Why we say “da”
Among the six Romance languages compared here, Romanian uses da, generally traced to Slavic. Italian sì, Spanish sí, Portuguese sim and Catalan sí continue Latin sic. French oui developed from Old French oïl: o, from Latin hoc, and the pronoun il, ultimately from ille.
Your “da” counter
Paste a sentence or a dialogue. The tool counts words, highlights each “da” and extrapolates to a typical speaking day (~12,000 words).
Counts isolated “da” (case-insensitive) between word boundaries. Does not count “dacă” or “dar”.
Two layers, one function
Late Latin used sic (“thus”) to approve. Romanian kept it as și (conjunction) and așa < ad sic, but adopted Slavic da for the short affirmative during intense Slavic contact (6th–9th c.).
Latin layer
sic → Rom. și, așa < ad sic — kept as adverb/conjunction, lost as isolated affirmative particle.
Old Slavic layer
O.Slav. da → Rom. da — a pragmatic daily loan, stable in Common Romanian.
| Rank | Word | Freq / million | Etymology | Layer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | și | 28,412 | Lat. et sic | Latin |
| 2 | de | 24,101 | Lat. de | Latin |
| 3 | în | 18,430 | Lat. in | Latin |
| 4 | la | 16,210 | Lat. illac | Latin |
| 5 | cu | 12,890 | Lat. cum | Latin |
| 6 | da | 11,847 | O.Slav. da | Slavic |
| 7 | a | 11,200 | Lat. habere / ad | Latin |
| 8 | pe | 9,840 | Lat. per | Latin |
| 9 | nu | 9,120 | Lat. non | Latin |
| 10 | fi | 7,980 | Lat. fieri | Latin |
The “yes” map among Romance languages
Pick a language. In this sample, Romanian uses Slavic da; the other five languages have affirmative words of Latin origin.
RO — da O.Slav. da — the only Slavic answer among the six. Click any dot or button above to see the lineage.
Method note
French also has si, from Latin sic, used to contradict a negative statement or question. This comparison does not cover every Romance variety: linguistic research documents local use of da in the Aromanian of Bitola, for example.
- Etymology: DEX 2009, Rosetti 1986, Sala 2006 — Rom. da < O.Slav. da. Lat. sic gave Rom. și and așa < ad sic (Ciorănescu).
- Frequencies: CoRoLa 2017–2023 (RACAI, ~1B tokens). Rounded per-million values shown are verified arithmetically from the research file.
- Written attestation: The earliest written attestation of affirmative da has not been established in this research. cIMeC’s transcription of Neacșu’s Letter of 1521 does not contain the affirmative particle. Its forms dau and dat belong to the verb a da (“to give”).
- Comparison: Académie française: oïl, il and si; The Balkan Languages, chapter 4, §4.3.4.1, on borrowed affirmative particles in Balkan Romance varieties.