--- In cybalist@..., "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...> wrote:
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Paul Alesu
> To: cybalist@...
> Sent: Tuesday, March 12, 2002 2:21 PM
> Subject: Re: [tied] Re: Daci
>
>
>
> > 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
How about this: Under the pressure of Slavic expansion, whatever
indigenous groups were there, whether or not they still spoke "their
own" language, were faced with a dilemma: Becoming Slavic-speaking or
not. And the latter, because of the numbers involved, entailed making
a common front, using a creole of the language of the previous
threat, the Romans.
And then of course I noted that the Daci suddenly disappeared without
a trace. Aha! And many medieval chroniclers identify the Danes with
Daci. Oho! But since this is a forum about linguistics I should offer
evidence of that category:
The prototype of all Sprachbund's, the Balkan one is placed "on top
of" Geto-Dacian and Thracian. How do we know that all the common
features of Romanian, Bulgarian, Macedonian and Albanian are not due
to a Geto-Dacian or Thracian substrate? E.g. the suffixed definite
article. Which latter features is shared with the North Germanic
languages (outside of West Jutland).
I have heard, anecdote-wise, that a similar construction to the
Bulgarian suffixed definite article -&t, -ta, -to is used in
colloquial Russian and Polish. Is this true? If so, is it limited to
any particular geographical area?
Torsten