--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski wrote:
> 25-06-03 18:06, m_iacomi wrote:
>
>> In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski wrote:
>
>>> This criss-cross relation suggests close contacts between
>>> Proto-Romanian and Proto-Albanian.
>>
>> What timeline would you suggest for those "close contacts"?!
>
> Earlier than the loss of intervocalic voiced stops in Albanian
> (they survived in the Romanian Albanoid substrate words), and
> that must be dated before the earliest Slavic borrowings in
> Albanian. I think close contacts before AD 600 would have
> produced the observed effects.
OK, then that cannot be called Proto-Romanian. For the sake of
precision, I propose the next chronology:
Late Latin -- 2th-4th century (beginning)
[4th century: beginning of progressive split between (Proto-)
Eastern and Western Romance]
Eastern Romance -- 4th century (end) - 6th century (approx.)
[around beginning of 6th century: progressive split between
Proto-Dalmatian and (Proto-)Balkan Romance]
(Proto-)Balkan Romance -- 6th-8th century (approx.)
[around 8th century: establishing of a new diasystem, the one
beind definitely Proto-Romanian]
Proto-Romanian or Common Romanian -- 8th-10th century (approx.)
[around 10th century: progressive split between South Romanian (>
Aromanian & Meglenoromanian) and North Romanian (> Dacoromanian
& Istroromanian)]
First Slavic loanwords are to be dated around 7th century and
establishing of Proto-Romanian system is to be dated after that
influence. Rhotacism of intervocalic /l/, present in Albanian
related Romanian substrate words is to be dated before 7th century
Slavic loanwords, in agreement with your "before AD 600".
To put another timeline hint, I quote here some statistics of
D. Macrea on DLRM (1958) with respect to derivates average ratio
(that is # of derivate words / # of corresponding basic words):
Latin words -- 4.37
Old Slavic -- 2.49
Bulgarian -- 2.15
Hungarian -- 1.42
Turkish -- 0.74
In front of the list, though: Albanian related words -- 4.69.
Since statistics say the number of derivate words increase with
time spent in the language, we can infer that those Albanian
related words should have been in the spoken languange from the
very beginning, as substrate. That means there is no need to
extend a _close_ contact timing up to AD 600 in order to explain
them.
-----
On another hand, Mihaescu uses another cold statistics of
Latin words in Albanian. Summing up, he finds 616 Latin words
distributed as follows:
301 - shared with all Romances (including Romanian)
163 - shared with Western Romances
45 - shared with Romanian
86 - only in Albanian
21 - toponyms, onomastics
These numbers do not suggest very Romanian-oriented linguistical
contacts for Albanian. To quote again Mihaescu (La langue latine
dans les provinces danubiennes de l'Empire Romain): "Les emprunts
latins de l'albanais n'ont que peu de points de ressemblance avec
les éléments latins du roumain, étant orientées vers l'Occident
et ne confirment pas l'hypothèse formulée autrefois selon
laquelle les ancêtres des Albanais auraient vécu a un moment
donné en une etroite symbiose avec les ancêtres des Roumains."
-----
Of course, _some important_ contacts necessarily existed, since
some shared traits require them. "Les ressemblances entre l'albanais
et le roumain [...] peuvent s'expliquer soit par la proximité
géographique des deux pays, soit par l'existence d'un fonds lexical
commun. Les ancêtres des Albanais ont vécu sur le territoire de
l'actuelle Albanie, ainsi qu'au nord et au nord-est de celle-ci,
mais ils ont gravité en général vers l'Occident. C'est ainsi qu'il
faut comprendre certaines influences occidentales tardives; par
exemple benedico, ecclesia, evangelium, saeculum, spiritus se sont
conservés dans la langue albanaise, au contraire du roumain." (La
langue latine dans le Sud-Est de l'Europe)
By "geographical proximity" one should understand the contact
between Romance speaking population and Albanians, somewhere in
Dardania/Moesia as suggested also by Tagliavini: "[...] presence
of a large number of Latin elements and of a reduced number of
Old Greek elements makes us think anyway to [an Albanian craddle
located in] a region North of Jirecek line [...]". The "contact"
doesn't imply necessarily that _all_ future Albanians and _all_
future Romanians had to be found in the same restricted area:
it implies only some important linguistical influence could
propagate from one people to the other. We can assume with a fair
probability that these contacts were practically cut down by
Slavs' settling in Balkans, Albanian maintaining further contacts
with Aromanian.
-----
Getting back to the initial issue, what I would agree with could
be summed up as follows:
- Romanian substrate words (early entered in vernacular Latin from
the Balkans) are from a language (probably Daco-Moesian, aka North-
Thracian) closely related or identical with Albanian stratum;
- some Romanian and Albanian shared features (not substrate words!)
suggest linguistical contacts between Proto-Albanian and Balkan
Romance up to some historical extended moment, around AD 600;
- afterwards, reciprocal influence is essentially limited to some
Aromanian groups living among Albanians.
Regards,
Marius Iacomi