Did Byzantine Greek religious vocabulary undergo a different preservation pattern than secular administrative or commercial Greek loanwords in Romanian?

Question¶

Did Byzantine Greek religious vocabulary in Romanian — terms for liturgical objects, devotional practices, ecclesiastical administration — follow a different path of preservation, adaptation, or depreciation than secular Greek borrowings (court titles, commercial terms, colloquial expressive vocabulary)?

Context¶

The byzantine-kb currently organizes Greek loanwords into three semantic fields plus an expressive colloquial layer:

Church/Religion: Oldest and most stable layer — Greek as language of the Ecumenical Patriarchate
Administration/Court: Phanariot-era layer — catadicsi and similar administrative borrowings
Commerce/Market: Commercial Byzantine-Greek contact — agonisi as earliest attested borrowing
Expressive/Colloquial: The most degraded layer — ghiptui, mitocan, lefter post-1821

The KB's q-mechanism-stylistic-depreciation addresses the deprecation mechanism and frames it as nationalist ideology + French replacement + negative Phanariot literary typology acting on the entire Greek lexical layer. The q-semantic-fields-greek-loanwords notes religious vocabulary as "oldest and most stable" but does not investigate why it was stable or whether it underwent any systematic differentiation from secular borrowings.

The question of whether religious vocabulary was specifically protected by its association with continuity of Orthodox identity (vs. secular Greek being associated with Phanariot domination) appears nowhere in the KB.

What We Have¶

byzantine-greek-vocabulary.md — overview of Greek-origin words in Romanian, notes religious terms as oldest layer
q-semantic-fields-greek-loanwords.md — catalogues the three semantic fields + expressive layer
q-mechanism-stylistic-depreciation.md — four-driver model (nationalism, French replacement, negative Phanariot literary type, anti-Phanariot instrumentalization); treats deprecation as acting on "entire Greek lexical layer"
romanian-greek-bilingualism.md — bilingual context; does not address religious vs. secular register differentiation
stylistic-depreciation.md — generic treatment of the deprecation phenomenon; no domain-specific analysis

What's Missing¶

No article or Q&A examines differential deprecation across semantic fields
No analysis of whether religious vocabulary retained prestige after 1821 (when secular Greek borrowings were stigmatized)
No consideration of whether the 1821 rupture operated uniformly on church terminology — or whether specific terms underwent active protection via Orthodox institutional continuity
No comparison of how Greek religious terms compare to Latin-origin religious vocabulary (e.g., biserică, catedrală, practical) in terms of register and preservation
The Sapovici sources (sapovici-mic-glosar-expresive, sapovici-soarta-imprumuturilor) focus on the expressive/deprecated layer; they do not address the religious lexical layer's distinct trajectory

Key Indicator¶

The q-oldest-greek-loanword-romanian flags agonisi as an exception: it "retained its neutral/stylistic mark through the centuries" unlike most Phanariot-era borrowings. This exception implies a rule — most Greek borrowings did undergo deprecation. The question is whether religious vocabulary was exempt from that rule, and if so, what made it exempt.

Proposed Research Path¶

Survey religious Greek-origin terms in Romanian — identify terms in the KB's religious category (compiled/concepts/religion/) that are explicitly Greek-origin vs. Latin-origin
Cross-reference with stylistic-depreciation — determine which (if any) religious Greek-origin terms appear in the Sapovici expressive vocabulary list
Review romanian-greek-bilingualism for evidence of register differentiation — did bilingualism operate differently in religious vs. secular contexts?
Consult sapovici-outcome-greek-loanwords for any discussion of differential lexical treatment by semantic domain
Compare with other Balkan languages — in Serbian and Bulgarian, is the Greek religious lexical layer similarly preserved or differently degraded?

Tags¶

greek-loanwords
semantic-fields
religious-vocabulary
stylistic-depreciation
preservation
open-question