>The Shecklers are probably Turkic but not called so.
You mean the Szeklers, don't you? (székely, székelyek)
>Conversely the
>Pechenegs and Cuman < are > called Turk ... and popularly but
>erroneously associated with Ottoman influence
Because the "Ottoman" or Anatolian Turks call themselves...
Turks, ie, Türklar. While other Turks call themselves Özbek,
Tatar, Ba$kurt, Azer, Uygur, KIrgIz etc.
>they are Romanian..and at least casually also aware of Dacian history.
Would you please elaborate on this?
>Is "any native speaker" magically using the rules without knowledge of
>them (as only a linguist could even think possible:-) ... or did the
>rules become artificially applied to the already extant and passed on
That's what I was talking about: anyone learns one language as a child.
Nobody tells the child "look, this is a substantive, this is a verb". The
brain will learn the rules step by step. How those rules look like, what's
morphology, what's syntax and the like, the child will be explained in
school (or never :).
What is sporadically indeed artificially imposed is the set of rules
rather pertaining to... style, i.e., in a normative grammar. A descriptive
grammar wouldn't care that "in Bucuresti e(ste) multi straini" (there is many
foreigners in Bucharest) is wrong (correct: "in B. sunt multi straini").
It would say e.g. "a great majority of native speakers both in urban
and rural areas use plurals + Vsingular, in colloquial, argotical, regional,
subdialectal usage. So, this is also a valid rule." That's what you get to
hear all over Bucharest each day. :-)
>(Does language emerge from rules..or rules from language?)
There are rules and rules: the mere existence of a language means
rules. Those rules put on paper, both by descriptive and normative
grammar is a simple jotting down of what exists, invisible until the
attempt to describe it in away or another. And, if this variant of
the sentence above, *"In Becheresti esc multe strianuri", will become
standard for a certain number of people over there, then at least
the descriptive grammar will generate additional rules, that the
other, normative, grammar won't accept --- well, until the entire
population prefers *Becheresti, *esc, *strianuri. (That's roughly
how Latin got Romanian, Italian, French, Spanish etc. :)
>(Hang in Alex..keep stirring 'em up :-)
"Arde-i, frige-i!" :-)
>Rex H. McTyeire
>Bucharest, Romania
Sedere placuta acolo!
>Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors.
"Don't make waves" is also an Anglo saying, isn't it? ;)
g