Re: [tied] Ovid

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 14907
Date: 2002-09-01

Not at all. The Slavs first heard of the Roman Empire from Germanic (perhaps Ostrogothic) intermediaries; at that time the Germanic term <walh-> was commonly applied to the Romans, the inhabitants of the Empire, as well as any speakers of "lingua romana" (hence Ger. Welschland 'Italy', Wallgau in Tirol, etc., and hence also /vlox-/ 'Italian' in Polish). When the Slavs crossed the Danube and entered the former Roman provinces, they called the local Romanised population the *volx- (meaning 'Romans', a term that had been in use before with more general reference). After the South Slavic metathesis of liquids *volx- became /vlax-/ -- the form that Byzantine writers borrowed as <blakH-> when they renewed their acquaintance with Romanised Balkan peoples, this time through a Slavic medium.
 
Piotr
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: alexmoeller@...
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, September 01, 2002 1:31 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] Ovid

that all will assume that when the slavs got in the north side of danube they found there in V centuries an romanic population. And this is historicaliy wrong.