A key parameter to measure (dis)continuity between Romance languages and the ancestor language, Latin, is mood selection, especially the use of the subjunctive as opposed to the indicative according to syntactic environments and semantic meanings supposedly conveyed. This study explores the trajectory of mood selection in that-completive clauses from Latin to modern Romance languages, with a particular focus on Italian. It challenges the assumption that subjunctive selection is semantically motivated, highlighting recent variationist findings that identify the main clause verb’s lexical identity as the subjunctive’s major predictor. By employing a variationist sociolinguistic approach, this research delineates the evolution of subjunctive selection, revealing that contemporary patterns in Romance languages may reflect a continuation of lexicalization processes initiated in Vulgar Latin, rather than a recent desemanticization phenomenon. This analysis contributes a nuanced understanding of subjunctive selection, offering new perspectives on its function and evolution across Romance languages.

We present RoBaseLM-S (125 M) and RoBaseLM-M (260 M), two compact Romanian decoder-only language models trained from scratch on a 4.3 B-token curated corpus. Architecturally, they follow a modern LLaMA-style recipe with pre-norm RMSNorm, rotary position embeddings, SwiGLU feed-forward blocks, grouped-query attention, and 4 k-token context windows. We release both full-precision (FP16) and post-training 5-bit (Q5_K_M) checkpoints in GGUF format for lightweight local inference. The 5-bit variants fit under 500 MB and generate text in real time on a Jetson Nano 4 GB, enabling fully offline Romanian text generation on consumer-grade edge hardware. We evaluate the models intrinsically (multi-domain perplexity across news, literary prose, poetry, and heterogeneous web text) and extrinsically (LaRoSeDa sentiment classification and RO-STS sentence similarity). Relative to Romanian GPT-2–style baselines at similar parameter scales, RoBaseLM-S and RoBaseLM-M reduce perplexity substantially, e.g., from 30.7 to 15.9 on our held-out news split. The 5-bit post-training quantized checkpoints remain within FP16 performance across all reported tasks. To our knowledge, these are the first Romanian small language models explicitly optimized for long-context inference, post-training quantization, and low-power on-device deployment.

The manual and the course of Aromanian dialect and standard Romanianlanguage was a challenge for its authors. They tried to standardize a variant of theSouth Danubian Romanian dialect that they constantly put in relation to thestandard Romanian language. From a linguistic point of view, varieties in a diglossicrelationship can present varying degrees of differentiation. At the lexical level, in31addition to word classes specific to each, there can also be synonyms characterizedby a strict functional specialization. The high variety can present grammaticalcategories unknown to the low one, topic particularities, very precise rules for usingconnectives. Phonologically, the two varieties illustrate a unique system, withdiverse phonetic achievements. We aimed at achieving a standardized dialectvariety, starting from the tradition of the 18th-century writers from Moskopole,whose works were based on the Farsherot dialect. This dialect is spoken byAromanian groups in all the Balkan countries and by diaspora communities inAmerica, Australia and in European countries. The first textbook of this kind is dueto an Aromanian author from the Moskopole cultural environment in the secondhalf of the 18th century, Constantin Ucuta, called New Pedagogy, with the subtitle"„Abecedar lesnicios pentru a-i învăţa pe copii carte romano-vlahă în uzul curent alromano-vlahilor”, a work printed in 1797 in Vienna in the Puliu brothers' printinghouse, of Aromanian origin. Given that the Farşerot Aromanians use the ethnonymrămăńi and the adjective rămăneaște for both Romanians north of the Danube andthose south of the Danube, the authors opted for the title Carti tră învițare rămănește,emphasizing the unity of the Romanian language .

The large-scale digitization of archival holdings has created new opportunities for historical population research, but effective access to handwritten sources remains limited due to the absence of reliable automatic transcription tools. This paper presents the training of a Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) model for the automatic transcription and transliteration of Romanian parish registers written in Cyrillic characters, a category of sources that constitutes a substantial yet difficult-to-access component of modern Romanian documentation. Focusing on Orthodox parish registers from Transylvania dating from the early nineteenth century, the paper combines a historical overview of Romanian Cyrillic writing with a methodological discussion of transliteration and transcription practices, followed by an empirical assessment of trials conducted using the Transkribus platform. The results obtained so far reveal high Character Error Rates and demonstrate that the standard HTR training workflow is insufficient for producing a functional automatic solution for this type of material. The main obstacles arise from the lack of orthographic standardization, the structural mismatch between the Cyrillic alphabet and the Romanian language, graphic polysemy, abbreviations, superscriptions, irregular spacing, and significant variation in handwriting. These difficulties show that transcription in this context cannot be fully automated and must instead be approached as a hybrid, semi-automatic process that integrates HTR, rule-based transliteration, lexical validation, and sustained human intervention. By documenting both the progress achieved and the limitations encountered, this article contributes to ongoing debates in digital humanities and historical demography regarding the applicability of artificial intelligence to complex historical sources. It argues that, despite current constraints, even imperfect automatic transcriptions can significantly enhance accessibility and research efficiency, provided their use is methodologically transparent and critically informed.

This study examines how international students learning Romanian interpret and apply the Cooperative Principle in everyday and academic interaction. The research is grounded in the observation that pragmatic competence often develops unevenly in second-language learning, particularly in multilingual environments where learners rely on norms carried over from their first language. To investigate these dynamics, a small spoken and written corpus was compiled from classroom activities, recorded peer interactions, and informal conversations with students enrolled in Romanian language courses. The data were annotated for instances of maxim observance, weakening, and flouting, as well as for implicatures that required contextual inference. The analysis shows recurring patterns of pragmatic transfer, especially in the interpretation of relevance and quantity, and highlights areas where learners systematically misinterpret or underproduce implicatures. Several examples also reveal successful adaptation to Romanian communicative expectations, suggesting that exposure to diverse interactional settings supports the refinement of pragmatic cues. The findings contribute to a clearer understanding of how the Cooperative Principle operates in cross-cultural learning contexts and point to practical implications for teaching Romanian as a foreign language.

This article investigates as-clauses in Catalan and other Romance languages. It observes that as-clauses can display an overt or canonical realization of the verbal complement or a gap. It argues that, when as-clauses display an overt verbal complement, they are interpreted as manner adjuncts, and when they display a gap in the verbal complement position, they are interpreted as evidential adjuncts. Whereas manner as-clauses in Catalan are analyzed as adverbial relative clauses, it is claimed that evidential as-clauses involve an operator (tal) moving to an A’-position; such an operator abstracts over a propositional variable in the verbal complement position and is coindexed with the matrix clause. This analysis permits to grasp the very deep differences presented by two superficially very similar constructions and to provide a rather simple account of several idiosyncrasies of evidential as-clauses.

ASPECTS OF THE DERIVATION WITH THE SUFFIX -IȘTE Abstract In this paper, I aimed to make a very rigorous inventory of derivatives with the suffix -iște from the Romanian language, thus recording over 160 lexemes. The suffix -iște in Romanian has Slavic origins. Derivatives with this suffix were created according to the Slavic model, following the structure of borrowings from Old Slavic, Old Bulgarian, or modern Slavic languages. The affix -iște is a substantive suffix, participating exclusively in the creation of feminine nouns. The first derivatives with the suffix -iște in Romanian date back to the 16th century, the suffix being unproductive at this stage and relatively active in the language in the 17th – 18th centuries. The most productive period of the suffix -iște is the 19th – 20th centuries. In the current Romanian language, the affix is totally unproductive. Moreover, it has become inactive in the lexemes already existing in the language, its value being replaced by synonymous suffixes such as: -iș, -ărie, -et, etc. Most derivatives with the suffix -iște are today old or regional.

BACKGROUND Idioms form unique narratives within a speech community and define its linguistic identity. Translating idioms in Germanic and Romance languages poses significant challenges due to their figurative meanings and lack of direct correspondence with literal expressions. The study aims to conduct a comparative analysis of idioms in Germanic and Romance languages and to explore the specifics of their translation into Ukrainian. MATERIALS AND METHODS The research material consisted of 120 idioms selected from English (a Germanic language) and Spanish (a Romance language). Structural, grammatical, lexical, and semantic analyses were applied to identify similarities and differences in form, meaning, and translation adaptability. Quantitative analysis was employed to assess the frequency and efficiency of different translation strategies. RESULTS The structural and grammatical analysis revealed that idioms of comparison in English, Spanish, and Ukrainian exhibit a similar syntactic structure but differ in adaptability during practical use. English and Spanish maintain relatively fixed grammatical forms, whereas Ukrainian demonstrates greater flexibility in grammatical transformations. Lexical and semantic analysis identified both universal and culture-specific features of the studied idioms. Universal associations were generally translated without loss of meaning, while culturally bound images required additional adaptation to preserve stylistic and semantic authenticity. Quantitatively, 66% of idioms were translated through direct equivalence, 24% through semantic adaptation, and 10% through lexical replacement. CONCLUSION Idioms with comparative structures constitute an integral part of linguistic development, reflecting both universal cognitive patterns and distinctive cultural imagery. Effective translation of such idioms requires balancing equivalence and cultural adaptation to maintain the original style and meaning across languages.

Globalisation and rapid technological expansion continue to reshape linguistic structures, identities, and communicative functions across Romance and Germanic languages. These processes intensify multilingual interaction, alter digital visibility, and transform the relationship between demographic prominence and technological representation. The present study aims to examine how linguistic identity, digital inclusion, and structural resilience evolve under these global dynamics, with particular emphasis on the changing position of European languages in the digital environment. This research is designed as a systematic review following PRISMA principles, supplemented by secondary statistical analysis. While global indicators are used to position Romance and Germanic languages within the broader digital hierarchy, the analytical focus centres primarily on the European linguistic context. Therefore, the distinction between global and Europe-specific datasets is explicitly maintained throughout the study to ensure scope consistency and interpretive clarity. The review covers publications from 2018 to 2025 and draws on databases including Scopus, Web of Science, LLBA, and ERIC. It incorporates transparent inclusion and exclusion criteria, multi-stage screening, and a coding protocol grounded in linguistic, sociocultural, and technological indicators. Statistical data were retrieved from UNESCO UIS, W3Techs, Eurostat, and Ethnologue, with validation conducted in January–February 2025. The results show that while English maintains disproportionate dominance in digital spaces, Romance and Germanic languages demonstrate strong adaptive capacity through structural stability, hybridisation practices, and expanding digital resources. The synthesis highlights enduring grammatical resilience, uneven digital representation, and the importance of multilingual educational ecosystems. These findings indicate that sustainable linguistic development depends on inclusive digital infrastructures and equitable technological support that preserve linguistic diversity while enabling global participation.

Much of the research in simultaneous interpretation ('SI'), from its inception to this day, has been inspired by a fierce debate between two schools. One claims that SI is not affected by the structural asymmetries of the two languages, since what is transferred is meaning and not structures. The other claims that language‐specific differences lead to additional processing difficulties and a larger cognitive load in SI. Numerous experiments in support of the latter mostly involve a number of Germanic and Romance languages. This pilot study sets out to explore the impact of morpho‐syntactic asymmetries between English – a Germanic language – and three Slavic languages – Montenegrin, Russian and Bosnian – on the overall cognitive load in SI. The asymmetries selected for this experiment have to do primarily with aspect, but also a number of additional problem triggers, such as composite nominal phrases, names and numbers, are addressed. Input speeches and output audio recordings made by professional interpreters are analysed using two‐track recording in Audacity, a digital audio editor and recording software application. The insights are further refined by the authors' direct observation using audio recordings and their transcripts. The results point to a positive correlation between morpho‐syntactic asymmetries and the cognitive load in SI between English and the three Slavic languages. The pilot offers ideas for future, more extensive studies and shares observations on the processing difficulties and control of attentional resources in SI, with the potential pedagogical implications.

ABSTRACT The study explores how translation can be used as part of pedagogical translanguaging to facilitate multilingual learners’ understanding of the way tempo-aspecutal meanings are conveyed. Two sets of data are analysed, focusing on tense-aspect marking: (1) a novel excerpt originally written in Italian is compared with its professional translations in Romance (French, Spanish) and Germanic (English, German) languages; (2) retranslations from these languages to Italian, provided by L1 speakers of Italian and learners of Italian with French, Spanish and German as their L1 are compared with each other and with the original Italian text. Professional translations provide a window to crosslinguistic variation in the use of tense-aspect marking and to complex linguistic phenomena such as the aoristic drift in Romance languages. Retranslations from these languages back to Italian capture some differences in the way speakers develop a tempo-aspectual representation of situations. Similar analyses, guided by the teacher, can be conducted in multilingual classrooms as part of pedagogical translanguaging. Analysing the same text passage in multiple languages and engaging in its retranslations fosters crosslinguistic awareness and promotes joint exploration and co-construction of linguistic knowledge.

After World War II, Romanian-Polish relations developed under the influence of Moscow, both states becoming part of the socialist bloc. Academic cooperation was formalized through bilateral treaties, a significant example being the 1970 agreement between the „Al. I. Cuza” University of Iaşi and the „Maria Curie-Skłodowska” University of Lublin. This partnership facilitated the sending of lecturers from Iaşi (such as Ioan Sârbu, Ioan Lobiuc or Natalia Cantemir) to the universities of Lublin and Krakow. The role of the professors from Iaşi was a complex one. First, it is the educational and cultural one that involved teaching the Romanian language, history and literature, along with organizing events to promote Romanian culture. Second, it is the political role, because at that time the lecturerships also served as instruments of state propaganda. Although the 1970s were a period of intense academic growth and exchange, the following decade marked a decline due to economic difficulties and bureaucratic barriers. Despite these obstacles, the activity of the lecturers was considered fruitful, managing to train specialists and maintain a constant interest in Romanian culture in Poland.

In North America, over 70 million people know English and a Romance Language (often Spanish). Many students who enter college or university already possess such bilingual or plurilingual skills. The Intercomprehension of the Romance Languages: a Pathway to Plurilingualism courses (California State University, Long Beach (2014–2026), St. Lawrence University (2018), Bryant University (2023–2026)) offer a manner to foster linguistic growth for such students. The article expands on previous research (Oliva & Gómez Larriva, 2020) on students’ linguistic PCA (predispositions, confidence, and ability) scores that studies their perception when they mobilize their linguistic repertoire and approach unknown languages (Tyvaert, 2008) through proximity strategies, as “[n]o foreign language is totally unknown territory” (McCann et al., 2003, p. 8). It then explores the value of studying texts in Germanic languages to help heighten student confidence when reading unknown texts in Romance languages by revealing the applicability of intercomprehensive strategies beyond the scope of Romance languages.

In this paper we explore the interaction between Maghrebi Darijas and Romance languages from the perspective of both historical and contemporary evidence. As Caubet 2002, following Lahlou 1991 argues, among contemporary educated populations in urban centres across the Maghreb, bilingual/multilingual interaction is the norm not the exception. Historical evidence tells us this was also the case in 11th century al-Andalus, though it is of course impossible down the centuries to reconstruct the actual interaction. We will however argue that certain surviving texts can provide an indication when analysed in terms of the constraints on conversational codeswitching such as is provided by Aabi. We start from the position that Maghrebi Darija is a special case of linguistic permeability due to its politico-geographic location on the frontier and given its thousand year history of close contact with Romance. To investigate this phenomenon in both its historical and contemporary manifestations we draw on the current construct of translanguaging, an alternative perspective on multilingual interaction to code switching as expounded in Baynham & Lee (2018) and the notion of convivencia as elaborated by Bossong in his study of linguistic conviviality and coexistence in mediaeval Andalusian poetry (Bossong 2010). We then go on to analyze this in two time slices: examining evidence of the productive convivencia/coexistence of romance and dialectal Arabic i) in the kharjas of 11th century al-Andalus as discussed by Bossong and others and ii) in the modern Maghreb music and performance scene (cf. Caubet 2002; Baynham & Gintsburg 2022). We do this here through analysis of a song by the Algerian singer Talyani and a performance of the Moroccan comedian Hanane el-Fadhili, using in both time slices translanguaging and Bossong’s notion of convivencia in our analysis. We then conclude by arguing as Heath (2020) does that for effective research into such varieties as Maghrebi Arabic, both currently and historically, it is necessary for cross disciplinary work between researchers in Arabic and its Romance contact languages, in order to fully address its sociolinguistics. We understand this as a form of disciplinary translanguaging to be undertaken in order to establish the dynamics of the convivencia/coexistence of Arabic and Romance elements in this type of data.

Abstract This paper deals with the semantic description of so-called Janus-verbs, derived verbs bearing opposite readings and scattered in Germanic, Romance, and Classical languages. The semantic and morphosyntactic features of these verbs will be discussed in order to explain how they semantically emerged and work. The aim of this paper is to propose a formal-semantic representation that is capable of describing the semantic alternation. We are not concerned with the question of how these morphological structures arose, but only with the semantic mechanism underlying the semantic shift. The paper adopts a semantic-formal approach within the framework of Two-level Semantics. It is shown that there is an intrinsic relationship between ablative prefixes and Janus-verbs, and argued that the coexistence of the original locative meanings with their different aspectual interpretations explain the emergence of the semantic alternation.

The study investigates the transition from the Cyrillic to the Latin alphabet in the official documentation of higher education institutions in the Republic of Moldova, in the context of the implementation of the Law on the Functioning of Languages (1989). The analysis of university minutes, rectorial orders, and student files highlights the complex nature of this transformation, with both technical-administrative and identity dimensions. The pace of implementation varied depending on the institutional profile: humanities faculties (the Pedagogical Institute ,,A. Russo," the State University of Chișinău) quickly adopted the Latin script and the glottonym б,Romanian language", while technical and scientific units (the Polytechnic Institute ,,S. Lazo," certain science departments) preserved bilingualism for a longer period. At the Agricultural Institute ,,M. V. Frunze," the change occurred gradually. The conclusions emphasize the role of universities as laboratories legitimizing both the Latin alphabet and the glottonymic shift from ,,Moldovan" to ,,Romanian."

Research objectives: This case study aims to describe different modalities of inclusive language, i.e., gender-balanced, gender-sensitive, or gender-neutral language, which are used in the official communication of Comenius University Bratislava. We link these modalities with the results of an online survey carried out in August 2024, which showed how native Slovak speakers perceive inclusive alternatives for generic masculine nouns. Research method: A critical text analysis was performed on online statements of the faculty members of Comenius University Bratislava and the online survey on inclusive language. Process of argumentation: In the past decade, gender-sensitive or inclusive language has permeated the communication of many actors in civil society, be it the media, public institutions, or various associations. It reflects the post-structuralist idea that language is a tool of power and makes women invisible, especially in professional life and various other roles. In Romance and Slavic languages, the “invisibilization” is caused by generic masculine nouns. The implementation of forms other than the generic masculine is based on psycholinguistic research (mainly in the German language). According to these researchers, this leads to women becoming invisible in the language. Comenius University Bratislava adopted a gender equality plan, financed by EU-funded programs. The use of inclusive or gender-sensitive language is a part of this action plan. Research findings and their impact on the development of educational sciences: The critical analysis of online statements of Comenius University Bratislava and its faculty members shows that only in the Faculty of Arts and the Faculty of Pedagogy is gender-sensitive language systematically used (doublets or neuter nouns). The main information channel of the University and the profile of the Faculty of Law almost never apply inclusive language. The online survey which was carried out in August 2024 shows that the majority of Slovak native speakers consider the variants of gender-sensitive language (both lexical and graphical) to be strange and redundant. Conclusions and/or recommendations: According to the survey, the generic masculine form is perceived by the majority of Slovak native speakers as a neutral form which denotes both genders. These findings could be correlated with the use of inclusive language (especially split forms) in statements on the social networks of different faculties of Comenius University Bratislava. The reasons for this situation could be the fact that the administrators who author the content are not informed about the action plan adopted at the university level (about the use of inclusive or gender-balanced language) and continue to use the classical generic masculine forms of nouns because the split form bears the characteristics of non-conventionality. A major shift in the use of gender-sensitive language could be enacted by a top-down approach in academia, but this will not solve the practical questions related to its functionality in the stylistics of the Slovak language.

This paper explores the integration of cultural elements in the instruction of Romanian as a foreign language, emphasizing the interplay between language, culture, and intercultural competence. Drawing on prior empirical research and a comparative analysis of Romanian language textbooks, the study reveals significant deficiencies in the representation of cultural content and the predominance of textual over multimodal cultural forms. Findings indicate that teachers frequently serve as the primary mediators of cultural knowledge, compensating for the lack of comprehensive cultural materials. The paper argues that authentic cultural content, particularly artistic, folkloric, and musical dimensions, must be systematically integrated into Romanian language teaching through innovative, multimodal, and student-centered approaches to foster intercultural awareness and communicative competence.

In the context of globalization and increased mobility, plurilingual and pluricultural competences are essential for communication and integration. Teaching Romanian as a foreign language can leverage these competences through activities that promote intercomprehension, mediation, and linguistic transfer, in line with the CEFR – Companion volume descriptors. The paper outlines five types of activities designed to foster the developments of students’ plurilingual and pluricultural competences. Exercises such as linguistic portraits enable learners to raise awareness of their plurilingual skills, while interactive games and multilingual greetings encourage language comparison and recognition of shared elements. Plurilingual comprehension tasks and parallel texts foster meaning deduction and structural analysis, consolidating vocabulary and grammar while developing intercultural sensitivity. A set of 65 Romanian words similar to Slovene, paired with images, supports lexical acquisition, correct pronunciation, and plurilingual strategies. These activities enhance autonomy, confidence, and intercultural cooperation, demonstrating that the proposed methods facilitate both Romanian language learning and the development of plurilingual and intercultural competences for active international communication.

The present study aims to introduce the book Ducere de mână către cinste și direptate, adecă la copii rumuneştii neuniții cei ce în şcole cele mici să învață spre cetanie rănduită carte [Leading by the Hand towards Honour and Righteousness, that is, a Book Appointed for the Teaching of Reading to Orthodox Romanian Children in the Primary Schools], located at the Matica Srpska Library in Novi Sad, Serbia, in the library's digitized collection, in the Foreign 8section, 18th-19th centuries. Its author is Johann Ignaz von Felbiger, the most important pedagogue and reformer of the education system during the time of Empress Maria Theresa. The first part describes the cultural context in which the education reform took place in the Habsburg Empire and the personality of Felbiger, who managed, through his monastic and Augustinian formation, to create an era, that is, a true movement to improve education, from the establishment of schools, the issuance of laws, the employment of a rigorously selected staff, the writing of textbooks, methodology and pedagogy books, with the full support of Empress Maria Theresa. The second part of the study is a linguistic analysis of the language at morphological level, the book belonging to the period 1640-1780 and reflecting its linguistic particularities. The study contributes to the broadening of investigations on the Romanian language of the second half of the 18th century, offering numerous examples of grammatical categories still in the process of consolidation. The linguistic analysis retains the most important facts regarding the norms of the era and the changes that occurred from a morphological point of view during the researched period. In the last part, the study presents some new aspects of the book (principles of pedagogy, rhetoric), opens some new directions of research (the book contains a true code of good manners from the 18th century and footnotes), which could be interesting for the fields of pedagogy, anthropology or philology. The book Ducere de mână către cinste și direptate is a complex text, not a simple ‘reading book’, as its author describes it, and can be studied from different and interdisciplinary perspectives.