Omniglot - the blog

Where in the world?

Simon on 03 Jun 2007

Language and Travel and Quiz questions | Comments (8)

8 Responses to “Where in the world?”

1. Stephen on 03 Jun 2007 at 9:28 pm #

   Looks to me like a shot from the Dâmboviţa river in Bucharest, Romania, with the communist-era Casa Poporului in the background.

   Romanian is the main language…other than that, there aren’t really widely spoken languages. English, I guess? Maybe Romany or Hungarian?

2. TJ on 03 Jun 2007 at 9:38 pm #

   if it is Romania then I believe there must be a plenty of slavic languages spoken there … one at least!

3. Stephen on 03 Jun 2007 at 10:01 pm #

   Nope…Romania is basically monolingual today, and they speak a Romance language, not a Slavic language. Although the Romanian language has Slavic influences, few people in Romania care to learn Russian or any other Slavic languages — they’re very proud of their Latin language and heritage. Most foreign investment in Romania comes from the EU, not Russia, and most Romanians living abroad live in the US, Canada, Italy, France, or Spain. The situation is different for Romanian-speakers in Moldova, but the picture is of Bucharest, not Chişinău.

4. Daydreamer on 03 Jun 2007 at 11:18 pm #

   @ Stephen

   Romania monolingual? What about the Hungarian and German minorities?

5. David on 04 Jun 2007 at 1:18 am #

   I, too think it is Bucharest.

6. Stephen on 04 Jun 2007 at 5:11 am #

   Unfortunately, there aren’t as many minorities in Romania as there used to be. There used to be tons of Jews, Germans, and Hungarians, but the Jews were killed during the Holocaust or sold to Israel by Ceauşescu, and the Germans were sold to West Germany. There are still areas with Hungarian majorities in Transylvania, but they are very few compared with what they used to be. German castles and fortress-cities might be what the tourists in Romania see, but the only Germans in those cities are businessmen and tourists. Ceauşescu made sure, when he destroyed the country and built that monstrosity you see in the picture, that Romanians would increasingly dominate over ethnic minorities in the country.

   The Roma (aka gypsies) are the most prominent minority, and they live all over. But, few Roma still speak Romany — today most speak only Romanian.

   …in any case, Hungarian and German were/are languages spoken in Transylvania — which Bucharest (the city in the picture, I think) is nowhere near. English would be the second-most spoken language in Bucharest, I’m sure, simply because of all the people who know it as a foreign language.

7. Simon on 04 Jun 2007 at 9:14 am #

   It is indeed Bucharest, the capital or Romania, where the main language spoken is Romanian.

8. Hungarian on 06 Jun 2007 at 10:16 am #

   They simply deny the existence of the massive population that speak Hungarian.