In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "fortuna11111" wrote:
> Actually, I meant the name should be new as a reference to the
> country/state Romania.
What "name" are you speaking about? The ethnic name of Romanians
is old, inherited from Latin. Country name "Romania" (actually,
"România") is nothing else but a late derivative from the ethnic
name (with etymological /u/ replaced by subdialectal /o/ for some
reasons which are not of interest here). [Incidentally, a somehow
similar spelling (with a different stress pattern) was applied to
different regions during Middle-Ages and it's used also nowdays in
Romance linguistics to label Romance-speaking territory. There is
no _direct_ relationship between Middle-Ages name "Romania" and
the name of modern Romanian state]
> Romanus was used in Latin with reference to the Romans, or do
> you mean something else?
I fail to see the point of your question. I said that the ethnic
name "rumân" [with its dialectal (Aromanian & Istroromanian) and
subdialectal forms] is the result of regular evolution of the Latin
word "ro:ma:nus". Consequently, the word was used uninterruptedly
by Balkan Romance-speaking population, from Late Latin up to nowdays
Romanians. That's all.
Cheers,
Marius Iacomi