Matilda Caragiu Marioțeanu

Matilda Caragiu Marioțeanu (20 July 1927 – 11 March 2009; ) was a Romanian linguist. She studied in the University of Bucharest, where she became a professor, having also taught at the University of Salzburg and the Goethe University Frankfurt as an invited professor. Caragiu Marioțeanu was the sister of actor Toma Caragiu and sculptor .

Caragiu Marioțeanu published a multitude of works about the Romanian and Aromanian languages as well as about the Aromanians in general, having been one herself. Her Dodecalogue of the Aromanians played an important role for the plot of I'm Not Famous but I'm Aromanian (2013), the first film in Aromanian. She also collaborated in the publication of several manuals for learning Romanian, translated Aromanian fairy tales and stories into Romanian and wrote two volumes of Aromanian verses. For her research, Caragiu Marioțeanu became a titular member of the Romanian Academy and received the National Order of Merit in 2000.

Biography Early life and education Matilda Caragiu Marioțeanu was born on 20 July 1927 in Argos Orestiko , in Greece. Of Aromanian parents, she had two siblings, actor Toma Caragiu and sculptor . In 1928, she and her family moved together with some forty other Aromanian families to (now Zafirovo, Bulgaria), in Romania's Southern Dobruja, where Caragiu Marioțeanu went to primary school. She and her family were exiled from Southern Dobruja following the region's return to Bulgaria in 1940, after which they moved to Oltenița, Bacău, Ploiești and, in 1947, Bucharest. Caragiu Marioțeanu went to high school in Silistra, Bacău and Ploiești.

Caragiu Marioțeanu collaborated in the publication of several manuals for learning Romanian. These are Cours de langue roumaine. Introduction a l'étude du roumain a l'usage des étudiants étrangers (1967, 1972, 1978; in French), A Course in Contemporary Romanian. An Introduction to the Study of Romanian (1969, 1980; in English) and Rumänisch für Sie. Ein moderner Sprachkurs für Erwachsene (first volume published in 1976 and the second in 1979, with both re-published in 1993 and 1996; in German). She also translated Aromanian fairy tales and stories into Romanian and wrote two volumes of Aromanian verses.

Caragiu Marioțeanu became a corresponding member of the Romanian Academy on 12 November 1993, being elected as a titular member in 2004. On 1 December 2000, she was awarded the National Order of Merit in the rank of "Commander" by the President of Romania Emil Constantinescu "for special merits in the development of science and culture". Caragiu Marioțeanu died on 11 March 2009 in her house in Bucharest.