Richard Wordingham wrote:
>
> Was Dalmatian part of the Romance dialect continuum? Apart from the
> relationship with Romanian, the further West one goes the fewer
> cognates.
Dalmatian seems to have been part of a contiunuum dialect. The argumetum
for it was its costal position and the heavy latinisation of it; the
fact it was direct under the authorithy of Cesars and not of the Senatum
should have made of this region a very prosperous Region. The handling
of the problem clusters is different from Rom. too . So far I remember
Dalmatian is considered to be more linked to "WestRomance" as to
EastRomance because of it`s consonantismus ( or it was because it's
vocalismus? I guess Miguel can give more pertinent informations here due
his formation as Romanist).
The numerals for instance does not show the same changes as in Rom &
Alb. ( Alb. gjash(te) _is_ Rom. Sase ( see gjarpër versus Sarpe); the
"ã" was unknown in Dalmatian too; etc. etc.From the religious
terminology just the word "church" is common ( Dalm. church= basalka,
Rom. "biserica"); Shortly Dalmatian looks more similar to Italian as to
Romanian and it handles the problem klusters like Italian and Alb. Since
it should have been Illyrian theritory one means the Dalmatian is the
properly evolution of Illyrian language which got romanised. The handle
of Latin clusters as Albanian should speak for it.
The classification of the language is as follow ( by ethnologues):
Indoeuropean > Italic > Romance > ItaloWestern > Italodalmatian >
Dalmatian
> Does anyone dispute that Romanian has been outside this
> dialect continuum for a very long time? (Very very long if Romanian
> were not descended from Latin.)
It is accepted that Rom. has been outside of this dialect continuum. The
explanation given for this (and accepted explanation) is that Rom.
should have lived somewhere in the mountains until at once, in the 10
century they decided to go down on the plains.
> Richard.
Alex