Petru Maior

Petru Maior (Romanian pronunciation: [ˈpetru ˈmajor]; 1761 in Marosvásárhely (now Târgu Mureș, Romania) – 14 February 1821 in Budapest) was a Romanian writer who is considered one of the most influential personalities of the Age of Enlightenment in Transylvania (the Transylvanian School). Maior was a member of the Greek-Catholic clergy, a historian, philosopher, and linguist.

The Buda Lexicon, a book published in 1825, included two texts by Petru Maior, Orthographia romana sive latino-valachica una cum clavi and Dialogu pentru inceputul linbei române, in which he introduced the letters ș for /ʃ/ and ț for /ts/, which have since been in use in the Romanian alphabet.^[1]

Notes

^ Marinella Lörinczi Angioni, "Coscienza nazionale romanza e ortografia: il romeno tra alfabeto cirillico e alfabeto latino ", La Ricerca Folklorica, No. 5, La scrittura: funzioni e ideologie. (Apr., 1982), pp. 75–85.

References

Petru Maior University: Our Patron
Dicţionarul Teologilor Români – Petru Maior (in Romanian)

[1] Marinella Lörinczi Angioni, "Coscienza nazionale romanza e ortografia: il romeno tra alfabeto cirillico e alfabeto latino ", La Ricerca Folklorica, No. 5, La scrittura: funzioni e ideologie. (Apr., 1982), pp. 75–85.

[1]