Re: [tied] Re: Daci

----- Original Message -----

From: Paul Alesu

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Tuesday, March 12, 2002 2:21 PM

Subject: Re: [tied] Re: Daci

> Mr. Moeller does not say that Dacia’s name came from the modern Romanian “d’acia”.

 

Well, he did offer the following as a piece of speculation:

 

[quote] And "from here" " from this place" is literally "de aici" the same. but in the popular way of speaking is "d'acia" So, this is the way to write it. In the pronounciation none can observe the apostroph "'" so, the one who hear about he will hear "daci" or "dacia" [end of quote]

 

How shall I interpret it if not as a suggestion that <d'acia> = Dacia? If it is just a rhetorical figure of speech, it is irrelevant all the same.

> What he says is that Dacians spoke themselves a proto Romanian before being influenced by Romans. It sounds like wishful thinking, however is not easy to disprove.

 

The model of straight-line evolution from Daco-Latin (that is, the form of lingua Romana used as the language of wider communication in Roman Dacia) to Romanian is a valid linguistic hypothesis that deserves to be discussed. My personal bet is that the idea is probably wrong, but it's hard to be absolutely sure. The paucity of Daco-Latin materials of any kind leaves much room for doubt, so I'm always willing to consider the evidence for the opposite view (the survival of provincial Latin and the local origin of Proto-Romanian). However, if by Proto-Romanian you understand the common linguistic ancestor of the modern Romanian dialects, it was without a shadow of a doubt a form of Latin, _not_ Dacian (not even a Daco-Latin creole). If it is to be identified with _the_ form of Latin used in Dacia Traiana, it is odd that it should have preserved so few (if any) loans from the Dacian substrate. For this to be possible, we would have to assume a very rapid language shift (rather than Latin-Dacian bilingualism), combined with massive colonisation, resettlement, etc. -- in brief, a policy of linguistic imperialism and enforced acculturation rather than idyllic symbiosis.

 

> The model by which Romanian speaking population influxed from other Roman provinces, in my opinion, is as bad as the model by which Romans and other conquerors destroyed the entire Dacian population.

 

Why is it so bad, if there is a plausible scenario of what may have happened? Latin (or rather Proto-East Romance), which was already widely used as lingua franca in the Balkan provinces, shifted down the social ladder, as it did in other parts of the Empire. It was adopted by shepherds and farmers (some of whom may have been descendants of Dacian refugees), replacing the traditional vernaculars and surviving in a rural environment. The most favourable place for Proto-Romanian to emerge would have been the mountainous regions of Moesia Superior and inland Dalmatia, a convenient distance away from big towns and effective Byzantine control. The migrations of the Slavs disturbed the ethnic balance of that area and made the "Vlachs" explore the devastated lands of former Roman Dacia, gradually reintroducing their Romance dialects there. As I have said, residual Latinity may have survived the successive invasions and continually erupting warfare, but it was probably absorbed into early Romanian without influencing it significantly.

 

The Albanians are another example of a relatively isolated linguistic group that managed to escape both Hellenisation and Slavicisation. Fortunately for us linguists, they did not even become Romanised, though the quantity of Latin loans in Albanian is indicative of very close contacts with early Romance speakers.

 

> Anyway, in the wake of Gimbutas’ “old Europe” model, this kind of wishful thinking will be a lot more popular.

 

The less wishful thinking, the better (which also holds for Gimbutas' "Old European" matriarchal utopia).

> One more observation: You wrote, “Romanian contains virtually no loans that would demonstrate prolonged contact with Germanic or Sarmatian languages”. It happens. The history has its own funny ways. In Transilvania, Hungarian and Romanian populations have lived and interbreeded for seven centuries (after some sources) or eleven centuries (after other sources). The languages did not mix at all. There are indeed some loan words, but, in my opinion, most of them are misinterpreted. One example: the word “palan” used in Transilvania for “fence” is definitely IE not finoungric.

 

A stable multilingual configuration continuing for centuries is quite possible. If there is no language shift, with one language expanding at the expense of the other(s), languages don't "mix" (e.g. by undergoing creolisation) but simply diffuse their typological features and vocabulary, giving rise to a linguistic area. If there is peaceful coexistence, intermarriage and widespread bilinguality, vocabulary is inevitably borrowed both ways, though typically in greater numbers from the dominant language (if any) to those of lesser local prestige. There are quite a number of loans in both directions between Hungarian and Romanian, even if individual cases are disputable. There are even some Romanian loans in Polish, borrowed from the Vlach shepherds who penetrated the Polish Carpathians.

 

By the way, I greatly appreciate the balanced and constructive tenor of your posting. I realise how sensitive (not to say explosive) the topic is to Romanians and Hungarians, so thank you for dragging no propaganda into the discussion :)

 

Piotr