Romanian voice overs: what you need to know

Romanian, sometimes called Moldovan or Rumanian, is a Balkan Romance language with around 25 million native speakers mostly in The Republic of Romania and Moldova. Another 4 million people speak Romanian as a second language.

Outside of Romania and Moldova, where Romanian is the official language, it’s also widely spoken in other countries and territories. There are significant Romanian speaking communities in Ukraine, Serbia, as well as Russia, Germany, and The United States.

Language History

Romanian is a deep-rooted language that descended from Vulgar Latin. Sometimes called by linguists a “forgotten Romance language”, its Latin roots are commonly overlooked due to the language’s prevalence in Eastern Europe. Usually, when someone hears the term “Romance language”, they think about French, Spanish, or Italian. However, Romanian is a true romance language through and through!

Romanian originated directly from Latin that was spoken in Southeastern Europe. While the current Romanian and Moldovan territories were not a part of the Roman Empire, Latin prevailed in the surrounding regions.

As an independent language, Romanian appeared around the 2nd century. However, it became widely used and out-rivaled Latin only around the 10th century. Modern Romanian as a language of education and media in Romania emerged in the early 20th century — after decades of being overshadowed by Russian in Imperial Russia.

Close Relations

Romanian has similarities with other Romance languages, especially to those that belong to the Italic language branch. Romanian and Italian are very closely related — there’s a high degree of mutual intelligibility between the speakers of both languages. Interestingly enough, Romanians tend to understand Italian much better than vice versa.

Romanian has grammatical and lexical similarities to Spanish, Portuguese, and French. However, they’re not as nearly related as Romanian and Italian.

While the majority of the Romanian vocabulary is of Romance origin (mostly Latin and French), it has plenty of loanwords from other languages. Borrowings from Slavic languages (Old Church Slavonic and Bulgarian), Turkish, and Greek are quite common.

Accents and Voice Over Tips

Romanian has four major dialects: Dacoromanian (spoken in Romania and Moldova), Aromanian (mostly used in Greece and Balkans), Meglenoromanian (an almost-extinct variety, spoken in Greece and Macedonia), and Istroromanian (used in Croatia and Slovenia).

Naturally, since Romanian is a widespread language, it has dozens of regional language varieties. Standard Romanian that’s used as the official language in Romania and Moldova, is based on the Dacoromanian dialect.

When it comes to Romanian voice overs, it’s important to note the language’s similarity to other Romance languages. Any knowledge of Spanish, Portuguese, and especially Italian will be of great help — spoken Romanian has a similar tone and stress patterns to these languages.