--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, george knysh wrote:
>> 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.
Why that?! Segmentation in populations is the result of objective
existence of local convergence areas. The Romance speaking area in
the Balkans (North of Jirecek line) had naturally two convergence
regions: Dalmatian coast with Illyria and lower Danube, from Haemus
and Northern Macedonia up to Carpathians. Western Romance area split
occurs not so fast: up to IVth century one can consider vernacular
Latin undifferentiated (based on inscriptions and other sources).
Probably during IVth century, East Romance progressively "shuts
down" most of the contacts with Western Romance, as innovations no
longer regularly reached these regions. The split-up of Eastern
Romance into two diasystems is usually dated a couple of centuries
afterwards.
> 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 territory was not "Proto-Romanian", but the language was with
good certainty "Proto-Eastern-Romance" which eventually gave birth
to "Proto-Balkan-Romance" > "Proto-Romanian" AND "Proto-Dalmatian" >
"Dalmatian".
Regards,
Marius Iacomi