Editing Romanian language (section)

=== French, Italian, and English loanwords ===

{{further|Re-latinization of Romanian}}

Since the 19th century, many literary or learned words were borrowed from the other Romance languages, especially from French and Italian (for example: {{lang|ro|birou}} "desk, office", {{lang|ro|avion}} "airplane", {{lang|ro|exploata}} "exploit"). It was estimated that about 38% of words in Romanian are of French and/or Italian origin (in many cases both languages); and adding this to Romanian's native stock, about 75%–85% of Romanian words can be traced to Latin. The use of these Romanianized French and Italian learned loans has tended to increase at the expense of previous loanwords, many of which have become rare or fallen out of use. As second or third languages, French and Italian themselves are better known in Romania than in Romania's neighbors. Along with the switch to the Latin alphabet in Moldova, the re-latinization of the vocabulary has tended to reinforce the Latin character of the language.

In the process of lexical modernization, much of the native Latin stock have acquired doublets from other [[Romance languages]], thus forming a further and more modern and literary lexical layer. Typically, the native word is a noun and the learned loan is an adjective. Some examples of doublets:

{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"
|+Latin and native doublets in Romanian
|-
!scope="col"|Latin
!scope="col"|Native stock
!scope="col"|Learned loan
|-
!scope="row"|{{Wikt-lang|la|agilis}} 'quick’
|{{Wikt-lang|ro|ager}} 'astute’
|{{Wikt-lang|ro|agil}} 'agile' (< French, Italian {{lang|fr|agile}})
|-
!scope="row"|{{Wikt-lang|la|aqua}}
|{{Wikt-lang|ro|apă}} 'water’
|{{Wikt-lang|ro|acvatic}} 'aquatic' (< Fr {{lang|fr|aquatique}})
|-
!scope="row"|{{Wikt-lang|la|dens}}, {{Wikt-lang|la|dentem}}
|{{Wikt-lang|ro|dinte}} 'tooth’
|{{Wikt-lang|ro|dentist}} 'dentist' (< Fr {{lang|fr|dentiste}}, It {{lang|it|dentista}})
|-
!scope="row"|{{Wikt-lang|la|directus}}
|{{Wikt-lang|ro|drept}} 'straight; right’
|{{Wikt-lang|ro|direct}} 'direct' (< Fr {{lang|fr|direct}})
|-
!scope="row"|{{Wikt-lang|la|frigidus}} 'cold' (adj.)
|{{Wikt-lang|ro|frig}} 'cold' (noun)
|{{Wikt-lang|ro|frigid}} 'frigid' (< Fr {{lang|fr|frigide}})
|-
!scope="row"|{{Wikt-lang|la|rapidus}}
|{{Wikt-lang|ro|repede}} 'quick’
|{{Wikt-lang|ro|rapid}} 'quick' (< Fr {{lang|fr|rapide}}, It {{lang|it|rapido}})
|}

In the 20th century, an increasing number of English words have been borrowed (such as: {{lang|ro|gem}} < jam; {{lang|ro|interviu}} < interview; {{lang|ro|meci}} < match; {{lang|ro|manager}} < manager; {{lang|ro|fotbal}} < football; {{lang|ro|sandvici}}/{{lang|ro|sendviș}} < sandwich; {{lang|ro|bișniță}} < business; {{lang|ro|chec}} < cake; {{lang|ro|veceu}} < WC; {{lang|ro|tramvai}} < tramway). These words are assigned grammatical gender in Romanian and handled according to Romanian rules; thus "the manager" is {{lang|ro|managerul}}. Some borrowings, for example in the computer field, appear to have awkward (perhaps contrived and ludicrous) 'Romanisation,' such as {{lang|ro|cookie-uri}} which is the plural of the Internet term ''cookie''; normally, the hyphen isn't used for plural endings and definite articles.

In some cases, there are multiple variants of loanwords, such as {{lang|ro|maus}}/{{lang|ro|mauși}} (masculine) and {{lang|ro|mouse}}/{{lang|ro|mouse-uri}} (neuter).