Dear Reader,
As you may know by now, I live in Romania and today we celebrate the Romanian Language Day. Romanian is a Romance language, being part of the same linguistic family as the French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish languages. It is a rich language, which has approximately 170,000 words, a number similar to the English language. In fact, almost 40% of Romanians speak at least basic English.
Romanians are friendly, open, talkative, always ready to help a person in need. We are hardworking and very proud of our history and our ancestry, dating back over 2,000 years ago when armies of the Roman Empire settled on the territory that is now roughly ours, which was inhabited by Dacians. The Romans and Dacians slowly interspersed, and that is how the Romanian people was born. Romania today is a Southeastern European country of 19-million people, adorned with the Carpathian Mountains, the Danube river, the Black Sea, dense forests, and medieval castles.
Dacian draco from Trajan’s Column
FUN FACT:
Because of the similar names, Romanians are often mistakenly confused with Roma people. Roma people (also known as Romani, or gypsies – although this is considered a slur) are a nation of nomads of Indian descent. The Roma language is an Indo-Aryan language, with roots in Sanskrit. Roma people live all over the world and are not affiliated to any specific territory.
I have explained more about the fundamental differences between Romanians and Roma people in my free novella, Lost Girl, where three children fall victim of human trafficking and are forced to beg on the streets of Dublin.
True Crime Trivia
Wendy Patrickus was the defense attorney for the notorious serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. Wendy was only 25 at the time, one year out of law school, and defending Dahmer was her first job. Her boss was initially working as Dahmer’s attorney and he sent Wendy to speak with the killer to gather information about the murders he conducted over a 13-year period. Although she confessed to being “incredibly nervous” and feeling “like Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs,” Wendy was brave and professional enough to build a rapport with the man that murdered and dismembered 17 men from 1978 to 1991.
In preparation for Dahmer’s defense, Wendy Patrickus recorded over thirty-two hours of conversations with the killer. Over the course of a few months, she gathered information about Dahmer’s chilling crimes and his thought process behind them, managing to extract information about his victims that might not have been heard if Wendy Patrickus hadn’t gained the killer’s trust.
Until next time, have a great week!
xoxo
Melinda
Melinda Colt 