Re: [tied] Re: Daci

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

From: altamix

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Wednesday, March 13, 2002 11:16 PM

Subject: Re: [tied] Re: Daci

> i dont claim to do it.. it just seems to be so.

> We have a lot of names you say. Where ? in romania? so far i know theys are almost all slavic.

 

I don't mean _modern_ place names. There are numerous toponyms recorded by ancient sources -- enough of them, at any rate, to identify the main toponymic elements and to demonstrate that the Getic (Dacian and Moesian) ones (like -dava) and the Thracian ones (like -bria) are quite different. When working with fragmentarily attested languages we scrape together whatever evidence is available and try to make the best of it rather than despair.

 

> We have a lot of dacian tribes-name really? how are they? they are known from greek roman sources.. so we suppouse we know them

 

I said "some", not "a lot of" (Ko(i)stobo:koi, Karpoi/Karpodakai, etc.). I see no reason to distrust the Classical sources in this respect. The names may be imperfectly recorded at times, but are certainly genuine.

 

> I take just the word carpi. So far i remember it comes from old greek and means something like "stone" or mountain. If i replace that word carp with romanian "muntean" i should have an another plan. But we know, muntem was the latin word who gave birth to everything like "mountains" and so on.. This is why i say, something gone wrong.

 

*karp- does not come from Ancient Greek (Gk. Karpate:s oros simply reflects a foreign geographical name meaning "the Rockies") and appears to be an authentic Getic item -- cf. Alb. karpë 'rock', and of course the name of the Carpathians. What's wrong with Romanian having a Romance word for 'mountain'? That's what it should be expected to have, shouldn't it?

 

> We have no soruce which says "dacians" died. But we assume it because "we dont know" something about.

 

The question here was not whether the Dacians were biologically exterminated, but whether their language survived. Well, it didn't, unless of course Albanian is an offshoot (or a close cousin) of the ancient Getic group.

 

> We have sources which say valahians are the dacians, but we deny it. We have no soruce which say "valahians are not the dacians" but we accept it.

 

The Vlachs were identified with "Dacians" because they inhabited the historical province of Dacia. For a similar reason the Slavic-speaking modern Macedonians are called "Macedonians", though apart from this appellation they have nothing to do with the ancient Macedonians. By the way, the Slavic-given name "Vlach/Valah/Oláh" (from South Slavic vlax, East Slavic volox < common Slavic *volxU <- Germanic *walxa- 'Celtic, Romance, Italian') clung to them precisely because they were recognised as Romance-speakers.

 

> A big carusel.. anywys, i just get tired of the dacian problem of rumanins and hungarians and all of them.. Just, there are too many quesions with a wrong answer..

 

I don't think the confusion is real. If we approach the issue in a rational way and don't create an artificial "Dacian problem" through wild speculation and wishful thinking, the basic facts can be sorted out.

 

Piotr