RUMANIAN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE.
Latin was introduced into the farther end of eastern Europe at the time when Trajan's legions occupied Dacia (A.D. I0I I07). The natural riches of this region attracted settlers from all points of the Roman empire. In A.D. 274 Aurelian determined to withdraw all the Roman legions and likewise part of the civilian population menaced with disaster by the constant incursions of the Goths, and from the 3rd to the 6th century Rumanian evolved normally maintaining touch with Western Europe through Il lyria and especially Dalmatia. In the course of the 6th century, however, it was cut off from the Latin world by the invasions of the Slays and Bulgarians, whilst the bulk of the Romanic population was compelled to seek shelter in places less exposed to barbarian attack. Dalmatia was the worst sufferer : Salona, the most important city in that province, was occupied and partly destroyed, its inhabitants fleeing to the coast and islands of the Adriatic. Slav influence bore heavily on the conquered, who re ceived from their victors a liturgy and an alphabet (the Cyrillic alphabet which the Rumanians retained till the latter part of the 19th century when they adopted the Roman alphabet). The con stitution of the Rumanian language was also- profoundly affected. It is from the Slav invasion that Rumanian starts upon its peculiar course of evolution and begins to acquire those characteristics distinguishing it from all other Romance languages. The centre of formation of Rumanian, which till the 7th century had been north of the Danube, followed the drift of the population and was transferred south of the river. But, as a result of slow mi grations of which the history is barely known and which lasted from the 9th to the 12th century, we find in the 13th century two groups of Rumanians, one, the more important, north of the Danube, the other, much less considerable, south. From the 13th century onwards the northern group again becomes the main centre of language formation. To these two groups must be added a third in certain parts of Istria whither Rumanian was brought by successive migrations of settlers north of the Danube between the loth and 54th centuries.
At the present time Rumanian is divided into four dialects: (i.) Daco-Rumanian, spoken by some 12,000,000 persons in Wal
lachia, Moldavia, Bessarabia, Transylvania, the Banat of Tem esvar, Bukovina and in some places on the right bank of the Danube, the Dobruja in particular; (ii.) Macedo-Rumanian, spo ken by about 600,000 Armini in portions of Macedonia, Albania, Thessaly, Epirus; (iii.) Meglenitic, spoken north-west of Salo nica ; (iv.) Istro-Rumanian, spoken by about 3,00o persons at the beginning of the loth century (number rapidly diminishing) in the villages of Sousnievitsa, Lettay, Gradigne, Grobrique, Brdo, Noselo and Jeane. Speakers of this dialect have entirely disap peared at Squitatsa and in the Arsa valley. They are known as Tgiribiri by the Italians and Slays; their language is called vlalki or tgiribirski.
Rumanian people. Its basis is a development of Vulgar Latin ; to this have been added in the course of centuries elements from the languages of the various populations with which the Rumanians have successively lived on friendly or hostile terms : Albanians, Byzantines, Bulgarians, Serbs, Hungarians, Poles, Turks. The most important added ingredient is Slavonic. It has ousted many words of Latin origin relating to the most ordinary manifestations of life, human activities and social conditions: relationship, parts of the body, animals, plants, metals, implements, etc. The affirma tion itself da is borrowed from the Slavonic.
Slavonic has altered the sounds of a few words, introduced novel reflexive forms, and in composition and derivation played a very important role. The Latin negative prefix in has, for in stance, been replaced by the Slavonic ne, e.g., nebdtut, necertat, neegal. The Latin prefix dis-, expressing separation, has given place to Slavonic razu, e.g., rdsbi, instead of Latin dis-solvere, risipi instead of Latin dispergere. Slavonic has also introduced a few suffixes such as (old Bulgarian idea) e.g., sciteanth try-girl) ; -nic (old Bulgarian iniku) e.g., falnic (proud, pre sumptuous). The element next in importance is Magyar, pres ent, however, in Daco-Rumanian only, to which it has given not only words but also some suffixes : -as, -is, -us, -sag, -sug.