Sapovici — Soarta Împrumuturilor Lexicale din Greacă în Limba Română Actuală

Author: Anca Mihaela Sapovici

Type: Peer-reviewed journal article (Limba română literară, 2015)

Topic: Greek loanwords in present-day Romanian — the case of expressive words

Summary

Companion article to [[sapovici-outcome-greek-loanwords]]. Studies how Greek lexical borrowings into Romanian suffered stylistic depreciation over time, specifically examining expressive (connotative) words. Argues for objective analysis of the "long 18th century" of Romanian history without the nationalist bias that has characterized earlier scholarship on Phanariot influence.

Key Arguments

Greek loanwords underwent **stylistic depreciation** (from prestige to pejorative) due to extra-linguistic factors: changing political power, cultural prestige shift to France
Must distinguish between **Fanariotism** (Greek loanwords) and **Turkisms** — often confused in Romanian linguistic consciousness
The "long 18th century" (Gorman) = period of maximum Greek influence, ~1688–1821
Scholarly tendency to stigmatize Phanariot-era borrowings must be counteracted with precise linguistic analysis

Three Periods of Greek Influence

**Old Greek via Latin** — inherited substrate
**Byzantine Greek** — medieval Balkan contact
**Neo-Greek / Phanariot** — 16th–19th century, most significant for modern Romanian vocabulary

Key Concepts

[[phanariot-period]] — Phanariot era (1711–1821)
[[turkisms]] — Turkish vs Greek borrowings, often confused
[[stylistic-depreciation]] — how loanwords lose prestige
[[bilingualism-balkan]] — Sprachbund shared by Romanian, Greek, Albanian, Bulgarian, Serbian

Status

Source article — companion to [[sapovici-outcome-greek-loanwords]].