Romanian Alphabet

A, Ă, Â, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, Î, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, Ş, T, Ţ, U, V, W, X, Y, Z

The Romanian Alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet to which there were added other five letters, Ă, Â, Î, Ş, Ţ. The two letters  and Î are both identical. The reason for using one or another is historical: during the communist regime, â was kept only in the word "România" but afterwards, it reentered the language at the proposition of the Romanian Academy. Now the choice between "î" and "â" is very clear as "â" is used everywhere except of the beginning and of the end of the word.

The Romanian Alphabet is phonetic with some exceptions of the groups of letters ce, ci, che, chi, ge, gi, ghe, ghi.

Romanian Vocabulary

About 70% of the Romanian vocabulary is of Latin origin but there were added many borrowings from Slavic languages (in the sphere of religious terms), from Hungarian, Greek, Turkish, french and more recently from English.

Words like "buzunar", "folos", "proaspăt" come from Greek, words like "oraş", "a cheltui", "a făgădui" come from Hungarian, words like "cafea", "cutie", "papuc", "sarma" come from Turkish.