Re: Proto Romanian Cradle

"Rex H. McTyeire" <rexbo@...> writes:
<<That unlikely set of results leads to an illogical conclusion which in turn
supports only one interest: (There is no regional continuity predating the
Magyar intrusion into Pannonnia, or the 10th century [take your choice];
which then supports still pressed Hungarian claims to Transylvania if not the
Eastern Danube.) which then supports still pressed Hungarian claims to
Transylvania if not the Eastern Danube.>>

That these kinds of things should be based on something that may or may hot
have happened 1000 years ago is unfortunate, to say the least. I'm sure
there are better ways to work these kinds of thing out.

But putting that aside for the moment, I'd offer a small observation as an
outsider.

I suspect basic interest in the "continuity" of Romanian issue for most of us
starts because a Romance language is being spoken in a place where it is kind
of unexpected.

So, fundamentally, this whole issue - especially for those of us who are not
big fans of ethnicity as a historical subject - seems to be basically one of
language. Here's a descendant of Latin pretty far from any other Romance
language. How did it get there?

And language is the basic reason that the "Dacian" explanation for Romanian
doesn't feel right. Dacian wasn't a Romance language, was it?

The vestigal Roman Empire province explanation doesn't feel exactly right
either, because the Roman Empire was all over the Balkans and Greece and no
Romance languages are spoken there today, aside from some Romanian dialects,
I suppose. And the Romans did not occupy what we now call Romania for very
long, compared to a lot of other places. (Even if Roman influence was there
before it was a province, that could also be said of a lot of places that did
not end up speaking Romance.)

Considering all the places the Roman Empire was, only a relatively small part
of that area now speaks Romance. One explanation offered by some historians
for why French and Spanish speakers speak Romance is that there was a lot of
immigration out of Italy to those areas. Whether that's true or not, it is
certainly not blindingly obvious why even those languages evolved.

Now what's key for me in suspecting some kind of a later migration from the
south is that a significant group of Latin speakers north of the Danube
should have attracted some attention in the days when Byzantium was having
regular difficulties up there and a lot of observations were being made about
who was up there. I don't know that there were no arguable references made
to Romance speakers north of the Danube in the period from say 400-800 BC. I
don't know if, e.g., any Arab travellers noted such things either. But I
haven't seen such references. If there are such references, they might make
the whole idea of an earlier Romance presence in post-Roman Dacia seem more
inviting.

I also would have expected Latin speakers up there to maintain some kind of
correspondence or trade with Byzantium. (I'm not clear about the
re-emergence of Greek in the south and how it affected folks who were Latin
speakers and what they did about it, which might also be relevant.)

Another thing that bothers me is how the Balkans got their name. The name to
me looks like another form of vlakh, blac-, walha, wallach, etc., all with
the implication of Romance speaker. How old is it? Where did it come from?

Finally, I don't understand how a later migration of Romance speakers or even
being "shepherds of the Romans" is any less cool than being ex-Dacians.
Linguistically, speaking a language descended from the language of Cicero and
Caesar is pret-ty cool. If languages carry "prestige," you can't get any
more prestigious than that, however it happened.

Steve Long