348 The Loom of Language
of Vulgar Latin origin mingle with Bulgarian., Albanian, Hungarian^
Greek3 and Turkish intruders. The Slavonic loan-words predominate.
Apart from its hybrid character^ comparison with English or Persian'
breaks down. Rumanian grammar has not undergone great simplifica-
tion. One odd feature mentioned on p. 280 is reminiscent of the Scandi-
navian clan. In the eastern Empire^ Vulgar Latin favoured the post-
posited article^ e.g. homo ilk> rather than the more western ilk homo.
For that reason, the article is now agglutinated to the end of many
Rumanian nouns in such contractions as omul = homo ilk (the man)5
lupul = lupu ilk (the wolf),, cdinele = cane" ilk (the dog). Earliest
Rumanian documents do not go back more than four hundred years
and are ecclesiastical. To-day 15 million people speak the language.
FURTHER READING
BOURCIEZ Elements de Linguistique Romane.
GRANDGENT An Introduction to Vulgar Latin.