Independence

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Originally Posted by Rudy Tamasz

From the standpoint of international law you can argue either way for or agaist the right of peoples to self-determination, because the law and its interpretations are very confusing. After WWII the right to self-determination tended to be applied exclusively to colonial peoples. There were exceptions like Bangladesh and Eritrea, though. In any case, Kosovo is another precedent in favor of a broader interpretation.

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Our president, government and parliament affirm that international law is very clear in forbidding to confer " collective rights " to minorities. So in Kosovo's case the "interpretation" is illegal.

Otherwise we might have a " Matrioshka " effect: a majority ethnic proclaim its independence in a teritory, then in one of its regions an ethnic who's in majority will claim the same thing, etc. and we'll may assist to an " atomization" of earth.

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Originally Posted by Mark

Would you classify 1947-1989 as 'free'?.

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Yeah. Despite the comunist regime, it was a sovereign state, member of the UN. Even your lovely queen welcomed Ceausescu with great honours and showed him London from her carriage. :laugh:

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Originally Posted by Mark

It's an evolution of the same language, but I doubt any spoken language today is the same as it was 1000 years ago.

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Of course not. In the meantime we invented the most colourful insults and swearings in the world. However the basic lexic is the same and even preserved words from the Dacian period.
I've just remember that on my computer I have access to ALL romanian legislation. The opening page is "The treaty from 1393 between Mircea I, Suveran of Valahia and Sultan Baiazet Ilderim " ( where our mutual friend Rollo can see that romanians existed before 1878 and even enjoyed a large autonomy :laugh :) and despite a few archaic forms of the verbs and an exaggerated politness that might sound odd for the crazy stressed man of the 20mth century it's in the most genuine romanian posible.

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Originally Posted by Mark

Would you classify 1947-1989 as 'free'?

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Yes it was free from occupation by any other country.
Had a president and a Parliament.

And BTW I said from 1918 not 1947. Between 1919 and 1939 Romania had one of the best (maybe even the best) economical situations in central and eastern Europe!

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Originally Posted by Mark

It's an evolution of the same language, but I doubt any spoken language today is the same as it was 1000 years ago.

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Of course it did evolve, but as already pointed out by gadjo_dilo it isn't so different and we can easily read and understand it, not to mention lots of words that kept their form for more than 2000 years.

I know for a fact that 99% of the western people only know about Romania that it is an ex-communist country and that Dracula was a Transylvanian prince.
I wouldn't dare to comment about a country with so little knowledge of it's history, history that starts thousands of years ago.

And I suppose that all the ex-communist countries are in the same situation

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Originally Posted by gadjo_dilo

Our president, government and parliament affirm that international law is very clear in forbidding to confer " collective rights " to minorities. So in Kosovo's case the "interpretation" is illegal.

Otherwise we might have a " Matrioshka " effect: a majority ethnic proclaim its independence in a teritory, then in one of its regions an ethnic who's in majority will claim the same thing, etc. and we'll may assist to an " atomization" of earth.

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And here's a pretty good illustration of the "Matrioshka" effect:
http://media.hotnews.ro/media_server...atrosca_41.jpg

;)

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Originally Posted by ioan

Of course it did evolve, but as already pointed out by gadjo_dilo it isn't so different and we can easily read and understand it, not to mention lots of words that kept their form for more than 2000 years.

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Of course 2,000 years ago it wasn't Romanian at all but Latin.

BTW for those interested in the history of countries in Europe this site is excellent http://www.euratlas.com/summary.htm It shows a map for every 100 years from the year 0. It's fascinating to see how different it was even in 1900.

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Originally Posted by Mark

Of course 2,000 years ago it wasn't Romanian at all but Latin.

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Well in fact it was not Latin, but Dacic (not sure how it is right in English).
Romans first conquered Dacia in 101 AD.
A bit of info about the ancient Dacia (now Romania):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dacia

It's a good read, many valuable infos about our ancient history.

Romanian language contains words of Latin, Dacic and Slavic origin (and nowadays many others were added mostly technical terms like internet ;) !)

Interesting. Romanian is generally regarded as a 'Romance' language in the same way as French, Italian etc, of course these languages diverge by taking on aspects of other languages and dialects spoken in the local area.

English of couse has a strong latin fluence too but not as strong as in Romance countries.

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Originally Posted by Mark

BTW for those interested in the history of countries in Europe this site is excellent http://www.euratlas.com/summary.htm It shows a map for every 100 years from the year 0. It's fascinating to see how different it was even in 1900.

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Thanks for the link.
Very interesting indeed.
A pity that they seem not to be very sure about what was happening outside of the Roman Empire after their retreat to the south of Danube in 273 AD.

Their map is either white with lots of migratory tribe names all over it or is blurred with indefinite contours of known principalities extending over some parts with unsure limits. Also there are very old cities, dating to centuries BC on the Black Sea side that should be on the map but aren't there.

I can hardly believe that there wasn't a stable population in the region when there is proof that it wasn't this way.

However we are not to talk about Romanian history but rather about the independence of Kosovo. Let's look it up on that map! ;)

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Originally Posted by Mark

Interesting. Romanian is generally regarded as a 'Romance' language in the same way as French, Italian etc, of course these languages diverge by taking on aspects of other languages and dialects spoken in the local area.

English of couse has a strong latin fluence too but not as strong as in Romance countries.

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There are various degrees of Latin influences on almost all the languages spoken in Europe.
My GF said that it was easy for her to learn Russian because she learned Latin previously, and well she is a native German speaker.