Here is a photo of mystery city somewhere in Europe. Can you work out which one it is and which languages are spoken there?
8 thoughts on “Where in the world?”
Looks to me like a shot from the Dâmboviţa river in Bucharest, Romania, with the communist-era Casa Poporului in the background.
Romanian is the main language…other than that, there aren’t really widely spoken languages. English, I guess? Maybe Romany or Hungarian?
if it is Romania then I believe there must be a plenty of slavic languages spoken there … one at least!
Nope…Romania is basically monolingual today, and they speak a Romance language, not a Slavic language. Although the Romanian language has Slavic influences, few people in Romania care to learn Russian or any other Slavic languages — they’re very proud of their Latin language and heritage. Most foreign investment in Romania comes from the EU, not Russia, and most Romanians living abroad live in the US, Canada, Italy, France, or Spain. The situation is different for Romanian-speakers in Moldova, but the picture is of Bucharest, not Chişinău.
@ Stephen
Romania monolingual? What about the Hungarian and German minorities?
I, too think it is Bucharest.
Unfortunately, there aren’t as many minorities in Romania as there used to be. There used to be tons of Jews, Germans, and Hungarians, but the Jews were killed during the Holocaust or sold to Israel by Ceauşescu, and the Germans were sold to West Germany. There are still areas with Hungarian majorities in Transylvania, but they are very few compared with what they used to be. German castles and fortress-cities might be what the tourists in Romania see, but the only Germans in those cities are businessmen and tourists. Ceauşescu made sure, when he destroyed the country and built that monstrosity you see in the picture, that Romanians would increasingly dominate over ethnic minorities in the country.
The Roma (aka gypsies) are the most prominent minority, and they live all over. But, few Roma still speak Romany — today most speak only Romanian.
…in any case, Hungarian and German were/are languages spoken in Transylvania — which Bucharest (the city in the picture, I think) is nowhere near. English would be the second-most spoken language in Bucharest, I’m sure, simply because of all the people who know it as a foreign language.
It is indeed Bucharest, the capital or Romania, where the main language spoken is Romanian.
They simply deny the existence of the massive population that speak Hungarian.
Looks to me like a shot from the Dâmboviţa river in Bucharest, Romania, with the communist-era Casa Poporului in the background.
Romanian is the main language…other than that, there aren’t really widely spoken languages. English, I guess? Maybe Romany or Hungarian?
if it is Romania then I believe there must be a plenty of slavic languages spoken there … one at least!
Nope…Romania is basically monolingual today, and they speak a Romance language, not a Slavic language. Although the Romanian language has Slavic influences, few people in Romania care to learn Russian or any other Slavic languages — they’re very proud of their Latin language and heritage. Most foreign investment in Romania comes from the EU, not Russia, and most Romanians living abroad live in the US, Canada, Italy, France, or Spain. The situation is different for Romanian-speakers in Moldova, but the picture is of Bucharest, not Chişinău.
@ Stephen
Romania monolingual? What about the Hungarian and German minorities?
I, too think it is Bucharest.
Unfortunately, there aren’t as many minorities in Romania as there used to be. There used to be tons of Jews, Germans, and Hungarians, but the Jews were killed during the Holocaust or sold to Israel by Ceauşescu, and the Germans were sold to West Germany. There are still areas with Hungarian majorities in Transylvania, but they are very few compared with what they used to be. German castles and fortress-cities might be what the tourists in Romania see, but the only Germans in those cities are businessmen and tourists. Ceauşescu made sure, when he destroyed the country and built that monstrosity you see in the picture, that Romanians would increasingly dominate over ethnic minorities in the country.
The Roma (aka gypsies) are the most prominent minority, and they live all over. But, few Roma still speak Romany — today most speak only Romanian.
…in any case, Hungarian and German were/are languages spoken in Transylvania — which Bucharest (the city in the picture, I think) is nowhere near. English would be the second-most spoken language in Bucharest, I’m sure, simply because of all the people who know it as a foreign language.
It is indeed Bucharest, the capital or Romania, where the main language spoken is Romanian.
They simply deny the existence of the massive population that speak Hungarian.