Stefan Pascu: A History of Transylvania

The author presents his ideas in four chapters: 1) Relations between Latin and Gothic; 2) the words Valah and Rumân; 3) the word Ardeal; and 4) Rumanian religious terminology which according to the author was borrowed by the Hungarians before the year 1001 A.D.

1. "Daco-Roman Borrowings in Gothic and their Importance for the History of the Romanian People"

Stefanescu-Draganesti (SD) puts forward the theory that the interactions between the Latin and the Gothic languages took place in Dacia Traiana.

a) The Latin elements in the Gothic language.

After a long introduction, in which the author affirms that a numerous Latin-speaking population remained in Dacia after 275 A.D., when the province was abandoned by the Roman state, it is concluded that the Goths could borrow the numerous Latin elements found in their language "only from the Romanized population which remained in Dacia" (p. 16).

If a Latin-speaking people had lived in Dacia in the 4th century, a Latin influence could have been exerted upon Gothic there. But the author makes a logical error, since nothing indicates that such an influence could only have occurred in Dacia. In fact, it can be shown about most of the Latin elements in Gothic that they were not borrowed in the territory of Dacia Traiana.

SD lists 18 examples of Latin words borrowed by Gothic (p. 18). He forgets, however, the chronological aspect: in what period were these words borrowed? It is possible to show that at least 12 of these 18 words were transferred to Gothic during the first two centuries A.D. This is indicated by certain phonetical features: the preservation of the Latin semivowel u; as well of the diphthong ai (Caesar > kaisar); loss of the final vowel: Latin lucerna > Gothic lukarn. It was in this period that most of the Latin elements were borrowed by the Gothic language. Many of these words exist also in modern Germanic languages: wein > English wine; asilus > English ass, German Esel; kaupon > German kaufen, Swedish köpa, etc. In these centuries, no Goths were living in Dacia. Corazza ²⁷¹ mentions 26 Latin lexical elements in Gothic from this period.

In the 3rd century, at least three of those 18 words listed by SD were borrowed (arka, karkara [cf. German Karcer], and skaurpio. Considering that karkara also exists in German and that there were no scorpions in Dacia, it is very unlikely that these words would have been adopted by the Goths in Dacia. Corazza mentions 17 words borrowed by Gothic in the 3rd century. Roman - Gothic contact was probably more close in that century than earlier. Words as militon "to serve in the army" indicate Gothic soldiers in the Roman empire, and are not restricted to Dacia; as are not such words as assarjus "a bronze coin" unkja "a measure of land" indicating economic contact (unkja appears in several modern Germanic languages). There are words which because of their semantic content must have been borrowed elsewhere than in Dacia: e.g., ulbandus "camel", saur "Syrian", saban, a linen cloth made at Saban, near Bagdad. Not all words show such specific characteristics, but their adoptation in Dacia is unlikely, since the Goths lived at most 25 years (in the last quarter of the century) in Dacia in the 3rd century.

In the entire 4th century, Goths were living in the former province of Dacia, so they could have borrowed Latin words if a Latin-speaking population were really living there. However, the number of Latin words adopted by the Goths in the 4th century is insignificant (Corazza mentions six).

Thus, SD-s conclusion that Latin loanwords in Gothic prove "a massive Latin-speaking Daco-Roman population" in Dacia in the 3rd - 4th centuries (p. 19) cannot be accepted. (One may add that not a single of the Latin words which were borrowed by the Goths exists in Rumanian.)

Affixes, loan translations, grammatical loans and similarities of the Gothic grammar with Latin indicate relatively close and durable contact between the two peoples, also attested to by the loanwords. They have of course no value in the localisation of contact. (Many loan translations were made by Wulfila.)

b) Assumed borrowings from Gothic by "Daco-Roman"

SD mentions eight words "which we think to have been taken by the Daco-Romans from the Visigoths at the same time when the latter borrowed from them the Latin elements shown above".

These hypotheses, considered by SD "most probable", ("we think it could have been adopted from Proto-Romanian", etc.) cannot be accepted. Since the assumption that the Latin loanwords in Gothic were borrowed in Dacia was shown false, this theory is also groundless. But there are also certain circumstances and characteristics that exlude or make a borrowing from Gothic by "Daco-Roman" very unlikely of seven of these eight words. Thus, Rumanian bucher "crammer, swot; person who learns something by heart, in a mechanical way" is obviously of Slavic origin, as is also buche "the 2nd letter in the Cyrillic alphabet; letter, book, etc." (The Cyrillic alphabet did not exist in the 4th century.) The verb a gati exists also in Slavic and in Albanian; gard is found in Albanian, iubi is found in all Slavic languages. Rumanian hrana "food" derives from Salvic xrana and is one of those Slavic words which introduced the sound h (as German ch) into Rumanian. ²⁷² Also leac (Old Slavic leku 'remedy') and sticla (Old Bulgarian sticlo) derive most probably from Slavic. ²⁷³

SD assumes also grammatical patterns found in the Gothic Bible and without parallels in the Romance languages other than Rumanian, to have been borrowed by the "Daco-Romans" in Dacia (p. 26 - 27). These are: the forming of the future tense with the auxiliary a voi; colloquial future with a avea; and the postposition of the definite article. These are balkanisms, (balkanisms are found in Rumanian, Albanian, Bulgarian, Greek, and Serbo-Croatian). ²⁷⁴

Concluding, it must be stated that the Latin influence upon the Gothic language (and the other Old Germanic languages) was exerted in large parts of Europe, during several centuries of contact between speakers of the two languages. Regarding most of this influence, there are features (pertaining to chronology, sound patterns, and semantics) that indicate that it could not have been exerted in the territory of Dacia Traiana. Old Germanic (Gothic) elements in Rumanian are assumed but none of these assumptions stands up for a critical examination.

2."The Historical Significance of the Words 'Valah' and 'Rumân'"

The word valah is defined by Breban as follows: "the name given to the Rumanians in the Middle Ages by other peoples". ²⁷⁵

Stefanescu-Draganesti assumes that the Hungarians borrowed the Germanic word walah "no doubt before they came to Pannonia". The Hungarian word for valah is oláh. SD argues that this cannot have been obtained from Slavic "because in Hungarian there are a lot of words beginning with the consonant v (see any Hungarian dictionary) and therefore the pronunciation Vlah would have been preserved" (p. 39, referring to a Hungarian-Rumanian and a Hungarian-English dictionary).

The Hungarian language evades consonant clusters at the beginning of words. The consonant v existed in its present-day form in Hungarian since the 14th century. Earlier, it was pronounced like English w, thus as a bilabial rather than labio-dental v. There is no evidence that the Hungarians would have adopted walah before the 13th century. It is generally considered to derive from Slavic. ²⁷⁶

An examination of the designation for the Rumanians in early documents of the Hungarian chancellary, written in the Latin language, shows that oláh was not used before the mid-thirteenth century. Those referring to Transylvania contain mentionings of Vlachs beginning with the year 1212. Tamás listed all these documents, as follows: ²⁷⁷ In a document written in 1222, terra Blacorum is mentioned, in 1223, terram ... exemptam de Blaccis, in 1224, silva Blacorum et Bissenorum. The consistent referring to the Vlachs as Blaccus suggests that in those decades, a name with a similar sound pattern was used by the Hungarians. In contrast to this, all the documents written after the Tartar invasion (1241 - 1242) designate the Rumanians as olacis - which is the Latinized form of Hungarian oláh. In 1247, there is terra Szeneslai Vaivoda Olacorum, in 1250, Olacis, in 1252, terra Olacorum de Kurch, in 1260, valachi appears in a text describing soldiers fighting in the Hungarian army; uncertain if coming from outside the country or not; in 1262, there is Olachis, in 1291 again Olachis, in 1292, Olacorum, in 1293, universos Olacos, and in 1294, Olachys. From these data it appears that the Hungarians used initially a word corresponding to "vlach" (in Latin documents, Blaccus) to designate the Vlachs, and thereafter, from the mid-thirteenth century on, oláh was used. (Before 1212, no documents mention this population in Hungary.)

The connection assumed by SD of the name of prince Ramunc mentioned in the Niebelungenlied with Rumanian Râmnic is unacceptable. Rumanian Râmna, Râmnicul, Râmnicul Sarat, Gârla Râmnicului, Râmnicelul, etc. derive from Slavic. ²⁷⁸ The Slavic word from which these names derive is ryba "fish"; many of them designate rivers. There is Slovakian Ribnik "brook with fishes", Croatian and Serbian Ribnik, Ukrainian Rybnyk. From Slavic ryba derive also Rumanian toponyms, such as Ribita and Ribitioara; cf. Slovakian Ribitse. (SD mentions that there are very little fish to be caught in some of these rivers today. This is, of course, irrelevant; the names were given centuries ago.)

The thought that "there was only one Wallachian dukedom at the time of Attila" (p. 42) revives a theory put forward by Petru Maior in the early 19th century; Maior believed that the Huns lived together with "Daco-Romans" in Moldavia and Transylvania. Today it is clear that in the time of Attila, in the 5th century A.D., only the Latin language existed; the different Romance languages (thus also Rumanian) emerged 3 - 4 centuries later.

The term rumân has in the course of time acquired the sense of "shepherd" and, later, that of "peasant" and "serf", "thus underlining the continuous presence of the large number of Daco-Romans in former Dacia, bearing the hardships of being ruled by various invaders" according to SD (p. 43-44). This kind of reasoning is not new; Diculescu assumed that the sense of "serf" developed during the symbiosis with the Gepidae, because of the subordinated situation of the "Daco-Romans". These are unacceptable assumptions; the sense of "serf" of the word rumân developed in the Rumanian voivodates because of the misery and severe exploitation the peasants were exposed to for several centuries there (see above, Pascu, A History of Transylvania. A critical survey, pp. 100- 102, 106-108).

Another proof of Daco-Roman continuity according to S.D. is the word batrân "old", from Latin veteranus "soldier wo had served his time", thus with a changed sense (p. 44). This is also a naive theory; veterans were living in most Roman provinces, the change of sense veteran > batrân is not specific to a certain territory but could have occurred anywhere in the Roman Empire.

3. "The Historical Significance of the Word 'Ardeal'"

Stefanescu-Draganesti affirms that Ardeal "has always been used by all Romanians as a second name for Transylvania" (p. 49).

There are two problems with this statement. The designation Ardeal is not a second name for Transylvania, but the original and for a long time the only Rumanian name for the province. In other words, it is the popular name, used by the peasants. Transilvania is taken from Latin, and is, as will be shown below, the translation of the original sense of the Hungarian name Erdély. The other question concerns the word "always" in the above statement. The first known document that mentions Ardeliu is from 1432.

According to S.D., Ardeal derives from the Indoeuropean root ard-, which means "high, height, hill, mountain, woody region" (p. 49). SD enumerates a large number of toponyms from all over Europe; and states that the root ard- derives from Celtic.

The number of toponyms with ard- is really impressive. However, these names have nothing to do with Ardeal, the similarity is a simple coincidence. (One could also mention Rumanian arde "to burn", or ardei "pepper, paprica", [borrowed by some Hungarian dialects in Transylvania: árdé] also with a similar sound pattern but totally irrelevant in this context.)

The reasoning given by S.D. about Hungarian erdo and Erdély is full of serious errors. The word erdo "forest" is a Hungarian word and existed at the beginning of the second millennium: it derives from the verb eredni "to originate". ²⁷⁹ The Hungarian word fa does not mean "a clamp of trees, a little wood" (p. 58) but simply "tree". Thus, the Hungarians did not need to borrow a Rumanian word for "forest" from the Rumanians; (it is also quite absurd to assume that such a word would derive from the name of a province). The assumed form "erdel" for Rumanian Ardeal (p. 58) is thus wrong, as well as the reasoning after this (p. 58 - 59) .

The Hungarian designation for Transylvania is Erdély. Its first known mentioning in a written text is from the end of the 12th century, in the Gesta by Anonymus: siluam igfon que iacet ad erdeuelu: i.e., erdo + elv(e): "beyond the forest". The documents of the Hungarian chancellary were in that time written in Latin, and the translation of this sense appears first: in 1075, Ultra silvam is recorded, in 1111, Mercurius princeps Ultrasilvanus. In the same century appears the form used later on: Partes Transsilvanae. The German translation appears also early: in the 13th century, Überwald or Über Walt are mentioned. ²⁸⁰ The Germans have, however, their own specific name for the province: Siebenbürgen. The Rumanians borrowed Hungarian Erdély in the form of Ardeliu, attested for the first time in 1432. The e > a change is regular in Hungarian borrowings of the Rumanian language: Hungarian Egyed > Rumanian Adjud, Egeres > Aghires, Egerbegy > Agârbiciu, as well as ellen > alean, egres > agris, etc. According to Király, "the number of words of Hungarian origin with this change of e- into a- well surpasses the number of inherited words or imported from other languages which show the same phenomenon." ²⁸¹

Toponyms with "erdo" appear all over the territory where Hungarian is spoken. In Transylvania, they were borrowed in different sound patterns by speakers of Rumanian. Erdofalva "village of the forest" in Cluj county was borrowed in the form of Ardeova; a village with the same name in Hunyad (Hunedoara) became Ardeu in Rumanian. Erdod (Hungarian erdo + the suffix d) in the region of Szatmár (Satu Mare) was borrowed in the form Ardud. In documents, these Hungarian names are mentioned beginning with the 13th to the early 16th centuries; the Rumanian names much later. ²⁸² In Rumanian, these names have no sense; and this is the case also of other borrowings of Hungarian toponyms, such as Hungarian Erosd (eros "strong" + the suffix -d) > Rumanian Ariusd, etc.

Rumanian agris "gooseberry" derives from Hungarian egres, not the other way around, as asserted by S.D (p. 60). This Hungarian word has several sound patterns, such as egris, egrës, etc. The original meanings were "unripe grape, gooseberry, the juice of unripe grape, and wild wine". Of these, modern Hungarian has only the second; and modern Rumanian the first and the second. Rumanian has, however, developed three new senses: "a kind of sorrel, red currant and black currant".

Several authors have assumed that placenames of Celtic origin exist in Rumania (G. Weigand, G. Kisch, etc.) None of these theories stands up, however, to a critical examination. Rumanian toponyms: Galati, Grindul Galatilor, Galateni, etc. do not derive from Celtic Gallatae or Gallati. Instead, they may render the personal name found in documents Galacz, the South Slavic personal name Gal, or even the Hungarian appellative gálic(ko) or galacz(ko) "vitriol, copper sulphate (stone)". The name of the city Galati on the shore of the Black Sea may derive from Cumanian gala(t) < Arabic kalhat "fortress, fortified town". ²⁸³ One may agree with Iorgu Iordan, who does not believe in Celtic toponyms in Rumania "because the preservation of a so ancient people (before the Rumanians existed as an ethnic entity), even in the form of some toponyms, seems to me very little probable". ²⁸⁴

Stefanescu-Draganesti, p. 61:

In point of grammar, Hungarian ellen is a proposition meaning "against, counter to", while Rumanian alean is a noun meaning "affliction, moral pain, distress", a much more ex tensive meaning expressing the sufferings of a people under foreign occupation and oppressed for centuries on end. The word could therefore be of Daco-Roman origin and borrowed by Hungarian.[...] its adoptation by the Romanians from the Hungarians cannot be sufficiently proved.

SD mentions Old Slavic alinu and Latin alienus as possible sources of alean.

It may be of interest to present the case of Rumanian alean in some detail, because it shows how easy it is to find false etymologies which suit to preconceived ideas.

Hungarian ellen has 4 different senses: 1) postposition, 2) adverb, 3) noun, and 4) adjective. Rumanian alean has the following senses: 1) preposition, 2) prepositional and adverbial locutions, 3) noun. The original sense of Hungarian ellen is "before something"; the semantic development was then: "before something" > "against something" > "towards (something)". After the original sense was forgotten, ellen became an adverb signifying attack or defence, and this is its main sense today. Rumanian alean changed from functions of postposition and of adverb to that of a noun. This is a specific development only in Rumanian, and there are no Hungarian counterparts to the senses developed in this way. However, they departed from a concrete element of the senses of Hungarian ellen: "(all kinds of) antipathy" or even more generally "sentiment (connected to negative notions)". Thus, Rumanian alean has, as a noun, the following senses: 1) sorrow, sadness; 2) longing; in Transylvania, archaic: "anger, hatred", in Transylvania and Moldavia, "grief, sorrow, melancholy, nostalgy".

As a prepostition, alean means in Transylvania "against, in face of".

This word belongs to the old stratum of loanwords from Hungarian; it appears for the first time in Psaltirea Scheiana (16th century). It is deeply rooted in the language; with powerful poetical effects, which explains its frequent use in old Rumanian religious texts, as well as its occurence in modern poetry. ²⁸⁵ Rumanian alean has also derivatives which are no longer used, but appear in early texts, such as the Dictionary of Anonymus from the Banat: alenis "enemy", from Hungarian ellenes "opposed, hostile to"; alensig "enemy", from Hungarian ellenség "enemy"; alenzuiesc "I am opposed to (something)", from Hungarian ellenzek, with the same sense; alenzuitura "opposition", from Hungarian ellenkezés, with the same sense. These loanwords, with a sound pattern very near their Hungarian counterpart and an identical sense, provide an additional proof to the conclusion that Rumanian alean was borrowed from Hungarian.

The case of alean is a good example of the risks of etymologies not based upon a thorough knowledge of the circumstances: for example, both the form and the sense of Latin alienus "foreign, alien" resemble Rumanian alean, but this etymology is nevertheless false.

4. "The Significance of Romanian Religious Terminology Borrowed by Hungarian before the Year 1001"

The theory put forward in this chapter is that the Hungarians borrowed Rumanian words before the year 1001 (their Christianization according to the Roman Catholic Church) which

appear to be indisputable proofs, on the other hand, of the presence of the Romanians in the plains of the river Thiess [sic] and Transylvania, when the Hungarians came to Pannonia at the end of the 9th century (p. 69).

(The German name of the river in question is rightly Theiss, Hungarian Tisza, Rumanian Tisa.) Stefanescu-Draganesti asserts that the Rumanian religious terminology was created in Dacia "from Latin language material" (p. 72), whither many Christians fled from Rome, where they were persecuted. (One of those six words given as examples is of Hungarian origin: lacas "dwelling, home", from Hungarian lakás, with the same sense. It is now obsolete, but was frequent in the early religious texts: lacas sfînt "church".)

The author asserts that the Christians "established important communities which played an important part in Romanizing Dacia..." There is no written source about this, and even less substance is in the assertion of S.D. that there was a "uniform religious atmosphere" (p.74) in Dacia Traiana. Archaeological finds unearthed there abound of many Roman and Oriental gods, so even if there had been any Christians, there could not have been a uniform religious atmosphere. ²⁸⁶ That Christians were persecuted in the Empire does not imply that they fled to Dacia, during the Roman era or thereafter.

S.D. quotes V. Gr. Chelaru stating that "the Slavic languages south of the Danube borrowed a number of lexical and even grammatical elements from Romanian... (p. 77). This is correct, and the Rumanian adoptions from South Slavic are even more numerous, i.e., the impact of South Slavic upon Rumanian was decisive, this idiom having been the superstratum of Rumanian. This contact is one of the circumstances which indicate that the Rumanians lived in that era south of the Danube. ²⁸⁷ (The Slavic religious terms were, of course, originally borrowed from Greek and Latin.)

Assumed Rumanian borrowings in Hungarian

S.D. assumes that four words were borrowed by the Hungarians from Rumanian before the year 1001.

Hungarian karácsony "Christmas"

is assumed to originate from Rumanian craciun, with the same sense. SD also believes that this is an inherited Latin word (creatio) in Rumanian. None of these assumptions is correct. Latin creatio would have resulted in Rumanian *creciune (unstressed Latin ea > Rumanian e; Latin -one > Rumanian -une: Latin tationem > Rumanian taciune). ²⁸⁸ The word kracun, kerecun, etc. appears in Ruthenian, Slovakian, Bulgarian and Russian. Rumanian craciun derives probably from Bulgarian. Hungarian karácsony derives also from Slavic, ²⁸⁹ most probably from Russian korocjun, found in the Chronicle of Novgorod from 1143, with the sense of "time between November 12 and December 24". Today, karacun and korocun have the sense of "December 12". ²⁹⁰ Rosetti also states (1986, p. 558):

The Slavic populations in the Danubian provinces, which lived together with the Romanized local populations, have adopted Latin creatione to their mode of pronunciation, and the phonetical modification specific to Rumanian was restricted to the change of unstressed Slavic a to a..

Hungarian kolinda

was borrowed by the Hungarians living in Transylvania from the Rumanians, together with the popular New Year's custom of going in groups to each house in the village and singing. The assertion of S.D., that the Hungarians could not have borrowed religious words from heretics (p. 85) is nonsense. Similarly to craciun, Rumanian colinda is not an inherited Latin word but was borrowed from Slavic. Latin calendae > Old Slavic (Common Slavic) koleda "New Years day"; is found in practically all Slavic languages. ²⁹¹

Hungarian szent

derives from Slavic sfetu.²⁹² The initial consonant cluster is regularly changed in foreign words borrowed by Hungarian. The n may be explained by the Slavic nasal e. Rumanian sînt is inherited from Latin (sanctus), but sfînt was borrowed from Slavic.

Hungarian keresztény

derives from Slavic. ²⁹³ S.D. argues that Slavic hristiianin would have resulted in Hungarian kiristiny (p. 82). This was, in fact, also the case, but the development towards more open vowels, occurring during the first centuries of the second millennium changed i to a more open ë. This process, which also included u > o, o > a, ü > ö, etc., was largely completed in the mid-14th century. The two forms coexisted, however, for long periods of time, as shown by the texts: kyrist (pronounced kirist) from 1248; Kerezt (pronounced kërëst) from 1261. ²⁹⁴ Rumanian cristian ²⁹⁵ is inherited from Latin, although late, as shown by its sound pattern, with -tian preserved. This Latin group disappeared otherwise regularly: Latin pastionem > Rumanian pasune, Latin ustium > Rumanian use. - Also this word shows a similarity between Rumanian, Slavic, and the Balkan languages: its sense is in Rumanian, Bulgarian, Russian, Albanian, and New-Greek not only "Christian" but also "Jesus Christ" and "man, human being".

A number of Hungarian leaders had become Christian before 1001, establishing contact with the Orthodox Church in Constantinople. Consequently, certain religios customs have been adopted from the eastern Church, but there was no need of Rumanians to achieve this. In the 10th century, it was not yet decided to which of the two Christian centers Hungary would belong.

S.D. asserts (p. 84):

After the year 1001 [...] with the introduction of the practices of the Roman Catholic Church in Hungary and Transylvania, the two populations were separated and the Romanians started being persecuted as heretics.

There is no historical or any other kind of evidence to support this. Rumanians did not live there before the early 13th century. ²⁹⁶ Their number increased especially after the Tartar invasion in 1241-42, - they were also called and settled by the Hungarian king - and they were never persecuted as heretics.

²⁷² Rosetti, 1986, p. 288 and 315.

²⁷³Ibid., pp. 305 and 288, respectively.

²⁷⁴ Cf. for example K. Sandfeld, Linguistique Balkanique. Problèmes et résultats, Paris, 1930; Du Nay, 1996, pp. 85 - 87, 238 - 239; Rosetti, 1986, p. 257 - 258; A. Rosetti, La linguistique balkanique , Bucharest, 1985.

²⁷⁵ Vasile Breban, Dictionar al limbii române contemporane Dictionary of Contemporary Rumanian , Bucharest, 1980, p. 653.

²⁷⁶Bárczi, G., A magyar nyelv életrajza The history of the Hungarian language , 3rd edition, Budapest, 1975, pp. 50, 119, 138.

²⁷⁷ Tamás,L., Rómaiak, románok és oláhok Dácia Trajánában Romans, Rumanians and Vlachs in Dacia Traiana , Budapest, 1935, p. 191 - 197.

²⁷⁸ Iordan,I., Nume de locuri românesti în Republica Populara Româna Rumanian Placenames in the Peoples'Republic of Rumania , vol. I, Edit. Acad.RPR, Bucharest,1952, p. 73 - 74.

²⁷⁹ Géza Bárczi, A magyar nyelv életrajza The History of the Hungarian Language , Budapest, 1975, p. 107.

²⁸⁰ Stefan Pascu, Voievodatul Transilvaniei I, 1972, p. 22.

²⁸¹ Francisc Király, Contacte lingvistice Linguistic Contacts , Timisoara, 1990, p. 126.

²⁸² Suciu, vol. I, 1967, p. 43.

²⁸³ Iordan, Nume de locuri românesti în RPR Rumanian placenames in the Peoples' Republic of Rumania , 1952, p. 229.

²⁸⁴ Ibid.

²⁸⁵ The sense of this word developed through several intermediate senses towards "dozing": cf. the poem of Eminescu: Freamat de codru: "Tresarind scînteie lacul /Si se leagana sub soare; /Eu, privindu-l din padure, /Las aleanul sa ma fure /Si ascult de la racoare /Pitpalacul." Sigh of the forest. The spark makes the see to quiver /And it swings under the sun; /I, looking it from the forest, /Allow myself a little sleep /And I listen from the coolness /To the quail.

²⁸⁶Cf. above, pp. 13-14, 16.

²⁸⁷Cf., for example, Du Nay, 1996, pp. 110-111 and 240-241.

²⁸⁸ Rosetti, 1986, p. 556.

²⁸⁹ Bárczi, 1975, p. 49 and 118. Bárczi believes that this word may have been borrowed from Russian or Bulgarian before the Hungarians came to the Carpatian basin.

²⁹⁰ Rosetti, 1986, p. 556.

²⁹¹ Ibid., p. 558.

²⁹² Bárczi, 1975, p. 118.

²⁹³ A magyar nyelv története The History of the Hungarian Language , ed. Lóránd Benko, Budapest, 1967, p. 289.

²⁹⁴ Bárczi, 1975, p. 130.

²⁹⁵ Rosetti, 1986, p. 346 and 771.

²⁹⁶Cf. above, S. Pascu, A History of Transylvania. A Critical Survey, pp. 51-53; Du Nay, 1996, chapters V and VI.

Stefan Pascu: A History of Transylvania