The main objective of this paper is to show the importance water, and particularly stagnant waters (including lakes), has had in Romanians’ history. The study area is linguistics: the paper presents an analysis of the Romanian vocabulary of stagnant waters. The method consists of the analysis of relevant semantic traits of the words. The results of the analysis show that both loanwords and derivatives designating stagnant waters and related terms are in perfect equilibrium. The conclusion: during history, Romanians have first borrowed a considerable number of words designating stagnant waters and/or related concepts, and then forged their own vocabulary (derivatives and compounds) of stagnant waters starting from the borrowed root-words. All categories show how important water has always been in the history of the Romanian people.

Romanian vocabulary; semantic traits; loanwords; compounds; derivatives

Presentation: oral