Re: 3

>One has to be careful: many speakers of English whose phonetic
>realisation of /i:/ in <three> is an [Ij]-type diphthong are not aware
>of the diphthongal movement and will swear by all that is dear to them
>that they have a "pure" vowel. We can't study your pronunciation
>directly, so it's impossible to determine who's right.

Yeah, but anyone has the possibility to read Romanian texts:
the spelling is <trii>, not <tri>, whenever this variant of <trei>
is rendered. So, at least a native-speaker might ask him-/herself:
<<Why the heck do they spell <trii>? What's the idea?>> :-))

>Therefore, the whole diphthong-or-monophthong controversy
>is irrelevant to the question of the origin of the numeral
>'3' in Romanian.

Of course it isn't: I'm the one who triggered this -- simply because
I saw the wrong spelling <tri>. (Sorry for having been... off-topic. :-))

>Piotr

George