The Roman alphabet now used in Romanian employs diacritics over certain vowels. Cyrillic continues to be used for Moldavian, which is treated as a separate language largely for political reasons. However, unlike other Romance languages, Romanian has retained a case system. A third and rarely used case, the vocative, is a Slavic influence and is in the process of disappearing. Romanian has seven vowels and three diphthongs.
Consonant clusters occur at the beginning of syllables, which is unusual among Romance languages.
Stress can occur on any syllable. Varying the stressed syllable can change meaning. Romanian has borrowed vocabulary from the surrounding Slavic languages, most noticeably in the religious sphere. Turkish and Greek words entered the language during the period that the Greeks rules Romania on behalf of the Turks, from 1711-1821. Romania is, however, also home to a sizable Hungarian ethnic minority as well as to Germans, Romany peoples, Turks, Tatars and others Slavic language speakers.