Romanian

How to spell romanian

8 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce romanian

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does romanian mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to Romania, its people, culture, or language.
2. nounA native or inhabitant of Romania, or the Romance language spoken there.

Romanian in a sentence

• adjective

  The recipe uses a traditional romanian cheese pastry.

• noun

  As a fluent romanian, he often translated documents for the embassy.

• adjective

  She signed up for a romanian language course before her holiday.

• noun

  Every romanian at the conference greeted the visiting delegation warmly.

Where does romanian come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin Romanus, meaning 'of Rome' or 'a Roman', which in turn comes from Roma, the name of the city itself. The country name Romania literally means 'land of the Romans', a proud reference to the Roman colonists who settled the region of ancient Dacia and whose Latin speech evolved into the modern Romanian language. English formed the adjective and noun by adding the familiar suffix -ian, the same ending seen in 'Italian' and 'Canadian', which marks belonging or origin. Because the base is the single root 'Roman', the spelling keeps one m and one n followed by the smooth -ian ending, with no doubled letters to worry about. The shared Latin ancestry is why Romanian, unlike most of its Slavic-speaking neighbours, speaks a Romance language closely related to Italian and Spanish.

How the word is built

• Roman- (from Latin Romanus, of Rome)
• -ian (adjective/noun suffix meaning belonging to)