Originea celui mai vechi text românesc
The Origin of the Oldest Romanian Text

Summary/Abstract: The oldest preserved Romanian text is the Hurmuzaki Psalter (ca. 1491-1504), a unilingual version extracted from a bilingual Psalter. The present research attempts to shed light on the issue of the origin and the context in which the Psalter was translated and disseminated at the beginning of Romanian vernacular writing. The main source of the translation and the model for the composition of the bilingual Psalter was a Church Slavonic commentated Psalter. Several data suggest that the Psalter was not translated in Romanian countries: the sources used for the translation are recorded predominantly in medieval Serbia and Mount Athos; some peculiarities of spelling, punctuation, and translation show that the text was composed or transmitted in a Greek environment; some linguistic peculiarities indicate that among the translators and copyists, there were undoubtedly Aromanians (Vlachs). As for the oldest copy, the Hurmuzaki Psalter, it was written on Mount Athos itself, most likely at the Zograf Monastery. All these data suggest that the translation may have been done in one of the monasteries of Mount Athos. The Psalter was translated into Romanian by decision of the Church, which wanted to create an auxiliary for the understanding of Slavonic liturgy by novices. This happened in the context of the flourishing of monasticism, when novices who did not speak Church Slavonic were arriving in the monastery. Among these novices were Aromanians, as the linguistic features of the manuscripts show, who came from a Greek-speaking area and therefore needed a tool for understanding the official language of the Church.

• Details
• Contents