[tied] Re: Historical implications of Romanian ecclesiastical termi

From: m_iacomi
Message: 23287
Date: 2003-06-14

In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, george knysh wrote:

>>> Another point is that many Christian terms of Latin origin
>>> are not in agreement with "official" terms in Western Romance:
>>> Creatio (Mundi) <=> "Facere(a)" (< Lat. facere `to make`)
>>> Creator (Mundi) <=> "Fâcâtorul"
>>> Regnum Dei <=> "împãrãTia Domnului" (der. imperator + dominus)
>>
>> These here look like simple translations since none of them is
>> a directly continuation of the Latin expresion, but a simply
>> translation of it. Creatio Mundi= Facerea Lumii, Creator=
>> Facator, Regnum Dei= Imparatia Domnului
[...]
>>> fact which suggests also that Christian faith was something
>>> quite popular since people _constructed_ the terms they needed
>>> from the words of their own language (see also Mircea Pacuraru,
>>> 1980, "Istoria BOR")
>>
>> Yes, indeed. The people constructed the terms mentionated , they
>> are not Latin expresions but simple translations of the Latin
>> meaning. And this is pretty important too. Why not latin
>> expresions here? Why _contructed_ terms? When did became such
>> terms as "Creatio Mundi, Regnum Dei" to be used in the Latin world?
>
> *****GK: Good for you Alex (I think?(:=))) I was going
> to ask similar questions a bit along the road, but you
> beat me to it. Question: is there any way of dating
> the Romanian Christian vocabulary which is of Latin
> provenance? In other words, are these "constructions"
> quite early (some or most), perhaps even from the time
> of the Roman Empire, or are they late innovations
> designed to take the place of expressions in the
> Slavic Bible and Liturgy adopted in the 9/10 cs.?

The "constructed" expressions and words aren't "datable" in the
sense of their Christian meaning, since the first Romanian texts
one has "Valeatu [year] 7002 de la Facerea", but those texts aren't
old enough. Only phonetical changes are to be dated, but they can't
enlighten on these inherited words. Pacuraru's point is to prove
that Christian faith was somehow popular and transmitted from mouth
to mouth rather than downwards from officials, the terms being
_explained_ and not officially imposed. Neither did Slavic church
terms prevail on these (if they were already established). This is
not a sure argument, but I brought it here for what it's worth.

Regards,
Marius Iacomi

PS - I won't be able to reply on cybalist for about a week