Re: Romanian Linguist that sustain the /h/-substratual theory

From: m_iacomi
Message: 30283
Date: 2004-01-29

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "alexandru_mg3" wrote:

> I indicate here one of the Romanian Linguist that sustain the
> romanian /h/-substratual theory: it's name is Brîncus, Grigore
> ( member of Romanian Academy ).

Oh... you mean you've read his PhD thesis published later as a
revised book?! Where did you get this information from? Did you
actually read his words saying "Romanian consonant <h> comes
from substratum"?!

> At least it appears in a BIBLIOGRAPHY written by Eric Hamp (of
> course, with another topic).

What is bibliography supposed to bring as useful information? That
G.B. is a (real) Romanian linguist?! I read his works years ago. I
know that he labels "hameS" as "surely substratal", but that's his
only /x/ word proposal. He doesn't support his claim with any other
word containing it. Rosetti also mentions it as "common word" but
he doesn't say in clear that is substratal and, of course, shows
up why the Romanian phoneme /x/ comes from Slavic, with the whole
bunch of Slavic loanwords containing it (har, hohoti, hranã, pohti,
etc.). Apparently, G.B. didn't took phonetics too seriously in
consideration, that's why he -- even if he's a real linguist --
was wrong on this one.
As said, there is only G. Reichenkron to propose a whole bunch of
"substratum" words in Romanian with initial "h", but his works are
_very_ contested for tons of wrong method reasons.

> I could also indicate you some others, but I will stop here.

Please do it. Don't forget to quote them exactly.

> As I said yesterday , I'm very sorry for your reaction.

Rather feel ashamed for what you didn't do at the right time.

> P.S. So another "dead horse" that cannot understand" what you
> do, isn't it?

A "dead horse" is not a person but an obsolete theory. Assuming
you are wrongly identifying G.B. with a dead horse, I am not very
convinced that he plainly considered the facts at the right moment
for all his words. Anyway, he didn't discuss with me when writing
his PhD, so "understanding what I do" had no relevance for him.

Cheers,
Marius Iacomi