The Romanian dialects (
Romanian: subdialecte or graiuri) are the several regional
varieties of the
Romanian language (
Daco-Romanian). The dialects are divided into two types, northern and southern, but further subdivisions are less clear, so the number of dialects varies between two and occasionally twenty. Most recent works seem to favor a number of three clear dialects, corresponding to the regions of
Wallachia,
Moldavia, and
Banat (all of which actually extend into
Transylvania), and an additional group of varieties covering the remainder of Transylvania, two of which are more clearly distinguished, in
Crișana and
Maramureș, that is, a total of five.
The main criteria used in their classification are the phonetic features. Of less importance are the morphological, syntactical, and lexical particularities, as they are too small to provide clear distinctions.
All Romanian dialects are mutually intelligible.
Terminology
The term dialect is sometimes avoided when speaking about the Daco-Romanian varieties, especially by Romanian linguists, who regard Daco-Romanian,
Aromanian,
Megleno-Romanian, and
Istro-Romanian as dialects of a single Romanian language. Linguists make no universal distinction between a dialect and a language, as there is no clear boundary between the two and in common usage the distinction is often made based on other cultural, political factors, rather than purely linguistic ones, and these can be very inconsistent across the world. This can also make description of a variety as a language or dialect very sensitive. Nonetheless, common working conventions arise in particular cases and contexts, and for the purposes of this article, Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian and Istro-Romanian are considered separate languages from Romanian rather than dialects of it.
Criteria
Early dialectal studies of Romanian tended to divide the language according to administrative regions, which in turn were usually based on historical provinces. This led sometimes to divisions into three varieties, Wallachian, Moldavian, and Transylvanian,[1] or four, adding one for Banat.[2] Such classifications came to be made obsolete by the later, more rigorous studies, based on a more thorough knowledge of linguistic facts.
The publication of a linguistic atlas of Romanian by
Gustav Weigand in 1908 and later, in the interwar period, of a series of dialectal atlases by a team of Romanian linguists,[3] containing detailed and systematic data gathered across the areas inhabited by Romanians, allowed researchers to elaborate more reliable dialectal descriptions of the language.
The criteria given the most weight in establishing the dialectal classification were the regular phonetic features, in particular phenomena such as
palatalization,
monophthongization, vowel changes, etc. Only secondarily were morphological particularities used, especially where the phonetic features proved to be insufficient. Lexical particularities were the least relied upon.[4]
Phonetic criteria
Only the most systematic phonetic features have been considered in dialectal classifications, such as the following.
fricatization and palatalization of the affricates [t͡ʃ,d͡ʒ];
closing of the unstressed non-initial [e] to [i];
closing of word-final [ə] to [ɨ];
opening of pre-stress [ə] to [a];
monophthongization of [e̯a] to [e] or [ɛ] when the next syllable contains [e];
pronunciation of [e] and [i] after fricatives [szʃʒ] and affricate [t͡s];
pronunciation of [e] after labials;
pronunciation of the words câine, mâine, pâine with [ɨj] or [ɨ]
presence of a final whispered [u];
the degree of palatalization of labials;
the degree of palatalization of dentals;
palatalization of the fricatives [sz] and the affricate [t͡s];
palatalization of fricatives [ʃʒ].
For ease of presentation, some of the phonetic features above are described by taking the standard Romanian pronunciation as reference, even though in dialectal characterizations such a reference is not necessary and etymologically speaking the process might have had the opposite direction. A criterion such as "closing of word-final [ə] to [ɨ]" should be understood to mean that some Romanian dialects have [ɨ] in word-final positions where others have [ə] (compare, for instance, Moldavian [ˈmamɨ] vs Wallachian [ˈmamə], both meaning "mother").
The most important phonetic process that helps in distinguishing the Romanian dialects concerns the consonants pronounced in standard Romanian as the affricates [t͡ʃ] and [d͡ʒ]:
In the Wallachian dialect they remain affricates.
In the Moldavian dialect they become the fricatives [ʃ,ʒ].
In the Banat dialect they become the palatal fricatives [ʃʲ,ʒʲ].
In the Transylvanian varieties they diverge: [t͡ʃ] remains an affricate, whereas [d͡ʒ] becomes [ʒ].
Classification
The Romanian dialects have proven hard to classify and are highly debated. Various authors, considering various classification criteria, arrived at different classifications and divided the language into two to five dialects, but occasionally as many as twenty:[5][6]
Most modern classifications divide the Romanian dialects into two types, southern and northern, further divided as follows:
The southern type has only one member:
the
Wallachian dialect (subdialectul muntean or graiul muntean), spoken in the southern part of
Romania, in the historical regions of
Muntenia,
Oltenia,
Dobruja (the southern part), but also extending in the southern parts of
Transylvania and to Serbia and Bulgaria (parts of the
Timok Valley and in the
Danube's shores). The
orthoepy as well as the other aspects of the standard Romanian are largely based on this dialect.[13][14][15]
a group of
Transylvanian varieties (graiuri transilvănene), among which two or three varieties are often distinguished, those of
Crișana (graiul crișean),
Maramureș (graiul maramureșean), and sometimes
Oaș (graiul oșean).[17] This distinction, however, is more difficult to make than for the other dialects, since the Transylvanian varieties are much more finely divided and show features that prove them to be transition varieties of the neighboring dialects.
Argots and speech forms
The Romanian language has developed some peculiar
argots and speech forms. One example is the
Gumuțeasca, spoken by the people of the commune of
Mărgău so outsiders could not understand them on their way to bigger cities to sell their traditional glass products. It has thousands of words and a rich vocabulary that differs greatly from Romanian.[18][19] Another example is the
Totoiana, spoken in the village of
Totoi. It consists in the inversion of Romanian words and is unintelligible for normal Romanian speakers, but its origins are unknown.[20][21][22]
^According to Sextil Pușcariu (in latter works), Romulus Todoran, Emil Petrovici, Ion Coteanu, and current handbooks.
^According to Gheorghe Ivănescu, Istoria limbii române, Editura Junimea, Iași, 1980, cited by Vasile Ursan.
^Mioara Avram, Marius Sala, May we introduce the Romanian language to you?, The Romanian Cultural Foundation Publishing House, 2000,
ISBN973-577-224-8,
ISBN978-973-577-224-6, p. 111
^Mioara Avram, Marius Sala, Enciclopedia limbii române, Editura Univers Enciclopedic, 2001 (in Romanian) At page 402 the authors write: "The Romanian literary or exemplary pronunciation is materialized in the pronunciation of the middle-aged generation of intellectuals in Bucharest. While the orthoepy has been formed on the basis of the Wallachian subdialect, it departs from it in certain aspects, by adopting phonetic particularities from other subdialects."