Considerations about the Romanian word: BRÂNZĂ

Alessandro Demontis

In the context of etymological research in the Romanian language, over 300 words have beensuggested being of Dacic origin. Among them the generic term for ‘cheese’ is to be found. Theword BRÂNZĂ is still indicated in dictionaries as being of ‘unknown origin’ (EtimologieNecunoscuta), as we can see in the quote below:

BRẤNZĂ, s. f., (2) brânzeturi, s. n. 1. S. f. Produs alimentar obținut prin coagularea șiprelucrarea laptelui. ◊ Expr. (Fam.) A nu fi nicio brânză (de cineva) = a nu fi bun de nimic.(Fam.) A nu face nicio brânză = a nu realiza nimic; a nu fi bun de nimic. (Pop.) (Ducă-se sau du-te etc.) opt cu-a brânzei sau opt (și) cu-a brânzei nouă, se zice când scapi (saudorești să scapi) de o persoană supărătoare. 2. S. n. Sortiment de brânză (1), de cașcavaletc. – Et. nec.

Sursa: DEX '09 (2009)

The English Wikipedia page for the Romanian Language accounts for this theory with no sourcesprovided:

About 300 words found only in Romanian or with a cognate in the Albanian language maybe inherited from Dacian.

(for example: barză "stork", balaur "dragon", mal "shore", brânză "cheese").

Our research has pointed us to the work of Ion I. Russu (Limba traco-dacilor - Editura Ştiințifică,1967) and of Ariton Vraciu (Limba daco-geților - Editura Facla, 1980); by having a look atgastronomic terms of the East-European languages, we have found out that the term Brânză hascognates in Polish, Serbian, Hungarian as well, in these cases not indicating cheese in general buta particular kind of sheep milk cheese. All these terms are accounted as coming from the originalRomanian term, from which we have:

- Polish: Bryndza

- Serbian: Brenca (pronounced: BrenTZa)

- Hungarian: Brenza

The fact that the word has an almost perfect match in writing, and is still in use also in Serbia, ageographic location that partly constituted the ancient Dacia along with southern Romania,suggests us that it is highly viable that the term itself has arrived into Romanian from the originalDacian word or root. On the contrary we don’t consider viable that this term originated in Hungaryor in Poland, expecially because while Polish is aknowledged to be a cognate language of Serbian(or, according to some scholars, a derivate) and Serbian is attested as having been part of Dacia,we have no traces of direct linguistic relationships between Hungarian and Romanian or viceversa.

This makes more acceptable that the term stemmed from a Dacian root or word, and thenspreaded to non-Dacian neighbor populations and languages.

The Polish form: Bryndza contains the Y which sounds very much like the Romanian Â, and wemust specify that the Romanian term is now written with  only due to a linguistic rule intruducedin 1998 by the Romanian Academy of Language. Prior to this modification the term was writtenBRÎNZĂ and we can easily see the almost perfect match with the Polish word not only in itspronunciation, but also in its written form, since the Polish Y is substantially a modificated I, asshown by the Y/I relation between Polish and Serbian, e.g.:

- Polish: Było / Była

- Serbian: Bilo / Bila

these indicating the neuter and female 3rd singular for the past of the verb TO BE (Być in Polish //Biti in Serbian).

A. Demontis

11 sept. 2014