Pity the humble hot dog.

[Harold F. Schiffman]

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP)  Pity the humble hot dog. Under an unusual new
law, Romania's fast-food vendors won't be able to hawk the English-only
version any more.  Instead, they'll also have to offer what would
translate into Romanian as ``a kind of sausage in a kind of roll.''
Computer companies advertising a ``laptop'' would also peddle ``an
apparatus for putting at the top of the lap.'' Politicians could keep
gathering for a ``summit'' as long as they also called it ``a high-level
meeting.''

It's windy and awkward, but Sen. George Pruteanu says it's the only way to
preserve Romanian from the growing influence of English and other foreign
languages. Pruteanu's legislation, which passed parliament last week, has
some Romanians up in arms and others bent over with laughter. But to
Pruteanu, a self-declared protector of the native tongue, it's no joke. It
still awaits legal fine-tuning and presidential approval, but as it stands
now, it dictates that any foreign texts or words spoken at public events
---political campaigns, pop festivals, TV broadcasts and the like---must
be accompanied by a Romanian translation. Trademarks are exempt.

 The debate touches sensitive nationalist chords. Supporters say it
bolsters the country's self-esteem, while opponents say it's a retreat
into narrow-mindedness at a time when Romania is striving to mesh into the
outside world, and particularly the prosperous, multilingual European
Union.  Pruteanu, a trained linguist who speaks correct if somewhat
affected Romanian, says 80 percent of the country's 22 million people are
confused by the English expressions that cross their lives.  Legal action,
he insists, is needed to ensure the survival of the native tongue.

 ``The law aims to give the crowds of people who don't speak foreign
languages the sensation that the street also belongs to them ... and not
just to the snobs and pretentious people and nouveaux riches with swanky
villas,'' he told senators Monday after the law was mocked and criticized.
Pruteanu's law appeals to those older than 45, who grew up under Nicolae
Ceausescu's communist dictatorship and tend to be more used to
state-imposed rules on life and conduct. They are less familiar with the
English expressions flooding into the country since Ceausescu was
overthrown in 1989.

 ``Romanians are patriotic people, and real patriots agree with this
law,'' said driver Dumitru Popa, 48, gazing at an advertisement for trucks
that said: ``Keeping the world moving''--in English only. But Andrei
Plesu, a former foreign minister, believes the law reeks of false
patriotism and will restrict the language's natural development. ``I am
much more concerned about grammatical errors, which cannot be punished and
are multiplying each day, than about a few English expressions which are
in vogue,'' he said.

Cartoonists have been mocking the law with sketches of fictional ``tongue
police'' who haul off teenagers who utter the English word ``cool.'' The
law would carry a fine of up to 50 million lei, the equivalent of $1,500.
The opposition Liberal Party has called on President Ion Iliescu not to
sign it. Iliescu hasn't said what he'll do.

``This law is a blow to the freedoms we won after the 1989 revolution,''
said Eugen Nicolaescu, Liberal Party spokesman. ``It is absurd to
translate stupid things into Romanian which have already been assimilated
into the language and are already in the official dictionary.'' Pruteanu
disagrees, even if many Romanians would end up biting off more than they
could chew with his nine-word makeover for ``hot dog''--or choke on
``a sandwich from Hamburg'' (a hamburger). Romanians are used to seeing
their Latin-based language yield to the political influences of the day
---Slavic and Turkish elements, a touch of Greek, some French---
considered the height of chic in the 19th century---and in more
recent times Russian and now English. Radu Trif, an author of Romania's
official DEX dictionary, calls Pruteanu's law ``absurd.''

``Nobody can police the language, and there aren't Romanian equivalents
for lots of English words, old and new,'' he said. Daniela Gyoerfi, a pop
singer who posed for Playboy magazine, complains that there's simply no
Romanian equivalent for words such as ``playback,'' ``backup vocals'' and
``show business.'' Gripes journalist Cornel Nistorescu: ``Trying to police
the Romanian language is like trying to control the flight of birds.'' <p>