Re: [tied] cuman , slavic or balcanic?

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 13531
Date: 2002-04-28

The Slavic adjective is actually as in OCSl. rimIskU (also rumIskU), derived from <rimU> (<rumU>) 'Rome'. Germanic mediation is assumed here, though the etymological route is difficult to reconstruct in detail. The words for 'Rome' and 'Roman' were borrowed into Germanic more than once, and the apparently oldest loans, represented by Goth. ru:ma 'Rome', ru:mo:neis 'the Romans' seem to have been taken before the change of long *a: (< *a:, *o:) into *o:, so that <ro:ma:n-> was adapted as *ru:ma:n-, which then regularly changed into <ru:mo:n->. OE ro:m ~ ro:ma:na-burh, ro:ma:nisc are independent and more recent loans, and ModE Rome, Roman have been reshaped once again on the model of Fr. Rome, Romain (the process was gradual in the case of <rome>/<room(e)>; the old pronunciation /ru:m/ < OE/ME ro:m became obsolete about a hundred years ago).
 
I suspect the Turkish word was influenced by Arabic ru:m 'Byzantium'.
 
Romanian român (+ românesc, românca) is a late, artificially Latinised form, emphasising the Latin etymology of the word. The regular phonological development of <ro:má:n-> in Romanian was <rumîn> with the historically normal change of pretonic o > u and of stressed pre-nasal a > î (the original form of the adjective was actually <rumînesc> with the borrowed suffix <-esc>, cf. Rus. rumynskij).
 
Piotr
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: altamix
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, April 28, 2002 10:58 AM
Subject: [tied] cuman , slavic or balcanic?

Hi together

I should have a question :
I am interested to know how, after all rules of transformations of
the word it should be normal to transform the word "romanus" in
slavic - or turkish languages.

I point out the diferences among :

latin=romanus
romanian=roma:n
slavic=ruma:n
turksh= ruma:n