The accent

Last evening I came back from a 2 days trip to Bistrita where I had to participate at a stock counting. I had another post about a local taxi driver and now I had another pretty amazing conversation with one of them.

" - You're from Bucharest, wright?

- Ya, we're coming from Bucharest.

- I could tell from your accent...

- :))))))) (what accent????)

- What? You didn't think you had no accent...as you say we have an accent, so do you."

And then I realized that he is wright. I always thought that I am on the right side and that the pother person was talking in a funny way, but never thought that the other person may think the same way.

Like most natural languages, Romanian can be regarded as a dialect continuum. The dialects of Romanian are distinguished by minor differences in pronunciation. Romanians themselves speak of the differences as accents or "speeches" (in Romanian: accent or grai). Several regional accents are usually distinguished:

• Muntenian accent (Graiul muntenesc), spoken mainly in Wallachi and southern parts of Dobruja.


• Oltenian accent (Graiul oltenesc), spoken mainly in Oltenia and by the Romanian minority in Timok region of Serbia. In Oltenia a notable dialectal feature is the preferred usage of the simple perfect rather than the compound perfect which is preferred elsewhere.


• Moldavian accent (Graiul moldovenesc), spoken mainly in Moldavia, northern parts of Dobruja and Moldova. Written (p) is at times realised as /k/, written before front vowels is sometimes realised as /ʃ/, written <ă>, in final position, is sometimes palatalized, written is rarely also pronounced /i/.


• Maramureșian accent (Graiul maramureșean), spoken mainly in Maramures.


• Transylvanian accent (Graiul ardelenesc), spoken mainly in Transilvania.


• Banatian accent (Graiul bănățean), spoken mainly in Banat. Written before front vowels is sometimes realised as /t͡ʃ/ and as /d͡ʒ/.

Over the last century, however, regional accents have been weakened due to mass communication and greater mobility.

At the end it's great that we can still manage to understand one another.

Love you. Take care.