Talk:Romanians

1911 Britannica

Britannica 1911 wrote about the national characteristics:

Two dissimilar types are noticeable among the Romanians. One is fair-haired, florid and blue-eyed; the other, more frequent among the Carpathians, is dark, resembling the southern Italians. Both alike are hardy, though rarely tall; both, when of the peasant class, frugal and inured to toil amid the rigours of their native climate. Proud of their race and country, they acquired, with their independence, an ardent sense of nationality; and they look forward to the day which will reunite them to their kinsmen in Transylvania and Bessarabia.

their traditional clothes:

The peasants retain their distinctive dress, long discarded, except on festivals and at court, by the wealthier classes. Men wear a long linen tunic, leather belt, white woollen trousers and leather gaiters, above Turkish slippers or sandals. The lowlanders? head-dress is generally a high cylindrical cap of rough cloth or felt, while the mountaineers prefer a small round straw hat. Sundays and holidays bring out a sleeveless jacket, embroidered in red and gold; and both sexes wear sheepskins in cold weather. The linen dresses of women are fastened by a long sash or girdle, wound many times round the waist: the holiday attire being a white gown covered with embroideries, one or more brightly coloured aprons and necklaces of beads or coins.

and about their traditions:

Romanians generally being more sober than the western Europeans. The ceremonies which accompany a wedding preserve the tradition of marriage by capture; a peasant bride must enter her new home carrying bread and salt, and in parts of Walachia a flower is painted on; the outer wall of cottages in which there is a girl old enough to marry. Young men swear eternal brotherhood; girls, eternal sisterhood; and the Church ratifies their choice in a service at which the feet of the pair are chained together. This relationship is morally and legally regarded as not less binding than kinship by birth. The dead are borne to the grave with uncovered faces, and a Romanian funeral is a scene of much barbaric display. All classes delight in music and dancing. Women hold spinning-parties at which the leader begins a ballad, and each in turn contributes a verse. The Romanian folk-songs, sung and often improvised by the villagers, or by a wandering guitar-player (cobzar), are of exceptional interest and beauty. The national dances and music closely resemble those of the Southern Slavs.

Population statistics

Bogdan, could you give your reference(s) on those population statistics? I've found that this kind of thing often becomes the topic of edit wars, which are greatly reduced when citations are present. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:53, Dec 25, 2004 (UTC)

[1]; [2]; [3] :) Bogdan | Talk 09:18, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The second reference is very confusing for Spain. "In Spania traiesc aproximativ 2 500 de romani..." but "...Ambasada Romaniei in Spania ii estimeaza la 100 000 dintre care doar 40% au statut legal." Any idea how to reconcile this? Any independent source? -- Jmabel | Talk 20:13, Dec 25, 2004 (UTC)

It's probably something like:

• people that have permanent resident status. - 2,500
• people that have temporary work permit. - the rest
• people that are staying illegally - 60,000

Bogdan | Talk 20:38, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Romanians in Ukraine

The 250,000 estimate is quite wrong, mainly because 385,000 people of Ukraine declared themselves "Romanians" at the last census. Sometimes, the census figures may be underestimates of their numbers (for one reason or another, people declared themselves of the majority ethnicity, in this case Ukrainian, rather than of their real origin, or in some cases could be even a falsification of the data by the state), but almost never overestimations. Bogdan | Talk 22:12, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Racist term

This term however, is considered quite racist, and is therefore used in lesser sophisticated social circles.

I don't know why that term should be offensive. Also, why racist? Romanians belong to the same "race" as the other peoples of South-Eastern Europe Bogdan | Talk 09:14, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Check the user's other contributions. Unless you specifically recognize his contributions here as being truthful, revert them as more nonsense from him. -- Antaeus Feldspar 17:14, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

What term, Antaeus? I have no idea what you are talking about. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:22, Dec 27, 2004 (UTC)

Aparently, "Vlax" is used to designate a branch of Gypsy in the Balkans Criztu 18:20, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Orthodoxism

Criztu, you replaced:

The orthodoxism was however brought by the Slavs

with:

After the Great Schism romanians remained faithful to the Church of Constantinople

Do you have any particular reason for doing this ?

It's wrong to say that they remained faithful, because before that, the Romanians had almost no link with Constantinople.

if Orthodoxism was brought by the slavs, then let's write down when and how was Orthodoxy brought by the slavs. Since romanians have Dominus and Basilica from the romans, then there has to have been a continuity in the religion of romanians.

I'm not questioning the continuity of the Christianity here: Romanians kept during the Dark Ages their original Roman Christian tradition. But the Byzantine tradition and rite was brought by the Slavs. And it's not hard to prove:

1. mucenic, sfânt (partly), sobor, praznic, liturghie, hram and a dozen words were borrowed from Church Slavic or Bulgarian. -- If Orthodoxism was to be brought directly by the Greeks/Byzantines, we'd have Greek words instead.
2. Romanians used until the 18th century Slavonic liturgy

Since Orthodoxy occured after 1054, yet the romanians were already christians by then, then how did the the Slavs brought Orthodoxy from Constantinople to the romanians ?

I'm talking only about the rituals and the church organization.

Perhaps the Bulgarian Church "brought" Orthodoxy to the romanians, but not the Slavs Criztu 20:09, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Huh? Bulgarian Church was made out by the Bulgarian/Macedonian people, which were Slavs. What's wrong with this? Bogdan | Talk 21:09, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

that the Bulgarians speak a South Slavic lang. i agree; i think it is more specific if we say romanians adhered to the Bulgarian Orthodox church or Orthodoxy was brought by the Bulgarians or the Bulgarian Church, the term Slav i think reffers to the 5th - 7th centuries, in 1000 there were Russians, Kievans, Bulgarians, Slovenians, Polaks, etc. so let's be more specific about who exactly "brought" Orthodoxy to the romanians Criztu 21:53, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

In English, at least, Slavs is inclusive. If we can say specifically, with confidence, Bulgarians, great, but if not Slavs is a less specific claim. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:05, Dec 27, 2004 (UTC)

I was cautious to say Bulgarians because the language of the scripture was not vernacular Bulgarian, but Old Church Slavonic, a certain ancient dialect of the Bulgarian/Macedonian group of languages and because the translator Saint Cyril, was declared "theirs" by both the Bulgarians and Macedonian Slavs. Bogdan | Talk 23:21, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

well, i think it is more certain that the direction by which the orthodoxy came to Romanians was Byzantium/Church of Constantinople > Bulgarian State/Bulgarian Church >Vlach-Bulgar Empire >Romanians Criztu 00:02, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It seems to me that there is a confusion here between tradition and traditional rite, on one side, and the formal aspects related to church organization and affiliation, on the other. Traditionally, early Romanians (Wlachs) had no church hierarchy (no bishoprics of their own), but clearly depended on Constantinople (and not Rome) for the ordination of their priests (and therefore for the liturgic rites). This is shown by the fact that Transylvanian Romanians were traditionally orthodox, even though Transylvania is conquered as early as the 10th century by Magyars. Actually, the dependence unto Constantinople was a key point in the introduction of the slavonic as a liturgic language: In the 10th century is created the slavonic "Bulgarian" patriarchy of Ohrida, unto which Wlachs were compelled to depend by the geographic proximity. However, there were big problems with the slavonic language, because very few priests understood it. :) Concerning the other aspect, the state and the church need a formal organization as soon as they start to take shape. Therefore, the adoption of the Byzantine/Orthodox model for the organization/hierarchy of the state and church probably started in the 10th century, when Wlach political organizations started to appear on the left side of the Danube (the model being given by the then-neighboring Bulgarian, Wlacho-bulgarian, or Byzantine empires). The structuring process is completed for both the state and church in the 14th century. We can probably assume that the popular church itself was not very changed after the 14th century. However, the church hierarchy was completely new, and followed the slavonic version of the byzantine rite. It is worth noting that the adoption of the byzantine/orthodox model was also a political choice that pointed out the independence of the newly-formed states (Wallachia and Moldavia) from neighboring Hungary (catholic communities existed from the 13th century at least, and were quite active, in both Wallachia and Moldavia, and bishoprics were created). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dpotop (talk • contribs) 11 Sept 2005 (UTC)

when did the romanians adopted orthodoxy ?

there is a problem here:

• romanians have a few latin religious terms, so they were Christians since the times of the Roman Empire.
• romanians don't have an official date of adopting Christianity, nor do they have an official date when they adopted Orthodoxy.
• Cyril & Methodius wrote the Bible in Old-slavonic during the 800-900 and converted to Christianity a few kingdoms in the Balkans and Central Europe.
• romanians have a few Old-Slavonic religious terms and the romanian church officiated in Old Slavonic for a while (since what date until what date ?).
• after the Great Schism we speak of Orthodoxy(with Constantinople as its center until 1453)and Catolicism (with Roma as its center).

so romanians were Christians, and remained faithful(for lack of a better word) to the Church of Constantinople (not The orthodoxism was however brought by the Slavs) after the Great Schism, and at least for a while officiated in Old-Slavonic... but after a while started using their old latin-romanian terms again, but keeping some Old-slavonic terms as well Criztu 21:54, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The Orthodoxy was brought during the rule of the Romanian-Bulgarian kingdom (1187-1280), right ? Until then, the Romanians were somehow isolated and the Church of the Romanians was not influenced by either Byzantium nor Rome. You can tell this by linguistic clues: there are no new words related to religion of either Italian/Latin or Greek Byzantine origin. The schism took place in 1054. Therefore, the Romanians joined the Orthodoxy after it split from Rome. Bogdan | Talk 22:42, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

mm... i read that some magyar chieftains from the Carpathian Basin allegedly baptised in Constantinople; Mihaly and Geza, the sons of Taksony, nephew of Menumorut, had christian names. Bulgaria having at least nominal control over the teritory of Transylvania until 1000. so if there were in Transylvania in 900-1000 "the romanian dukes Gelu, Glad and Menumorut", by 1000 the romanians may have adopted Orthodoxy through the Bulgarian State(since 865). But then, there was a Catholic Diocese of Cumania in the teritory later known as Wallachia, so until Basarab's son baptised into Orthodoxy, is there any evidence that The orthodoxism was however brought by the Slavs ? Criztu 22:59, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I found a reference (in Romanian):

hotărîrea celui de-al 8-lea Conciliu Ecumenic din Constantinopol, în 869-870, după care nou înfiinţatul episcopat bulgar, care a inclus şi teritoriile de locuit repectiv peregrinare ale Românilor, a fost subordonat patriarhatului de Constantinopol şi nu Romei. Referitor la aceasta, Şimanschi şi Agache scriu în volumul “Die Rumänen und Europa vom Mittelalter bis zur Gegenwart“ [Românii şi Europa din Evul Mediu până în prezent], publicat în 1997 de Harald Heppner:

"Pentru populaţia românească, această decizie s’a dovedit a fi de maximă importanţă, întrucât fu nevoită ulterior să renunţe la limba latină în cadrul practicării cultului şi să preia de la Bulgari aşa numita limbă slavă bisericească (‘slavona’), precum şi scrisul şi liturghia. Astfel, Românii s’au depărtat de romanitatea apuseană, considerată eretică, şi au trăit din acel moment într’un ‘slavonism’ cultural care le-a împiedicat receptarea valorilor occidentale"

Bogdan | Talk 15:49, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Suffixed names

Suffixed names generally indicate humble historical origins, in contrast with the older established families whose names reflect ancient functions, national origin or other linguistic elements.

That is not always valid. It is true however, that most of the "Romanian" rulers were not Romanian and had other origins for their names: Cuman (Basarab), Greek (Ipsilanti, Mavrocordat, Mavrogheni), Byzantine (Cantacuzino), Albanian (Ghica), Tatar (Cantemir), Italian (Moruzi, Graziani), etc.

Of the few left 'pure' Romanians, we can see Romanian names: Brâncoveanu, Bibescu, etc.

- (unsigned, undated)

The Moruzi name is not of Italian origin. They were Greeks from the Phanar district of Istambul. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.7.151.115 (talk • contribs) 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan

The population statistic recently and anonymously added for Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan lacks a citation. Does anyone have one? -- Jmabel | Talk 18:06, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)

Well for Russia, you can use the Russian census. I just don't remember the adress. In Khazachstan there is still 20.000 Romanians left. I dunno where u can get that number from. (anon 13 June 2005)

• The mere fact that a census exists doesn't really do much to say which number is more accurate and for what date. -- Jmabel | Talk 16:23, Jun 18, 2005 (UTC)

Origin of Romanians

This anonymous edit gives no citation and claims quite a bit. I don't have the knowledge to evaluate it, so I would appreciate hearing from some knowledgable regular contributor. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:45, August 11, 2005 (UTC)

Yes, it's wrong, or at least non-NPOV. But I don't have enough time to check it now. bogdan | ^Talk 21:09, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

So should we cut it till someone can fix it? -- Jmabel | Talk 04:55, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

OK. I'm back.

An alternative theory has them as the original local population of the ancient Roman Empire that has maintained it's language and traditions despite ongoing assimilation by the protruding Slavs, Italians, Germans, etc.

There is no linguist that claims autochtonity of all Romanian groups, so it can be labeled as original research.

Romanian, Istro-Romanian, Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian were formed in only one territory and only after they were formed some groups started migrating. There are lots of reasons why the multiple nuclei cannot be a valid theory, among them the core Slavic borrowings (such as trup="body"), which are identical to all these languages. bogdan | ^Talk 16:11, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

Ribbentrop-Molotov pact

From the article: "During World War II, Romania lost territory in both east and west… Both losses were facilitated by the Ribbentrop-Molotov German-Soviet non-aggression pact."

That may be loosely true, but, as I understand it, it is misleading. Unless I am mistaken, the pact said nothing at all about these lands. Obviously, Romania suffered from the fact of German-Soviet cooperation while it lasted, but the wording here seems to me to suggest that there was something in the pact about carving up Romania. Can someone clarify whether or not the pact had anything to say about these territories, and perhaps then word the article appropriately? -- Jmabel | Talk 01:46, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

In the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact Germany recognized the right of Soviet Union over Bessarabia.MihaiC 06:51, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

• I stand corrected. But did it have anything to say about Transylvania? That is, did it have anything directly to do with the losses in the west? -- Jmabel | Talk 07:07, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

• • No, it said nothing about Transylvania. Just that since the two big powers agree with each other over Romania and the traditional Western allies (England, but especially France) couldn't help Romania, Romania was doomed.MihaiC 09:18, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

The number of Romanians?

I was just curious how did we get the number of Romanians: 24 mil?

ethnologue misses on a lot of countries. they miss the fact that there are almost 200.000 romanians in the russian federation and central asia and that the romanian population of ukraine is at least 400.000, not 250.000( even the ukrainian census admits to 410.000 romanians, albeit with the negative growth rate that number is closer to 390.000 by now). Likewise, they miss that in Ukraine there are almost 7-8 mil russian speakers.

Also, when we say that in Hungary there are 100.000 Romanians, that is really deceiving. Out of these 100.000 "Romanians", 90.000 are Hungarian-Szecklers who migrated from Transylvania to Hungary. They are Romanians speakers but ethnic Romanians are only 10.000 of the population.

In retrospect, the Romanians in Israel are not 50.000. Romanian-Jews there comprise at least 250.000 people. I know about the note that says the number does not include the 450.000 Jews of Romanian origin but what does this 50.000 number reffer to? Romanian-Jews that speak Romanian or non-Jewish Romanians who live in Israel? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mihaitza (talk • contribs) 10 Sept 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure on the Israel figure, but there certainly are a lot of non-Jewish Romanians in Israel. Certainly thousands of Romanian men work there in construction; I don't know the number of ethnic Romanians married to Romanian Jews and living in Israel.

You're probably right on the Szecklers. Prevailing definitions in Eastern Europe probably shouldn't count these people as Romanians, but things like this get tricky because the construction of ethnicity varies around the world. -- Jmabel | Talk 17:31, September 10, 2005 (UTC)

Why don't we count only ethnic Romanians when we talk about "the Romanians", this would put the Hungarian figure at 10.000. For Israel, I think the fairest thing to do is to count ethnic Romanians, those 250.000 + the 50.000 people that use Romanian in their every day life( in other words, count everyone regardless of religion).

I remembered an example in my own family where the wife is Romanian-Orthodox and the father is Jewish-Romanian. Obviously the wife would pe part of the 50.000 figure while the husband would be considered part of the 250.000 or 450.000 Romanian-Jewish figure. They speak Romanian at home but their children are trilingual : Hebrew, Romanian, English.

I read an article once, which stated that Romanian is the foreign language most commonly used in Israel in that Romanian publications are second only to those publications in Hebrew. Mihaitza 15:05, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

• I suspect Arabic would be second and Romanian third. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:46, September 12, 2005 (UTC)

• Russian third and Romanian fourth. Romanian may have been third before the large-scale Soviet Jews emmigration. bogdan | ^Talk 11:54, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

• • Of course! How could I forget? My turn to feel very dumb. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:11, September 13, 2005 (UTC)

---

I was just wondering, how many ethnic romanians live in the world today, because i know for a fact that there are over 1 milion romanians living in the united states, but ethnologue states that there are only 367,000. Also i was reading a recent article, which stated that spain is home to 317,000 romanians now. Also I was wondering how many romanians live in western europe (legal and non-legal)? Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.26.2.111 (talk • contribs) 29 Sept 2005 (UTC)

If you "know for a fact", what is your source? -- Jmabel | Talk 04:53, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

who researches these figures on romanians, because if you look at the australian census of 2001, people who declared themselves romanians were only 19,000 - 20,000. The number of 50,000 is way out of porportion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.27.150.113 (talk • contribs) 1 Oct 2005 (UTC)

Various people have edited, you'd have to check the article history to work out who.

Censuses in most English-speaking countries tend to undercount the European ethnicities. I know the U.S. best (it's where I'm from), but I gather that Australia is pretty similar on this. A lot of people just describe themselves as "white". Obviously, those people have European ancestry, but don't end up counted in any ethnicity more precise than a racial identity. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:23, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Jmabel, I think that the census process in Australia might indeed differ from that used in the US, & maybe elsewhere, so "undercounting" may not be as prevalent. The AU census (see the questionnaire which was used in 2001, here, distributed to all households) does not ask any questions to identify on the basis of race ("white", "black", etc) or ethnicity, but instead asks "Q11. In which country was the person born?" (1 answer), "Q15. Does the person speak a language other than English at home?" (1 answer, indicating which) and "Q18. What is the person's ancestry?" (multiple answers possible). True, in this case, someone would have to actually write in "Romania(n)" if this was the answer to any of these (it isn't provided as a "tick-box" option), but given that all questions are supposed to be answered and then checked for completeness on collection, the overall info gathered should be relatively specific on these points. The census is confidential (not anonymous), and it's hard to see there would be any significant "fear factor" in operation which might dissuade someone from answering accurately- or at least enough to skew the figures greatly one way or the other. As noted above, the 2001 census tally put the figure of Romania-born people in AU at a shade under 13,000. The figure in the current article (50,000) would have to be an absolute outside maximum at best. What would you say to its amendment?--cjllw | TALK 08:52, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

1. I agree that there is no "fear factor" here.
2. The "ancestry" question would yield the most relevant number. This article is on Romanians as an ethnic group. Romanian-born and ethnic Romanian are two entirely different matters. I have Jewish cousins who are Romanian-born, but are not Romanians. Conversely, Constantin Parvulescu of Ensemble Sub Masa is an ethnic Romanian, even though his family are several generations in America. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:15, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

I see. Of the 12,950 respondents who indicated they were Romanian-born, 8,630 also indicated Romanian ancestry, other ancestries given including Hungarian (1090) and German (440). Where ancestry alone is analysed, ABS statistics place total of "Romanian ancestry" responses in the range 10,000-19,999 (the table is poorly aligned, I count them in the 8th grouping from the top). Even allowing for recent immigration, under-reporting & other factors, the 50,000 figure given in this article would still seem to be a little high.--cjllw | TALK 08:17, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

cjll, do u live in Australia? i have lived here all my life, and i am part of the romanian community. At present it is estimated that the figure has just gone past 42,000 of romanian ethnicity. There are a lot of romanians in Australia from serbia-montenegro. This is because they were allowed to leave freely, when the romanians were still under communism. I have many romanian friends here who are of 2nd-3rd generation romanians from serbia living here in australia. In melbourne it is estimated that there are around 15,000, i live in melbourne and i can assure u there are a lot of romanians here. You have to understand that a lot of romanians choose to give their ancestry as Australian, because they have been her for a long time now. Yes there are 8,630 romanian born (ancestry) people living in Australia, but like i said a lot of them came from neighbouring countries (serbia-montengro), and a lot of romanians are born i Australia. So, i believe the 50,000 number is quite accurate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.134.13.194 (talk • contribs)

Yes, 203.134.13.194, I do currently reside in Australia. I was only drawn into this discussion when I came across a claim elsewhere that there were 500,000 Romanian language speakers in AU, which I thought could not possibly be correct. Let me assure you that I have absolutely no interest or desire to under-represent figures for Romanians (or anyone else)- it is no skin off my nose whatever the figure may be. My only concern is for the reliability and credibility of Wikipedia- when 3-4 articles on related topics concurrently give wildly-varying numbers, which furthermore seem to be changed on an almost daily basis and are not appropriately referenced, it only serves to lessen the overall value of information contained in WP, and generates skepticism about other figures which for all the reader knows could be accurately researched or total fantasy- how is the reader to judge if there are no cites?

I fully appreciate the inherent difficulties and inaccuracies in compiling figures of this nature, and that even "official" statistics are just that- statistical samples potentially subject to systemic bias of one form or another. Who knows why or how many census respondents fail to indicate a Romanian ancestry (for example) when otherwise they would be entitled to do so? There's no way of knowing, all that can be done is to note what the census figures actually reported- if we don't, then other readers who come across these figures (such as user 211.27.150.113, above) will be puzzled as to the mismatch.

If indeed there are higher estimates which are supported by some credible source, then by all means they can be mentioned too (I'm aware the 50,000 figure in this article has a reference, albeit in Romanian; I for one cannot assess whether this is a credible source or not, and the referenced article does not appear itself to say where it got this number from- I gather it mentions that Romanian ancestry might also be identified or shared by Greek, German, Serbian, Croatian, & other ancestries). Similarly, if the 42,000 estimate you mention has a source, then let's see it. If, as is apparent in this case, that the statistics and the available estimates differ, then let's say so in the article, rather than arbitrarily choosing one estimate over another. The important thing is for the reader to be able to gauge for themselves the reliability or otherwise of the figures, and to be able to discern how the figure has been arrived at (in the case of ABS figures, the source is transparent; for other estimates put forward thus far, it is unclear, these should be explicitly marked as "estimate").

So I would suggest that a range be given, the 13,000-20,000 max of ABS (2001) stats, to whatever upper estimate can be supported, each source marked accordingly.

As for the hypothesis that many erstwhile Romanians indicated instead Australian or other ancestry, that may be the case, but I don't know how this number could be calculated. In the minefield of ethnic identity, one should also be careful not to ignore the right to self-identification: how someone describes their ancestry in the census is their business, who are we to say "no, they are really Romanians" (or Elbonians, or anything else)?--cjllw | TALK 00:06, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

cjll, are u a romanian from Australia? Basically i asked u this, because if you are, you would understand/realise that there are more than 20,000 romanians in Australia. You you're self stated that there is no way of finding out how many "romanians" declared their ancestry as Australian or anything else. Most Australians in Australia consider themselves "hyphenated Australian", as Australian is not an ethnicity. Obviously, people that declare Australian as their ethnicity, have a european, or some other ancestry behind them. we are not trying to find how many people declare themselves "Romanian", but how many ethnic romanians live in the world at present. Look at the American Census of 2000. only 367,000 declared Romanian as their ethnicity, and in the 1990 U.S census 365,000 people declared their ethnicity as Romanian. Any way it worked out that about 1,800 people more declared Romanian ethnicity in the space of 10 years. With all seriousness, do you think that only 1,800 romanians immigrated to america in the space of 10 years, in the years after the communism regime ended in 1989. it is estimated that 2.5 million romanians left romania upto this present since the comunism regime ended (i don't know where u can get the source for 2.5 mill). Mate you have to think logical. Even though census results are goverment data, they are by no means completely accurate.

---

Jmabel, how many romanians do you think there are today in the present? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.138.17.88 (talk • contribs) 3 Oct 2005 (UTC)

• I wouldn't venture an independent guess, other than to say that the numbers in the mid-20-millions we've been seeing in this article strike me as being in the right range. I'm not a subject-matter expert on Eastern-European demographics (though I'm clueful). My goals here are good process and accurate sourcing, and on both of those I do know what's what. I have a fairly good knowledge of sources of demographic information, of census methodologies, and of sourcing in general, and a lot of what I try to do on things like this is to make sure people don't replace well-cited numbers with poorly cited numbers, and that we represent the range of expert opinion where expert opinion varies. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:56, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Jmabel, You said that you believe the number of romanians is in the mid 20- millions. Can you give a more accurate number (eg: 25-26 million)? I was recently looking at the 1990 and 2000 US census, and to my surprise the number of romanians only increased by roughly 1700-1800 people, over a time of ten years. Nearly all other nationalaties increased by quite a lot more. Can you give a reason for why this is the case? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.138.16.244 (talk • contribs) 4 Oct 2005 (UTC)

As I said, I don't have the specific expertise to give an estimate more accurate than the ones we've been seeing, and I'd be either a fool or a knave to pretend I did.

The lack of increase in the U.S. census is odd if other Eastern European ethnicities showed more of an increase; I'd have to look a lot more closely at the numbers to even hazard a guess about pattern, but remember that the number is (1) based entirely on self-reporting and (2) is an extrapolation from those Americans (about 10%, if I remember correctly) who are given the long-form census. Hence, it is not really a very precise number, even if it is official. -- Jmabel | Talk 16:47, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

jmabel, how did we get the number of romanians 24.5 million. There would be a lot of illegal romanian immigrants residing in western Europe, that are not listed on the census of each country. I certainly think that there are more than 367,000 romanians in America. And i would presume that Canada has more than 160,000. The romanian-american network, has estimated that in 2002, 1.2 million romanians were living in america. Also ro-media states that romanians in canada have reached 400,000. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.50.60.39 (talk • contribs) 8 Oct 2005 (UTC)

As for how we got it, you can read the edit history as well as I.

These numbers you say come from the "romanian-american network" and "ro-media": can you please give clear citations? Sounds like material that belongs in the article, with appropriate citation. In general, I support indicating the range of estimates for numbers like this (with citation) rather than a single number. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:38, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Jmabel here is the site for the number of romanians in america http://www.romanian-american.net/ You then have to click on the romanian-american communities. you can also see the number of romanians in canada, and romanians in america at http://www.romedia.us/target/index.htm

I just caught up with this at the tail end of my day; it's after midnight here. I'll try to get a look at this in the next few days. By the way, the http://www.romedia.us/target/index.htm link appears dead, at least at the moment, are you sure the link is correct? -- Jmabel | Talk 07:18, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

The link http://www.romedia.us/target/index.htm is correct, I just accessed it, and it worked

Bulgaria

VMORO asks in an edit summary "why don't you estimate 800,000 or 8,000,000?". Answer: because the numbers would clearly be false, and no reputable source would say this. But please see the cited source, an article from a reputable newspaper, and which I see no reason to doubt as an informed estimate. I suspect that the massive discrepancy from official figures is because the official figures do not count (possibly undocumented) foreign workers. International standards say that anyone whose primary domicile is in a country more than a year should be counted as living in that country, not the country of his/her citizenship. However, many countries don't abide by that. I don't know enough about the Bulgarian census to say anything for sure on this, but unsurprisingly, almost all national censuses under-count illegal immigrants. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:39, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

What you say is completely true but we are not talking about France, Germany or Canada where there are without a doubt large immigrant commmunities of Romanians which (equally without a doubt) are underestimated in census results. Some countries (like Germany, for example) don't even have the criterion of ethnicity quite deliberately and for obvious reasons. However, we are talking about Bulgaria where there are practically no Romanian immigrants!!! Why would they come in the first place??? The reason why the estimated number was 80,000 was because in the 1920s there were 60,000-70,000 Vlachs in Bulgaria. However, in the same 1920s, there were 360,000 Bulgarians in Romania!!! A long time has elapsed since the 1920s, borders have changed, there has been an agreement on exchange of populations, etc. So, let's stick to census results and not write jingoistic bullshit. VMORO 17:16, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

VMORO, you say "The reason why the estimated number was 80,000 was because in the 1920s there were 60,000-70,000 Vlachs in Bulgaria." Are you saying that is why Evenimentul Zilei made that claim? EZ never struck me as an ultra-nationalist paper, and the article certainly makes no allusions to the 1920s. Other numbers in the article strike me as reasonable. I could imagine some might even be off by a factor of two (this is obviously difficult stuff to estimate), but nothing to suggest that anything there would be off by a factor of 80. I honestly don't know first-hand the extent to which there are Romanians working in Bulgaria, though I know there are many in Ukraine (which doesn't make any more obvious economic or cultural sense); I've met Romanians who have worked there.

Does anyone else have knowledge of this independent of EZ or their own personal impression? (That is, does anyone have an independent citation on the number of Romanians who are working in Bulgaria? Is there an official -- or even unofficial -- Romanian gov't estimate?) -- Jmabel | Talk 06:54, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Jmabel, How many roma in romania? There has to be more than what the census says(500,000) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.134.111.194 (talk • contribs) 26 Oct 2005 (UTC)

No idea why you are addressing that to me, but I'd be inclined to agree that the census would be a minimum. No non-Roma in Romania will tell a census taker they are Roma; some Roma will either avoid the census-taker or (especially if non-traditional, assimilationist) not say they are Roma. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:13, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Jmabel,Wat does this mean (especially if non-traditional, assimilationist). Do most rroma assimilate in the romanian majority poulation. Or do most of them consider themselves romanian

From what I can tell, only a relatively small number assimilate. I hesitate to venture a guess at a percentage -- I only spent 6 months in Romania ever, and while I'm an observant person, that's not long enough to know this kind of thing well. Certainly they exist. I'd be interested in hearing from some Romanians on this. It must be very hard to get decent numbers on something like this, because with so much prejudice against Roma/rroma/ţigani (take your pick), anyone assimilationist who can hide their ancestry probably will, at least from strangers.

Certainly traditionalist Roma do not consider themselves Romanian in an ethnic sense, even if though most speak Romanian at a native level. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:15, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

First Heavier-than-air Flight?

It seems the article may suffer a little from hometown pride. I believe it was a couple of guys named Wright who performed this amazing little feat first. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.79.14.15 (talk • contribs) 21 Sept 2005 (UTC)

Or this fellow from Brazil? This is one of those things where several people did this in rather rapid succession, and we will probably never have international consensus who deserves credit for being first. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:59, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Actually, Santos-Dumont flew in November 1906, while Traian Vuia flew in August 1906. Of course, Wright brothers flew before both of them, but they used a catapult for launching. bogdan | ^Talk 06:02, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

The Wright Flyer first flew under its own power on December 17th, 1903. It made four flights that day, the longest of which was 59 seconds. The Wrights had built three aircraft and made dozens of flights before Santos-Dumont or Vuia ever left the ground. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.79.14.15 (talk • contribs) 22 Sept 05 (UTC)

I happen to believe that, but the Wrights were highly secretive, and had not publicly announced their feat at the time of the Santos-Dumont or Vuia flights, both of which took off under their own power, and Santos-Dumont at least (I'm not sure about Vuia) showed tremendously more maneuverability than the Wright's craft. In the U.S. we all learn without qualification that the Wrights were first, and accept their 3-years-after-the-fact evidence of their feat, but in many other countries the Wrights' claim that is viewed with some skepticism. -- Jmabel | Talk 02:32, 23 September 2005 (UTC)