ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Origin of the Romanians

Well, imagine you are playing a game of telephone with your friends. Each friend whispers something in the ear of the person next to them, and the message gets passed along until it reaches the last person. Sometimes, the message changes a little bit as it's passed from one person to the next.

Now, a long time ago, a group of people called the Dacians lived in what is now Romania. They had their own language and culture. But then, over time, different groups of people started to come into the area. There were the Romans, who took over the area and made it part of their empire. Then there were the Huns, who were a nomadic group from Asia. And then there were the Slavs, who came from Eastern Europe.

As all of these different groups moved in and out of the area, the Dacian culture and language started to change. People started to speak a new language that was a mix of different languages, including Latin from the Romans and Slavic from the Slavs. And over time, this mix of cultures and languages became what we now know as Romanian.

So, to sum it up: the Romanians are a group of people who are descended from the Dacians, but who have also been influenced by other cultures and languages over time.