Origin of the Romanians

The (also sometimes referred to along with other   as ) are a nation speaking, a , and living in. The Origin of the Romanians has been for a long time disputed and there are two basic theories: The exact region where the Romanian language and people formed is not only a scientific puzzle, but also a heated political controversy. 19th-century historians largely supported the migration theory, which maintained that  was not inhabited by Romanians at the time of the  arrival in  during the 10th century. Most n historians support the theory of Daco-Romanian continuity, and maintain that Transylvania was continuously inhabited by the ancestors of Romanians. The debate was politically charged in the 19th-20th centuries because of territorial conflicts concerning Transylvania between Romania and Hungary.
 * 1) Daco-Romanian continuity in  and some adjacent regions.
 * 2) Migration of Romanic peoples from former  south of the Danube in the Balkans.

More recently, as former axioms of have shifted, the historian  noted that "centuries after the fall of the Balkan provinces, a pastoral Latin-Roman tradition served as the point of departure for a Valachian-Roman . This kind of virtuality — ethnicity as hidden potential that comes to the fore under certain historical circumstances — is indicative of our new understanding of ethnic processes. In this light, the passionate discussion for or against Roman-Romanian continuity has been misled by a conception of  that is far too inflexible."

Daco-Romanian continuity
After the conquered  in, a process of  of the Dacians took place. The retreated from Dacia around, and according to this theory, the romanized Dacians stayed on, and have continuously lived in Dacia throughout the. Romanians are their descendants.

Arguments for

 * Extensive Roman colonization of Dacia.
 * The colonists came from different provinces of the . They had no common language except for . In this multiethnic environment, Latin, being the only common language of communication, might have quickly become the dominant language. American history furnishes similar examples, with the overwhelming dominance of Standard English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese in different parts of the Americas, with insignificant dialectal differences.
 * Dacian were kept; examples are the names of some rivers (Samus -, Marisia - , Porata - ) and the names of some cities (Petrodava - , Abruttum - ).
 * Some morpho-syntactic, lexical and phonetical regional differences within Romanian indicate that in certain regions of Romania the language preserved more Latin substance than in the rest of the country. The boundaries of these linguistic areas coincide quite exactly with the borders of the ancient Roman province of Dacia, encompassing modern Transylvania, Banat and Oltenia.
 * The existence of a stronger Latin heritage in the territories of the ancient Roman Dacia is explained by the intense Romanisation of these territories, which formed core areas of the Romanian. The uninterrupted and isolated existence of a Romanised population living there ensured a conservative transmission of this Latin heritage across generations. From these core areas Romanian spread over the Carpathians, meanwhile losing a little of its Latin substance. The general dissemination into Romanian of words of Magyar origin supports the theory of the Romanian diffusion from Transylvanian core areas across the Carpathian.


 * The similarity between the current Romanian traditional clothes and the Dacian clothes, as depicted on.
 * assumed the title Dacicus Maximus in 336 just like did in 106, suggesting the presence of Dacians in Dacia even after the.
 * Numerous archaeological sites prove the continuity of Latin settlements north of the after the evacuation of 271, including:
 * Daco-Roman ceramic artifacts from the 5th-6th centuries, found at:, , ,
 * Christian tombs and objects found at:, , ,
 * Walls erected in the 4th century at
 * Many inscriptions in the Latin language: inscriptions on silver ring from, ceramic objects from , brick found at , inscription on found at  (reading "EGO ZENOVIUS VOTUM POSUI").
 * A map found at, , which, according to some scholars,  represents the  in the IV and V century AD, and its link to different Middle Eastern trade routes; at present this interpretation is highly controversial.

Ancient and medieval sources
With the beginning of the 11th century, several contemporary sources mention the presence of Vlachs in Transylvania and the surrounding area, while a few other sources — though rather blunt in their nature — mention the Vlach presence in Transylvania as early as 8th century. These sources also mention the Vlach presence in at the arrival of the, , and  and they indicate that some of those Vlachs were pushed from Pannonia by the invading Hungarians and settled in Transylvania.

In 545, mentions "the trick played by an Ant (a Slav or Alan from present-day ) who is supposed to have passed himself off as a Byzantine General by speaking a form of Latin which he had learned in these regions." An ancient letter from one Emmerich of Elwangen to Grimaldus, abbot of, written about 860 mention Vlachs, under the name of Dacians, living north of Danube together with Germans, Sarmatians, and Alans; and "the World Chronicle of 1277, referring to the ninth century," possibly mistakens these Dacians for Wallachians. The World Chronicle of Jansen Enikel, written in in 1277, mentions  going on a campaign in the east (around 8th century) and met with Wallachians. At the time of Charlemagne, the Hungarians of Arpad have yet not arrived in Pannonia, and the chronicle, when mentioning the Hungarians, refers to the people inhabiting the future Hungary.

Nestor's Chronicle, (, 1097-1110), relating events from 862 to 1110, mentions Wallachians attacking and subduing the Slavs north of Danube and settling among them. In the chronicle of Simon of Keza (1282 to 1290), the Vlachs of Pannonia are mentioned as a settled population after the collapse of the Hunnish Empire. The Anonymous Notary of King (1131-1141) or  (1172-1196) also mention the presence of Vlachs in Pannonia and them mixing with Slavs, but retaining their language and culture. The Descriptio Europæ Orientalis, which was written by a monk in 1308, discovered in the  Library in 1913, mention ten Vlach kings that were defeated by the Hungarians of. The Chronicon Pictum of Vienna, 1358, also mention the Vlachs remaining in Pannonia after the invasion of Atilla's Huns and both of Vienna and  note that "three thousand men of the Hunnish people remained in Pannonia ('in campun Csigla'), calling themselves Siculi (Zakuli), who upon the arrival of the Hungarians moved eastwards "cum Vlachis in montibus". In 1236, the monk Ricardus mention seven Hungarian chiefs that while being in Pannonia, met a Vlach population while Thomas of  mentioned the same thing. The poem of the Nibelungs, written between 1140 and 1160, mentions the wedding of Attila and the presence at it of Vlachs. and Weltchronik of Rudolph von Ems, written circa 1250, mention Vlachs living in Pannonia.

Arguments against

 * The short time of roman occupation, which lasted only about 165 years, not to mention the fact that in the last period the Roman occupation was only nominal (although the Roman culture might have influenced Dacian language and culture also before and after the Roman ocupation).
 * Romans conquered only about 50% of the territories inhabitated by Romanians (,, and parts of Muntenia, southern Moldova, eastern Serbia and northern Bulgaria); besides, many Dacians lived in remote mountainous areas, with little contact with the main Roman colonies.
 * After the Roman withdrawal, a Dacian tribe (the, living in ) conquered the abandoned areas and imposed their language and reversed the Romanization process.
 * There are no written documents confirming that Romanic peoples lived in Dacia in the period between the Roman evacuation of Dacia and the 10th century.
 * There are no clear traces of influences in the, and it is known that in the  and  centuries Dacia was inhabited by  (specifically, ).
 * A large part of the Hungarian vocabulary related to farming and other activities requiring a settled lifestyle originate in ancient Slavic, whereas no Vlach or Romanian linguistic influence can be shown. This hints towards Hungarians having found a mostly Slavic population in the Carpathian basin, and tends to show the lack of Romanian element within the contemporary ethnic composition.
 * According to (book IX, 15), Aurelian abandoned Dacia Traiana and reorganised a new Dacia Aureliana inside former  in 270-275, settling it with Romans brought from the former Dacia Traiana. In order to increase taxation,  decreed in 212 that all freemen throughout the Roman Empire become Roman Citizens.

Migration from the south
According to the 19th-century scholar, a Romanic population came from the south in the Middle Ages and settled down in present-day Romania.

Arguments for

 * Common words in Romanian and the . However, these words may be of or  origin, part of the substratum (see also  and ).
 * There are living south of the  and speaking East Romance languages:,  and  (in , , , the ,  and ). There are mentions of their presence in those areas since the early Middle Ages.
 * There are no traces of Germanic influence in and it is known that in the 5th and 6th century Dacia was inhabited by Germanic tribes.
 * Romanian toponyms in and.
 * Vlach shepherds migrated northwards with their herds in search of better pastures (see ). For example, they moved along the to present day  and to the.
 * Eutropius mentions Aurelian settled Moesia to the south of the Danube with Roman citizens brought from Dacia Traiana in 270-275.
 * There are far fewer words in  than . According to linguists, proto-Romanian split after the  settlement in the Balkan peninsula. This supports the theory that the major Slavonic influence on Romanian took place after the migration of Vlachs and their settlement in Slav-populated territories north of the Danube.

Arguments against

 * The few loanwords for religious terms in  entered via Vulgar Latin, not directly from Greek (ex: Ro. biserică <Latin *basilica <Greek basilike). Important religious terms in Romanian came directly from Latin, which suggests the Daco-Romanians were converted to Christianity in the Latin language. Later on, during the Middle Ages, Romanians used  as their, so the Eastern Orthodox church organization was probably brought by  Slavs. This seems to imply the presence of a Slavic buffer zone between  and Romanians.
 * Dacian toponyms were kept; examples are the names of some rivers (Samus -, Marisia - , Porata - ) and the names of some cities (Petrodava - , Abruttum - ). It should be noted, however, that the preservation of toponyms only indicates continuous settlement, and not necessarily continuous settlement by the same people. E.g. both Slavic and Hungarian languages kept the Latin name of Danubia (Dunaj and Duna), none of them being of Latin descent. On the other hand, the two waves of settlers need to coexist for a significant amount of time in the same areas for toponyms to survive, which is precisely what's being argued against by this theory.
 * A Hungarian chronicle, , claims that when the  arrived in Pannonia, the surrounding areas were inhabited by Vlachs (Romanians). This chronicle also claims that the Hungarian king,  (1077-1095) fought against, but Cumans didn't live there at the time, only from the 13th century.
 * A chronicle by Venerable ( -  AD) mentions Walachians (Romanians) fighting against Magyars north of the Danube in, but it was Walachia, not Transylvania. Romanians used 'Transylvania' only from the 18th century, and firstly they used the term 'Ardeal' from the Hungarian expression 'Erdély', wich means 'over/beyond the Forest' (nowadays Bihor/Bihar).
 * No medieval chronicle mentions any large-scale migrations of Romanic peoples from the Balkans to Romania; contrary to a south to north movement, a chronicle indicates rather a north to south movement: according to Cecaumenos' Strategicon, the Vlachs of and  came from north of the Danube and from along the.
 * Regional differences within the indicate that in certain Romanian areas which coincide quite exactly with the ancient Roman province of Dacia, the language preserved more Latin substance than in the rest of the country . It would be extremely hard to explain why Romanians supposedly coming from remote territories south of the Danube speak a more Latin Romanian language exactly within the boundaries of what used to be a Roman province 6-7 centuries before their alleged arrival to these areas, while in the Romanian spoken outside the Carpathian Basin those Latin elements were lost.
 * Morpho-syntactical, lexical and phonetical differences between and  are considerable, making mutual comprehension almost impossible. It is therefore extremely difficult to explain how two different Romance languages could appear and differentiate at the same time and in the same area, as implied by the immigration theory.
 * If the hypothesis of a single proto-Romanian language is assumed, then the split of the proto-Romanian into and  should have taken place some centuries before the 9th century, since linguists agree that the build up process of both Romanian and Aromanian was completed up to the 9th century. This implies that a northwards Vlach migration should not have been possible later than the 7-8th century and not, as some immigrationists claim, as early as the 11th century.
 * The name of the Danube in Romanian has a form which appears to be original (derived from a reconstructed *donaris) and not borrowed from other languages, which shows that the Romanians always lived somewhere near this river and not far south like some theories suggest.
 * The lack of Gothic words in Romanian is not evidence that a Daco-Roman populace never co-inhabited the region with the Goths. Comparatively, the literary Italian have no words of Longobard origin, though the Longobards presided over Italy for centuries. But the Lombaridan dialect of the Italian have got Longobards wors.