--- g <
george.st@...> wrote:
>GK: It's also important to decide whether some
>areas are preferable to others as the primary locale
>for proto-Romanian settlements. I would attach more
>importance (for starters) to those parts of
>mountainous Old Serbia which are full of Romanian
>toponyms.
But this reflects a situation that was already a...
late one -- already a Romanian, no longer proto-
Romanian situation.
*****GK: I may have been misinformed. But see below
for what really mattered to me here.******
The issue is their recent
ancestors' Christianization. But when this
Christianization
occurred, them Protos still dwelled all over the
Balcanic
Peninsula as the top-notch population.
*****GK: This is where I have a problem. The area of
�Western� Romance eventually produced more than 1
Western Romance population. There seems little doubt
that something similar might well have happened (or
was already happening) in the East prior to the
Avar-Slavic invasion. So I can�t quite see the whole
of the territory of �Eastern� Romance such as it was
ca. 300AD being considered �Proto-Romanian�.******
The situation
changed after the Avar-Slavic invasion, and no wonder
that nobody knows for sure up to 9th-10th about the
whereabouts of the Romance population that in the
meantime got the opposite of top-notch.
*****GK: I�m sure you will agree that in Roman times
large numbers (a majority by analogy to what has
everywhere and at all times been the case) of the
Eastern Latin or Romance-speaking populations were
hardly �top-notch�. When the Avars-Slavs came what
seems to have happened is that the �top notch�
populations fled or migrated, some were destroyed, and
some were assimilated. There seems no implicit
evidence of these �top-notchers� sticking around with
the �hoi polloi� of the hills and villages and
maintaining a �cultural� presence there. The top
churchmen just absconded. No reason to think the top
seculars and intellectuals did not. What remained were
masses of �ordinary� people (though doubtless some of
these also fled or migrated). Some were assimilated.
Many were not. And it is from the latter that I see
the historical Vlachs emerging.******
And in the
scarce reports of the epoch no one dealt with such
hoi-polloi, except for the cases when some of those
anonymous cut the throat of some dignitary.
2-3 centuries without ties to the disciplined, in
the sense of institutionalized, religion made them
almost pagan from the viewpoint of dogma and
institution; but they don't seem to have become
heathens: where are the traces for it? Neither in
Romanian traditions, folklore, nor in the accounts
of the reporters in the neighborhood (incl. the
annals of the Slavic hierarchy which extended its
jurisdiction over this "flock" as well).
******GK: This is a good argument. One can say that
whatever veneer of Christianity their ancestors had
absorbed in the 4th/7th centuries remained with them
as their �popular� culture. The new situation must
also have facilitated the cultural coalescence of the
groups remaining in place.******
>This would make us focus at first on Moesia
>Superior (incl. the later Dacias esp.
>Mediterranea)rather than Scythia Minor.******
Why? Between the 1st half of the 4th c. and the 1st
half of the 10th c. a time span of six centuries.
Whole
lotta time for unbelievable geo-ethno-linguistic re-
configuations between the Adriatic Sea and the Black
Sea.
*****GK: I admit that it is difficult to decide the
precise areas of concentration of the Proto-Romanians
from the 7th c. My assumption would be that we look to
the hills, since when they first emerge in history as
Vlachs that�s where we find them. And not necessarily
just in the area of contemporary Serbia if my
information about Romanian toponyms being especially
noticeable there is incorrect.*****
On top of that, I'd say we should make some
distinction between Proto-Romanian (or rather late
Vulgo-Latin) names and genuine Romanian ones. And
last but not least a restricted area for such weak
traces would be some kind of evidence only if we
knew for sure (if we had evidences at the same time)
that in other areas (e.g. today's Bulgaria) there had
never been a Romance population assimilated within
the Slavic-Turkic (and Iranic ;-). Quite the contrary,
since the emerging of the 2nd Bulg. state was also
based on the so-called Vlakh population. (BTW: after
the presence of Romanians in the regions Transylvania,
Wallachia and Moldavia, the South-Danubian Wallachias
weren't depleted, they continued to exist
independently,
all over the Bulgarian, Greek, Albanian and Yugo
territories up to modern times; the thorough
assimilation,
i.e. disappearance as separate, Romanian dialects
speaking populaces happened in recent times, in the
18th-19th c.
******GK: Yes, Serbia is obviously too narrow. There
still could have been migrations and expansions within
the large areas South of the Danube. A population that
expanded northward in the 11/12th cs. without quitting
its southern haunts altogether probably was already
expanding earlier. The mechanics remain obscure
however.*****
The South-East European "Romania" didn't have the
chance
to gradually Romanize the invaders, because, unlike in
Western Europe, it was thoroughly destroyed, i.e. the
grass roots lost every links to something we'd call
middle
class today, and to the upper crust (incl. "the brain"
of
the society, i.e. incl the Church). So, it was the
other
way around: the Romance population massively became
Croat, Serbian, Bulgarian and Greek. (From those
Romanians
who maintained themselves some further centuries as
such,
esp. in the Eastern part of the vast Hungarian
Kingdom,
i.e. in Banat and Transylvania, quite many migrated -
in the 14th-16th c. to South Poland, Slovakia and
Moravia,
becoming Poles (incl. members of the Szlachta),
Slovaks
and Czechs (cf. today's touristic PR relics around
"ValaSke"
areas.)
******GK: All this is very plausible.*******
Given the weak propensity of Romanians to build strong
statal structures, it is a real miracle that they
survived
as a Romance group in Eastern Europe, and haven't been
Slavicized for good. In the neighboring case, that of
Hungarians, I'd see a... lesser miracle, since
Hungarians
soon had such a European state and the status of the
ruling nation that other ethnic groups let themselves
assimilated quite easily.
/cut/
>GK: All true, but perhaps more relevant to the
>Romance-speaking "contact area" of the PR.
Yes, but where was that PR area? Of course not
restricted
to a couple of valleys of the Yugoslav Alps.
******GK: How about a couple of dozen mountain/valley
areas? With expansion therefrom beginning some time
prior to the 10th c.?*****
>GK: OK but somewhat vague. The "general presence"
>of Christians can be taken for granted.
If it can be taken for granted, then let's not make of
a Romance population rest in the "dark" centuries
between
circa 600 and 900 a non-Christian population only
because
its vocabulary is full of terminology *of the
institutionalized
church in the Slavic variant.
******GK: OK you�ve convinced me.******
Since this is a linguistics list,
******GK: This is a list focusing on the history,
linguistics, and culture of Indo-Europeans. There are
many excellent linguists, and linguistic issues
frequently predominate in the discussions.******
(GK) the Bessi [these could be our PR
mountaineers?].******
Of course. But be a bit more generous: do not stick
to the (about 200 years old) idea that Romanians
originated in a tiny collectivity of a few "catuns"
(pastoral-subvillages) somewhere in some Iugoslav
valley. ;-)
*****GK: I think the Bessi were also located in the
Bulgarian mountains/valleys. BTW, between �tiny
collectivity� and �huge presence� I think there is a
reasonable middle ground.*****
(GS) More interesting would this be if the Hungarian-
Polish historian Imre Boba's theory of the "Moravian"
Slavs reflected the reality:
******GK: Rest easy. It doesn�t.****
(GK) The Byzantine reconquista of
>Hellas did not involve Christianization but
>enslavement (literally). Huge numbers of pagan Slavs
>were sold on the markets at Thessaloniki and Corinth.
>This is the context within which the word "Slave" (in
>various sp) entered the vocabulary of many Western
>nations.
(GS)Yes but what happened to those slaves and then to
their children? Does any source say one didn't
Christianized them at the double? (Given the Christian
toughness and fundamentalism that characterized the
entire history of the Church esp. betw. the 4th and
the 18th c., i.e. until the Enlightenment.)
******GK: I�m sure we�re all very happy that they
became Christian slaves in the West, with copious
reminders of Colossians 3:22-25 and related Pauline
epistles.******
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