# Interested in languages and words? Follow words across languages, maps and centuries. Dictionaries and studies do not always agree; these projects show where evidence ends and a hypothesis begins. Step by step ## Where to start Follow the suggested order or choose a step. Projects open in new tabs. Optional checkmarks stay in this browser. - The words you know and where they come from ↓ (https://mariuscomper.uk/en/languages-and-words/#journey-vocabular-si-imprumuturi) - From dialect to manuscript ↓ (https://mariuscomper.uk/en/languages-and-words/#journey-grai-si-manuscris) 3 steps ### The words you know and where they come from Start with your vocabulary, look up a Turkish loanword, then follow words borrowed from Romanian. ### 1. Try the vocabulary test ↗ (https://mariuscomper.uk/test-vocabular/en/#test) Answer without a dictionary, then read what the result actually estimates. Does recognising a word also mean you can explain it? An estimate based on a selection from the DEX dictionary; it does not measure intelligence or all Romanian vocabulary. ### 2. Look up a word of Turkish origin ↗ (https://mariuscomper.uk/romani-si-turci/en/#cauta) Choose a familiar word and compare its origin with its presence in the analysed books and subtitles. What does the word’s origin tell you, and what do these sources’ frequencies tell you? Frequencies in Romanian books and film subtitles; the sources do not represent all speech today. ### 3. Follow a word borrowed from Romanian ↗ (https://mariuscomper.uk/cuvinte-romanesti-in-alte-limbi/en/#verdicte) Open an entry and read the evidence for the proposed origin, including any reservations. What supports the dictionary’s attribution of the word to Romanian? 392 loans across 13 languages, with different levels of support; the list does not claim to be complete. Continue with the projects and collections below. 3 steps ### From dialect to manuscript Compare your answers with a dialect atlas, then read two passages of older Romanian. ### 1. Choose the words you use ↗ (https://mariuscomper.uk/de-unde-esti-dupa-vorba/en/#joc) Answer the questions about regional forms and see which atlas villages your choices point towards. What fits the way you speak, and what does not? An atlas of rural speech from 1929–1938; the result is indicative, and the quiz itself is in Romanian. ### 2. Read a psalm line by line ↗ (https://mariuscomper.uk/scheiana-rand-cu-rand/en/#citeste) Look at the manuscript, then compare the transcription and verse translation. Which words do you recognise before opening the explanation? The page covers Psalm 22 and Psalms 1–8, not the entire Scheian Psalter. ### 3. Compare versions of the same story ↗ (https://mariuscomper.uk/codicele-voronetean/en/#versete) Follow the shipwreck passage in the codex and in the older translations shown alongside it. Which change in wording catches your attention? The passage shown is Acts 27:1–28:16 in a sixteenth-century copy. Continue with the projects and collections below. ## Follow a word and its history Where do words come from, and how have their meanings changed? - Romanian words with strange origins: the sofa is a mosquito net, the bulb a beak, the plasterboard hides a city (https://mariuscomper.uk/cuvinte-cu-origini-ciudate/en/) A drawn Romanian block flat at night, lamps lit, in which you tap the objects to see where their names came from: 73 words born of people (a French hatter in Bucharest), places (Faenza, Genoa, Riga), brands (a Soviet chainsaw called Friendship), mistakes and very distant languages, each checked in Romanian dictionaries and, for each foreign step, in a reference work. With the count from DEX ’98: 42 words that are the very name of a person or a place, 15 of them from Romania itself. In Romanian and English. - Which words might come from Dacian? (https://mariuscomper.uk/cuvintele-dace/en/) Barză, brad and mazăre are among the words traditionally assigned to a pre-Roman layer. Compare twelve Romanian–Albanian pairs, the dictionaries’ explanations and reservations, proposed inventories and manuscript plant names. - The Turkish words in Romanian: which left the books, which stayed in the house (https://mariuscomper.uk/romani-si-turci/en/) All 1,091 Romanian words that came from Turkish and Tatar, on a sheet of live ebru marbled paper: each blot of ink is a word, sized by how often it appears in Romanian books of 1850–1949 and in today's films. Between 1850 and 1925 the words of the state fell in Romanian books by 60–74%, whatever their language, Turkish, Greek, Hungarian or Slavic; the words of the house and the table stayed. With a false-friends game between Turkish and Romanian, the Turks and Tatars of Dobruja commune by commune, and five centuries of history. In Romanian, English and Turkish. - When «rost» meant mouth — the Scheian Psalter in 19 word cards (https://mariuscomper.uk/psaltirea-scheiana/en/) «Codru» meant mountain, «cumplit» meant fulfilled, «meser» meant poor. 19 word cards around the Scheian Psalter — shifted, lost, kept or not found in the Psalms — with evidence on show. ## Compare languages and dialects See how related words resemble one another and where dialects differ. - Romanian words in the dialects of Italy: a map of Dan Ungureanu’s “Istoria limbii române” (https://mariuscomper.uk/istoria-limbii-romane-pe-harta/en/) Dan Ungureanu argues that Romanian comes from north-western Italy. For 525 Romanian words, the map shows where the dialect forms his book sets beside them are found: among the regions of Italy, Lombardy has the most, then Veneto and Sardinia. With the linguistic atlas of Italy alongside and a check of what a word list can prove. In Romanian and English. - Italian dialects that sound like Romanian: the AIS atlas, village by village (https://mariuscomper.uk/dialectele-italiei/en/) A century ago, an atlas led by two Swiss linguists wrote down how people spoke in 407 villages of Italy and Switzerland. Pick a Romanian word and see what each village said. - Which language is closest to Romanian? Three measures, three answers (https://mariuscomper.uk/limba-cea-mai-apropiata-de-romana/en/) Romanian, the Romance language of Romania and Moldova, compared with the world's languages on words, grammar and sounds, using open data. On words the nearest is Megleno-Romanian, then Italian; on grammar Italian and Albanian score the same; on sounds the list depends on how Romanian is described. Any language can be looked up. In Romanian, English and Chinese. - The orange came twice: the word for orange in 183 languages, and why many have two (https://mariuscomper.uk/portocala/en/) The bitter orange reached Europe first, with a name from India: naranja, arancia, orange. The sweet orange came later and was named after Portugal, China or Malta. The word for orange in 183 languages and varieties, on one map. ## Explore what you know and what travels Test your vocabulary and trace words as they move between communities. - How many Romanian words do you know (https://mariuscomper.uk/test-vocabular/en/) A two-minute Romanian vocabulary test: of 125 words (100 drawn at random from the DEX, 25 invented) you tap the ones you could explain and learn how many of the dictionary's 64,907 words you know, with a margin of error. The dictionary is drawn as a sunflower: the commonest words at the centre, and at the rim the 20,825 that never occur in 332 million words of subtitles. Creangă, Eminescu, Rebreanu and the Constitution sit on the same flower. For native speakers, heritage speakers and learners. - How many words does Romanian have? It depends what you count (https://mariuscomper.uk/cate-cuvinte-are-limba-romana/en/) 65,000 in the dictionary that decides what is correct, 125,000 in everything ever written, 175,000 if you add the variants. Choose what to count, see where the internet's other numbers come from, and guess what counts as a word. - Romanian words in other languages: what the neighbours borrowed, according to their own dictionaries (https://mariuscomper.uk/cuvinte-romanesti-in-alte-limbi/en/) Accounts of Romanian usually list what it borrowed. This is the reverse count: 738 words in 19 languages, looked up in the dictionaries and studies of the languages that use them. 392 are counted as loans from Romanian, in 13 languages, from Hungarian palacsinta to Polish bryndza and New York pastrami; for another 162 the dictionaries hesitate or contradict each other. Each word has a card with its source and that source's verdict. - Tea, thé, чай, 茶: who says it like you? (https://mariuscomper.uk/harta-cuvintelor/en/) A map of 1,016 basic words in 107 languages, from Iceland to Kamchatka, starting from your own. Tea took two roads, the cuckoo names itself, the moon also names the month in 57 other languages, and in Georgian “mama” is father. Plus your own line between green and blue, across 110 languages. ## Keep exploring - Words ↗ (https://mariuscomper.uk/en/words/) Follow this selection by RSS → (https://mariuscomper.uk/en/languages-and-words/feed.xml) Marius Comper · https://mariuscomper.uk/en/languages-and-words/