I just found funny the construction of the expression.
> interesting is ashtu versus aSa meaning "so".
> The romanian word is given by DEX as from Latin "eccum sic" which
I very
> doubt. The counter part of Latin "eccum sic" should be "iacã aSa"
since
> "eccum" has its semanticaly mening in Romanian in "iacã (in
fact "iacã"
> shoud be seen as perfectly counterpart to "ecce").What about
Albanian
> "ashtu"?
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About Alb. adverb ashtu 'so, thus, like that' I think it is a
pronominal adverb, formed by two pronominal stems *swo>*so and *to,
common for at least all PIE languages. Even in Turkish we have also
orda 'there' (o 'he' +-rda) and burda 'here' (bu 'this' + -rda) and
bo-yle 'so, like that', bisedes o-yle 'like this'.
Like in pronouns ai 'he' and ky 'this', also in Albanian pronominal
adverbs we have binnary oppositions: ashtu vs kështu 'like this',
aq 'as much, so' vs kaq 'so (many, much), aty 'there' vs
këtu 'here', andej 'that way' vs 'këndej' 'this way'.
Concerning the Rom. adverb aSa I didn't know its origin. They look
similar, but nothing else.
Konushevci