"The Roman rustic language, or the dialects of the Italian peoples, were introduced into Dacia, and are preserved to this day as they were in the early times. But the Romans, finding local objects in Dacia, unknown in Italy, such as products, clothes, tools, and adopting them for their own use, also adopted the name that the Dacians had given them. Therefore, in today's Romanian language words are found which are neither Latin, nor modern Greek, nor Slavic, nor of any other neighboring people; If these words indicate local objects of Dacia, they give us every right to affirm that there are residues of the indigenous language, which the wise men of Europe do not yet want to affirm. Many want to demonstrate that the Dacians were of Slavic stock, and that today's Romanians are peoples produced by the mixture of the Romans with the Dacians; and that consequently we are Romano-Slavs. But the Romanians are Romans just as the Italians are, even though they had mixed with other neighboring peoples, just as the Greeks are Hellenes, as the Hungarians are Magyars, even though they had united with the Germans, with the Slavs and with the Romanians. When we talk about lineage, peoples and nation, we mean the dominant element in the language, in the character, in the right to govern and make laws. Because otherwise nature knows only men. (pp. 17-18)"