Paris 2000

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.