>with such a regularity?
>MR. Iacomi, I am very curious about other
>opinions too.
There is no such... regularity as you might
expect. My own subdialectal background is
the strongest within Romanian as far as
these consonant alternations are concerned.
But people do not alternate them in each
case, but only in some cases. I do not
reject the existence of a g^iu instead of
the pan-Romanian viu, but I never heard of
it in the relevant areas: only with [v].
Even in the Northern region of Maramure$,
where many [v] words become [z] words I
expect them to utter viu, and no ziu.
>I guess it is more here, not simple accidents...
No accidents, but rather... whims: people
choose to speak as they like ("wie ihnen der
Schnabel gewachsen ist", once Luther said).
If sometimes they prefer pronunciations that
are similar or identical with ancient ones,
why not? But OTOH continuity + no change over
several millennia, well, that's rara avis.
George