chaos

From: alexmoeller@...
Message: 17278
Date: 2002-12-23

Again a question of "why from that language" and not from "the another
language"

There is a group of words in Romanian constructed on a loan-word, on a
word which means "chaos", "disorder"
I speak about:
-chaos = vãlmãshag (some dictionaries give "disorder" having a better
meaning as chaos)
-chaotic = "de-a valma" ( I guess , more succulent in English is the
expression " pell-mell")
-chaotically = "invãlmãsit" ( here some dictionaries gives the word
"confused" as a better example)

DEX gives us just the definition of "valma" as follows:
from Russian or Ukrainian "valom" [valit] = to rush into, unaware, to
burst in upon somebody

We observe first that in the Russian or Ukrainian word there is "va" +
the cluster "-lom" or "-lit" , which is not present in Romanian,
Romanian having "-lma" in these words.

Of course, one will think, Russian or Ukrainian are the only languages
where there is a such word, so the phonetically aspect doesn't mean too
much. In this case, important is the semantism of the word.
Well, this "semantism" is forgotten in the most of the cases when we are
speaking from "inherited" Latin elements in Romanian, but this is not a
such case since there is no latin word, so, the semantic aspect is
important now.

Taking a look in my gothic dictionary, I find as follows:

dwalmôn, wv. II, to be foolish, OE. dwolma, OHG. twalm, chaos,
bewilderment, stupefaction.

I see that beside the meaning which is appropriate as in Romanian in the
way the Romanians preserved it, there is too this interesting cluster
"-lma" .
For me, as an beginner, it seems that the Romanian word is the
derivation from the Gothic word and not from the Russian or Ukrainian
one. But of course, I can be wrong, so I ask you here, what does speak
against my idea?
Why should be it a loan from Russian / Ukrainian and not from Gothic?

Regards

Alex