Terminology
in the circuit of agricultural information to and from Romania
Angel Proorocu
associate professor USAMV
"Any country with
pretensions of civilization must have in the cultural treasure agricultural
encyclopedia and dictionaries needed by anyone who is concerned by this
millenary activity"-said C. Filipescu the author of the Great Romanian
Agricultural Encyclopedia.
Romania has many natural
resources in all domains of agriculture but we now are isolated, due to many
causes, one of them being the precarious management.
Romania has 3500 species of
plants, 800 in forests, 300 weeds, 1150 in the Danube Delta, there are 300
species of birds and 100 species of mammals.
After the expedition of Darius
the Persian King, Herodotus called the people which lived in the actual
Romanian territory "geto-daci", and Strabo and Ovidius were witnesses
of "geto-daci" existence. The latter described in "Tristae"
III 10 V. 59-60 the habitants as peoples who had in one hand the plough and in the
other the sword. In "Ponticae"I.8-V 53-58 he is the first to describe
the principal occupation of geto-dacs, agriculture.
Archaeologists discovered that
they were concerned with agriculture, many words of the modern Romanian
language coming from them: baci (shepherd), brandusa (saffron), branza
(cheese), caier (brendle), carlig (hook), maces (rosehip),mal (bank), mistret
(wild boar), manz (colt), strugure (bunch of grapes), tarus (stake),viscol
(snow storm), zgarda (collar).
After the Roman occupation
many agricultural terms were adopted from Latin. For one thousand years people
lived in some areas "tari" near the greatest rivers, in Romanian
"obsti satesti", one of the most harmonious kinds of human social
organization. B.P.Hasdeu, a pioneer of Romanian terminology, observed also the
Slav influence.
After 1900, when Romania had a
developed agriculture, it was necessary to develop agricultural terminology. In
1937-1943 the Great Agricultural Encyclopedia by C.Filipescu and a large staff
was published, with approximately 15000 terms.
In the period 1950-1989 there
many dictionaries in all domains of agriculture were published, for example:
Malita T. colab.- Russian-
Romanian Glossary of Agronomy and Horticulture- Agrosilvica P.H.- 1965
Pume N. Magnetki A.-
Agricultural Dictionary in 8 Languages: Russian, Bulgarian, Czech, Polish,
Hungarian, Romanian, German and English - Agrosilvica P.H. 1980
Oprescu S.-Minimal
French-Romanian Vocabulary of Horticulture, Agronomy and Livestock 1975
Haensch G.-Dictionary of
Agriculture (German, English, French, Spanish and Russian) Agrosilvica P.H.1975
Manoliu G.
colab.-Romanian-Hungarian and Hungarian-Romanian Dictionary of Agriculture
-Ceres P.H.1980
Bujor O. Alexan M.-Medicinal
and Aromatic Plants from A to Z ReCoop P.H.1982
Dinu I. colab. Livestock
Encyclopedic Dictionary -Ceres P.H.- 1982
Sonea V. colab. Little
Encyclopedia of Horticulture Scientifically and Encyclopedically P.H.1983
Baicu T. colab. Little
Encyclopedia of Agriculture (1 820 terms) Scientifically and Encyclopedically
P.H.1988
Pricop G. colab -Dictionary of
Funciar Improvements Ceres P.H.1988
Gorodea G.- Dictionary of
Viticulture Ceres P.H. 1988
Preda M. Dendro- Floriculture
Dictionary- Scientifically and Encyclopedically P.H.1989
The problem now is to unit in
a single work on CD-ROM all the usual and scientific terms in agriculture,
which would include following domains:
1. SOIL: Geology, Mineralogy,
Petrography, Soil Chemistry, Fertilizers, etc.
2.PLANTS:Plant Anatomy and
Physiology, Botany, Agricultural Plant Growing, Grass-landing, Genetics, etc
3. ANIMALS: Anatomy and
Physiology, Zoology, Animal Breeding, Nutrition, etc.
4. HORTICULTURE: Fruit
Growing, Vegetable Growing, Flower Growing, Landscape Architecture, etc.
5. VITICULTURE: Oenology,
Ampelography, Vine Growing, Wine Microbiology, etc.
6. ANIMAL BREEDING
SPECIALITIES: Poultry Breeding, Forests, Fishing and Hunting etc.
7. SYLVICULTURE: Dendrology,
Forest Exploitation, Forest Economy, etc.
8. RURAL ENGINEERING: Rural
Buildings, Agricultural Machines, Topography, etc.
9. AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES:
Bakery, Milling, Dairy Industry, Sugar, Alcohol, Beer, Starch, Edible-Oil,
Glucose, Vinegar, etc.
10. ECONOMY: Rural Economy,
Book-Keeping, Statistics, Agricultural Education, Finance, Trade, etc.
11.
AGRICULTURAL LEGISLATION: Associations, Insurance, etc.
12. AGRICULTURAL INSTITUTIONS:
Farm, Nursery, etc.
13.PHYTOPATHOLOGY ;
14.METEOROLOGY;
15.VETERINARY SURGERY;
16. ECOLOGY.
In the current period in
Romania we must obtain an agricultural terminology heritage, all old-fashioned
terms must be eliminated and new terms must be implanted from all the new
sciences which are used in modern agriculture: management, marketing etc.
Our work will be important for
extending Romanian experience in all the world and making known our resources,
like medicinal and aromatic plants, agro-tourism, fishing, hunting, etc.
Also it will be possible for
others from everywhere to understand our ethnography and folklore, our
literature and popular mythology, our traditional medicine, our centuries-old
culinary experience. Many works in our literature are inspired by the rural
world. Our ballad MIORITA was discovered by VASILE ALECSANDRI during the
nineteenth century, and he published many other Romanian popular works, DOINE,
LACRAMIOARE, in French, German and Italian.
Romanian brotherhood with the
forest and all nature was magisterially illustrated by our greatest poet MIHAIL
EMINESCU. UNESCO celebrates this year the 150th anniversary of his birth.
"DORINTA","CODRULE, CODRUTULE", "SARA PE DEAL",
"LACUL","REVEDERE", are our greatest examples of the
expression of the Romanian identity. All our literature contains agricultural
terms: Caragiale's (Napasta), Ion Creanga's (Amintiri din copilarie), Ion
Slavici's (Mara), George Cosbuc's (Nunta Zamfirei), Octavian Goga's
"Plugarii", Liviu Rebreanu's "Ion", "Rascoala",
Mihail Sadoveanu's "Baltagul", Marin Preda's "Morometii"
etc. If my dream, in Romania's current cultural situation, will became reality,
the entire world will be able to understand the essence of all our greatest
writers, will understand the sentiment of my people.
An example: many of our
churches have external frescoes, a genuine illustrated Bible, unique of their
kind in the world, whose unparalleled artistic value was confirmed by the
specialists of UNESCO. The idea of painting on the outside walls of churches a
Bible in images within the understanding of the masses was in fact a real
educational program of the Middle Ages. The suite of images develops like a
color film including tales and legends, customs or great historical events (the
fall of Constantinople, for example).
Another example is our great
experience in the treatment of many conditions, our natural resources in
mineral water, climatic conditions, etc. is complemented by hundreds of
medicinal plants. An example is the underbrush - 100g of its juice contains
1000% more vitamin C than 100 g of lemon juice. Its oil is a treatment for
radiation burns.