Un termen românesc vechi cu echivalente în limbile balcanice: baltă
An old Romanian term with equivalents in Balkan languages: baltă 'puddle'
Author(s): Mihaela MarinSubject(s): Language studies, Language and Literature Studies, Theoretical Linguistics, Applied Linguistics, Lexis, Historical Linguistics, Philology
Published by: Editura Universităţii din Bucureşti
Keywords: documented word; Albanian language; Balkan; Slavic; Thracian-Dacian;
Summary/Abstract: The Romanian term baltă, an ancient word inherited from the Thracian-Dacian vocabulary, is related to cognates in the Balkan, Balto-Slavic, and Germanic areas, without being a loanword from any of them. Baltă has generated a great number of derivatives, compounds, toponyms, and anthroponyms. Its earliest attestations date back to the 13th century (in onomastics) and to the 15th and 16th centuries as a common noun. The term is also used in Aromanian (specifically that spoken in Greece), Megleno-Romanian, and Istro-Romanian. Romanian baltă, Albanian balte, and their Slavic, Baltic, and Germanic cognates derive from the Proto-Indo-European root bhel-/*bhəl- ‘white’.
Journal: Theoretical and Applied Linguistics@ro
- Issue Year: 2/2026
- Issue No: 1
- Page Range: 181-194
- Page Count: 14
- Language: Romanian
