--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "alex" <alxmoeller@...> wrote:
> I should hear very curious which a word have the other Romance for
> family (inherited) and what a word should have used the
> becoming_valahian at that time for family. I mean, they have been
> Latins, thus the notion of family should have been known to them.
So, if
> the "family" became "woman" in the speach of the valah, then what
was
> there for the family? What a word?
> Should have been the notion of family unknown to him?
Classical Latin barely has a word for such a concept. I look
up 'family' in my pocket dictionary, and I find _domus_ and _gens_.
_gens_ is the wider family, formally everyone with the same second
name. The primary meanings of _domus_ are 'house' and 'home'.
The original meaning of Latin 'familia' was that which was subject
to the paterfamilias, thus I find the translation: 'domestics,
slaves of a household; family property, estate; family, house;
school, sect'.
As to its usage by Vlachs, _I_ can only speculate. The following
wild thought has occurred to me. Perhaps Vlach males were expected
to be able to look after themselves, so when one thought about one's
family, one was only concerned about one's womenfolk? What's the
official line?
Richard.