Gumuțeasca or Gomuțeasca (sometimes referred to as ''limba gumuțească'', "Gumutseascan language", or ''limba de sticlă'', "the glass language") is an

argot A cant is the jargon or language of a group, often employed to exclude or mislead people outside the group.McArthur, T. (ed.) ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (1992) Oxford University Press It may also be called a cryptolect, argo ...

(a speech form spoken by a group of people to prevent outsiders from understanding them) used exclusively in the commune of

Mărgău Mărgău (; ) is a commune in Cluj County, Transylvania, Romania. It is composed of six villages: Bociu (''Bocs''), Buteni (''Kalotabökény''), Ciuleni (''Incsel''), Mărgău, Răchițele (''Havasrekettye''), and Scrind-Frăsinet (''Kőrizstető' ...

Cluj County Cluj County () is a county () of Romania, in Transylvania. Its seat is Cluj-Napoca. Name In Hungarian language, Hungarian it is known as ''Kolozs megye''. Under the Kingdom of Hungary, a county with an identical name (Kolozs County, ) existed s ...

Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...

. The people of Mărgău traditionally worked with

glass Glass is an amorphous (non-crystalline solid, non-crystalline) solid. Because it is often transparency and translucency, transparent and chemically inert, glass has found widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in window pane ...

for centuries, making

mirrors A mirror, also known as a looking glass, is an object that reflects an image. Light that bounces off a mirror forms an image of whatever is in front of it, which is then focused through the lens of the eye or a camera. Mirrors reverse the ...

window A window is an opening in a wall, door, roof, or vehicle that allows the exchange of light and may also allow the passage of sound and sometimes air. Modern windows are usually glazed or covered in some other transparent or translucent ma ...

s and

religious icon An icon () is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Catholic, and Lutheran churches. The most common subjects include Jesus, Mary, saints, and angels. Although especially ...

s and selling them to other parts of the country such as

Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ) is the capital and largest city of Romania. The metropolis stands on the River Dâmbovița (river), Dâmbovița in south-eastern Romania. Its population is officially estimated at 1.76 million residents within a greater Buc ...

, the

capital Capital and its variations may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** Capital region, a metropolitan region containing the capital ** List of national capitals * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Econom ...

of Romania, or

Brăila Brăila (, also , ) is a city in Muntenia, eastern Romania, a port on the Danube and the capital of Brăila County. The Sud-Est (development region), ''Sud-Est'' Regional Development Agency is located in Brăila. According to the 2021 Romanian ...

and

Constanța Constanța (, , ) is a city in the Dobruja Historical regions of Romania, historical region of Romania. A port city, it is the capital of Constanța County and the country's Cities in Romania, fourth largest city and principal port on the Black ...

. The people of Mărgău wandered all over the country to practice their profession, and in order to warn each other of possible dangerous people on the way to cities or to be able to put

price A price is the (usually not negative) quantity of payment or compensation expected, required, or given by one party to another in return for goods or services. In some situations, especially when the product is a service rather than a ph ...

s to their glass products without outsiders being able to understand them, they invented Gumuțeasca as a form of speech that only they could understand. Although Gumuțeasca has been spoken for more than 100 years and it has been passed from generation to generation, today only a few people continue to speak it. This is because the practice of the traditional profession of Mărgău has been reduced considerably and because part of the local population has left the place. The emergence of

insulated glazing Insulating glass (IG) consists of two or more glass window panes separated by a space to reduce heat transfer across a part of the building envelope. A window with insulating glass is commonly known as double glazing or a double-paned window, ...

and glass-manufacturing companies also caused the people of Mărgău to lose customers. Some linguists from Cluj County have defined the argot as a "rural professional argot", which would be the only one of this type known in Romania. Gheorghe Braica, former

protopope A protopope, or protopresbyter, is a priest of higher rank in the Eastern Orthodox and the Byzantine Catholic Churches, generally corresponding to Western Christianity's archpriest or the Latin Church's dean. History The rights and duties of th ...

Cluj-Napoca Cluj-Napoca ( ; ), or simply Cluj ( , ), is a city in northwestern Romania. It is the second-most populous city in the country and the seat of Cluj County. Geographically, it is roughly equidistant from Bucharest (), Budapest () and Belgrade ( ...

and a native of Mărgău, explained in his ''Monografia Mărgăului'' ("Monograph of Mărgău") that Gumuțeasca first developed at the base of the

Apuseni Mountains The Apuseni Mountains (, "Western Mountains"; , "Transylvanian Mountains") are a mountain range in Transylvania, Romania, which belongs to the Western Romanian Carpathians. The highest peak is the Bihor Peak at . The Apuseni Mountains have ab ...

and that it spread from there to nearby villages. Gumuțeasca has thousands of words and a rich

vocabulary A vocabulary (also known as a lexicon) is a set of words, typically the set in a language or the set known to an individual. The word ''vocabulary'' originated from the Latin , meaning "a word, name". It forms an essential component of languag ...

that is very different from standard

Romanian Romanian may refer to: *anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania **Romanians, an ethnic group **Romanian language, a Romance language ***Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language **Romanian cuisine, traditional ...

. Some examples of the argot are: *''Tălăuz'' ("Glass", in Romanian). *''Munuc'' ("Hey", "dude" or "lad", in Romanian). *''Munuc, s-asface spurav!'' ("Be careful, he/she is a dangerous person!", in Romanian). *''Munuc, s-asface deapsă!'' ("He/she is a good person!", in Romanian). *''Munuc, atină gădineală!'' ("Ask for food!", in Romanian). *''Tălăuzești?'' ("Do you understand?", in Romanian; or "Do you speak Gumuțeasca?", in Romanian). __NOTOC__

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* {{Romanian language Romanian language varieties and styles Culture of Romania Cant languages Occupational cryptolects Language games Romanian slang Glass industry

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