20 Comments
307
Is that true for the singular too then? Because I see om used instead of bărbat or translated as "man" rather than person/human in a surprising number of places.
There was a native Romanian speaker in another thread who clarified that bărbat and om are synonymous in the sense of 'male', but om can also mean 'person'/'human being', depending on context. And that is indeed quite correct according to my Romanian sister-in-law, although bărbat seems a bit more common in the sense of 'male'.
- 307
Thanks so much for the clarification. I guess that makes sense considering "man" was used so long in English to refer to not only male individuals but humans as a whole.
Because they have a different accent. "OameNII" with a long "i" sound at the end and "OAmeni".
Momzi is right, but this is the less important clue, i think| the ending is different - oamenii is pronounced with 'ee' at the end, while oameni doesn't have the 'ee', but something like a hungarian 'nj' or a soft н in конец|
when does Romanian uses barbat and oameni. is there a singular of oameni ? oamen? . So close to homme, uomo, homem, hombre. where does BARBAT come from ? Hungarian?
Singular of 'oameni' is 'om'. My impression is that 'om' and 'bărbat' are quite interchangeable. 'Bărbat' originally simply meant 'person with beard' (compare the English word 'barber'). Both 'om' and 'bărbat' (and 'barber' as well) have Latin roots.
Thanks, I'd never thought about "barber" . So the Romanians call their men LES BARBUS in French ! funny. and yes, the Latin origin is thus quite evident.
- 158
That is fascinating - and I wish I had known this when beginning, as I repeatedly confused bărbat and băiat and it would have been an easy way to remember which was which!
- 307
IIRC, bărbat is specifically a male person, whereas om is more like person/human, though it can be translated as man (as in mankind). But yes, I do seem to see them used fairly interchangeably too.
Oamenii ?? How come it is men and. people ???? Confusing .surely its either one or the other,not changeable to suit a sentence.
- 307
It's the same way that in English we say (or used to say, mostly) "Mankind" rather than "Humankind". In other words, it's patriarchy. But yeah, I'd personally prefer "person" but I've also seen it regularly used interchangeably to refer to "man" still as well as "person".
