--- In cybalist@..., Piotr Gasiorowski <piotr.gasiorowski@...>
wrote:
> Actually, the fact that a good percentage of the substrate
vocabulary has Albanian counterparts suggests that it was a Satem
language closely related to Albanian (and, conversely, the Latin
substrate in Albanian shows a close affinity with Romanian); there is
also some evidence -- very limited but not altogether imaginary --
that Albanian shares a number of features with the ancient
Dacian/Getic languages. I am therefore ready to admit that the
substratal admixture to Romanian had something to do with Dacian, and
I have said so many times on this list. (Alex accuses Romanian
linguists of Dacophobia, which is both unfair and absurd; but if that
is to mean they don't suffer from Dacomania, I can only say I'm glad.)
>
> The question is what precisely is Dacian about Romanian, and when
and where the admixture was absorbed by Balkan Latin. Was the source
the native language of Moesia Superior? -- or the language of
evacuees from Dacia on the right bank of the Danube? -- or both?
Various scenarios can be envisaged. The least likely one, for
historical reasons, is the continuous survival of Dacian in its
original homeland. And of course the obsessive concentration on a
single substratal element in a language that has several such
components, and even demanding that the langusge should be
genetically re-classified for the sake of that particular substrate
is something no linguist can approve of.
>
> Piotr
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: richardwordingham
> To: cybalist@...
> Sent: Wednesday, September 04, 2002 10:10 PM
> Subject: Re: [tied] Keeping up, barely :-)
>
>
> There may be a big problem identifying the immediately pre-Latin
ancestors of the linguistic ancestors of the Romanians by linguistic
means.
Why would Romanian preserve much of the language spoken by the
language community prior to the adoption of Latin, whereas English
and French show very little of their Celtic substrates?
By 'substrate' I mean substrate in the sociolinguistic sense. A
close association with Albanian may explain common elements, but
isn't that a different issue?
Richard.