Plant names in Romanian

Introduction

The Romanian language is a Roman language. In its history, its vocabulary has been influenced by languages such as Turkish, Slavic languages and German. Recent borrowings come largely from French and Italian.

The Romanian language has two articles. The determinate article is postponed to the word. The indeterminate article is placed before the word. It takes the declension termination. So, we have:

• sg nom. indet.: un cartof
• sg gen. indet.: unui cartof
• pl nom. indet.: niște cartofi (niște = some)
• pl gen. indet.: unor cartofi

• sg nom. indet.: o salată
• sg gen. indet.: unei salate
• pl nom. indet.: niște salate
• pl gen. indet.: unor salate

References

• Borza A., 1968. Dicţionar etnobotanic cuprinzînd denumirile populare româneşti şi în alte limbi ale plantelor din România. Bucureşti, Ed. Academiei Republicii Socialiste România. 320 p. Excellent for Romanian names, also for Hungarian and German (Transylvanian Saxon) names.
• Panţu Zach. C., 1929. Plantele cunoscute de Poporul Român. Vocabular botanic cuprinzând numirile române, franceze, germane şi ştiinţifice. Ediţia 2a. Bucureşti, Editura Casei Şcoalelor. 424 p. (ed. 1, 1902).

Declension and determinate article

		sg nom. indet.	sg nom. det.	sg gen. det.	pl nom. indet.	pl nom. indet.	pl gen. det.
masculine in -ul	potato	cartof	cartoful	cartofului	cartofi	cartofii	cartofilor
masculine in -ele	melon	pepene	pepenele	pepenelui	pepeni	pepenii	pepenilor
feminine in -a	lettuce	salată	salata	salatei	salate	salatele	salatelor
feminine in -a	walnut	nucă	nuca	nucii	nuci	nucile	nucilor
feminine in -ea	artichoke	anghinare	anghinarea	anghinarii	anghinari	anghinarile	anghinarilor
neutral in -ul	fruit	fruct	fructul	fructului	fructe	fructele	fructelor

• det. = determinate (with article)
• gen. = genitive-dative
• indet. indeterminate (without article)
• nom. = nominative-accusative
• pl. = plural
• sg = singular

Pronounciation of terminations:

• -ului: [uluj]
• -i: [j]
• -ii: [i]