I’m sure he’ll get a bootcamp experience when we visit my family there with my parents in June. Wish him noroc!
Edited to add: Just found a really great resource today: DEX online, a very comprehensive online Romanian dictionary started by Cătălin Frâncu. We used to have a DEX when I was little and it was one of my favourite reference books.