Not at all. The Slavs first heard of the
Roman Empire from Germanic (perhaps Ostrogothic) intermediaries; at that time
the Germanic term <walh-> was commonly applied to the Romans, the
inhabitants of the Empire, as well as any speakers of "lingua romana" (hence
Ger. Welschland 'Italy', Wallgau in Tirol, etc., and hence also /vlox-/
'Italian' in Polish). When the Slavs crossed the Danube and entered the former
Roman provinces, they called the local Romanised population the *volx-
(meaning 'Romans', a term that had been in use before with more general
reference). After the South Slavic metathesis of liquids *volx- became /vlax-/
-- the form that Byzantine writers borrowed as <blakH-> when they renewed
their acquaintance with Romanised Balkan peoples, this time through a Slavic
medium.
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, September 01, 2002 1:31 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] Ovid
that all will assume that when the slavs got in the north
side of danube they found there in V centuries an romanic population. And this
is historicaliy wrong.