--- alexandru_mg3 <
alexandru_mg3@...> wrote:
>
>
> Hello George,
> I will argue below based only on Thermidava
> toponim:
>
> When Thermidava could appears near Skodra ?
>
>
> If a city like "Thermidava" appears attested around
> 130AD we can easy
> approximate as 'very probable' that the city
> existed also 200 years
> before.
*****GK: Why? Could it not perhaps have been a late
foundation by immigrants (or expellees)after the
Dacian wars?.*****
>
> Second argument that moves this date much earlier:
> is that the Romans
> occupied Scodra at 165 BC.
>
>
> I don't know any New 'dava' that appeared in
> Balkans or in
> Dacia...after Romans occupied a region there.
>
> This seems a logic argument : Romans kept the old
> toponimy (this is
> true) but to built a New city near Skodra naming it
> with '-dava'
> seems unprobable.
*****GK: I don't see why.****
>
> So Thermidava should appears Earlier than Romans
> occupation of
> Skodra -> so earlier than 165 BC.
*****GK: But let's assume that you are right, and that
Thermidava is indeed earlier than 165 BC. What does
that prove with regard to your linguistic contention?
Why would a single Dacian name in a sea of Illyrian
ones influence the language of the locals so
dramatically? Again one must point out that the
overwhelming majority of the population here in
Ptolemaic and earlier Roman times was not Dacian. And
it seems rather far fetched to suppose that
subsequently these Illyrians either all out- migrated
or adopted the language of the Thermidavans as their
own. It seems more reasonable to assume a later mass
in-migration of Dacians (proto-Albanians) from further
east. And that the inhabitants of Thermidava much more
likely switched to Illyrian soon after the putative
3rd c. foundation, just as e.g. those of Scythopolis
in Syria-Palestine switched to Greek from Scythian
fairly soon...*****
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