Proto Romanian Cradle

Dear Piotr,

I want to reopen a subject and I have a question and some notes.

The subject is the “plausible scenario” of proto Romanian emerging in
the mountains South (Southwest) of Danube and then the speakers
migrating to today Romania.

The question is have you real proves for this scenario? Has anyone?

Here are some notes:

1. The simple fact of Romanian being a romance language is not proving
for this scenario.
2. After leaving some place, people have some nostalgia that often
generates some customs that are transmitted from generation to
generation. One example is the girl name Dacia that is used today in
Italy, Spain and Americas. While I do not know the story behind this
name, it makes sense that the habit was started by nostalgic Dacians. It
seems that the Romanian customs do not point to anything like that. By
the way, the name Dacia is fairly popular in USA too. Actually,
according to the census, more popular than Valentine.
3. In this scenario Dacians are basically foreigners to proto Romanians
and their ancestors, so there should be some linguistic traits about
this “foreignership”. Something like the English word “dagger” and the
French “dague” which probably came from the Latin “daca” that meant
“Dacian knife”. Only foreigners (in relation to Dacians) could call it
“_Dacian_ knife”. Are you aware of some “foreignership” traits related
to Dacians in Romanian?
4. A migration, even a slow migration, which according to this scenario
happened not too long ago, something like seven centuries, should be
remembered in folklore. It is not.
5. As this scenario puts it, proto Romanians and their language survived
in the high mountains South and Southwest of Danube protected of Greek
and Roman influence and shielded from barbarians. The same thing could
be accomplished, with no travel at all, in the high Carpatians North of
Danube. No Greek or Roman influence. The migrating barbarians could not
reach them because their big and swift horses, very good in the plains,
were worthless in the mountains.
6. I understand that “no prove” is not equivalent with prove. However,
the lack of proves should raise some big questions. Does it?

Looking forward for your opinions,

Paul Alesu

PS. Here is an excerpt from an old message, which generated this
posting:

Paul Alesu wrote:
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.

Piotr Gasiorowski answered:
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.