>As far as I remember Hungarian gula(S)(<SNIP>) is
>written gulasz
Nope. In Hungarian, the word is written gúlyás.
Its pronunciation... "goo-yahsh" ['gu:-ja:S].
gula, Gulasch etc. are mere (awkward) renditions
in *other* languages. Moreover, the dish called as
such in other languages is actually called in
Hungary... pörkölt. The genuine Hungarian Gulasch
is sort of a soup (or rather... çorba :^), and is
called gúlyás leves ['lævæS].
In Hungarian "sz" must always be read [s], and
"s" always [S].
>About Romanian tzarka, I think that it undergoes further
>affricatization, like cioara < Alb. sorra with regular
>diphthongation
Yeah, but it's not the same thing: [s] <-> [ts],
whereas in sorrë<>cioara we have [s] <-> [tS].
The [ts] out of [s] in Romanian is indeed quite
unusual.
>To my view, <sharka> is just a diminitival form of
>shara 'spot'.
(I dunno, but lemme mention that Hungarian tarka-barka
"checkered, dotted," that's also known in Rumanian:
terchea-berchea as well as participle/adj. tãrcat.)
Let's take other examples in Hungarian, that
might... puzzle you (-:
sár [Sa:r] "mud, mire, dirt;" sárga ['Sa:r-gO]
"yellow;" sáru "clam;" sarok "corner;" sárkány
['Sa:rka:ñ] "dragon."
szar [sOr] "shit, feces" (if you make a diminutive
word out of it, you get... szarka :-); szarvas
['sOrvOS] "deer" < szarv "horn."
NB: "a" always [O], "á" always [a:].
>Konushevci
George