On Mon, Dec 29, 2003, at 12:08 PM, tgpedersen wrote:
> Wasn't the name of the mountain range the Beskidi supposedly of
> Albanic origin too? If so, why would Romanian be necessary as an
> intermediary for <watra>, another word from the mountains?
>
> Torsten
<vatra> means <hearth>, <oven>, <Brandstätte>,
with the figurative sense <home>, <Heimstatt>,
<Heimstätte>, <Heimat>. (Hence, sometimes it's
also translated with <cradle> into English; I
don't quite agree with that, but that's how news
agencies such as AP, Reuters, AFP translated the
name of a Romanian post-commie era nationalist
organization called "Vatra Româneascã".)
So <vatra> means <zu Hause>, <daheim>. Hence, a
Romanian conscript, when he leaves the army,
"este lãsat la vatrã".
This word must've reached Southern Poland carried
thither esp. by Romanians who emigrated from
Transylvania, to which belongs the province of
Maramuresh that's neighboring East Slovakia and
South Poland. (Some say that Pope Wojtyla also
stems from a village founded by mountain peasants
of Romanian extraction, the so-called <góral>s.
Such migrations reached Moravia and Bohemia;
there, today's touristic spots called "Vlachia"
or "Vala$ske" don't bear these names out of the
blue.)
George