(glacies) → Rom. gheață, Ital. ghiaccia, ghiaccio, Lat. *ungla (ungula) → Rom. unghie, Ital. unghia), although this did not go as far as it did in Italian with other similar clusters (Rom. place, Ital. piace); another similarity with Italian is the change from or to or (Lat. pax, pacem → Rom. and Ital. pace, Lat. dulcem → Rom. dulce, Ital. dolce, Lat. circus → Rom. cerc, Ital. circo) and or to or (Lat. gelu → Rom. ger, Ital. gelo, Lat. marginem → Rom. and Ital. margine, Lat. gemere → Rom. geme (gemere), Ital. gemere). There are also a few changes shared with Dalmatian, such as (probably phonetically ) → (Lat. cognatus → Rom. cumnat, Dalm. comnut) and → in some situations (Lat. coxa → Rom. coapsă, Dalm. copsa). Among the notable phonetic changes are: diphthongization of e and o → ea and oa, before ă (or e as well, in the case of o) in the next syllable: Lat. cera → Rom. ceară (wax) Lat. sole → Rom. soare (sun) iotation → in the beginning of the word Lat. herba → Rom. iarbă (grass, herb) velar → labial before alveolar consonants and (e.g. ngu → mb): Lat. octo → Rom. opt (eight) Lat. lingua → Rom. limbă (tongue, language) Lat. signum → Rom. semn (sign) Lat. coxa → Rom. coapsă (thigh) rhotacism → between vowels Lat. caelum → Rom. cer (sky) Alveolars assibilated to when before short or long Lat. deus → Rom. zeu (god) Lat. tenem → Rom. ține (hold) Romanian has entirely lost Latin (qu), turning it either into (Lat. quattuor → Rom. patru, "four"; cf. It. quattro) or (Lat. quando → Rom. când, "when"; Lat. quale → Rom. care, "which"). In fact, in modern re-borrowings, while isolated cases of /kw/ exist, as in cuaternar "quaternary", it usually takes the German-like form /kv/, as in acvatic, "aquatic". Notably, it also failed to develop the palatalised sounds and , which exist at least historically in all other major Romance languages, and even in neighbouring non-Romance languages such as Serbian and Hungarian. However, the other Eastern Romance languages kept these sounds, so it's likely old Romanian had them as well. Writing system The first written record about a Romance language spoken in the Middle Ages in the Balkans is from 587. A Vlach muleteer accompanying the Byzantine army noticed that the load was falling from one of the animals and