Re: Protobulgarian inscriptions

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, g <george.st@...> wrote:

> > Oh sure, it was full of Romanians around there at the time those
> > inscriptions are dated.
>
> There must've been Romanians among Bulgarians, even
> if they weren't mentioned in the 7th-8th c. The Vlachs
> didn't pop up out of the blue. ;)

I agree they did not appear out of the blue, yet their presence must
not have been of utter importance, if not mentioned. Anything not
mentioned is hard to prove.

> It depends on the interpreter (as I already anecdotically
> mentioned one).

My whole point is the third pers. sing. is documented in a
Protobulgarian inscription before we had written evidence of Slavic
languages, not to mention any consistent evidence of spoken language
or dialects. Which brings me to a certain thought about modern
Bulgarian.

Due to scarcity of evidences

> (as well as due to the sad fact that the scientific community
> virtually knows nothing of the local substrate languages),
> there'll be forever much space free for all kind of
> speculations. Especially of the proto-chronistic kind.

Speculation is what I am trying to avoid with my comment on the
Romanians. Based on historical evidence, you would more naturally
assume this to have been a Protobulgarian rather than a Romanian
influence.

>
> (And seemingly you didn't pay heed to my fröhlichem
> Smiley. :))

I did, of course, and joked in response. Could have sounded a bit
ironic, since I do not find this topic so awfully funny. I have a
serious interest in it.

Eva