I was warned that the topic of romglaz is inviolable.

Prologue. I found a mathematical approach to the problem in linguistics many years ago: in 2003, DM Abrams and SG Strogatz published a paper [2]in a prestigious magazine nature, which begins with the following phrase: Thousands of the world’s languages ​​are disappearing at an alarming rate, and 90% of them are expected to disappear with the current generation (Thousands of the world’s languages ​​are disappearing at an alarming rate, with 90% expected to disappear within the current generation.).

The paper focuses on the derivation of a fairly simple dynamic mathematical model with a first-order nonlinear differential equation for two competing languages ​​in a well-bounded population. The conclusion reached by the authors is that two languages ​​cannot naturally coexist in one population, one of them will inevitably disappear. The determining factor in the competition between the two languages ​​is prestige: the language that gets the highest social status wins, and the other is sooner or later doomed to disappear. The model is tested on several samples from Peru, Scotland, Wales, Bolivia, Ireland and the regions of Alsace and Lorraine with approximately one hundred years of data. The only solution formulated by the authors and tested on many examples, which can save the language from extinction, is community intervention in more or less institutionalized forms. The authors of the article do not indicate specific ways in which the language could be saved from extinction, but only give the example of the French language in the Quebec region, where, due to the strategies of social policy, education and promotion, the social status of the French language is higher compared to English. Reasonable state intervention requires, first of all, the community’s interest in preserving the relevant language, and then the coordination of the community’s interests with the interests of the community’s representatives in state structures.

Below I have done a simulation in MATLAB based on the Abrams-Strogatz model for two languages ​​X and Y used by the population, starting with a situation where half the population uses language X and the other half language Y, by varying the WITH which measures the relative status of language X with respect to language Y with values ​​in between 0 and 1: its values ​​are small WITH means that language Yu it has a much higher status than language X. The balance between the two languages ​​is achieved for s=0.5 but this balance is unstable and it is practically impossible to maintain it naturally, but only with the help of external interventions. In any of the natural scenarios, without outside intervention, one of the languages ​​disappears.

Abrams and Strogatz’s paper leads us to other questions: What makes one language more prestigious than another, perhaps a degree of utility, perhaps belonging to a higher-status social group, or perhaps an individual or folk value system?

Romanian We no longer pay in cash, but cash, we don’t have weekends anymore, but we do the weekendwe no longer have live broadcasts but live we no longer have car vaccination centers but drive through or, more American, car cafewe no longer have the latest news, but there is Sensation, we no longer have a job, but one workthere is no longer a trend, but trendI’m no longer a freelancer, but freelancer, we no longer have a user but user, I’m not a loser anymore, but weaker we no longer have a business, but one business, we no longer have retail but Retail, we no longer have a goal but goal, there is no more brand, but one brand, we no longer have the voucher voucher. It would take many pages to list Romgleza, i.e. the many English words used in certain environments to the detriment of Romanian ones, even though they have exactly the same meaning.

An interesting case of the word site. Clemenceau is credited with a funny definition of the English language: l’anglais ce n’est jamais que du français mal pronounced (English is nothing more than broken French). It is believed that about 40% of the words of the modern English language are of French origin, pronounced, of course, according to the rules of the English language.

In the Romanian language, the word site comes from the Latin site, it has the meaning of a place, which is used mainly in expressions of the type of archaeological site, and less often with the sense of sight. The same Latin word is formed in French website and is also pronounced “place”, but has a much broader meaning: according to the Larousse dictionary, it has about six meanings, two relatively general, with the meaning of place, and four more specific. French word website it was translated into English and pronounced you know according to the rules of English pronunciation. Common as a special term in computer science, the word, now English, websitebut has the same meaning place, siteadopted by Romanian enthusiasts with the same spelling website and is pronounced with pride know Moreover, if articulated, an ostrich-camel appears website.

The toponymy is changing. If you walk around the new housing estates, you will notice that in Romania many of them have grown like mushrooms after the rain. residence, pronounced resident, English and no residence, french Integrated shopping complexes, zv shopping center and pronounced mole, they mostly have English names. Even convenience stores, grocery stores, and neighborhood stores have become market. Appeared hairdresser’s and the barber shop disappeared. Most stores, when they want to have a sale, show the entire window, Him and no Discounts The saleswoman offers me one discount and not a discount: sometimes jokingly, then more seriously, I ask if these are discounts only for English speakers, and not for everyone, and the saleswoman looks at me in surprise, where is this from? The Christmas market has become christmas market, artistic and social events organized in Romania have mostly English names.

Romanians have a sore mouth. Most of the English substitutes for Romanian words or expressions with the same meaning are shorter, sometimes a single English word has the meaning of a Romanian expression or phrase. Sometimes it is still a word that replaces a word, but the English word is shorter. English has a feature that significantly distinguishes it from many other languages, namely the richness of vocabulary: different dictionaries give different numerical values ​​of vocabulary, but compared to Romanian, the vocabulary of English is at least double, if not triple. However, in the hierarchy of the lexicon of different languages, English occupies the first place. The second feature, related to the first, is that English words are relatively shorter. A funny example, but which speaks about the specificity of the English language, is an example about the origin of a word bus (bus). At some point, the English adopted the Latin word omnibus, what means to all, and they used it for the bus. After some time (the word was too long!) they cut it omni and they just left bus. The interesting thing is that they cut out the root that gives the meaning and left the suffix that has nothing to do with the meaning, making the origin of the word unclear. But this is the specificity of the English language, and it depends on them, how they form and choose their words.

During a seminar of the Mathematical Institute, watched virtually, in which the speaker used Romanian in front of an all-Romanian audience, I reminded the speaker, a Romanian who has been working at a university in Europe for many years, discreetly in the comment box that the English word cuckoo which he often used, has a correspondent in Romanian gap: it was about the phrase spectral gap which is translated spectral gap. A colleague at the seminar answered quite sharply: the word gap is too long, a gap is better (that is, we write gap and we pronounce it example). Some Romanians seem to try to reduce their suffering by saying: What can we do to convince them that using the Romanian language can be a pleasure and not a pain?

Neologisms. All languages ​​are enriched by importing words from other languages ​​when they have no equivalents that fit the meaning criterion well enough. It takes a closer look and this is where I see the big problem Rom-English is not some form of enriching the Romanian language with neologisms, but replacing Romanian words with English words along with English spelling and pronunciation. Much more serious seems to me to be an attack on the character of the written Romanian language, which is essentially phonetic: we pronounce words according to the pronunciation rules specific to our language, not the language from which the corresponding neologism originates, as Thanks became due to, for example

Where are our traitors? The Italians have a wise saying: traditional translator, with the meaning that there is no perfect translation that does not betray the original meaning. This statement has a very subtle consequence: every translation contains an act of creation. An example I like: Ohu sont les neiges d’antan? (F. Villon) which in R. Vulpescu’s translation becomes But where is the new year of May? The Romanian language has developed thanks to the care and efforts of our ancestors to a beautiful and expressive language with an elegance worthy of our admiration. In Romanian, the verb translate has, in addition to the usual one, also that o betray subtlety, which, unfortunately, almost no one appreciates today.

The profession of translator is a noble and necessary profession for any culture. Translators are those of us who interact with other cultures, who enrich our knowledge, essentially by bringing important works from other cultures into our culture while at the same time promoting the works of our culture in other cultures. Without translators, we would be terribly spiritually impoverished, culturally isolated, and cut off from human achievement. Translators are fighting a terrible battle to preserve the unity, flexibility and modernity of our language, and they have all my recognition and gratitude. Read the whole article and comment on contributors.ro