Re: [tied] Dacian - /H/ -> seems not possible

incybalist@yahoogroups.com, "alex" wrote:

>>> Miguel Carrasquer wrote:
>>
>>>> "I mean, learning Dacian, where where /h/ is present, it wont
>>>> stop me to say "aprus" in Latin instead of "haprus" as in Dacian.

"

> [...]
>>> Your stenence is correct for a Latin who learn Dacian, false for a
>>> Dacian who learn Latin.
>>
>> Miguel's sentence _is_ for a latinophone learning Dacian (words).
>
> This what I said too. I agree with him trough his prisma, I

corrected

> the things trough the prisma of the native which learn Latin.

There is nothing to be _corrected_ as you imply with "false". If you
have a proposition 1. {A -> B} its only applicability is the case "A".
You state some 2. {C -/-> D}, it's appliable to the case "C" (for
which the statement 1 is perfectly irrelevant). So you cannot correct
Miguel but you might want to bring out a _complementary_ judgement.

> Now, your Latinophone who was that one which wanted to learn Dacian

Noone. Read my message and don't divagate: "Let's assume a first
generation Dacian guy learning Latin...".

> The main difference here is that you people assume that a certain
> population (which one?) became romanised (aka learned Latin) and
> this population learned (from whom?) some Dacian words.

You have a wrong image of what other people think. Romanians are of
course the result of a population mix-up: local people (a probable
relative majority among other ethnic groups) having learned VLatin
and people "ex toto orbe romano" having already either using Latin
as mother tongue or as "lingua franca". The dominant language used
was (as elsewhere in Western Romanity) Latin which became over the
time the mother tongue for more and more people among that multi-
ethnic group, and finally ruled out remnants of local language(s).

> I agree with you that the "h" is hardly represented in Romanian
> comparative with Germanic, but is heavy represented in Rom. Lang.
> comparative with Romance

No surprise since (as pointed out a certain number of times) it was
instated in Romanian by Slavic influence (I prefer "instated" instead
of "reinstated" since there is no clear proof that Slavic aspiration
we use nowdays was the same in Old Latin).

> and the presence of this "h" is not only in Slavic words.

Sure it isn't. All words having made it into the language _after_
/h/ became a legitimate Romanian phoneme (after Slavic influence)
can preserve it eventually; also words created in Romanian after
that date.

> The amount of interjections which are not of Slavic origin

... is of no use since aspiration & vocalic yelling are always
naturally encountered in interjections and since /h/ was instated
as phoneme more than 11 centuries ago, there was plenty of time
to identify that aspiration with it at the level of Romanian.

> I don't need here the comparation whith Albanian

Could you please explain if you consider a PIE cry of heavy pain
as a legitimate "word" and all kinds of modern pain yells have to
derive from it?!

> (it seems to me you are an adpet of Rosetti which does nto admit
> any substratual word if this has not counterpart in Albanian).

I am an adept of scientifical method and rational argumentation:
if there is no support for a hypothesis, it should not be made.

> Now, let us see the reality today. From all Romance, Romanian has
> the less amount of Latin words,

False. I hope you saved the numbers I gave once on other lists.

> and the Romanists loves the idea that they are so few because they
> have been re-placed by loans from other languages, mostly Slavic.

Interesting theory. Some sources?! Who are those "Romanists"?

> which is confirmed by the lot of substratual words, more, much
> more as Gaulish in French.

This is wishful thinking. You have no basis for claiming that. You
just reiterate your fixation.

>>> I see it by myelf. The German use "merzedes" and I make usualy
>>> the same mistake speaking out "merc^edes" as in Romanian.
>>
>> Are your children making the same mistake?!
>
> No.

OK, you made my point: on a personal level, some "strange" voicing
can subsist up to the end of the life, but it is not realistical to
be preserved over a number of successive generations.

> There are two different situations.

The situations are different but the principle is the same.

>> No substratal words have inherited /h/. [...] Thus there is
>> no serious support for Romanian having substratal words with /h/,
>> and judging by number of occurences of this phoneme in preserved
>> Dacian transcriptions, it was rather too rarely used to have a
>> real impact on PBR.
>
> If you understand trough substratual words just these which have
> a counterpart in Albanian,

By "substratal words" I mean words having allegedly a fair chance
(supported by real arguments) to be from substratum.

> then from which language should this come and how get the Romanians
> the same word into their Language in the recent times.

I don't know. That's why it has only "cf. Alb." as etymology.

> (in fact in Rom. there are a lot of derivatives from the root *ha
> (to eat);

There is no "root *ha" `to eat` in Romanian. There is instead the
sound of closing the mouth, expressively noted as "hap" which stands
perfectly well as originator for "hap-" words. "hãmesi" and its p.p.
do not belong here.

> Now, this "h", we spoke about being from substrate or not,

No. You are the only one claiming loud it is substratual because
you want to. Repeating your claim regardless of arguments against
it will not confer it further support.

Marius Iacomi